Dell XPS 1340 under OSX 10.6, including boot-132 install cd

[hxh103]

Root device not mounting during OSX boot suggests that the necessary disk controller driver didn't load. That in turn suggests that you used an incomplete OSX repack instead of a genuine 10.6/10.6.3 OSX distribution to boot off of as recommended in post #1.

 

Thanks for the response. That is odd that it is giving me this since I have used this exact usb stick that I made for the last install. I guess I'll try remaking the USB install again

[LatinMcG]

Thanks for the response. That is odd that it is giving me this since I have used this exact usb stick that I made for the last install. I guess I'll try remaking the USB install again

i had same issues. IDE device id of ich9 doesnt work natively.. try injecting in dsdt id 2828 for ide0 and add that dsdt to your usb. also the IOATA panic fix for IDE1 section in dsdt. and maybe have to inject id 2850 to that. try DSDTSE in the fixes section it shows native SATA .. but i use id of a real macbook with ich8 2828 instead of the ich10 id.

[bcc9]

i had same issues. IDE device id of ich9 doesnt work natively.. try injecting in dsdt id 2828 for ide0 and add that dsdt to your usb. also the IOATA panic fix for IDE1 section in dsdt. and maybe have to inject id 2850 to that. try DSDTSE in the fixes section it shows native SATA .. but i use id of a real macbook with ich8 2828 instead of the ich10 id.

No! This system has an nvidia chipset, and nvidia disk controller, not intel. So any ich9 advice is off track.

 

In fact, using some distro or software that assumes that any AHCI hardware is intel based not nvidia is a good way to cause "Still Waiting for root device" errors.

[mikeraffone]

bcc9: have you experienced any problems with your bluetooth HCI device occasionally freaking out the system?

 

This may be a tenuous link - but I installed your bluetooth HCI driver on a new xps system with the device installed - and I have experienced a problem with the external SATA now ... where after 5-10 mins of usage, the device fails to read, stalls, and forces a dismount.

 

Here is the console log:

Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: disk1s2: media is not present.
Jul 27 08:49:24: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x6
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: write_journal_header: error writing the journal header!
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: disk1s2: media is not present.
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x6
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: end_transaction: only wrote 0 of 40960 bytes to the journal!
Jul 27 08:49:20 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: disk1s2: media is not present.
Jul 27 08:49:52 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing...
Jul 27 08:50:23 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing...
Jul 27 08:50:23 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: IOBlockStorageDriver[IOBlockStorageDriver]; executeRequest: request failed to start!
Jul 27 08:50:23 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: disk1s2: resource shortage.
Jul 27 08:50:23 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: disk1s2: media is not present.
Jul 27 08:50:23 Michael-Clays-Mac kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: close: journal 0xffffff8011feed20, is invalid.  aborting outstanding transactions

 

I have just uninstalled the HCI driver and the problem appears to have disappeared (it also never occurred prior to installing the HCI driver).

 

What do you think the cause might be?

[bcc9]

bcc9: have you experienced any problems with your bluetooth HCI device occasionally freaking out the system?

No, my only complaint is that I wish it would reconnect faster when the system wakes up from suspend.

This may be a tenuous link - but I installed your bluetooth HCI driver on a new xps system with the device installed - and I have experienced a problem with the external SATA now ... where after 5-10 mins of usage, the device fails to read, stalls, and forces a dismount.

Unfortunately intermittent esata errors are par for the course on this laptop if you're trying to run the esata port at 3.0gbps. I've posted on this a lot. Recommend you jumper your disk to 1.5gbps.

[mikeraffone]

I have just uninstalled the HCI driver and the problem appears to have disappeared (it also never occurred prior to installing the HCI driver).

 

Actually, that's not true. The problem has occurred again. Is anyone else having issues with e-SATA drives disconnecting after a period of inactivity?

[bcc9]

Actually, that's not true. The problem has occurred again. Is anyone else having issues with e-SATA drives disconnecting after a period of inactivity?

Yes, see what I just posted. Typical failure mode for this chipset's esata port is that the drive seems to be going just fine until you start a large transfer then it goes to hell.

[marshall_warner]

Is it possible to realize this procedure if I already have installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.1, in a third partition without having to reinstall everything? I ask because I have read tutorials about triple boots, but every talks about an installation from scratch, with Os X like the first one.

 

If this is not the place to ask this, I apologize.

 

 

Sorry for my bad english.

 

Greets from Guanajuato!

 

PD My notebook its a XPS Studio 1340 by the way

[bcc9]

Is it possible to realize this procedure if I already have installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.1, in a third partition without having to reinstall everything? I ask because I have read tutorials about triple boots, but every talks about an installation from scratch, with Os X like the first one.

 

If this is not the place to ask this, I apologize.

Yes, you can install in whatever order you want, though windows is more of a problem to install after other OSes as it likes to clobber the MBR.

Yes, probably not the right thread as there are lots of multiboot threads around and the details depend upon your bootloader choices, etc. not on the model of laptop.

I don't use ubunutu, but I bet the best choice would be to have grub2 chainload chameleon and windows7.

[marshall_warner]

Yes, you can install in whatever order you want, though windows is more of a problem to install after other OSes as it likes to clobber the MBR.

Yes, probably not the right thread as there are lots of multiboot threads around and the details depend upon your bootloader choices, etc. not on the model of laptop.

I don't use ubunutu, but I bet the best choice would be to have grub2 chainload chameleon and windows7.

 

Thanhx... I'll try it...

[kwiksilver]

I'm not sure what I did wrong

 

I update to 10.6.4 and my audio went away. (as expected) but I replaced the files and repaired the permissions and still am not getting any sound device installed.

 

My Setup

 

XPS 1340 - P8600, 4gb, 9400m, etc

 

Partitions (MBR)

0,1 - system reserved 100mb for win 7

0,2 - Win 7 250gb

0,3 - Boot - 250mb Chameleon dedicated partition

0,4 - OSX - 80gb

 

I've got chameleon on its own partition and thats about the only thing that's change in the past 6 months besides updating to 10.6.4 today.

Please help.

 

I've replaced the HDAIT.kext in my /Volumes/Boot/Extra/Extensions folder too, and then repaired those permissions too. Maybe I'm trying the wrong thing to do this? *shrug*

 

I also ran the ACPI 1.2 package as well which went fine.

 

The voodoo battery also stopped showing my battery icon after the update. It's like my Extra folder isn't getting load or something.

[bcc9]

I'm not sure what I did wrong

 

I update to 10.6.4 and my audio went away. (as expected) but I replaced the files and repaired the permissions and still am not getting any sound device installed.

 

My Setup

 

XPS 1340 - P8600, 4gb, 9400m, etc

 

Partitions (MBR)

0,1 - system reserved 100mb for win 7

0,2 - Win 7 250gb

0,3 - Boot - 250mb Chameleon dedicated partition

0,4 - OSX - 80gb

 

I've got chameleon on its own partition and thats about the only thing that's change in the past 6 months besides updating to 10.6.4 today.

Please help.

 

I've replaced the HDAIT.kext in my /Volumes/Boot/Extra/Extensions folder too, and then repaired those permissions too. Maybe I'm trying the wrong thing to do this? *shrug*

 

I also ran the ACPI 1.2 package as well which went fine.

 

The voodoo battery also stopped showing my battery icon after the update. It's like my Extra folder isn't getting load or something.

Sounds like you changed your boot config such that the DSDT.aml is not being picked up, and thus breaking things. If you used disk utility to build a new partition you may be surprised to find that chameleon is booting off of the last hfs partition you made, instead of the one you set up as /boot.

 

And/or debug what's going on with AppleHDA with kextload, kextstat

[kwiksilver]

Sounds like you changed your boot config such that the DSDT.aml is not being picked up, and thus breaking things. If you used disk utility to build a new partition you may be surprised to find that chameleon is booting off of the last hfs partition you made, instead of the one you set up as /boot.

 

And/or debug what's going on with AppleHDA with kextload, kextstat

First off thank you for this thread and being so supportive in the OSX community.

 

For fear of sounding noobish how do I know if DSDT.aml is actually being loaded?

 

I reinstalled chameleon via terminal to the boot partition and double checked my smbios.plist and still seems to be having the same problem.

[bcc9]

First off thank you for this thread and being so supportive in the OSX community.

 

For fear of sounding noobish how do I know if DSDT.aml is actually being loaded?

 

I reinstalled chameleon via terminal to the boot partition and double checked my smbios.plist and still seems to be having the same problem.

Thanks.

You could take a high speed camera and take photos of the boot messages chameleon prints before the screen is cleared (I don't know why chameleon doesn't offer to pause long enough for a human to read the messages...)

Or, you could look in the ioregistry (ioreg command) for the expected changes. For example if you see device AZA instead of device HDEF, then the audio EFI string changes didn't get loaded form the dsdt.

[kwiksilver]

I added the

 

<key>wait</key>

<string>yes</string>

 

to my com.boot.plist or whatever it is actually called.

 

I saw there was a 100h error and neither the smbios or dsdt were being loaded. After a quick google search that revealed I didn't have a preboot.dmg in my /Extra folder and once that there everything was golden.

 

Though I could swear I never needed it before, at least it works now/

 

Thanks again for the help.

 

Now the only question is can I make vmware fusion or parallels see my Win7 partition as the 'boot camp' partition and boot it inside OSX.

I think the last time that happened I was getting boot0 errors.

[bcc9]

I added the

 

<key>wait</key>

<string>yes</string>

 

to my com.boot.plist or whatever it is actually called.

Ah, great, missed that addition to chameleon. Thanks.

I saw there was a 100h error and neither the smbios or dsdt were being loaded. After a quick google search that revealed I didn't have a preboot.dmg in my /Extra folder and once that there everything was golden.

 

Though I could swear I never needed it before, at least it works now/

 

Thanks again for the help.

I don't use a preboot.dmg, but I don't use a separate /boot partition. I still suspect your partition table is marking your root partition as active instead of your boot partition, and that is your root problem.

 

Now the only question is can I make vmware fusion or parallels see my Win7 partition as the 'boot camp' partition and boot it inside OSX.

I think the last time that happened I was getting boot0 errors.

I don't think you really want to do that as your virtual hardware != your real hardware, and so windows will be pretty confused.

[marshall_warner]

Finally I installed Snow Leopard on my XPS, but i have some issues. I hope somebody can help me:

 

*Its important to say the way I installed SL was following this ; in resume, its a SL install without the GUID, installing first on a USB drive and then restoring it to the HDD.

 

- I only can boot SL from the CD/DVD drive, 'cause I havent installed the chameleon. I dont know if I do that, its gonna break everything in Grub (I also have ubuntu running). So my question is, there is some way to install chameleon and boot from grub without messing everything? or, can I boot SL from grub (it appears but when i try to boot, it gives me a little KP, i try also this without success).

 

-When I boot into SL, everything its fine, but when I boot windows 7 after booting SL, the clock goes crazy, like if windows thinks the battery isnt in the notebook; I dont know if this is normal.

 

-After running sometime SL, the notebook start heating a lot, the same as Ubuntu, I dont know if this is normal.

 

-Im very noob at this, so i dont know where to put the dsdt.aml, I suspect i have to install first the chameleon, but i dont know.

 

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the creepy english...

[bcc9]

Finally I installed Snow Leopard on my XPS, but i have some issues. I hope somebody can help me:

 

*Its important to say the way I installed SL was following this ; in resume, its a SL install without the GUID, installing first on a USB drive and then restoring it to the HDD.

 

- I only can boot SL from the CD/DVD drive, 'cause I havent installed the chameleon. I dont know if I do that, its gonna break everything in Grub (I also have ubuntu running). So my question is, there is some way to install chameleon and boot from grub without messing everything? or, can I boot SL from grub (it appears but when i try to boot, it gives me a little KP, i try also this without success).

 

-When I boot into SL, everything its fine, but when I boot windows 7 after booting SL, the clock goes crazy, like if windows thinks the battery isnt in the notebook; I dont know if this is normal.

 

-After running sometime SL, the notebook start heating a lot, the same as Ubuntu, I dont know if this is normal.

 

-Im very noob at this, so i dont know where to put the dsdt.aml, I suspect i have to install first the chameleon, but i dont know.

 

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the creepy english...

With the patch I provided a reference to, you can install OSX into an MBR disk directly.

You should be able to chainload from grub2 to chameleon, if you want to do things that way. In that case you can leave grub2 installed on your MBR and install chameleon at the start of the partition that contains OSX.

Grub2 can be configured, or chameleon will by default, pick up your DSDT.aml if you install it as described in post #1.

Instructions have been posted on how to make windows use UTC time, with a simple registry change. That is what I recommend doing to get rational times across all 3 OSes, as you cannot configure OSX to use the local time zone.

 

If your system is running hot, it's probably because your CPU isn't throttling, which in turn is probably because you didn't finish setting up the config per post #1.

[hajialibaig]

Thanks for the excellent guide Bcc9.

 

Added Snow Leopard 10.6 retail as a second OS to my already installed Win7 in less than 30 minutes following the instructions in post #1.

 

My system specifications:

 

Dell Studio XPS 1340

Intel Core 2 Duo P8800 2.66 GHz

4 GB DDR3 1067 MHz RAM

HD Audio 2.0

500 GB HDD 7200 RPM

Dell Wireless 1510

nVidia GeForce 9400M G + nVidia GeForce G 210M 512MB

Bluetooth

1280x800 WLED Slim Display

Windows 7 64-bit

$1250 (on Feb, 2010)

 

WiFi worked out of the box thanks to the Dell 1510 card.

Shut down, restart, media keys, sleep, trackpad, 2-finger scrolling, audio, bluetooth, graphics, etc, work too.

 

For anyone else running a dual boot configuration, I recommend installing MacDrive in Win7 since you'll be able to access the snow leopard partition from my computer (and hence edit/add/delete/troubleshoot files)

 

Also, gotta love the Blackosx theme on the start up, thanks to chameleon 2.0 RC4

Check it out here

 

Might update to 10.6.4 soon, I'll let you know how that goes

[zaktheman]

Thanks Bcc9 for your great work. I have it up and working triboot with ubuntu and win7

[bcc9]

Thanks Bcc9 for your great work. I have it up and working triboot with ubuntu and win7

Great, thanks. And maybe you could make a tutorial for the newbies who have been asking questions about this

[hxh103]

Ok, I had a problem with OSX this past week that I would like to share, and hopefully avoid in the future.

 

First off, I have a dual boot setup, Win 7 and OSX. I use EasyBCD to choose Win 7 or OSX (chameleon 2.0) when I boot up.

 

My problem was that my OSX partition would not boot up. It would go through chameleon and allow me to choose my OSX partition, but it would get stuck. I forgot to write down the whole message but it was something like "Loading HFS partition .... loaded...kb of ....." I don't remember what was in the ... portion.

 

The only thing I can think of that went wrong was that I did a hard shut down (holding the power button) just 30 minutes before. Did this mess something up in the kext or plist? I'm not sure what it was, but this was the only thing I could think of. If it was because of a hard shut down, this begs the question of what happens if my battery died or taken out and the laptop shuts down suddenly. Will this happen again?

 

The only way that I solved this was to use bcc9's 1340 boot CD and booted it up while ignoring the caches. I tried doing this with just the normal boot up through the bootCD as well as my chameleon 2.0 but none of the options would work. This makes me think that one of the files plist or kext was messed up since it booted up with the boot CD which has it's own kext and plist files. I then proceed to verify and repair the disc through disk utility. Then I replaced the plist and kext again just to make sure. It seems to boot up fine now.

 

For future reference, is there another way to get into the OSX partition to fix a panic or some other problems? Is there some tools out there to do this? The only thing I have been using is the boot CD to try to boot into the OSX partition and if it doesn't work then I reinstall...

 

Also, is there anyway to get bcc9's 1340 boot CD on a USB to boot up. I usually aways have a USB stick with me so it would be more convenient

[zaktheman]

For future reference, is there another way to get into the OSX partition to fix a panic or some other problems? Is there some tools out there to do this? The only thing I have been using is the boot CD to try to boot into the OSX partition and if it doesn't work then I reinstall...

 

You can use Apple backup software to make a backup of your installation when it works good. also, having a version of OSX installed on a external drive to edit the hard drive's copy and repair permissions can come in handy.

[olegpronin]

The firewire controller loses its GUID upon wakeup from suspend, logging "FireWire GUID 0000000000000000 is invalid!" over&over to /var/log/kernel.log after wakeup. The workaround in 10.5.x of unloading/reloading the AppleFWOHCI.kext to fix this no longer works as that kext can't be unloaded.

 

so we have ricoh's firewire in one chip with card reader.

 

Device was named P2P0 in dsdt.

 

How can I disable at all this ricoh card reader+firewire device? I don't use firewire and cardreader at all, I want to disable it for delete errors about guid..

 

Any help?

[bcc9]

so we have ricoh's firewire in one chip with card reader.

 

Device was named P2P0 in dsdt.

 

How can I disable at all this ricoh card reader+firewire device? I don't use firewire and cardreader at all, I want to disable it for delete errors about guid..

 

Any help?

I posted a method to disable the firewire driver back in post #619. Still working fine for me.