Problems After External to Internal HD Conversion... Please Help!

[ssccrab]

Here's a little back story, everyone. A bit long, but all needed info. I have an external Western Digital My Book Elite HD, which runs off USB. I had installed Snow Leopard on it about a month ago, then updated to 10.6.8. Everything worked beautifully and without any problems. It booted up without a hitch after the update and after installing Multibeast. It recognized it as a Mac Pro as well, which I really liked. Prior to this, I had Snow Leopard installed on this external HD for a couple of years and left it at 10.6, since updating to whatever version it was at the time caused my USB to stop working and Multibeast didn't help. Never had any probs with 10.6. 10.6.8 update worked great though and I had zero complaints as far as overall functionality.

Now, I'm a music mogul with a studio and had too many problems with trying to get Pro Tools 9 running efficiently on an external drive. It just couldn't keep up with the speed PT9 needed, and I got too many errors due to the slow USB transfer speed. My problems started when I got the bright idea yesterday to convert my external HD to an internal SATA HD for the sake of getting that fast SATA transfer speed, as opposed to the slower USB 2.0. Some of my system specs:

Mobo- Asus P5QSE2
Video- Nvidia 9500
Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo
Ram- 4 Gigs
HD- 1TB Western Digital

Easy enough to do, right? Take the 3.5" HD out of the enclosure and put it in my tower via SATA. I removed it from the enclosure, took off the SATA/USB controller and installed it into my tower. It's now just a standard SATA HD. I have no idea why, but everything on the drive was instantly wiped. I hadn't changed anything on my system to cause problems. The only difference was that I had set the BIOS to boot from that HD internally. It's the only HD connected currently.

I went ahead and started the install procedures for Snow Leopard when I exhausted all other efforts to boot and found the partition wasn't even there anyway. I didn't need to use any boot flags, as it went right into the retail installer from iBoot (I have an original, store bought 10.6 disc). Everything installed fine, until I updated to 1068. I got stuck at the Apple logo and found it was [PCI Configuration Begin] after using -v. -x doesn't work and neither do any other boot flags.

Oookk, so i reinstall SL and this time install Multibeast before any updates. At restart I get the boot0 error. Hmm... Boot using iBoot and that works, so I update to 1068. Same hang as earlier. Now I'm just completely lost and a bit upset, so I shut it down for the night.

I realize this is a long post, but I think this info is all needed in hopes of getting some help. If anyone has any idea at all on what to do, I'd really appreciate a response. Thanks all!

UPDATE:

I found this page, so I'll try it tomorrow. But still, if anyone at all has any tips or help, PLEASE post. Thanks! (may have to use google translate for the page)

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...ard-retail-lion-sur-p5q-se-2-updated-rev-106/

 

[totenkopf4]

Mobo- Asus P5QSE2
Video- Nvidia 9500
Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo
Ram- 4 Gigs
HD- 1TB Western Digital

I went ahead and started the install procedures for Snow Leopard when I exhausted all other efforts to boot and found the partition wasn't even there anyway. I didn't need to use any boot flags, as it went right into the retail installer from iBoot (I have an original, store bought 10.6 disc). Everything installed fine, until I updated to 1068. I got stuck at the Apple logo and found it was [PCI Configuration Begin] after using -v. -x doesn't work and neither do any other boot flags.

Oookk, so i reinstall SL and this time install Multibeast before any updates. At restart I get the boot0 error. Hmm... Boot using iBoot and that works, so I update to 1068. Same hang as earlier. Now I'm just completely lost and a bit upset, so I shut it down for the night.

I realize this is a long post, but I think this info is all needed in hopes of getting some help. If anyone has any idea at all on what to do, I'd really appreciate a response. Thanks all!

ssccrab

Yes this happens a lot w 10.6.8 combo update - you are using the one that is 1.2 GB about in size -

If you could use the Combo update 10.6.7 instead - and see if this error continues.

Also you could try this before you install again
"-v -f PCIRootUID=1 npci=0x3000"
or
"-v -f PCIRootUID=1 npci=0x2000"

if you have no luck w either then change the PCIrootUID=1 to a 0. in each and try again,

or reinstall and update to osx 10.6 7 only ( you dont need 10.6.8 IMHO)

Also you are not using the whole 1GB drive as a single 1gb partition for osx are you - suggest make it about 500 gb for 2 partitions

Tony has a section on this error [PCI Configuration Begin]

also Google has a lot on it...

 

[ssccrab]

Hey, thanks a lot for replying. I did a ton of research on it through both here and Google and the HD I have, which is a WD Caviar Green, apparently have tons of problems acting as boot drives. So I set it back to a USB external drive and installed SL on a much smaller internal SATA drive I had laying around. Tomorrow I'll give your idea of using only half the partition for booting and the other half for storage. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that.

 

[totenkopf4]

Hey, thanks a lot for replying. I did a ton of research on it through both here and Google and the HD I have, which is a WD Caviar Green, apparently have tons of problems acting as boot drives. So I set it back to a USB external drive and installed SL on a much smaller internal SATA drive I had laying around. Tomorrow I'll give your idea of using only half the partition for booting and the other half for storage. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that.

ssccrab

yes the WD Greens ( for that matter all Green Drives in general are problems as Boot Drives) I had forgotten that fact,

tote