shedt Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 i don't have the 80 or whatever pin cable, is this why i am getting the waiting for root message? Can I boot a image file up or something? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. Bear Helms Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Waiting for root device has a number of possible problems. Without a view of what other complaints came prior to that error, even the following list may be inadequate: * Cannot understand the IDE/ATA/SATA interface method supported by your hardware. * Found an NTFS volume and no others * No HFS volume exists on the primary drive (IDE Master) * CD-ROM interface is too unstandard for booting from. Image files may be placed into an existing partition, but by Disk Utility which needs you to get beyond "Waiting for root device" before it is available. The torrent sites have a Symantec "Ghost" image of a 10.4.4 partition. However, it won't restore onto a hard drive with less than 22.3 Gb (approx) free space. You'd restore creating a new partition. At the boot prompt, the general root syntax is like this: disk0s2 That would refer to the primary (Master) IDE drive, 2nd partition. I assume your first partition would be Windows. disk1s3 Sometimes this is how you refer to the CD-ROM boot. Change the last number downward to 1 in attempts to continue. The Wiki (link at the top of the forum) has a Technical FAQ. I recommend you prepare a hard drive with a partition to receive OS x86 prior to booting the install DVD. There's an answer there about prepping a hard drive using Windows XP. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-67719 Share on other sites More sharing options...
esc2 Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Modern DVD writers require 80-pin cables to run properly. I threw out my 40 pin cables and bought 80 pin cables. They're about $4 at Newegg. You can even get UV cables or exotic colors for the same price. Only nobody seems to sell them as 80 pin cables. 40 pin cables are called ATA33 or UDMA33 while 80 pin cables are called ATA66 or ATA100. On my system the SAM Multimedia read/write error was due to the way IDE devices were attached to the Motherboard. I had to hook up the Hard drive as the master on the Primary IDE controller and the DVD drive as the slave on the primary ide controller. No other combination worked right. The waiting for root device on my system was due to OSX getting lost exploring alternate IDE controllers. I had to go into the bios and disable the second (& third!) IDE controller. Then OSX was nicely behaved. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-67899 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedt Posted March 3, 2006 Author Share Posted March 3, 2006 THANK YOU FOR THE REPLIES GUYS, opps all caps. I'm going to try to see what I can do tonight. I'm going to see if i can get a better cable. At the boot prompt, the general root syntax is like this:disk0s2 That would refer to the primary (Master) IDE drive, 2nd partition. I assume your first partition would be Windows. disk1s3 Sometimes this is how you refer to the CD-ROM boot. Change the last number downward to 1 in attempts to continue. So at the boot promt i can just type disk1s3 then press enter? I created a second partition, a af one... i'm going to look on the guide, it had me make it with diskpart or something named similar Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68024 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockviech Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 rd=disk1s3 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68027 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedt Posted March 3, 2006 Author Share Posted March 3, 2006 duh rd= root device. i don't know a whole lot of linux/unix Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68047 Share on other sites More sharing options...
esc2 Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Back in 10.4.3 I could enter a Darwin Boot option: debug=0x144 and get a lot of useful information. But it doesn't work in 10.4.4 qand 10.4.5 . Was Darwin gutted for the installer in 10.4.4? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68089 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedt Posted March 4, 2006 Author Share Posted March 4, 2006 If i switch my primary xp partition, err if i switch the osx partition that i created to active will this help? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68313 Share on other sites More sharing options...
esc2 Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 I think the OSX partition has to be active in order to boot. But when mine wasn't active I got a a B0 error, not waiting for root. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68323 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedt Posted March 4, 2006 Author Share Posted March 4, 2006 can i set the active partition via darwin's command line in the boot dvd? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-68338 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikola Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 OS X 10.4.3 worked, but I installed windows vista and now I get tis message "still waiting for root device" when I try to boot OS X (in verbose mode), if I try to boot normally, after oine minute, a forbidden logo apeats on the apple logo. Any idea? Vista also changed the dual boot menu. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-69082 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedt Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 I don't know what else to do, I've tried a new hdd, that I deleted all partitions and used the wiki guide to preping a hdd in xp. I booted up the ultimate boot cd, and set the AF partition i made in XP with diskpart. Oh, at this time i took of my xp hdd, and my nec dvd burner is set on the master ide channel, and the hdd on the second, both set to master. I've tried switching the dvd and hdd on the ide channels, i've tried using them on one switching between slave and master. i've disabled my floppy, I dunno what else to try. i have a p4s800-mx mobo and asus nvidia card fx 5700 i have two 10.4.4 install dvd's and one 10.4.3 i'm going to take a pic with my digi of the output from the -v. what am I left to do? use VMware? that's a emu right? if i can get a hfs partition on it with maybe partition magic can that work? Please help, i'm banging my head here. thanks anyone that can help! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-69605 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikola Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 You can't create an HFS+ partition with partition magic. Use partition magic to reduce one of youir partition (prefer the partition at the end of the disk), you will get a blank sapce on your hard drive. Now use diskpart to set this space to AF (there is a guide on the wiki). Now boot on the dvd, erase the new partition to HFS+ and try to install. If it don't want to install, use spidsk in expert mode from a floppy (boot with it) to hide all the partitions except the HFS+ one, and reboot from the dvd, try to install. After 20 minutes, it's installed, reboot from the floppy, unhide all the partitions and make sure the windows one is the active, boot normally windows and have a look on the wiki to know how you can configure your boot.ini to boot natively on Mac OS X. If you have no problem and you have chance... Have fun! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/10795-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-70002 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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