Dell Vostro 1500 Mega Thread

[Hexidecimal]

Okay! Since this community was so helpful in getting my Vostro 1500 turned into a Hackbook Pro, and it required flipping through several different threads, i thought I would compile everything I had to look up into one Mega Vostro thread. This information took me from a stock Vostro 1500 with Windows XP Home, to a Dual Booting, 10.5.2 Leopard w/ Vanilla 9.2.0 Kernel, and XP Pro X64. I will also do my best to provide links to 64 bit XP drivers for this unit, as that was honestly the most time consuming, and headache causing part of this whole ordeal. I will also let you know that I have not found a working 56k Modem driver for Windows XP x64, so if this is a deal breaker, you can just stop reading here!

 

First I'm going to start with the basics, this guide is written for a Dell Vostro 1500 laptop speced as follows:

 

Model - Vostro 1500

CPU - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5270 (1.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)

Operating System - Genuine Windows XP Home Edition (Changing out to OS X 10.5.1 & Windows XP Professional)

LCD Panel - 15.4" inch Wide Screen XGA LCD Display

Memory - 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM

Video Card - 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS

Hard Drive - 160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive

Integrated NIC and Modem - Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem

Optical Drive - 8X CD/DVD+RW Read and Burn CD and DVD

Sound Card - High Definition Audio 2.0

Wireless Cards - Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card

Primary Battery - 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Bluetooth - Wireless Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)

 

At the end of this guide, if you have this configuration, you should have a working Vostro 1500 that Dual Boots Leopard and XP x64 where 98% of OSx86 is working. I will tell you right now the following I have not bothered to start messing with ATM, and are not currently working.

 

Speedstep - I work primarily plugged in, and I have it disabled in the BIOS because I want to be at 1.4 Ghz at all times, so I don't really care if this works or not.

Battery Meter - There is a wonderful guide for this in MacGirl's Dell thread (found here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=83039) that I'm sure if I took the time, it would work, but I haven't so it doesn't.

Sleep - Were you really expecting it to anyways?

Reboot/Power Down - Reboot was working at initial install, but since I patched the audio it hasn't been. The system blacks out, but never totally shuts off, I just do that manually. If anyone has a fix for this, I would really appriciate it as it's the only thing about my install that kind of bugs me.

 

What is working:

 

Dual Core CPU

1280x800 Resolution w/ full switching and QE/CI support, Dual Monitor shows up but is untested

Properly Detects RAM speed and Processor Type

Integrated 10/100 LAN

DVD Read tested and working fine, have yet to test writing

Audio working on internal speakers and headphone jack, have not tested mic in

Wireless out of the box, detected as Airport

Bluetooth

 

This should give you everything you need for everyday use, the system also stays very cool, never getting warmer then it does normally in windows, I dont' have an exact temp for you sorry.

 

Alright, now that we know what to expect once you've finished up, lets get start on the making it work part. You will need to following:

 

1 x copy iATKOSir2 Burned to DVD (iATKOSi will probably work as well, I just had iATKOSir2 burned already)

1 x copy GParted Live CD

1 x copy Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (I recommend a volume license, easier that way.)

1 x Vostro 1500 as configured above

1 x kalyway_hack_10.5.2ComboUpdate

1 x kalyway_10.5.2_kernels.mpkg.zip

Patience

Time

A basic working knowledge of your computer

 

First! Power up your Vostro and make sure it is set to boot to DVD first, then HDD. Once this is done, insert your iATKOSir2 DVD and reboot.

 

Let iATKOSir2 load, and then open Disc Utility. Select a 2 Partition Configuration, and size them accordingly for what you want each OS to have. I have mine split evenly, with 80 GB dedicated to each OS.

 

Format partition 1 as HFS+ Journaled, and leave partition 2 as Free Space.

 

Once this is done, close Disc Utility, and continue your install to the HFS+ Journaled partition, mine is called Leopard. When you get to the screen with the Customize option, click it and select the following options ONLY!

 

EFI Bootloader and all sub options

Broadcom 440x Network Driver

 

Then click continue, and skip the DVD check, and prepare to wait, it takes a bit for the OS to install.

 

Once this is done, the system should say Successfully Installed! and show you the Green Checkmark of success +1! Restart your laptop, and insert your GParted Live CD. Press enter through the options until you get to the disc utility.

 

Next you are going to want to select your HFS+ Journaled partition and enable the Boot flag to make that drive bootable. Once this is done, you can close the disc utility, and reboot your system. Remove the GParted Live CD and you should be prompted with the darwin boot loader.

 

At this point, press enter, and boot with the -v flag just to be safe, the system shouldn't hang up, but just in case, I always boot with -v on the first run through. Once the system runs through its boot, you should be booted with a choppy version of the Leopard Intro Video. Don't Panic! We're going to make the graphics work very shortly.

 

Run through the account creation process, and press Clover+Q to skip the registration page, (it should be Alt+Q on your keyboard) and boot to your new Leopard Desktop for the first time.

 

Once at the desktop, we have a couple of things to take care of, namely Video, Audio and Updating to 10.5.2 w/ vanilla kernel 9.2.0 + Leopard Graphics Update.

 

First we're going to start with graphics, I tried several different installers to make my 8400M GS 128 work, and in the end the only one that actually worked for me was this one: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=83931

 

You want to click GET IT HERE in the first post, then go to the DOWNLOAD PAGE and getNVInstaller v.33.

 

Once this file is downloaded, you want to run the .pkg files and install for your card accordingly, which should be the following options:

 

Final 10.5.2 kexts

128mb card

 

then click continue and let the installer do its thing. Reboot, and you should now have fully working graphics with Resolution switching, and full QE/CI. To be safe, once again when you reboot, I would recommend booting with -v to debug any issues that might incur.

 

Next step, working audio! This one took me a few trys, but thankfully, the wiki for 10.5.1 on this unit will work perfectly, I'm going to link it here, and then explain it. Here is the wiki link: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...les#Vostro_1500

 

For those too lazy to click through, here is basically what you want to do.

 

- Get the AppleHDA Patcher v1.20 from here - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=32859

- Get the Stac9205.txt Linux Codec dump from here - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry581566

- Get the AppleHDA.kext.zip file from here - http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry586908

 

Put these files on your desktop. Once this is done, you want to drag the Stac9205.txt file into AppleHDA Patcher v1.20. You will see some text in the box, and then it will say Done or Complete or something along those lines. Now, before you reboot, take the AppleHDA.kext file you downloaded fromt he last link, and put it in System/Library/Extensions. It will ask you to authenticate with your user password, and overwrite the file, this is fine, do so.

 

Then go to Applications/Utilities/Disc Utility, select your Leopard install drive, and repair permissions, then reboot. Again I recommend using the -v flag to check for errors, but you shouldn't encounter any.

 

Once OS X boots again you should not have fully working audio, at least to the extent I have tested it.

 

This is all I really had to do to get the machine to the point I'm happy with it driver wise. Next, we're going to move on to the 10.5.2 update, which is a relatively simple process.

 

For this process, I used the following link: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=620755

 

For those of you too lazy to click through again, I'm going to quote that post, and give my thanks to Kalyway for this update, as well as Foodie Monster for the process that worked for me, so thanks guys!

 

Excuse me if I quote one of my favorite games of '07 here: "This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS!"

 

I am now running Mac OS X 10.5.2, with Vanilla Kernel 9.2 (Yup the updated one!), GUID, EFI and all that stuff! Just wanted to report to all of you that on my system (check specs in my Signature) I just did the following:

 

1) Procure the necessary files: Search at "The Bay" (You know, where everybody says "Yarr!", drink Grog and eat oranges to fight scurvy) for the files: you are looking for Kalyway's ComboUpdate for 10.5.2 as well as the other file, the Updated Kernel (I can't link here, but do a search for "kalyway" for the first file, and a search for "kernel" for the second file - make sure you sort by date so you can find it easily smile.gif )

 

2) Once you have the files, BACKUP ANY IMPORTANT DATA - Everything in Hackintosh is YMMV, so if you are playing the game, might as well know the rules. Only once you've done this, you can proceed to installing the Combo Update (KalywayUpdCombo10.5.2.pkg) - Yes there are other files in your download, don't worry about them.

 

3) Once that's done and it asks you to restart, leave the window open and open up Disk Utility. Why? Because repairing permissions is never a bad idea. I don't know if it's necessary, but I did it and my system is working perfectly with no hitches.

 

4) Restart your system by clicking the Button. Once you do this, you'll see the Apple Screen, and after a long while, the system will reboot. THIS IS NORMAL! Don't panic! Once it reboots, it'll stay in the Apple Screen again, and then everything will go black. Very black. The system will stay that way for several minutes (some people say up to 3-4 minutes, it was about 2-3 for me), but after that period in which no doubt you've been holding your breath, you'll see the Blue desktop signaling that it lives! And after a few moments, your wallpaper will pop up and congrats, you are now in 10.5.2! biggrin.gif

 

Now, if you don't want the new Kernel, you are done here. Go make yourself a sandwich. If you do want to install the new Kernel though, do the following:

 

5) After doing all of above, crack open the new "kalyway_10.5.2_kernels.mpkg.zip" file. Inside there'll be a file called "kalyway_10.5.2_kernels.mpkg". Run this, and you'll have 2 options. Select the appropriate for your system - there's a description when you select either that'll help you chose. In my case, I chose the first one for Vanilla Kernel.

 

6) Reboot when prompted. It'll boot back into your desktop, no fuzz, and you'll have the 9.2.0 Darwin kernel. Congratulations! YOU NEW KING OF FIGHTERS!

 

So there you have it. Mind you, I have not installed the Graphics Update yet, not until I hear some confirmation that it won't screw up my Install. But if you are not hard pressed for that Graphics Update, those are the steps I followed to get my system to be up-to-date to the latest version of OS X, with the latest Kernel.

 

Hope that helps any of you! Cheers and good luck!

 

Once you finished with that process, that's pretty much it! You can now proceed to do the Leopard Graphics Update and not worry about anything, it works perfectly fine on this build. You should now have a fully updated Leopard install with 10.5.2 compliments of iATKOS and Kalyway (thanks again guys!) with a full 9.2.0 Vanilla Kernel.

 

Now, if you have no interest in Dual Booting your machine, scurry off and start installing whatever OS X apps you want (I recommend Onyx, Geekbench, XSlimmer, Adium and Parallels Desktop {for when you're too lazy to reboot to hit windows if you are dual booting})

 

If, however, you are interested in dual booting, it's time to move on to Installing Windows XP Professional X64.

 

Dual Booting!

 

For this section, you will be using that XP Pro x64 disc I was talking about. To start, reboot your computer with the XP Pro x64 disc in drive, and begin the setup process.

 

Once you get to the partition options, it will tell you that another partition on this machine has been marked as bootable, and that windows will need to change this in order for the computer work properly, and that you can change this option from within windows at any time. Don't worry about it, and let it change the boot flag on this partition.

 

You should now be looking at 2 partitions, mine listed as this

 

C: Unknown Partition

E: Unpartitioned Space

 

You want to select E: and partition create a New Partition on it, and then reboot your system.

 

The reason for this is that windows automatically assigns any valid partition C:, even if it can't use it. If you try and install to E: it's going to give you a headache in the long run, so just partition and reboot.

 

Once back to this screen, proceed to install XP Pro x64 to your new C: Partition, which should now show up as:

 

C: New Partition

 

I just formatted it to NTFS (quick) and let the installer do it's thing.

 

Once this is all done, you should be looking at your XP x64 Desktop.

 

I'm also going to highlight this simply for the irony of it. It is easier to get OSx86 to work on this laptop, then to get an x64 build of windows to function properly, the drivers are buried in Dell's website, or often the manufacturers directly, and it took me about 4 or 5 hours to get everything working.

 

As I'm sure most of you are familiar with windows, I'm not going to go into a long detailed process on how to install drivers unless they are particularly hard, what I will do is provide links to the proper drivers, so you don't have the wild goose chase I did getting this thing to work. So here we go

 

Start with this driver, as it's the Intel Chipset - http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=205326

 

To get the nVidia GeForce 8400M GS 128 to work you will need to get the latest drivers from this link - http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_169.21_whql.html and get the modified INF file from this link - http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index....showtopic=16155

 

Run the nvidia installer until it tells you that there has been no compatible video device on this computer. Then go to C:\NVIDIA\Win2KAMD64\169.21\English and put the modified .INF file in this directory. Once that's done run Setup.exe again, and it should install your graphics driver properly.

 

For the Broadcom Network card you want this driver - http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/4401.php

For the Dell 1490 Wifi Card you want this driver - http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=236819

For the Dell 355 Bluetooth you want this driver - http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=216131

For Audio you want this driver - http://www.softwarepatch.com/utilities/int...-hd-driver.html

For the 3 Base System Devices you want this driver - http://members.driverguide.com/driver/deta...mp;action=filfo (This is all three aspects of the card reader, one for each, you'll have to try each one separately as I don't remember the proper order)

 

I believe thats it really. I don't recall there being any other issues with this unit. I will of course tell you you need to go and grab XP SP2 for x64 Professional, which is about 350 MB, happy downloading and that you should run a full course of windows updates afterwards.

 

Once this is all said and done, and your windows install is configured the way you like it, the dual boot step is super easy, at least it was for me. All you do is reboot, and put the GParted Live CD back in your computer, and re-mark the HFS+ Journaled partition as bootable, and when the darwin boot loader comes up, you hit enter, it should now give you the following options

 

(hd0,1)Leopard

(hd0,2)Windows

 

Which is pretty self explanatory, pick Leopard for OS X and Windows for your windows install.

 

So, yep, that should take care of it honestly! If I missed any XP x64 Drivers, please let me know and I'll dig up which ones I missed and try and get them posted here for you, as I know its a pain in the ass to try and find them all scattered all over the intarwebs.

 

Again I would like to thank the following members of the community that got this up and running with their subsequent guides and files and other contributions to this project:

 

macgirl

Kalyway

ToH and the whole iATKOS Team

Foodie Monster

Taruga

johnniecarcinogen

 

Any others I missed I apologize, but there are several different people in this guide, so thanks to you all as well if I missed you!

 

Good Luck Folks, and please leave your comments here so I can find out who's having what issues, and hopefully help you correct them! This may for for other units, but I make no promises!

[stangri]

Are you not having any problems with the restart/shutdown as a result of the NVInject/Taruga updates? Also, does the mute button on the keyboard work?

 

I've had an original Leopard DVD handy so I've used it along with the EFI_Pack and in the result everything but the sound/video worked (even the media keys on the keyboard were causing the proper OSDs), but as soon as I installed HDA Update and NVInject the mute button no longer works and the computer doesn't properly shutdown or reset.

 

Ah, also, I can't switch bluetooth off, I've read somewhere on the forums it's a result of it being used in Vista, but lost the thread.

[Hexidecimal]

Same problem, once I use Taruga and NVInstaller v.33 I can no longer reboot properly, or shut down.

[stangri]

I know it's a dirty fix, but if you've used the package installer for video drivers mentioned above, just remove all the NV*.kext from the Extensions folder and restart/shutdown will work again.

 

DO NOT try to replace them with the vanilla kexts!

[Hexidecimal]

That is correct, this re-enables Rebooting and Shutting Down properly, but it also kills QE/CI.

 

The best solution it would seem would be to install PC_EFI v8 manually and use the Graphic String option in the Macgirl thread, at least until someone else can come up with a fix...

[zeroprime]

Hey, thanks for this thread. I've had a Vostro 1500 for a while and was thinking of trying to get Leopard to run on it. I've never messed with this sort of thing before so having step by step like that will be very usefull. I'll try it out over the next few days and report back with how well it works.

[stangri]

That is correct, this re-enables Rebooting and Shutting Down properly, but it also kills QE/CI.

 

The best solution it would seem would be to install PC_EFI v8 manually and use the Graphic String option in the Macgirl thread, at least until someone else can come up with a fix...

 

Ah, damn it, you're right. I did start with the PC_EFI v8, I do have macgirl's string in the Boot.plist file (and the gfxutil output on my system is exactly like macgirl's), but once I remove the NV* kexts the QE/CI do not work (at least DVD Player says no capable video device is found).

 

I'm running a vanilla 10.5 kernel tho, could that be a problem? Will try to upgrade to kalyway 10.5.2 and report back.

[Hexidecimal]

Just another note, the only file that is causing the hang appears to be NVInject.kext. So if someone can find a solution for that it would be awesome.

[gkrangers]

I just installed OSX with your directions. I'm at the audio part. I followed the instructions and the speaker icon showed up. In the audio hardware window, it shows HD Audio. Even the volume and mute buttons on the laptop function. However, there is no sound through the laptop speakers.

 

I'm also having the same reboot/shutdown issue. It started occuring after I installed the audio patches.

 

Oh, and when I patch the Stac9205.txt, the patcher says "Unsupported Sigmatel codec detected". Is it supposed to say that, or is the stac file bad?

[Hexidecimal]

If you use the files linked here, and follow the steps listed it should work, at least it worked for me, there is a page about it in the Wiki as well on the 10.5.1 HCL for Portable Computers. Give that a try.

[gkrangers]

If you use the files linked here, and follow the steps listed it should work, at least it worked for me, there is a page about it in the Wiki as well on the 10.5.1 HCL for Portable Computers. Give that a try.

 

Followed it step by step. No dice.

 

I'll give it another shot tomorrow. Although right now I'm having a problem with partitioning the disk. I get a "Disk erase failed: resource busy" message.

[m0oskk]

Try erasing the entire hard drive first before you attempt to partition it. I ran into that problem a few times, but I managed to get the Disk Utility to erase. Otherwise use the LiveCD (I use Ubuntu) to reformat the drive.

[gkrangers]

Try erasing the entire hard drive first before you attempt to partition it. I ran into that problem a few times, but I managed to get the Disk Utility to erase. Otherwise use the LiveCD (I use Ubuntu) to reformat the drive.

 

Yeah, I'm going to do that now.

 

I'm running the A00 BIOS on my Vostro. Would it make a difference if I upgraded to the newest one?

[gkrangers]

It's incredibly frustrating that the same exact steps that worked yesterday, do not work today.

 

I've set the boot flag on the drive 4 times now and it still won't boot. This happened to me yesterday too, but it worked after I changed it a 2nd or 3rd time.

[iwantsound44]

any one get time machine to work with their vostro 1500....................i have a vostro 1500 and battery meter works with iatkos then upgraded to 10.5.2 and the new vanilla kernel everything works except reboot shutdown and sleep and time machine

[gkrangers]

Now after I install and go to GParted to set the boot flag, there is this phantom 200MB FAT32 partition. I know I'm following everything word for word on here, and it worked for me yesterday...

 

Three installs now and this keeps showing up, and I still can't boot into OSX. Gparted forces a flag of "msftres" on it. The hfs+ partition with OSX on it is set to boot, but it won't.

[gkrangers]

I think I may have injured my hard drive. No luck with getting OSX to boot, and now when I tried to install Windows (on a clean partition), it hangs at crcdisk.sys. Also having problems with hard drive tools from the Ultimate Boot CD. Wonderful..

[m0oskk]

Yeah, you might want update your BIOS. Just that general rule of having things updated. My BIOS is currently A05, I believe. That would probably be the only reason I would have XP or Vista, just to apply the Dell updates in the noobish method.

 

 

EDITED:

As soon as I get home later today, I'll post up my BIOS settings. But you might want to play with that here and there. I just remember my laptop being set on ATA instead of ACIP (my bad if I mis-quoted that).

 

 

there's a post patch for iATKOS called "EqUaTe's iATKOs patch", it's suppose to fix up some boot up problems a lot of users have been experiencing. So you might have better luck with that patch.

[gkrangers]

Yeah, you might want update your BIOS. Just that general rule of having things updated. My BIOS is currently A05, I believe. That would probably be the only reason I would have XP or Vista, just to apply the Dell updates in the noobish method.

 

 

EDITED:

As soon as I get home later today, I'll post up my BIOS settings. But you might want to play with that here and there. I just remember my laptop being set on ATA instead of ACIP (my bad if I mis-quoted that).

 

 

there's a post patch for iATKOS called "EqUaTe's iATKOs patch", it's suppose to fix up some boot up problems a lot of users have been experiencing. So you might have better luck with that patch.

Yeah, I wanted to go ahead and reinstall Vista or XP, but they won't boot either...which is leading me towards a hard drive issue. Not too mention KillDisk crashes too.

 

Anyway..I just bought the Travelstar 200GB 7200RPM hard drive from NewEgg for $135 after rebates. Pretty hot deal on it. Thing should bring a huge performance boost to Windows and OSX.

[Noom]

Hi Hexidecimal,

 

Thank you very much for your vivid instructions of installation. I followed your and it work. smile.gif

I'm trying to make the rest of driver and update to 10.5.2 working. I'll post the results later.

 

Have a nice day.

[gok]

any one get time machine to work with their vostro 1500....................i have a vostro 1500 and battery meter works with iatkos then upgraded to 10.5.2 and the new vanilla kernel everything works except reboot shutdown and sleep and time machine

 

Vostro 1500 here, time machine working after upgrade IONetworkingFamily.kext

[gkrangers]

When I install OSX (following the directions exactly), I end up with /dev/sda1 fat32 200MiB with a boot flag as the default. I also get the /dev/sda2 hfs+ with no flags.

 

Shouldn't I only be getting the hfs+ partition?

 

Even when I change the boot flag to the hfs+ partition, it will not boot. The fat32 partition gets a msftres flag that I can't remove. I don't understand why this is happening. I've tried installing this way 5 or 6 times now, and it worked the first time. But every time since I'm having these problems.

[Noom]

Hi there,

 

I successfully install by following Hexidecimal's instructions word by word, his spec same with me exactly.

Now I've 10.5.2+9.2.0 kernel.

 

1. Is that mean I can go to download Software Update without any harm?.

 

2. What happen if the update isn't work and what should I do to restore back to my working leopard before update software?.

 

3. Is Time Machine like restore function in Windows?. (I'm a mac's beginner).

 

4. I want to make a dual boot by installation Windows Vista into a second partition, but I'm afraid windows vista boot loader will screw up the Darwin bootloader and making me can't boot leopard again. I used to install leopard after Vista(1st partition) and it didn't work. Any helpful links or suggestions.

 

Thanks in advance for all of helps.

[gkrangers]

Well, here's an update on my condition. I have Leopard installed once again. I think my problem was stemming from not setting the partition to MBR (I was using GUID). I'm also using the iATKOSi "R3" now. I have the base 10.51 installed right now, and I'm running a software update. I will see if it installs the 10.5.2 and 9.2.0 updates without running the kalyway patches that are posted above.

 

Still cannot get audio working. I even installed XP yesterday and couldn't get the audio working. I'm wondering if there was some kind of actual physical hardware failure....

 

 

EDIT: It would appear doing a software update to 10.5.2 and 9.2.0 killed my install. So that doesn't work. Time to reinstall again.

[shaasH]

This is probably the most newbie user friendly guide I've read for the Vostro so far, thanks for writing it Hexidecimal.I've got the exact same Vostro as you, minus the Bluetooth. I also want to make my system dual boot to Leopard and XP Professional, but I've got the plain old 32bit version. Unfortunetely I can't even get to the Windows install because I get stuck trying to install iatkosir2.

 

I followed your instructions to the letter, I boot with iatkosir2 and open the Disk Utility. I partioned and formatted the same as you... 2 partions of equal size, GUID format... one HFS+, the other left as Free Space. I selected the same options (EFI bootloader only and the Broadcomm Network Driver). The install goes normally and I get the green check mark and successful install message. I then reboot and insert the GParted LiveCD and I set the boot flag on the HFS+ partition and okay the change. I restart and remove the GParted CD... the BIOS proceeds as normal, but then the system just stops and all I get is a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen... the same thing that happens when the hard drive is completely blank/unpartioned... the system isn't seeing the Leopard install or bootloader on the HD. And then when I try and boot with the iatkos DVD-R in the drive, it just loads the installer again and I'm back at square one.

 

I've tried starting the install all over and deleting the partions and reinstalling iatkosir2, and trying to boot without using GParted... I used a method I found on these forums to set the partion as active by pressing F8, typing -s, then fdisk -e /dev/disk0s2 and some other commands, but I still end up with the same result.. the blinkng cursor and nothing loading.

 

The only success I've had with iatkosir2 is to install it with no options at all selected in the customize menu... then the install will go through successfully, but the computer still won't boot on it's own. However, if I leave the iatkosir2 dvd-r in the drive, it will then boot to Leopard. Unfortunetely though, it will ONLY boot with the dvd-r in the drive.... and my dell 1390 wireless card isn't recognized (I assume because I never checked the Broadcomm setting) and Airport won't work. Leopard is no good to me without the Wireless working, so this install is not considered a success for me, and I haven't tried to proceed further at that point and make the graphics and sound changes.... I need to get it so it boots on it's own without the DVD-R (and ultimately will dual boot with XP-Pro32) and so the wireless, graphics and sound all work.

 

Can you help ? The only thing I can think of that could be different from my PC to yours is the BIOS settings... I tried the install with Speed-Step both on and off in the BIOS and still got the dreaded non-loading blinking cursor and unsuccessful install... I've had it off mostly because that's the way yours is configured. Can you please give me a run down of all of your bios settings so I can check them against mine and find out why this install works on your Vostro 1500 and not mine ? Thanks.

 

Well, here's an update on my condition. I have Leopard installed once again. I think my problem was stemming from not setting the partition to MBR (I was using GUID).

Well, thanks to this post I MAY have found my problem.Trying a reinstall now with the Partion Map set to MBR instead of GUID.... will check back in when the install is done.I could have sworn I tried using MBR in a previous install with no success... but now I am questioning whether I set the boot flag correctly on that install.We'll see what happens... (fingers crossed...)