First timer - Installation halts at white apple screen

[Blackomega]

Hey, first timer here. My goal is to get Windows 7 on my main HDD, with Snow Leopard on the secondary (along with an NTFS storage partition on the 2nd HDD).

I'm following the steps on http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/04/ ... -x-on.html to the letter, but get an error whilst Snow Leopard is booting.

I put iBoot in, it loads fine, I swap it out for the SL DVD, press F5 and boot it and it loads...but the white apple screen sits there for a while loading, and then a little stop sign icon appears in the middle of the screen (circle with a line through it). At this point the computer has definitely not frozen, as the "loading" circle is still ticking round. I tried "-x" for safe mode but no joy (it just took longer to get to that point).

My computers specs after I have taken out all the extras (as instructed by the guide) are:

i7 920
4GB DDR3 RAM (usually 6)
ATi Radeon HD4870 Sapphire Toxic
ASUS P6T SE Motherboard
Western Digital 1TB SATA HDD
Pionner (?) SATA DVD Drive
Logitech MX3200 Keyboard + Mouse

On my motherboard, I enabled AHCI and successfully loaded Windows 7 on my other HDD with AHCI enabled (switching to AHCI post install), although there was no HPET 32/64 bit option, although looking around some other posts it seems this is common with this motherboard.

Any advice would be more than welcome,

Thanks!

 

[Blackomega]

Update: I ran the boot with -v -x, and then just -v, after seeing "try -v" as some generic advice some random place... I'm not sure the exact meaning of the command, but it seemed to turn install command based instead of GUI based. Both -v -x and -v give me the exact same response.

The installer loaded all the files in a greyish background screen then it flashed and it was a jet black background. Some more text went down and unfortunately I don't have any decent camera whatsoever so I'll have to type it out....

AppleACPICPU: ProcessorId=1 LocalApicId=X Enabled [note: scrolls too fast to see value of X..]
.
.
AppleACPICPU: ProcessorId=16 LocalApicId=143 Disabled [note: 1-8 enabled, 9-16 disabled]
calling mpo_ploicy_init for Quarantine
Security policy loaded: Quarantine policy (Quarantine)
calling mpo_ploicy_init for Sandbox
Security policy loaded: Seatbelt sandbox policy (Sandbox)
calling mpo_ploicy_init for TMSafetyNet
Security policy loaded: Safety net for Time Machine (TMSafetyNet)
Copyright (c), 1982, 1986, 1991, 1993
. The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

MAC Framework successfully initialized.
using 16834 buffer geaders abd 4096 clusters IO buffer headers
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 Vectors 88:111
IOAPIC: Version 0x20 Vectors 64:87
ACPI: System State [S0 S3 S4 S5] (S3)
netkas presents fakesmc, a kext which emulates smc devices
mbinit: done (64MB memory set for mbuf pool)
USBF: 0.616 AppleUSBUHCI[0x6f54000]::start unable to initialize UIM
[:init] RealtekRTL81xxx.kext v0.0.67 (c)2010 by Lnx2Mac ([email protected])
Vendor ID 0 0
Device ID 0 0
0000000000000000

FireWire runtime power conservation disabled. (2)
Not loading kext com.apple.kext.ATI4800Controller - not found and kextid not available in early boot.
Loading VoodooHDA 0.2.1 (based on hdac version 20090401_0132)
Controller: ATI RV770 (vendor ID: 1002, device ID: aa30)
warning: couldn't set recording source to microphone
Codec #0: ATI R6xx HDMI (vendor ID: 1002, device ID:aa01)
warning: found invalid min/max dB (using default -22.5->0.0 range)
From path: "uuid",
Waiting for boot volume with UUID 1Ca47655-13E3-3063-A02-7B9CEC98BFEC
Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourcesMatch</key><string ID="2">boo-uuid-media</string></dict>
com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib load succeeded
JMicronATA: JMB363 (CMD 0xc800, CTR 0xc480, IRQ 16, BM 0xc408)
JMicronATA: JMB363 (CMD 0xcc00, CTR 0xc880, IRQ 16, BM 0xc400)
FireWire (OHCI) VendorID 1106 ID 3404 PCI now active, GUID 001e8c0001cea9c9; max speed s400.
RealtekRTL81xxx.kext: NIC identified as RTL81c86/8111C (mcfg=14) [Note: Pauses here]
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device [Note: Repeats indefinitely]
.
.

 

[Blackomega]

After reading around some more regarding "Still waiting for root device", I just remembered something that may be important. I realised that on my motherboard, my HDD and DVD drives are NOT placed in the 'SATA1' 'SATA2' ports for mechanical reasons, they are just placed in whichever ones I could get at, I think 3 and 5. Would this be causing the error?

Update: Tried rd=diskX, where X went from 0 to 5 and no luck; same error (X = 1 actually caused a kernel panic somehow).

 

[Blackomega]

I found this nice piece of info on "Still waiting for root device" at http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=101

Still Waiting for Root Device is an all-too common issue among OSx86 installs.

It affects both dvd drives (ie "Still Waiting for Root Device" when you try to boot up an osx86/retail Mac OS X dvd) and hard drives (after you've successfully installed with an osx86/retail Mac OS X dvd).

This problem occurs when your southbridge chipset does not have a working kext or "driver" to make it work properly. [Something about unofficial OSX installs which I remobed],To use a retail installation, the preboot media must be supplied with the proper kext/s required by the OS.

I will repeat, just so this is crystal, damn, clear. If you are getting "Still Waiting for Root Device", you need a driver for your southbridge controller. For example, in this randomly picked HP, see how it says "Chipset: Intel P965" ?
You then look up the list of intel chipsets, and find the corresponding southbridge (in this case, ICH8R, which is natively supported). If it weren't natively supported you would say "Hmmm, I need a southbridge [where the ATA/SATA controller is] driver for my _____ chipset", and you would try to find an ATA/SATA driver for that chipset.

I now have a better understanding of the error and what needs to be done in theory, but I have no idea how to actually do it. My motherboard is ASUS P6T SE, which has the Intel X58 chipset, meaning the south bridge chipset is ICH10/ICH10R (I thought this was natively supported by OS X now anyway, I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Retail DVD). So, I assume I need to somehow modify iBoot to include the required kexts (possible?) or use another pre booter entirely.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[MacMan]

I found this nice piece of info on "Still waiting for root device" at http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=101

Still Waiting for Root Device is an all-too common issue among OSx86 installs.

It affects both dvd drives (ie "Still Waiting for Root Device" when you try to boot up an osx86/retail Mac OS X dvd) and hard drives (after you've successfully installed with an osx86/retail Mac OS X dvd).

This problem occurs when your southbridge chipset does not have a working kext or "driver" to make it work properly. [Something about unofficial OSX installs which I remobed],To use a retail installation, the preboot media must be supplied with the proper kext/s required by the OS.

I will repeat, just so this is crystal, damn, clear. If you are getting "Still Waiting for Root Device", you need a driver for your southbridge controller. For example, in this randomly picked HP, see how it says "Chipset: Intel P965" ?
You then look up the list of intel chipsets, and find the corresponding southbridge (in this case, ICH8R, which is natively supported). If it weren't natively supported you would say "Hmmm, I need a southbridge [where the ATA/SATA controller is] driver for my _____ chipset", and you would try to find an ATA/SATA driver for that chipset.

I now have a better understanding of the error and what needs to be done in theory, but I have no idea how to actually do it. My motherboard is ASUS P6T SE, which has the Intel X58 chipset, meaning the south bridge chipset is ICH10/ICH10R (I thought this was natively supported by OS X now anyway, I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Retail DVD). So, I assume I need to somehow modify iBoot to include the required kexts (possible?) or use another pre booter entirely.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

iBoot 2.5 fully supports the X58 chipset.

Are you unplugging the Win 7 drive when trying to install OS X?

Are the DVD drive and the HD you are installing to using the Intel SATA ports?

 

[Blackomega]

Thanks for the reply MacMan.

I'm only using the SATA ports yea, so both DVD and the HDD [both] are SATA. I'm not sure if that's what you meant by Intel SATA ports; the motherboard has only 6 SATA ports with no clearly stated difference.

With regards to unplugging the other HDD, I unplugged it's SATA connection so it is not recognised by anything, but not its power connection, as this took me 2 hours of playing cable tetris to finally actually plug in. Would this be the cause of a problem? I would GREATLY like to leave the power cable in the other HDD, since my case is a mechanical nightmare that I can't avoid due to the components I have (computer is 1.5 years old).

Thanks.

Edit: I am using SATA ports 3 and 5 as mentioned somewhere in an earlier post. Does it absolutely HAVE to be 1 and 2? (My motherboard and BIOS calls them 1-6, so I guess the computer itself calls them 0-5; 1 and 2 then being the 0 and 1 mentioned in some guides).

 

[Blackomega]

Update.......

I found out in the most unfortunate way that my DVD-ROM drive is dieing and is almost completely dead. I will elaborate purely to give you the full picture of what's going on.

I installed Windows 7 [retail; got it cheap as student offer] to the new HDD before doing any of this OSx86 fiddling and it worked completely fine, windows boot manager loaded and I could pick either installation (old or new) and it worked perfect zero problems at all.

Then I deleted the partition on the old drive and started playing with OSx86, using my laptop to look online etc like I am now. No luck as mentioned so today I put everything back in and loaded up to carry on using as normal. Nothing. I put in iBoot and booted my Windows 7 install manually to get.....

BOOTMGR is missing.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart.

Initially I shat myself but then apparently this is common when doing what I did. All I need to do is put in my Windows 7 install disk and repair and it works. I put it in, Windows begins to load and whilst it is booting into the Windows installer, I got the ironically familiar error

"Windows Boot Manager:

Windows lost contact to a device during installation... [blah blah]"

I restarted and tried again and my DVD drive got progressively worse, and now it won't load ANYTHING; not my iBoot CD, my Windows 7 install DVD, nothing. My intuition tells me that

- "Windows lost contact to a device during installation"
- "Still waiting for boot device" [DVD drive which is known ot be supported in my case]
- My DVD drive is now screwed

are not totally unrelated. I may be able to yoink the DVD drive from my parents computer if it is SATA, if not I'll buy a new one. Will keep you posted.

 

[jemmyuk]

I now have a better understanding of the error and what needs to be done in theory, but I have no idea how to actually do it. My motherboard is ASUS P6T SE, which has the Intel X58 chipset, meaning the south bridge chipset is ICH10/ICH10R (I thought this was natively supported by OS X now anyway, I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Retail DVD). So, I assume I need to somehow modify iBoot to include the required kexts (possible?) or use another pre booter entirely.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Hey did you manage to install SL? I have the same mb as you and get the same error still waiting for root device. Tried usb install as well with no luck.

 

[Blackomega]

Been really busy lately so haven't been able to get some time to try again, but hope to this week.

 

[jemmyuk]

Been really busy lately so haven't been able to get some time to try again, but hope to this week.

Hey just to let you know I managed to install SL, have same MB as you, let me know if can help you with my experience with the install. I am not an expert but at least share what I learnt along the way