There are numerous posts on how to get triple boot working using Grub2. Grub2 is the newer version of grub and is a lot more confusing. Most of the posts online did not work for me so I tried a few options mixing various options from various posts and finally one worked for me. I have tried to list a step by step procedure below.
I have 3 oeprating systems installed – 1. Windows 7, 2. Ubuntu 14.04 beta and 3. Mac OSX 10.8.2 (Niresh). This setup was tested on a 320 gb HDD running on a Dell Vostro 3300. Initially, I tried by just updating the grub using the command update-grub. Grub detects OS X however, the parameters passed for booting to the OS are wrong. The OS does not boot up. It gets stuck after trying to boot for sometime.
Bootloaders were also a problem as popular bootloaders Chameleon and Chimera did not work in my case. Finally, a package named USB BootLoader.pkg available along with Niresh 10.8.2 iso worked
What you need:
1. Any Linux Live CD/USB
2. USB BootLoader package
3. Bootable USB for Mac
Steps:
1. Go your grub screen , drop to the command line by pressing c. Then you can list the partitions using the ls command. It will show you the drives how grub lists the drives. For me it shows like this
(hd0) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos5) (hd1,msdos7) (hd1,msdos8)
2. Make a note of the partitions and boot into Linux.
3. List the corresponding partitions from inside Linux using sudo fdisk -l
#sudo fdisk -l
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 209922047 104857600 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 * 209922048 269922047 30000000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 269922048 625141759 177609856 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 269924352 405921791 67998720 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 405923840 409921535 1998848 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 409923584 558483455 74279936 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda8 558485504 620947455 31230976 af HFS / HFS+
/dev/sda9 620949504 625141759 2096128 82 Linux swap / Solaris
4. Edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom using your favourite text editor and paste in the following
menuentry “MacOS X 10.8” {
insmod hfsplus
set root=(hd0,msdos8) #change X to the Mac SL partition
multiboot /boot
}
Notice that I have used msdos8, which is in line with fdisk output i.e. /dev/sda8.
6. Once done, restart your pc and boot into your Mac OS X using a bootable USB for mac.
7. Install the USB BootLoader.pkg in the Mac partition and reboot.
8. If you get a boot0 error, use the Linux Live CD/USB to recover grub. During the process of recovering grub the Mac partition will be recognized. If grub remains unaffected, reboot into the Linux partition and update grub using update-grub command.
That’s it. Your triple boot from Grub is ready.
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