B.L.E.A.K Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Hi all, I don't understand one thing, this was the same system on which I had installed OS X Leopard and that happened like a hot knife through butter. But now it looks like an endless loop of the 'Still waiting for root device' error. What is it not Detecting, my HDD or my Optical drive? I have pictures of my BIOS, where I can't change my optical drive from Primary Master to Primary Slave. I have two HDDs and two DVD drives. The second/older DVD drive is non functional (don't know why I still have it) and THIS disk is Primary Master. The working DVD drive is Primary Slave. Also, I have EasyBCD installed. Could this be causing problems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigben1 Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 it is not detecting your boot volume or boot-loader,you have to install chameleon on your mac os x hdd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 27, 2012 Author Share Posted March 27, 2012 Without installing an OS how do I install a bootloader? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigben1 Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 'Still waiting for root device' error.this error usually occurs after installing os. which os x you r trying to install? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 27, 2012 Author Share Posted March 27, 2012 OS X Leopard...I am getting this before Installation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 28, 2012 Author Share Posted March 28, 2012 Its one cable stemming from the the Mobo, going into the first Drive and then, like an extension, going into the second. Now here comes to complicated part, the first drive connected from the mobo is the Primary Master, but the lens of this drive is faulty and non usable. However, the second drive connected is the functional one. I want THIS drive to be Primary Master, but it is Primary Slave. I tried interchanging the cables, didn't help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Village_Idiot Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 By all means then, remove that busted drive. Then on the working one, modify the jumpers to make it primary or even standalone ( there should be a guide on the hdd label) put it at the end of the IDE ribbon and try again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foopy Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) I suggest doing what praetorius has recommended and removing the faulty DVD drive. If you don't want to actually physically remove that drive for whatever reason you can disconnect the ribbon cable and power cable from it so that it cannot interfere with the other DVD drive on that cable. I suggest attaching the end connector on the ribbon cable to the working DVD drive and jumpering it as a master. Make sure the computer is powered off and that the power cable is unplugged before doing anything like that. You probably know that but I just want to make certain. Edited March 29, 2012 by foopy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 28, 2012 Author Share Posted March 28, 2012 Thanx praetorius & foopy. Now trying to understand how to do that...there was just one flat wire stemming from MOBO connecting the two. And the other red/yellow coloured ones, like a little bunch of 'em. That's it. Just wondering where the jumper setting is. Honestly, BIOS is like a movie, I can just see things, but change nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foopy Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) The flat wire you mention is the data cable. Since you have only one working DVD drive the middle connector should not be connected to a drive. The end connector should be connected to the working DVD drive. That DVD drive should be jumpered as a master since it is connected to the end connector. There should be info either on the rear or near the jumpers that indicate which setting the jumpers are for. CS is cable select, MA is master, and SL is slave. You'll want to place the jumper across the two pins that indicate MA or master. The jumpers on DVD drives are usually to the left of the connector for the PATA ribbon cable when you are looking at the rear of the drive. I'll try to add a link that includes pictures of the jumper settings soon. Here's a link to a post that contains pictures of a DVD drive that shows the location of the jumpers. You can even see the jumper settings imprinted into the enclosure just above the jumper pins themselves. Gringo Vermelho has posted some great information below that explains the different types of drives and other info including driver information that may be very useful to you. Hopefully with all that information you can get past the problem you are having. Once you get the drive hooked up correctly and the jumpers set correctly the DVD drive should show up in the BIOS as a master. I've personally never had much luck with "cable select" settings so I have always used the primary/master depending on which connector on the ribbon cable was connected to the drive. Edited March 29, 2012 by foopy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 Okay, I've been wanting to drive a nail through this {censored} for a while now. For the record that means the endless "still waiting for root device" posts and the like, in this forum and elsewhere. Many thanks to foopy for covering jumper information up there. First I'd like to make it clear that both SATA and PATA drives are technically IDE drives. IDE stands for "integrated drive electronics" and obviously that hasn't changed just because you use a funny little red cable with a black plug instead of a big old ribbon cable to connect your hard drive or DVD drive to your motherboard. I don't really care what anyone says, there is only Parallel ATA and Serial ATA. Just forget about IDE. Note that this is about Intel ICHx - for nforce southbridges see Verdan't nforce guides. Even though drivers exist for JMicron, Marvell, ATI/AMD and VIA drive controllers, I can't recommend using anything but Intel or nforce, because that's what Apple use. The drivers that ship with OS X already support your Intel ICHx drive controller. Sometimes the drivers need a little nudge in the right direction though - Apple don't use (for example) ICH7R, ICH8R, ICH9R or ICH10R. These have a different device ID than their non-R versions, and the drivers don't know about these, but they are similar enough that the driver will work fine anyway. Most will work right away once set to AHCI mode in your PCs BIOS, though some, such as the ICH10R, will be seen by OS X as "Generic SATA controller". Others will throw the "Still waiting for root device" error and halt during boot, which is when you know that 1) your BIOS settings need tweaking 2) you need to use one of the injectors mentioned below, or AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext 3) you need to experiment with drive jumpering/cabling and how you're combining PATA and SATA drives (it's better to not combine the two at all) 4) 1), 2) and 3) all at once. The Injector kexts described below (find them with Google) "injects" the device IDs for a bunch of ICHx controllers into the proper OS X ATA drivers, so that they will detect and drive your hardware. You can use these if your ICHx controller can't be set to AHCI mode, or if you just want it to show by its proper name in System Profiler/System Information. AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext is a proper driver, it can work with older ICHx such as the ICH5. More details below. For Parallel-ATA, or non-AHCI mode Serial-ATA drives on Intel ICHx drive controllers: AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext OR ATAPortInjector.kext (yes! Don't attempt to use both at once!) For Serial ATA drives in AHCI or RAID mode on Intel ICHx drive controllers that aren't supported directly on OS X: AHCIPortInjector.kext OR LegacyAppleAHCIPort.kext (again, both at once = don't do it) For best possible compatibility, do not mix PATA and SATA drives on the same drive controller. It can be made to work but you have to be lucky and very very patient. And it's generally a pain in the ass. This is exactly the type of Hackintosh configuration issue that is best solved with money.* If you must mix SATA and PATA drives on ICHx, then welcome to your worst computing nightmare. There is absolutely no guarantee that the following will work. Whatever happens it's probably your fault for not having enough patience (yes, I'm only saying that to discourage anyone from trying). Your DVD drive must be jumpered as master, connected to the end of the cable, and it will not work if there's a slave device connected to the same cable. Disconnect all other PATA drives. If your installation target is a PATA hard drive, jumper it as master and place it at the end of the cable, on the other channel. Do not attempt to use two devices on the same cable in master/slave configuration - it will not work. Older ICHx drive controllers don't have "AHCI" listed in the BIOS, instead they have annoying and non-descript settings like "enhanced", "combined" and "native" (? don't quite remember) mode. Each of these modes allow a different combination of PATA and SATA drives, only PATA drives, or only SATA drives to work. The necessary details on this can be found in your motherboard manual somewhere. Now is a good time to read it. Now for the fun part: Two of these modes will work correctly with OS X, one of them will work with AppleIntelPIIATA.kext, and another with ATAPortInjector.kext. Honestly, I'm glad that I can no longer remember how, or which one. Did I mention already that it's a pain in the ass? Lastly, If you're mixing PATA and SATA drives on an ICHx that has "AHCI" mode, do not enable it, otherwise the PATA drives probably won't work. *For the love of all that is holy in this world, just buy a SATA DVD drive and be happy!! And if you must use PATA drives, connect them to your motherboards off-chipset, secondary drive controller (JMicron, Marvell, etc) and leave your hard drives connected to the ICHx in AHCI or RAID mode. If you only have RAID mode but no AHCI mode, set it to RAID. RAID implies AHCI. You don't have to create a RAID array, and even if you did it wouldn't work anyway, OS X does not support ICHx hardware RAID. If your drives appear on the desktop and have screaming orange icons it's because they are seen as "external". With some legacy kexts, hotpluggable AHCI hard drives get these orange icons. There are fixes for this available but I've forgotten almost everything about them. Neither can I recall if there is a way to have hot-pluggable hard drives, yet have them detected as internal drives. I do remember this; the quick fix for this in the past was OrangeIconFix.kext, but the downside is that it only changes the icons and doesn't actually fix anything. I believe that AHCIPortInjector.kext sets all drives as "internal", which means you lose hot-plugability. Please Google or use the forum search for more information because there's nothing new here: Everything that's useful in this post has been repeated over and over in the last five years. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 My God Gringo Vermelho! I am thoroughly obliged for every word you have typed up there. Am taking a print out of it and take it home. I am sure its about the IDE and the Primary Master/Slave setting. My POA: 1. Disconnect the non-functional DVD and make the working one as Primary Master. - If this solves the issue, I am good. If not, then: 2. Inject the Kext I found here. There is no chance this won't work so I am going to stop here. IF, this doesn't work, I will figure out a third way. 3. Reserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Don't use the modified IOATAFamily from that link. The injector.kexts I'm talking about can be chucked in /System/Library/Extensions and will never be overwritten by a system update. IOATAFamily is an Apple kext and if that gets updated, you are hosed on the spot because then you won't be able to boot. The whole point of using injectors is that they work alongside unmodified Apple drivers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Could you just be so kind as to enlighten this n00b on how to uses the ATAPortInjector.kext?? I can't seem to figure out a way. And I am assuming this will work only on Retail OS X Lion and now iAtkosL2? but isn't the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext you mentioned the same as in the link. I think what you are saying is to not use: AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext BUT ATAPortInjector.kext..correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Could you just be so kind as to enlighten this n00b on how to uses the ATAPortInjector.kext?? You place the kernel extension in the /Extra/Extensions folder on the partition that holds the boot loader that will boot your Lion installer. The injectors will work from /Extra/Extensions, but I don't think that a modified IOATAFamily.kext or AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext will. They probably need to be in /System/Library/Extensions to work, because of dependencies on other kernel extensions. isn't the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext you mentioned the same as in the link. No. IOATAFamily.kext and AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext are not the same thing. I repeat: I don't recommend using the IOATAFamily.kext from the link because it is a modified Apple kext. The modifications will be overwritten once you run a Lion system update, and you will not be able to boot. I have already told you, you will not have this problem with ATAPortInjector or AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext I think what you are saying is to not use: AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext BUT ATAPortInjector.kext..correct? Yes that's what I'm saying, try with that first, it is the least invasive way and if it works, it will never stop working. It will never be updated or replaced if you run a system update. Don't ask me anything about iATKOS L2 because I don't know. I can help you with retail, unmodified Lion, not quirky hacked-together distros that I have never used. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 Big thanx Gringo Vermelho. I have already started downloading the Retail. Honestly I am a lil confused as to where to put the kexts. Would you just do me one favour and pick one of the two for me that you think will work. I mean out of the IOATAFamily.kext and AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext. As you have said DONT instal both, that too leaves me confused as to which one to use. Also, where I am going to put the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext in extra/extensions, is that right? Cool. Once again, I really appreciate your help. Won't be posting again unless utterly necessary. Thanx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Heh, dude I already told you where the kexts go. legacy/injector kexts can work from /Extra/Extensions. Try ATAPortInjector first. Actually I believe it's okay to leave both AHCIPortInjector and ATAPortInjector in /Extra/Extensions. These two shouldn't conflict. As for which one will actually work - I couldn't say for sure, that's for you to find out. As I said, which one you'll be able to use also depends on BIOS settings and your drive configuration. I don't have the same hardware as you, I don't have any hands-on experience with ICH7R. You have to experiment with this yourself until you find a combination that works. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 So am going to just put both in Extra/Extensions...fingers crossed and hopes high. EDIT: Made my DVD/RW drive Primary Master and disconnected the other one altogether. Still no luck. 'Still waiting for root device' error in my face... Last option now, the hard way, to inject kexts. Gonna need a lot of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 I cant boot from the USB!! It just surpasses everything and says, 'BootMGR is missing. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to restart.' I AM HONESTLY TIRED AND ON THE VERGE OF BREAKIGN MY COMPUETR! WTF IS HAPPENING MAN!! I DONT HAVE {censored} ACHI SUPPORT IN THE BIOS NEXT MY GODAMN DVD IS IDE THEN MY {censored} USB WONT {censored} BOOT! IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buoo Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 it's always great to see the old guard in action! Excellent explanation Gringo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 it's always great to see the old guard in action! Excellent explanation Gringo Yeah, too bad it didn't help. I believe the appropriate expression in this case goes along the lines of "throwing water on a duck". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 I did everything what Gringo said. NOt a single word here or there. I have followed the letter to the T. Its an open challenge now. Whoever can help me boot a Lion on this REALLLY {censored}ED System wins something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buoo Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I believe the appropriate expression in this case goes along the lines of "throwing water on a duck". @B.L.E.A.K don't go too far ..... Seeya Gringo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.E.A.K Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 I AM REALLY REALLY ANGRY MAN!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SUPPSOSED TO MEAN?? SYSTEMS WORSE THAN MINE can boot the damn OS... tomorrow i am going to post pics of my BIOS > Gringo, please guide me as to how to activate the USB... unfortunately, everything seems fine... it says, 'Boot from USB First' enabled....inspite of that THIS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I cant boot from the USB!! It just surpasses everything and says, 'BootMGR is missing. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to restart.' "BootMGR is missing" is a Windows message. It has nothing to do with OS X. You did *something* wrong, if that message appears when booting from the flash drive, it means that the drive is MBR partitioned and has some Windows stuff left in its boot sector. Otherwise you wouldn't be seeing that message. It's also possible that you have somehow botched the boot sector on your Windows drive. Can you still boot Windows? I repeat: The drive that holds your Lion Installer should be GUID, HFS+Journaled non-case sensitive and you need to format and prepare it with Disk Utility. You can do this on a Mac or working Hackintosh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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