Had dual boot- Formatted OS X part & no more yaboot =(

[bz029]

Hello

I have a Powerbook G4 laptop. I had a working dual boot of FC6 and OS X (UFS formatted). Well i have never done UFS format before, and soon realized that I wanted OS X to be run on the default HFS file format due to some software incapatabilities. So, I formatted the OS X partition, using HFS, reinstalled OS X. OS X works great BUT, since I did that I can't get back into yaboot/linux.

From my research on the web, it looks like within the OS X side's boot partition is where I need to get yaboot to recognize my linux partition. Thus when i formatted it, it has been erased. I need to know how to get this back.

OS X (HFS)
/boot ext3
/LVM Group
LVM00 (i think) = /root
LVM001 = swap
/home ext3 = shared partition between OS X and FC6

I am relatively new to linux, but I really really really want to eventually make it my main OS and support open source, so the help is appreciated!

What I have tried:

- I tried booting from Disc 1 of FC6 cd, hoping it could see my linux partition, but it didnt. I know there are commands that I can specify which label to boot from, but I'm new to linux and the commands i've tried have not worked. I dont have it infront of me, but it was something like: (deviceartno,path). Unfortunately, I think it may just be because im such a newbie in this environment that I am getting the command wrong but i have spent almost an hour trying different combinations to no avail.

- I looked inside OS X's system preferences to see if it would recognize that drive to boot from, but it doesn't.

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So ultimately to summarize, my question(s) is/are:

1) How can i get the dual boot settings back without reformatting/partitioning my drive and FC6?

IF answer to 1) includes booting into yaboot from the FC6 cd:

2) I know I can get the partition information more detailed/accurate from disk druid through the install cd- but is there a place i could get that from the command line in yaboot from the install cd so i dont have to go half way through the installation to get into the disk druid?

3) once I get the correct partition information, can anyone provide me with an exact example of the command needed to use in yaboot (from the cd) to specify the device I want to boot from (and would that be my /boot partition or /root)? I dont know if i even need to do this if theres another fix.. but thats the direction i was heading, to atleast get back into FC6.

4) once im in FC6 again, how can i configure the OS X boot partition to use yaboot so i can get into it at will every time i boot up without the cd?

[bz029]

After more reading im thinking my answer may have something to do with Open Firmware and BootX...

am I on the right path here?

[pindar]

When you install OS X (even during some updates), it resets the Open Firmware. Normally, this isn't a problem, all you have to do is hold down the "alt" key while booting. This should give you a graphical boot menu where you can choose to boot linux; then, you run ybin -v again to get your yaboot menu back. Does this work in your case?

[ppesci]

Yes. is an Open Firmware issue. When you install Mac OS X, the installer mark OS X partition as default start partition and no longer see in yaboot partition for a choice.

Turn on your machine and pres Ctrl-Command-O-F keys at the sametime or Ctrl-Option-O-F, don't remenber at this time.

A Open Firmware appear and you must type:

boot hd:z,//yaboot

Where z is a number between 2 to .... you must to try thecorrect value and then yaboot start.

Whe you are in linux, as pindar said, as root run:

ybin

HTH.

Pietro Pesci Feltri