[ssimon]

Hello,

I am planning on dual booting my Acer Revo 1600 between XBMCLive 9.11 and Windows 7. The problem is that because I am using the HDMI connection, no video is displayed on screen till after XBMC starts up, thus the grub boot menu is invisible. Also the MCE remote cannot control the boot menu, so there is no easy way to choose what should boot up.

Since I use XBMCLive primarily, I was hoping there was a was to make a script launchable from within XBMC that would temporarily reboot the Revo into Windows 7. If Windows 7 were to be rebooted XBMCLive/Ubuntu would start again as the default, hence this would not be a permanent change to the bootloader.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[deepblue]

I'm using a Revo with HDMI and you can see the grub menu just fine. Increase the timeout setting in menu.lst if you want a little more time to select the O/S to boot.

I'm not aware of a script that will temporarily override grub (which is what you'd need), nor am I aware of a way to get the remote working in the grub menu.

Best bet might be to invest in a media pc keyboard and just pull it out when you need to work in Windows 7, as you won't have much luck using Windows 7 with just a remote either.

[ssimon]

Hi [deepblue], and thanks for the reply. Learning more and more every minute about these things :-)

What Revo do you have & with what BIOS version?

My Revo R1600 does NOT display ANYTHING through HDMI alone before the XBMC logo! I even tried upgrading the firmware from A1P02 to A1P05 (latest) and still nothing....

[deepblue]

I have a 1600 and a 3610. Not sure the BIOS version?

That's unusual - my friends and I ordered 10 Revo 1600's and made them into XBMC Live installs, and all 10 popped up the post screen immediately. Perhaps it is your TV?

Not sure what to suggest to you - plug into the VGA port and see if you are able to see the screens there? I have a similar issue on a totally separate media box where I'm using a PCI Video Card - I get nothing until the XBMC logo. Try looking for video priority settings in the BIOS.

Good luck.

[ssimon]

Yeah, deepblue I thought so as well.

VGA works instantly, but not HDMI.

My HDMI connection is from the Revo R1600 to a Sony Receiver, and the Sony Receiver in turn is connected to a Sharp LCD TV via HDMI.

I did another test and connected the Revo 1600 via HDMI directly to an Acer X233H LCD Monitor that has HDMI in, and same thing, no video till XBMC starts up. Since I dual boot to Windows 7, not video till Windows 7 is almost logged in either. Very weird, but it could be bios related. I would love to know what bios version you are running on the working Revo... If you download the bios update utility and run it it will tell you what you got without updating.

I did not see anything in the bios to default to HDMI, do you know of a special setting?