Can't even get to the bootloader/SL install - Help!?

[Oshawapilot]

Hey all. Bought all my hardware today, as below:

Gigabyte P67A-D3-B3 (Updated firmware to rev4)
Asus 8400 GS
Intel 2600K 3.4
12 Gigs ram

I've spent all night banging my head into a wall since I can't even get to the most basic part of the install - the bootloader successfully booting!

Initially I though it was a firmware issue since the board initially had v1 firmware which was not mentioned as supported with iBoot. So, I updated. No improvement.

Spend hours hacking around in the BIOS trying to figure out if it was a setting somewhere. Went to great extents to double confirm that all settings (as listed in the iBoot setup) were as they were supposed to be, and even tried disabling other features, cores, turned down clock speed to various <33 settings (supposedly a problem on the K processors) etc etc etc. Nothing.

On iBoot I get to the part where it appears it's going to load, I get a single line in the top left corner of the screen, and then it reboots back to the Gigabyte boot splash screen...and goes into a loop.

Trying iBoot Classic I get to the "boot:" prompt, but NOTHING gets me any further.

Tried disconnecting my HD. Tried different USB ports for the external DVD I'm trying to install from. Nothing.

Now, the ONLY thing I'm wondering about is the fact that I'm trying to utilize an external USB DVD for the install, but if that was a problem would I be getting as far as I am, only to crap out...or would I be not getting any response from it at all?

Help appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[OldFred]

I think it's your DVD drive. I think the bootloader is looking for a SATA drive and not finding it. Ideally, the DVD drive is SATA 0 with the hard drive being SATA 1.

Also you must remove Ram until you are only installing with 4 gigs. You can add the rest back later. Good Luck.

 

[Juanski]

Might be the Hard Drive you are trying to install on.

I had a similar issue myself where I was getting the error message "EBIOS read error 0x01"
I was using an existing Maxtor 200 Gig drive i pulled from a different computer. Once I swapped it with a Samsung 500 Gig drive I was able to get iBoot going.

Hope that helps.

 

[Oshawapilot]

Just tried my old SATA drive pull from when I upgraded my iMac a few months ago. No joy, exact same result.

 

[Juanski]

That was my problem, i was using an old SATA drive too. I didn't understand it either.
When you start your system and the CD is being read, do you get any Ebios read errors?
Thats what I was seeing on my setup until I swapped drives.
After I connected the newer sata drive I stopped getting read errors.

Just a guess.

 

[Oshawapilot]

SOLVED! The external DVD drive was indeed the issue after all. I picked up an LG internal SATA DVD drive today and immediately upon hookup I got iBoot loaded successfully, even with all 24 gigs of ram in and the processor set at 3.2ghz out of 3.4.

29 minutes left on the SL install.

So, for anyone having the same issues and finding this thread after searching, if you're trying to use an external DVD or thumb drive for the initial iBoot, that's almost assuredly your problem. Get a SATA internal.

CDRom is on SATA0 on the mobo, and my new HD, SATA1. They are both plugged into SATA3 ports as well but iBoot didn't seem to care.

Woohoo!

 

[Oshawapilot]

Now fighting with a dead network connection...refuses to recognize the integrated NIC...but that's another story.

 

[samisnake]

did you install lnx2mac's realtek ethernet driver?

 

[Oshawapilot]

did you install lnx2mac's realtek ethernet driver?

Yep. No joy, although I did find somewhere on the site that the version of MB I'm using has some "issues" that might make it incompatible with his drivers.

I subsequently tried a variety of other drivers from other sources for the same chipset. No joy - the system just reports over and over again that there is no NIC installed. I even tried the "official" drivers from the Realtek website.

What irks me more than anything was that on the first install (I had to install over after a goofup) I *DID* get the NIC recognized (but not connected, but at least recognized) but that was the last time the system saw it.

I read at a few places that the Gigabyte boards somehow had these sorts of issues with disappearing NIC's and that shutting down and completely unplugging for 5-10 minutes sometimes resolved. That's what I'm doing now.