Stuck on White Screen with Apple Logo after UniBeast Boot from USB Drive

[snooktarpon]

I'm attempting to upgrade to Mountain Lion from 10.6.8 using Unibeast 1.7.0 but I'm having problems reaching the installation screen.

When I reach the Chimera boot screen, I have two icons that I can choose: the USB drive and the hard drive (with 10.6.8).
When I select the USB drive, I get the White/Gray Screen with the Apple Logo and it just hangs.
I then rebooted and use the following arguments with the same result (hung on Apple Logo):
-v -x PCIRootUID=0 GraphicsEnabler=No
When I do this the last line of text output is: [ PCI configuration begin ]

I also setup UniBeast on another USB drive and still had the same issue.

Here is my system:
Gigabyte GA-P43T-ES3G (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3637#ov)
Note: this motherboard doesn't have onboard graphics
Intel Core 2 Duo (2.93 GHz OC to 3.5 GHz)
4GB RAM
Seagate SATA 500GB Hard Drive
IDE DVD Drive
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Superclocked (http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2662-KR) using PCIe X16 slot

With BIOS, I initially kept all my existing settings and changed to AHCI and HPET was changed to 64-bit (along with changing the boot sequence to boot from the USB drive.. Then I changed to "Optimize Defaults" and changed back to AHCI and HPET to 64 bit. Again, this didn't help, still stuck on the Apple Logo.

FYI, I had no issues installing Snow Leopard and Multibeast (using EasyBeast) and upgrading to 10.6.8. With my current 10.6.8 system, there are no graphics drivers installed but I get audio and it boots from hard drive. I figured I would wait to install the necessary drivers after Mountain Lion was installed.

Could my EVGA GTX 660 graphics card be the cause of the problem? I have two older graphics cards: a GeForce 6600GT (PCI) and Nvidia 210 (PCIe). I thought about installing them to see if that would allow me to reach the installation screen (and then reinstalled it after Mountain Lion is sucessfully installed). Is this worth a shot?

So doesn't anybody have any suggestions on how I can get Mountain Lion to install?

 

[4eyedG]

You and I have the same problems. I'm stuck at the logo screen right before the installation, I'll get the grey spinner and then another small symbol on top of the logo, a circle with a line... like the ones you see on the Ghost Busters VHS box Is there anyone there who can help us?

 

[snooktarpon]

Well, I fixed it! I just changed the graphics card from the EVGA GTX 660 to the GeForce 6600GT (PCIe, not PCI as I stated in my first post) and UniBeast went straight to the installation screen. So for some reason, UniBeast didn't like the newer card. The GeForce 6600GT is an 8-year old video card so I'm obviously not going to keep using it.

So my plan is to reinstall the GTX 660 and I'm hoping I can install the Nvidia drivers for it since I"m stuck at 1024x768 resolution on my 1920x1200 monitor.

 

[snooktarpon]

Well, after the install was complete, I rebooted and it is now stuck on the Chimera boot screen. When I select the hard drive (the only icon shwoing), the screen flashes and comes back to the same Chimera screen. So I'm going to create a new post for this problem.

 

[Mikhail716]

I have a gigabyte GeForce nvidia gtx 670 does that mean I can't install ML

 

[snooktarpon]

I have a gigabyte GeForce nvidia gtx 670 does that mean I can't install ML

No. You should be OK. In fact, I read that the 670 was on the compatible list and the 660 was not on the list. So I would install the card and see what happens. You may have change the boot options for Chimera.

If you get the white screen after installing the 670, remove the card and reboot using your intergrated graphics on your MB.Then install the Nvidia graphics drivers (link below)
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html
Then shutdown and reinstall the 670 and boot up. Again, you may have change some of the Chimera boot options.

 

[Mikhail716]

No. You should be OK. In fact, I read that the 670 was on the compatible list and the 660 was not on the list. So I would install the card and see what happens. You may have change the boot options for Chimera.

If you get the white screen after installing the 670, remove the card and reboot using your intergrated graphics on your MB.Then install the Nvidia graphics drivers (link below)
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html
Then shutdown and reinstall the 670 and boot up. Again, you may have change some of the Chimera boot options.

Well that's good to know considering its a $400 GPU however I'm not sure that my motherboard has integrated graphics I have a Asus x79 sabertooth. This is my first build so I new to this I figured I would save sloth of money instead of buying a Mac Pro for video editing I'm a college student so I really can't afford that. But I really need to get this up and running so any info you can give me would really help. I'm using the unibeast method with ML 10.8 from the App Store and I'm getting stuck on the apple logo screen with no spinning wheel. My parts are:

asus x79 sabertooth motherboard
i7 3930k CPU
gigabyte GeForce nvidia gtx 670 GPU
h100i cooling system
16gb ram
128gb OCZ vertex 4 SSD

 

[snooktarpon]

When you are at the Chimera boot screen, press any key to stop it from automatically booting to Mac OS hard drive. Then type in "-v"
You will see lots of text and eventually, it will stop. Can you tell me what the last line of text is? I'm assuming it is: [ PCI configuration begin ]

I looked at your motherboard and you right, I don't see any integrated graphics. My MB doesn't have integrated graphics either.

So this what I did:
1) Created a Unibeast USB drive with Mountain Lion (10.8.2) using an iMac. More info at: http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

2) With the PC shut down, I removed my GTX 660 and installed a Nvidia 210 card (PCIe) and connect a monitor using the DVI connection. You can buy this at NewEgg for $38 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121422). I'm sure other graphics cards will work.

3) I then rebooted the PC to the Unibeast USB and it started to run the ML installation. No white screen!

4) When it arrives at the installer, choose language.

5) Note: I had installed a empty SATA hard drive (no previous snow leopard install).

NOTE: If you are upgrading from Snow Leopard or Lion and you want to keep your files and apps, you can skip this step

So I then did the following.

In the top menu bar choose Utilities, and open Disk Utility​

b. Highlight your target hard drive for the Mountain Lion installation in left column.
c. Click Partition tab
d. Click Current and choose 1 Partition
e. Click Options...
f. Choose GUID Partition Method (Note: I had formatted a drive with MBR previously and had all kinds of boot issues, so make sure you have GUID!)
g. Under Name: type Mountain Lion (You can rename it later)
h. Under Format: choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
i. Click Apply then Partition
j. Close Disk Utility

6) When the installer asks you where to install, choose ​

Mountain Lion, or your existing install.

7) After the ML install was completed and before, running Multibeast, I installed the Nvidia drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html)

8) When the Nvidia installation was was done, it requires a restart (and it won't let you select shutdown). So when the computer was just starting to reboot, I powered it off. I then swapped out the 210 for the GTX 660 (and connected a monitor to the 660 via DVI) and rebooted using the Unibeast USB.

9) I then had to determine which boot flags (pressing any key during the Chimera boot) would work since my monitors would lose connectivity without any boot flags. After trial and error, I determined that adding "GraphicsEnabler=No npci=0x3000" at the Chimera screen worked. Also make sure you use "-v" so you can get text feedback if things are not working properly.
I would Google "commom Chimera boot flags" and get familiar with them.

10) So I then ran MultiBeast and only selected User DSDT Install (I still don't have sound but I only wanted initially to tackle the boot issues). FYI, I created my own DSDT file. After that was completed, I changed GraphicsEnabler to "No" and added npci=0x3000 to the org.chameleon.Boot.plist file.
Yo

11) Now it boots up automatically to 4 1920x1200 monitors!

12) The went back to Multibeast and installed other drivers like audio and ethernet. Again, this make take some trial and error.

Here is link of another thread that might help: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-support/78875-getting-650ti-working-7.html

As I stated before, this takes a lot of trial and error and searching for posts (of similar problems) on the forum. Good luck. Let me know if you make some progress.

 

[Randys]

I had this same problem, changing the usb flash drive to a different port worked for me.