Dell E520 Leopard Install Guide -- ICH8R Working!

[dr.vox]

Sorry this reply was a bit slower — I went to sleep.

Glad to hear you got the aliases sorted though.

 

What do you mean F1-F12 don't work? They don't really do much in OS X, except F8-F12, which are used for Spaces and Exposé. They don't work at all?

 

As for the Cmd key being the Win key, although this is actually how Apple keyboards are (the Ctrl key is still in the same place and is called the Ctrl key, the Alt key is called the Option key but is the same), I found it annoying too, having to relearn basic shortcuts like Ctrl + C becoming Win + C.

Anyway, to fix it, go into System Preferences and open the Keyboard & Mouse prefpane. Make sure you've got the Keyboard tab selected and click 'Modifier keys...'.

Then you just want to switch the Cmd and Ctrl keys around, so the items in the boxes should read the following (in order): Caps, Command, Option, Control.

And that's it.

Again, anything not quite clear, just ask.

[AKennedy_4]

Sorry for replying late myself. Comcast internet took a {censored} on me all day..

 

But yea, none of the F keys work.. I was trying out expose and spaces and noticed that those keys werent working for me. And i'll try that out and report back

[dr.vox]

Hmm.. sorry, I don't have any suggestions re the function keys.

Which keyboard are you using? The Dell Multimedia bluetooth one shipped with (some?) E520s? I'm still using mine — and the mouse — and they both work perfectly with Dell's BT dongle. Of course, the Back/Forward/Stop/Refresh/Home and Mail/Computer/Calc keys don't work. Neither does the mute button, although it does throw up the bezel with a mute icon on it, it doesn't actually mute the sound... The stop button doesn't work (because iTunes doesn't really have a Stop function) and neither does the media key, but the volume, prev/next/play keys work, as do all the F keys.

[AKennedy_4]

I'm using some dell wireless keyboard.. Not the stock one that came with the dell. So that could possibly be the issue..? I'll search around and try to find a solution

[dr.vox]

I would say it's almost definitely an issue with the keyboard itself (not that the F keys don't work, just that the keyboard is — for some reason — incompatible with OS X, though that is very strange). Try another keyboard if possible.

[AKennedy_4]

I will a little later.. But now im getting an itunes -50 error. I've read up on it and haven't really found a solution. It's keeping me out of the itunes store

[dr.vox]

Sorry for another late reply; dunno if you've fixed it yet, but take a look here.

Nothing I've seen before, so, again, probably to do with you. Although then again, I've never tried downloading any purchased content from iTunes.

 

EDIT: Wait, can you open iTunes or just not download content? It might be an issue with the library, which suggests something went amiss with the Alias situation with your ~/Music folder, which is relatively probable.

[AKennedy_4]

I can open itunes play songs, do everything that doesn't involve interaction with the store.. And i've read that support document and to my knowledge, i dont have anything filtering access to the internet.. Authorizing works fine on my vista partition however. and yea it might be something to do with the library.. I tried backing up and deleting the itunes database files and seeing if itunes would create new ones, it did but that didn't fix the issue either. but i'll try to delete the alias folder for now and see what happens

 

oh and your fine man. Your replies aren't really "late." Your the best tech support i've ever received from an online public forum

[dr.vox]

Deleting the alias won't do much good. I only asked because I saw a post on another forum with a Windows user saying he had an error 50 and the location of the library xml file was thrown around.

 

Strange behaviour though not related to the library files. Tried going to your router's config pages (normally 192.168.x.x) and checking its Firewall settings, if there is any? Not really sure what to suggest, to be honest, seems to be a really weird and probably specific problem.

How is internet access? Assuming everything working fine in that regard.

 

Also, hah, thanks, I do try to be quick though, as one of the things which frustrates me with forum support is how slow it can be. Especially with time differences, you can often be looking at one question and answer a day, which is never very useful if you're dealing with things so specific and complex as computers.

[AKennedy_4]

yea deleting it didn't do ay good..

 

and yea my routers got a firewall on it but if that was the case it wouldn't authorize my vista partition.. but i'll try and see what it does

 

Thanks again for the help

 

EDIT: changing the firewall didnt work either.. I'll try neowin and see if they got any answers.. But still thanks bro. U helped me big time

[dr.vox]

Yeah, but anything's worth a try in these situations.

Oh and be careful about where you mention you're running a Hackintosh; you know how mightier-than-thou a lot of Apple fanboys can be. When possible, don't mention it, but sometimes — like in the cases of hardware-related problems — you have to, in which case make sure you post somewhere relatively Hackintosh-friendly.

 

No problem, man, like I said, any more questions just post here and I'll get an email, or if you want a bit faster communication and not to spam this thread too much, I'm on MSN (transfuse at hotmail dawt co dawt uk) and twitter (transfuse).

[AKennedy_4]

OMGGGG I found the answer to the problem!! Thanks to this thread (yea all it took was a simple search lol)

 

Anyways for those having the same problem the answer lies here:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=55880

 

And its funny that u mention that.. I was thinking the same thing (go to a different level of communication to not spam this thread). But if i have any questions ill hit u up. Thanks a ton again

[dr.vox]

Oh the ol' ethernet connection not being where OS X wants it. Surprised at how poor OS X seems to handle multiple connections in that way.

Heh, never thought of actually searching InsanelyMac, just Googled around briefly.

 

Good to hear it's solved. This is one of the great things of OSx86 in my opinion: overcoming and solving all the little problems you face on the way (although you've had quite a fair few less than I did thanks to this thread ).

[nabxf]

 

iAtkos 7i.

Fully working it seems, and working beautifully.

 

Had to use the audio kexts I posted up previously, as the STAC9227 kexts provided with this (as well as iPC, iDeneb and iAtkos 5i, it seems) don't work for us.

NvDarwin 512MB (from iDeneb disc for 9600GT, QE/CI, dual displays).

Intel82566MM kext (from iDeneb disc too).

 

iAtkos disc's Intel ICHx SATA drivers WITH AHCI DRIVER LISTED ABOVE INTEL CHIPSET DRIVER. If you don't select the AHCI driver you'll get the bloody Still waiting for root device error.

 

No sight of the laggy and slow disk access iDeneb gave (Hard drive I booted from worked fast and fine, but the two other HDs were really slow).

Slightly annoyed I have to reconfigure pretty much everything but glad to now have a stable OS X build which allows me to use all of my drives, so I'm happy.

 

 

hi there dr vox, i actually had ipc up and running yesterday and somehow managed to update to 10.5.7. unfortunately i forgot to install seatbelt.kext, mounted the safari image and got a kernel panic and the system would not work after that.

 

5 installs later and ipc isn't working, so now i'm trying my iAtkos 7i disc. unfortunately i'm getting root device errors each time i try and boot the disc in order to install.

 

i've tried changing the bios from autodetect to raid on back and forth but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

i've also tried numerous kernel flags including -v -x -f cpus=1. could you let me know your bios settings or how you booted the iAtkos disc?

 

i'm on a pentium d, looking at your screenshot in the quoted post i'm assuming you are as well, but let me know if i'm mistaken as it might explain my problems. thanks.

[dr.vox]

Sorry for the slow reply and sorry to hear about your little accident.

 

Why are iPC installs failing, first of all? Is it installing successfully but not booting, or what?

What's your install plan, exactly? How did your format your drive/partition and how did you treat it in between installs (i.e. did you erase the drive through Disk Utility?).

 

Secondly, I can go make a note of my BIOS settings soon. I'll edit them in here.

EDIT: OK these are all the things that I think might have any kind of effect, but I think they'll probably all be the same and won't make any difference no matter which setting they're at. :\

First of all, my BIOS firmware is v2.4.0, what's yours?

Drives > SATA Operation > RAID On.

Performance > Multiple CPU Cores > On.

Performance > Speedstep > On. (Though I don't have the iAtkos Speedstep support installed )

Security > Execute Disable Bit > On.

POST Behaviour > Fast Boot > On.

POST Behaviour > OS Install > Off. (obviously).

 

And yeah, I'm on a Pentium D 915 (Presler), two cores@2.8Ghz, but even if that weren't the case, I don't think the processor would be the problem here as ...Root device error is to do more with the mobo chipset and SATA/IDE arrangements and settings. How are your SATA ports used? How many hard drives and how many optical drives? I'm assuming the standard one optical and one HD, but it's worth asking.

 

You could also maybe try using rd=disk1s2 or wherever the iAtkos disc mounts in your setup, but I never had to, so... Worth trying anyway though.

 

Right I'll reboot now and take a gander at my BIOS.

Hm, so I can't see that making any difference, to be honest... It's strange, though we do seem to have different experiences, like iPC and iDeneb installing fine but giving me Root errors on boot. Slightly annoying and also curious.

Anyway, I gotta go clothes shopping. :\

[nabxf]

Sorry for the slow reply and sorry to hear about your little accident.

 

Why are iPC installs failing, first of all? Is it installing successfully but not booting, or what?

What's your install plan, exactly? How did your format your drive/partition and how did you treat it in between installs (i.e. did you erase the drive through Disk Utility?).

 

Secondly, I can go make a note of my BIOS settings soon. I'll edit them in here.

 

And yeah, I'm on a Pentium D 915 (Presler), two cores@2.8Ghz, but even if that weren't the case, I don't think the processor would be the problem here as ...Root device error is to do more with the mobo chipset and SATA/IDE arrangements and settings. How are your SATA ports used? How many hard drives and how many optical drives? I'm assuming the standard one optical and one HD, but it's worth asking.

 

You could also maybe try using rd=disk1s2 or wherever the iAtkos disc mounts in your setup, but I never had to, so... Worth trying anyway though.

 

Right I'll reboot now and take a gander at my BIOS.

 

on the contrary, it's a very fast reply!

 

basically yesterday, i installed iPC with the following settings

main system

voodoo kernel

intel ichx

sigmatel 9227

seatbelt kext

usb mount fix

efi studio (for the graphics later)

 

it all worked fine. booted, set up the keyboard, ran efi studio, success. i didn't both with network patches because i use a netgear ga311 which works out of the box. i wrote my nvidia 8800gs string with efi studio, rebooted, and had a perfect system. at this point i updated my system to 10.5.7 with the apple software update.

before booting back into the system after the update, i went back to the iPC disc and reinstalled the voodoo kernel only. this worked, and i could boot into a 10.5.7 system. at this point, i tried to mount a dmg and realised that the update had overwritten my modified seatbelt.kext file. booted back into the dvd to remedy in the same way as i did the kernel, got install failed about 90% down the progress bar, been unable to fix it since.

 

between each install i erase the partition with the once-over zero security option inside the dvd's disc utility. every time i install i use the same options, and each install finishes successfully, but i encounter the "still waiting for root device" error everytime i boot with -v -f afterwards. after about 5 installs i gave up and tried iatkos 7i, which gave me a "still waiting for root device" error upon booting the dvd.

 

as i believe we have identical systems (same processor, motherboard and sound) and you got iatkos working, i believe my issue lies in the bios settings.

 

if it's any help, the partition i use for os x is a 30.7gb one at the end of my 232.9gb western digital disc, with all preceding space being taken up by windows 7 rc1 64 bit (slowly phasing back into mac after a very successful spell 6 months ago)

 

thanks a lot for your time.

 

EDIT: Thanks a lot for those BIOS settings, i'll check my desktop (on my laptop at the moment because of the failed desk) and make sure the settings are the same.

 

I'm also on rev. 2.4.0 by the way, I had updated before I started all my hackintosh experiments last year.

 

EDIT2: Ok, i've set my bios to the exact same settings as yours. I put the motherboard back into raid on and enabled speedstep, which was not enabled before.

 

also, after reading what you said about the SATA arrangements playing a big cause in root device errors, I have deactivated my second hard drive's sata port (port 4) so now i only have SATA-0 (my primary hard drive) and SATA-1 (my stock TSSTcorp DVD+/-RW TS-H553A dvd drive from dell) activated. The only other available SATA ports, 4 and 5 are deactivated.

 

I am about to try booting the iAtkos disc with these new settings, i'll get back to you with my results.

Edited July 24, 2009 by nabxf

[nabxf]

Sorry for the slow reply and sorry to hear about your little accident.

 

Why are iPC installs failing, first of all? Is it installing successfully but not booting, or what?

What's your install plan, exactly? How did your format your drive/partition and how did you treat it in between installs (i.e. did you erase the drive through Disk Utility?).

 

Secondly, I can go make a note of my BIOS settings soon. I'll edit them in here.

EDIT: OK these are all the things that I think might have any kind of effect, but I think they'll probably all be the same and won't make any difference no matter which setting they're at. :\

First of all, my BIOS firmware is v2.4.0, what's yours?

Drives > SATA Operation > RAID On.

Performance > Multiple CPU Cores > On.

Performance > Speedstep > On. (Though I don't have the iAtkos Speedstep support installed )

Security > Execute Disable Bit > On.

POST Behaviour > Fast Boot > On.

POST Behaviour > OS Install > Off. (obviously).

 

And yeah, I'm on a Pentium D 915 (Presler), two cores@2.8Ghz, but even if that weren't the case, I don't think the processor would be the problem here as ...Root device error is to do more with the mobo chipset and SATA/IDE arrangements and settings. How are your SATA ports used? How many hard drives and how many optical drives? I'm assuming the standard one optical and one HD, but it's worth asking.

 

You could also maybe try using rd=disk1s2 or wherever the iAtkos disc mounts in your setup, but I never had to, so... Worth trying anyway though.

 

Right I'll reboot now and take a gander at my BIOS.

Hm, so I can't see that making any difference, to be honest... It's strange, though we do seem to have different experiences, like iPC and iDeneb installing fine but giving me Root errors on boot. Slightly annoying and also curious.

Anyway, I gotta go clothes shopping. :\

 

no luck with the bios settings, I also tried using rd=disk1s2 with the same results. I still get "Still waiting for root device" right after the line

 

 Extension "com.apple.driver.iPodSBCDriver" has no explicit kernel dependency; using version 6.0.
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device

 

I'm not really sure what else I can do, I doubt the partition location would affect the dvd booting.

 

Is it possible a bad burn would cause a "Still waiting for root device error"?

I thought a bad burn would just stop the disc from working at all...

I used a Memorex disc, which i'm not sure is as trustworthy as Sony or Verbatim, the next step is to re-burn on a Sony disc maybe.

 

EDIT: definitely not the discs, burnt the iso (md5 check ok) to a sony dvd+r at 1x speed, same result. Giving iPC another try with tweaked settings.

[dr.vox]

Did you try using the Install Disc's Terminal at all?

 

Although the hardware is the same, there will be some minor variations which could explain the problems, but seem unlikely.

 

I don't believe the partition should really matter, especially as you already had a working install before (I posted a while back about my problems of iDeneb and iPC 10.5.6s working fine for one or two boots and then giving a Root error with absolutely no changes whatsoever to software or hardware, just a reboot, despite my knowing the drive/partition was definitely capable of running OS X).

 

Hm, I have all SATA ports On, and although I am currently only using two, I was using all four ports when I installed and can run iAtkos fine no matter which order my SATA devices are plugged in (though sometimes it can matter, so it's worth mentioning anyway). (TSSTCorp and WD 500GB drive, by the way, with a WD 160GB and (Seagate? I forget at the minute, not seen it in ages, but the default E520 HD) 160GB.)

 

Didn't expect it to work, to be honest, not quite sure why but it's just sod's law it wouldn't.

I'm not quite sure what else to do, either. You might want to try get in touch with Karo, as he seems to have a good amount of OSx86 experience as well as an E520 which likes iPC (whereas my PC doesn't) — might have some more luck with him. But when I realised iDeneb and iPC were pretty much lost causes (despite knowing they definitely work with E520s), I just carried on looking around for a distro which would work because it's probably something either too complex or simply out of our hands. :\

 

It is possible a bad burn would result in this, but it's extremely unlikely — odds are terrificly small, and I assume your burning software (I like IMGBurn on Windows) does an MD5 check after burning anyway; most burning software verifies unless told otherwise.

Normally a bad burn would probably cause an unbootable disc, but if it happened to {censored} out at one specific point, it's possible it may have corrupted an essential part of the disc to do with the chipset kexts or something. Very unlikely though.

I used {censored} discs — oh, I just looked and it's Memorex, lol — for all of my burning of all OSes — Win7, Kalyway, iAtkos 5, iAtkos 7, iPC, iDeneb, Gparted, DSL, and a few more — but they've almost always been perfect, so I've never really bought the 'quality (i.e. expensive) discs are significantly better' thing.

[Just read the edit]Oh you did do the checks. Hah. Oh and I always burn at x4 or x8 with no problems. The TSSTCorp seems to be a quality drive for writing, in my experience, even with {censored} media.

 

Hm. Well. I don't quite know what to recommend, unfortunately... Sorry. :\

All I can say is keep trying and maybe think about looking at other distros, and although it shouldn't really be necessary, I don't think it's something we can diagnose without a large amount of difficulty. :\

[nabxf]

Did you try using the Install Disc's Terminal at all?

 

Although the hardware is the same, there will be some minor variations which could explain the problems, but seem unlikely.

 

I don't believe the partition should really matter, especially as you already had a working install before (I posted a while back about my problems of iDeneb and iPC 10.5.6s working fine for one or two boots and then giving a Root error with absolutely no changes whatsoever to software or hardware, just a reboot, despite my knowing the drive/partition was definitely capable of running OS X).

 

Hm, I have all SATA ports On, and although I am currently only using two, I was using all four ports when I installed and can run iAtkos fine no matter which order my SATA devices are plugged in (though sometimes it can matter, so it's worth mentioning anyway). (TSSTCorp and WD 500GB drive, by the way, with a WD 160GB and (Seagate? I forget at the minute, not seen it in ages, but the default E520 HD) 160GB.)

 

Didn't expect it to work, to be honest, not quite sure why but it's just sod's law it wouldn't.

I'm not quite sure what else to do, either. You might want to try get in touch with Karo, as he seems to have a good amount of OSx86 experience as well as an E520 which likes iPC (whereas my PC doesn't) — might have some more luck with him. But when I realised iDeneb and iPC were pretty much lost causes (despite knowing they definitely work with E520s), I just carried on looking around for a distro which would work because it's probably something either too complex or simply out of our hands. :\

 

It is possible a bad burn would result in this, but it's extremely unlikely — odds are terrificly small, and I assume your burning software (I like IMGBurn on Windows) does an MD5 check after burning anyway; most burning software verifies unless told otherwise.

Normally a bad burn would probably cause an unbootable disc, but if it happened to {censored} out at one specific point, it's possible it may have corrupted an essential part of the disc to do with the chipset kexts or something. Very unlikely though.

I used {censored} discs — oh, I just looked and it's Memorex, lol — for all of my burning of all OSes — Win7, Kalyway, iAtkos 5, iAtkos 7, iPC, iDeneb, Gparted, DSL, and a few more — but they've almost always been perfect, so I've never really bought the 'quality (i.e. expensive) discs are significantly better' thing.

[Just read the edit]Oh you did do the checks. Hah. Oh and I always burn at x4 or x8 with no problems. The TSSTCorp seems to be a quality drive for writing, in my experience, even with {censored} media.

 

Hm. Well. I don't quite know what to recommend, unfortunately... Sorry. :\

All I can say is keep trying and maybe think about looking at other distros, and although it shouldn't really be necessary, I don't think it's something we can diagnose without a large amount of difficulty. :\

 

Since my last post i've tried iPC twice more, with no change, and iAtkos still isn't booting

it's so strange that I was able to boot it yesterday, the only thing i can think of is that there are bits on the hard drive being left behind by the erase, which i know is wishful thinking.

I'll give up on these two distros for now, maybe when I get a new hard drive down the road i'll try again with a fresh start.

 

something new i'm trying right now is installing iAtkos 4i, which I know works on my system, and then try to update from there, which may work, though there are issues with that like corrupted bootloader and no QE that i'll have to tackle too. ah well, it'll occupy my time this summer.

 

I'll PM karos and see if he can help me in any way since you said he's got iPC working, and i'll see where I get from this point on.

 

Thanks a lot for your help, it's been a very helpful day and i've had probably more assistance from you than i have in any other topic i've been involved in on this board.

[dr.vox]

It really is weird, but I've had a very similar experience too, so clearly can't be terribly uncommon with E520s. :s

 

Hope Karos is of some help, and hope you can get something sorted.

Oh, one last thing, I've always used Kalyway 10.5.2 as a base for OSx86 as it seems to be really — for want of a better word — sturdy and reliable. If any distro will work, Kalyway will. So you might want to try that. If the worst comes to be, you can just upgrade Kalyway through to .7.

 

Glad to be of help.

Don't forget to update us with your progress.

[nabxf]

UPDATE!:

 

I got iPC 10.5.6 working!

 

I went on a final last ditch attempt before giving up, and it was definitely worth it!

 

Here's how I got it working:

 

Bios mode: ATA/Autodetect mode

Speedstep enabled (not sure if this helps)

i don't think the other settings matter

 

booted iPC disc with -v flag - all good.

 

boxes checked:

iPC OSx86 10.5.6 Base System

Language Translations > ALL

Kernels > 9.4 StageXNU kernel

Drivers > Chipset > Intel ICH10 SATA Support, NOT ICHx!!!!!!

Drivers > Audio > Sigmatel 9227

Drivers > USB Drivers > Patched USB Drivers

Fixes and Patches > Seatbelt.kext 10.5.5

Applications > EFI Studio

 

About to update to 10.5.7 as before (with seatbelt.kext this time ) once i submit this to the OSx86 wiki.

Rebooted twice, pretty sure this one's going to hold.

 

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

EDIT:

 

Ok, successfully updated to 10.5.7.

 

- First, I backed up seatbelt.kext and mach_kernel.

 

- Updated through software update, let update run its course.

 

- At reboot, booted into iPC dvd again before allowing bootloader to appear.

 

- Unticked everything except Voodoo kernel and Sigmatel 9227 (was unable to tick language packs, it insisted on "upgrading" all of them)

 

- Allowed install to complete. Was 1.8gb, finished in approximately 9 minutes.

 

- rebooted into os x with -v -f flags, received still waiting for root message.

 

- reboot again, this time with -v -f -x flags, successfully booted into os x.

 

- Restored seatbelt.kext from backup.

 

- rebooted with only -v flag, successful boot in approximately 2 minutes.

 

- all good after that, the system is working nicely on 10.5.7. yay!

[AKennedy_4]

Hm So i got my F Keys to work for anyone whos interested.. All I had to do was to press F Lock (Top right Part of keyboard). No All keys are working that are revelant to OSX (Even Multimedia keys)

[dr.vox]

@nabfx: Good to hear, man.

Shame about your solution though; I definitely tried ICH10 kexts on both iPC and iDeneb several times each but to no avail.

Ah well, iAtkos is pretty damn good, imo.

For future reference, you might want to try Pacifist instead of booting to the install disc. Bit faster and easier.

 

@futuregator: Also good to hear. We've obviously not got the same keyboards, then, as this one doesn't even have an F-lock.

 

Good-oh.

[nabxf]

@dr.vox

 

haha yeah, i've since realised i can actually extract kernels with pacifist, used to think it was just kexts. I found that my voodoo kernel wasn't working with sleep so I changed to the ToH 9.2 kernel, but didn't get sleep with that either. I'll change back to voodoo when i can be bothered to reboot

 

@futuregator

 

what keyboard are you using? i'm using a Microsoft Wireless Multimedia Keyboard 1.1 and all my media keys work great, but all the other buttons like calculator and stuff don't work. I only ask because you've got an F-Lock key, which i've only ever seen on microsoft wireless keyboards.

[AKennedy_4]

Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 2.2:

My sleep button works and but the the calculator and few certain other buttons don't work