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[GA-P55-UD4] CD boot install questions

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I've read pretty much all there is to read here but I'm confused about some things.

I don't have access to a working Mac, just a PC on which Win/ 64bit works perfectly and I'm trying to install Mac OS.

My installation always get stuck before entering Utility/Disk Utility screen. No kernel panics. I got one SATA HDD (connected to blue SATA port 0) and one SATA DVD-RW (connected to blue SATA port 1).

What I think might be a problem is that disk was before used as a NTFS volume formatted under Win 2008 Server. What is suggested procedure to prepare a HDD to install Mac OS in it when you don't have a working Mac on which you can partition it (GUID partition table) and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) ?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I've double checked BIOS settings. BIOS is flashed to F6.
 
Strange, can't say I've heard of anyone having that problem before. You could try booting up with a Windows disc and remove the partition on the drive and see what happens.
 
I've done that using Win7 install disc and Windows 2008 Server install disc. The problem is that when you look at that disc from something like PartedMagic you always see a 128MB partition on it (Win make it a system reserved partition or something even if you delete the partition in install procedure and quit afterwards).

Booted a PC with PartedMagic lightweight Linux CD boot and then deleted that annoying partition. Bot to no result. Next installation try went with a spare 1TB SATA disk as I tought maybe there's problem with my Velociraptor.

At the end (was already 2AM) I left PC booted to see if it needed more than 15-20 minutes to go over that part of installation but this morning it was on the same spot.

I guess this today will be a long afternoon/night wrestling with MacOS. :)
 
Strange indeed.

I'm getting today a new SATA 500GB disk partitioned/formated on friend's Mac Mini just to minimize odds something is wrong with partitons/configurations of my drives.

I think it's too early to blame it all on ATI card :mrgreen:

Anyway, thanks for help. Will keep process/drama updated.
 
One more thing crossed my mind. My graphic card is in 2nd pcix slot as it can't get in 1st because heatsink on chipset close to that port is too high.

Could that have anything to do with installation procedure?
 
No, I left it on defaults as it's working normally for Windows. No issues there and it was not mentioned anywhere in MacOS installation instructions.
 
Well, it wasn't mentioned as most people don't put their graphics card in PEG2...
On a P55 that also means that your board is only getting 8 PCI Express lanes rather than the full 16, in other words, it will perform slightly slower than intended.

Besides, OS X isn't Windows you know ;)
 
Well, it surely is not. ;)

At the end it looks like Tony's iBoot boot media don't like my MB with ATI in 2nd PCIx slot. Did today few more tries with various BIOS settings (legacy/native and such) with no result. Gave up at the end. Pulled out damned Sapphire Vapor HD4870 2GB GDDR5 graphic board, installed some old Nvidia 8500GT 512MB card and first install was successful using tonymacosx86-iBoot (final Nvidia version). So much about ATI. Or should I say Sapphire with that bloody heatsink on the back of card.

At least it's not HDDs and/or AHCI issues.

I'm now looking for some better Nvidia card and have no idea what's optimal (and without heatsinks on the back of card) for this working installation. Pondering to take some Gigabye gts 250 based card. Any advices or input on this matter?

Thanks for help so far. :thumbup:

Edit:
Everything is working for now. Apple Software Update done (and installation of multibeast options and easybeast 10.6.2). Audio, network, USB, everything works except standby/sleep/suspend whatever that's called on this platform. Even plugged (after installing, patching and having a fully functional installation) 4 more GB of RAM so I'm now at 8GB DD3 and system is showing it in "About this Mac" info window.
 
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