Troubleshooting: Issuing Boot Flags


You may have to type extra boot arguments in the system at the boot screen. You can hit arrow-down as well on the boot screen to access some standard boot options. Here are a list of things you can try in order to troubleshoot booting. You will have to troubleshoot this part yourself according to your own hardware specs. Here are some common boot flags.

GraphicsEnabler=No
No bootloader help for injection of graphics card devices and names. See Reminder: NVIDIA GeForce 6xx/7xx Kepler Cards work with GraphicsEnabler=No

-v
Verbose Mode- allowing you to see the loading of the OS instead of the Apple Boot Screen. Same as holding "v" on a Mac at startup.

-x
Safe Mode- loads only basic drivers. Same as holding "x" on a Mac at startup.

-s
Single user mode- allows user to access the command line before booting the OS. Same as holding "s" on a Mac at startup.

npci=0x3000
This setting may be necessary on motherboards using Fermi and Kepler NVIDIA cards for installation.

PCIRootUID=0
UniBeast has PCIRootUID=1 set by default for the most universal support for recommended builds. Set it manually to 0 by typing this command at the boot screen above.

System Boot Options

"Graphics Mode"="<width>x<height>x<depth>@<frequency>"
Works only if you have a VESA 3.0 compliant card
"Text Mode"="<width>x<height>"
Sets text mode dimentions [Default 80x25]
"Quiet Boot"=Yes | No
Use quiet boot mode (no messages or prompt) [Default No]
"Kernel Flags"="<key1>=<value1>[ <key2>=<value2>...]"
This is a series of flags sent to the kernel
"Kernel Architecture"=i386 | x86_64 | ppc
Kernel architecture boot mode
arch
ProductVersion
MKext Cache
Kernel=<file>
The filename of your kernel you wish to boot. This can be different from mach_kernel, but be sure to create a symlink that points to the new kernel you're booting with a name of mach_kernel to allow all software to be compatible. Note that this is necessary for you to boot a differently named kernel, because osx naively tries to load the symlink itself as the kernel and not the file that the symlink points to if you don't tell the bootloader! [Default mach_kernel]
Kernel Cache=<file>
UseKernelCache=Yes | No
Use the system's prelinked kernel cache [Default Yes]
Boot Device
Timeout=<number>
Number of seconds to countdown before choosing the default partition [Default 2]
boot-uuid=<uuid>
Root UUID=<uuid>
platform
acpi
CD-ROM Prompt
CD-ROM Option
"Scan Single Drive"=Yes | No
Scan the drive only where the booter got loaded from. Fix rescan pbs when using a DVD reader in AHCI mode [Default No]
Rescan=Yes | No
Enable CD-ROM rescan mode [Default No]
"Rescan Prompt"=Yes | No
Prompts for enable CD-ROM rescan mode [Default No]
"Instant Menu"=Yes | No
Force displaying the partition selection menu [Default No]
mach_kernel
GUI=Yes | No
Enable/Disable the GUI [Default Yes]
"Boot Banner"=Yes | No
Show boot banner in GUI mode [Default Yes]
ShowInfo=Yes | No
Wait=Yes | No
Prompt for a key press before starting the kernel [Default No]

Chimera Boot Options

DropSSDT=Yes | No
Skip the SSDT tables while relocating the ACPI tables [Default No]
DSDT=<file>
Use an alternate DSDT.aml file [Defaults /DSDT.aml /Extra/DSDT.aml bt(0,0)/Extra/DSDT.aml]
RestartFix=Yes | No
If disabled, no FACP patch will be done at boot time. [Default Yes]
CSTUsingSystemIO=Yes | No
GenerateCStates=Yes | No
Enable auto generation of processor idle sleep states [Default Yes]
GeneratePStates=Yes | No
Enable auto generation of processor power performance states [Default Yes]
EnableC2State=Yes | No
Enable specific Processor power state, C2 [Default No]
EnableC3State=Yes | No
Enable specific Processor power state, C3 [Default No]
EnableC4State=Yes | No
Enable specific Processor power state, C4 [Default No]
Wake=Yes | No
Disable wake up after hibernation [Default Yes]
ForceWake=Yes | No
Force using the sleepimage [Default No]
WakeImage=<file>
Use an alternate sleepimage file. [Default /private/var/vm/sleepimage]
busratio=<n>
Force busratio multiplier, such as CPUFreq=FSB freq x busratio
device-properties
Sets additional device properties like gfx card efi injection, network
"Default Partition"=hd(<x>,<y>) | <uuid> | <label>
Sets the default boot partition, Specified as a disk/partition pair, an uuid, or a label enclosed in quotes [No default]
"Hide Partition"="<partition>[;<partition2>...]"
Remove unwanted partition(s) from the boot menu. Specified, possibly multiple times, as hd(x,y), an uuid or label enclosed in quotes [No default]
"Rename Partition"="<partition> <alias>[;<partition2> <alias2>...]"
Rename partition(s) for the boot menu. Where partition is hd(x,y), uuid or label enclosed in quotes. The alias can optionally be quoted too. [No default]
SMBIOS=<file>
Use an alternate SMBIOS.plist file [Defaults /Extra/SMBIOS.plist bt(0,0)/Extra/SMBIOS.plist]
SMBIOSdefaults=Yes | No
Don't use the default values for smbios.plist [Default No]
SystemId=<uuid>
Manually set the system id uuid, overriding SMuuid in smbios config [No Default]
SystemType=<0-6>
Set the system type [Default 1]
UseMemDetect=Yes | No
PCIRootUID=0 | 1
Use an alternate value for PciRoot [Default 0]
AtiPorts=<0-6>
Change the number of graphics ports reported to OSX
AtiConfig=<framebuffer_personality>
Use a different framebuffer personality [No default]
UseAtiROM=Yes | No
Use an alternate Ati ROM image with path /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>_<subsysid>.rom [Default No]
ATYbinimage=<file>
UseNvidiaROM=Yes | No
Use an alternate Nvidia ROM image with path /Extra/<vendorid>_<devid>.rom [Default No]
VBIOS=Yes | No
Inject NVIDIA VBIOS into device-properties [Default No]
display_0
display_1
EthernetBuiltIn=Yes | No
Automatic device-properties generation for ethernet interfaces [Default Yes]
GraphicsEnabler=Yes | No
Automatic device-properties generation for gfx cards [Default Yes]
ForceHPET=Yes | No
Force Enable HPET [Default No]
md0=<file>
Load raw img file into memory for use as XNU's md0 ramdisk [Default /Extra/Postboot.img]
USBBusFix=Yes | No
Enable all of the USB fixes [Default No]
EHCIacquire=Yes | No
Enable the EHCI fix [Default No]
UHCIreset=Yes | No
Enable the UHCI fix [Default No]
USBLegacyOff=Yes | No
Enable the USB Legacy fix [Default No]
EHCIhard=Yes | No

Kernel Flags

cpus=<n>
Force physical cpus count (all cores in all cpus), use only if autodetection doesn't work
darkwake=0 | 1
npci=0x<hex><hex><hex><hex>
Governs the initialization order and method of the PCI bus [Default 0x3000]
AHCIDisk=<n>
Increases AHCI debugging level, usually "1" when OS X boots too quickly [Default 0]
dart=0 | 1
Enables or disables extended memory mapping [Default 0]
nv_disable=0 | 1
Disables QE/CI on nVidia graphics cards [Default 0]
rtc=<0-7>
Real Time Clock debugging level, use 7 for an RTC dump to the kernel log

Chimera-Specific Options

Here are extended properties that are recognized by Chimera.
Theme=<name>
The name of the bootloader's graphical theme, stored as a directory in /Extra/Themes.

Advanced Techniques

Basic Troubleshooting

DSDT=Null
This option can be used to troubleshoot systems using UserDSDT
config=Null
This option nullifies the effects of the current org.chameleon.Boot.plist
smbios=Null
This option nullifies the effects of the current smbios.plist
npci=0x3000 | 0x2000 | (nothing)
These options control the initialization order and can prevent random kernel panics
cpus=1
This is usually necessary for laptops, and CPUs that are unknown to the OS
PCIRootUID=0 | 1
These options depend on the graphics card and prevent hangs at [PCI Configuration begin]

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2 Comments

  1. Good article! Thanks

    Kalpesh

    ReplyDelete
  2. For the Graphics Mode, what is the depth of a monitor. I only know how big my screen is not the depth.

    ReplyDelete