What else can cause the "prohibited" icon at startup?

[lossfound]

Yes, I have read that the "prohibited" icon (at the white/grey Mac startup / spinner screen) means a possible problem with the bus settings on HDD and DVD-ROM drives. However, these are both set up correctly.

 

The install was going just great as per my installs on actual Mac hardware, then rebooted (maybe automatically? I wasn't watching), and now this is what I've got in front of me. It takes about two minutes of sitting through the spinner/Apple screen before the circle/cross finally comes up.

 

Machine won't boot from the installer disc now and I can't get it to do Darwin verbose mode either (F8 is doing diddily squat).

 

Using JaS 10.4.7 installer on a Sony VGN-S460P laptop that should be basically entirely compatible after an extensive pre-install hardware check. I'm basically just looking for good clues at this point. Thanks, y'all

[Rammjet]

If the "prohibited" sign appears after you have installed, it means that you did not choose the right packages during installation. Right before clicking the Install button, you had to first click the Customize button and choose the right packages for your computer. Clicking the little arrow in front of the patches category reveals the individual packages. Choose only Intel, not AMD packages. Choose SSE2 or SSE3, not both, depending upon the capability of your processor. Choose the combo updater if you want the latest OS.

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...ost&id=4499

 

When the computer boots, the screen turns black and then grey with the spinning icon. As soon as the screen turns black, start tapping the F8 key repeatedly and quickly until a command prompt appears. Enter -v for verbose mode. It will give the "waiting for root device" error.

 

Try harder with booting the installer DVD because you are going to have to reinstall.

[lossfound]

Thanks, Rammjet! I wondered if it might not be a package issue (the Pentium M lacking SSE3 and all)-- I had not seen the package-choice screen on install but came across mention of it in my searches, so based on this and the thread above I'm pretty sure it is something to do with this. I know the general routine for tricking booting OSes and BIOSes with a hotkey as described, but this just doesn't seem to be going... believe me, I've tried about 25 times. So I think I will just wipe the disk with QTParted and try again after motorcycle training day is over tomorrow.