Lacarno Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 Hello, I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on my Dell Studio XPS 8000 without much luck. My System: Intel Core i7 860 (64 bit) 8GB RAM SATA HDD (new empty drive to be used for SL), DVDRW, Bluray NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240 My BIOS doesn't have the option to enable AHCI. My only SATA options are ATA and RAID. Are there any methods or distributions that will allow SL to be installed without AHCI? I've seen some solutions that works after the OS is installed (kexts). The actual error I get is "waiting for root device". My assumption (after searching the net) is that it is related to AHCI. I did search for solutions without much luck. If a solution has already been posted for this, I'd appreciate a link to the how to or forum topic. I'm pretty much stuck at this point. I don't know how to proceed. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoen!x Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 Hello, I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on my Dell Studio XPS 8000 without much luck. My System: Intel Core i7 860 (64 bit) 8GB RAM SATA HDD (new empty drive to be used for SL), DVDRW, Bluray NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240 My BIOS doesn't have the option to enable AHCI. My only SATA options are ATA and RAID. Are there any methods or distributions that will allow SL to be installed without AHCI? I've seen some solutions that works after the OS is installed (kexts). The actual error I get is "waiting for root device". My assumption (after searching the net) is that it is related to AHCI. I did search for solutions without much luck. If a solution has already been posted for this, I'd appreciate a link to the how to or forum topic. I'm pretty much stuck at this point. I don't know how to proceed. Any suggestions? As much as I know, I don't *think* it's possible yet I could be wrong and I'm sure someone on this forum will tell different if I'm wrong. What BIOS are you using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan-x86 Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 I have no AHCI in my BIOS and I installed both Leopard and Snow Leopard fine. Have you added your device IDs into your ATA controller kext? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoen!x Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 I knew someone would say AHCI isn't needed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacarno Posted September 7, 2010 Author Share Posted September 7, 2010 I have no AHCI in my BIOS and I installed both Leopard and Snow Leopard fine. Have you added your device IDs into your ATA controller kext? Could you please provide some more detail on how to do this or point me in the right direction? How do I modify or add custom kext files before I install SL? I've tried installing with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and a retail DVD and iAtkos - neither work for me. I don't even get to the install screen. As much as I know, I don't *think* it's possible yet I could be wrong and I'm sure someone on this forum will tell different if I'm wrong. What BIOS are you using? I'm using the latest official BIOS version from dell.com for my model machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan-x86 Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 Could you please provide some more detail on how to do this or point me in the right direction? How do I modify or add custom kext files before I install SL? I've tried installing with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and a retail DVD and iAtkos - neither work for me. I don't even get to the install screen. If you can't get to the install screen and don't have any running Mac OS X system to prepare an installation USB device, you can try installing Leopard temporarily to a second partition or hard disk first, then install Snow Leopard from within Leopard to your primary partition and apply the required kexts before rebooting into Snow Leopard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacarno Posted September 8, 2010 Author Share Posted September 8, 2010 If you can't get to the install screen and don't have any running Mac OS X system to prepare an installation USB device, you can try installing Leopard temporarily to a second partition or hard disk first, then install Snow Leopard from within Leopard to your primary partition and apply the required kexts before rebooting into Snow Leopard. I don't have another install of OSX to work with. I might (stress: might) be able to get my hands on a mac book running snow leopard. It sounds like I might be able to make a bootable USB installation disk and perhaps add/edit my own extensions. Is this correct? I'll do some research on this. Feel free to point me in the right direction Also, do you think I will have better luck with Leopard than snow leopard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan-x86 Posted September 10, 2010 Share Posted September 10, 2010 I don't have another install of OSX to work with. I might (stress: might) be able to get my hands on a mac book running snow leopard. It sounds like I might be able to make a bootable USB installation disk and perhaps add/edit my own extensions. Is this correct? I'll do some research on this. Feel free to point me in the right direction You can. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm pretty sure you can just install chameleon with the required kexts on the usb disk, boot chameleon from the usb and then insert a retail, unmodified Mac OS X install DVD and install from there. You can also install directly from USB. Also, do you think I will have better luck with Leopard than snow leopard? None of the Snow Leopard distros worked for me, so I had to install from within Leopard. I also tried about 3 other Leopard distros before I found a working one. If any of the Leopard distros work, just install Leopard to a different partition first and then install Snow Leopard to your primary partition from there. You can also use Leopard to prepare an installation USB disk to have just in case you might need to reinstall Snow Leopard later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacarno Posted September 10, 2010 Author Share Posted September 10, 2010 You can. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm pretty sure you can just install chameleon with the required kexts on the usb disk, boot chameleon from the usb and then insert a retail, unmodified Mac OS X install DVD and install from there. You can also install directly from USB. None of the Snow Leopard distros worked for me, so I had to install from within Leopard. I also tried about 3 other Leopard distros before I found a working one. If any of the Leopard distros work, just install Leopard to a different partition first and then install Snow Leopard to your primary partition from there. You can also use Leopard to prepare an installation USB disk to have just in case you might need to reinstall Snow Leopard later. Thanks for your replies. I really appreciate it. I'll look into doing a USB install option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyLe1294 Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 can someone explain why leopard would install without AHCI...? im going down the route of installing leopard then installing snow leopard but i dont have AHCI and i was wondering how you install it without it..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyLe1294 Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 BUMP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 You use the right drivers for your hard drive controller. On Intel ICHx you can use AppleIntelPIIATA.kext, or the ATA Injector/Legacy kext that are included in the Chameleon bootloader download. Basically, you can either keep downloading hacked distros until you happen to find one that has the right driver for your hardware, or you can install using a boot CD/Flash Drive + retail OS X DVD and add the appropriate driver to your boot CD/Flash Drive yourself. Non-AHCI mode capable drivers might not be available for your particular hardware though....whatever it is. It's strange that you would ask a question like that and not make any mention of the hardware itself. Find out what make and model your drive controller is, then use that as search keywords to find more information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyLe1294 Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 its a Compaq CQ60-405SA as it says in my sig, heres a pic from CPU-Z thanks (: an the board is a Wistron 303C with a NVIDIA Chipset Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 CPU specs are irrelevant, you're looking for information about a motherboard component, not your CPU. I've read your signature but I don't know what's in a Compaq CQ60-405SA, I would have to use google to find out. I think you are perfectly capable of doing that yourself though. Wistron 303C with a NVIDIA Chipset That's not good enough, there are several different model Nvidia chipsets. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_chipsets Use the information you have (motherboard model, Compaq model) to find out what nvidia chipset is on your motherboard, the Southbridge part in particular, that's where the hard drive controller is. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge_%28computing%29 That said...the information you want is probably available on the 'mainboard' tab of CPU-z. Here's mine: When you have the information you're looking for, use the search to find Verdant's nforce installation guides here on IM, he'll have the files you need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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