19 replies to this topic

[tommrazek01]

Hi, all
I have attempted a few hackintoshes before, mostly on clearly incompatible hardware (such as SONY latops), but now I got and old DELL Optiplex GX270, which has been proven compatible by many people inside and outside this forum (like here: https://www.youtube....h?v=o1CDpzXa0YI). Unfortunately, this computer has a 40 GB IDE Drive. This makes stuff a little more complicated. I have attempted to install both Tiger and Leopard, but both without success and with the same error.
I've tried many variations of OS X, but none boots me further than 'still waiting for root device'

Here is what I did:

• I used a USB installer with Flashboot, because the DELL won't read DVDs
• I tried different USB ports
• I tried some boot flags that were listed as solutions to this problem (although without IDE)

Can someone reccomend me either what "distro" to try out, or what boot flags or troubleshooting options could help me? (Please don't tell me stuff like "get a new hard drive/optical drive" or "don't install OS X on something that old")

Here are the Specs of the PC:
Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.8 GHz
Intel Integrated Graphics chip
40 GB IDE Hard Drive
1280 MB of RAM (2x512mb + 2x128mb)

[Gringo Vermelho]

What chipset does it have?

[tommrazek01]

What chipset does it have?

Thanks for the answer, It has an Intel 865G. Just to add on, there is no option for AHCI in the bios.

[Gringo Vermelho]

That's because 865 is paired with ICH5 which apparently has no AHCI support.
Anyway It's a non-issue, AHCI mode is not required for OS X to work, it's just more convenient. All you need is the right driver, the right combination of drives (don't try to mix PATA and SATA drives connected to the same controller) and BIOS settings.

Use AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext:
http://www.insanelym...annels-working/

If you want to try a distro I recommend JaS 10.5.4 Client/Server or iPC 10.5.6 Final, if you can still find them. My first Hackintosh was ICH5/i865 as well.

Jumper and cable all PATA drives as Master and place one drive on each channel, at the end of the cable. Don't use cable select. Try not to use any SATA ports, disable them in the BIOS if you can.

[tommrazek01]

Thanks for the reply, I will try those, although iPC can't fit on a USB,because I use flashboot (which formats the flash drive as FAT32, which can't fit an entire iso, since it copies the iso to the flash drive and tries to boot from it) If you have any other way os USB-Installing (Transmac did not work, possibly because of a linux bootloader being present(?)). I guess I coul also use the existing ISO and add the kext, but I would have to know how to add a kext to an iso. Is that, too possible?
Thanks a lot!

[Gringo Vermelho]

I've never done it myself but I'm sure there's a way.

[tommrazek01]

About the cables, 1. Is that the jumper on the Hard drive? 2. As a Dell in an original state, is there something else needed to change?
Thanks a lot

[Gringo Vermelho]

No idea about your Dell, not familiar with the hardware. Yes, master/slave/cable select is set via jumper on the hard drive. Read more on Wikipedia.

Don't use flashboot, burn iPC or JaS to a DVD. You don't need flashboot (whatever that is), all distro DVDs have their own boot loader. /EDIT oh I just saw, you can't boot from DVDs. Don't know what to tell you then, I never installed OS X from USB on my ICH5/i865 Hackintosh.

[tommrazek01]

Okay, did the cables. Still the same error,at a different position. I get an error about a kext, which is very close to the one you sent me.But this one is pata. I would add the one you gave me into the iso if i knew how. Still using the USB installer, i might get a dvd drive, but not anytime soon. Here is the error:

AppleIntelPIIXPATA:80-Conductor cable not detected on primary channel
Still waiting for root device......

[iFIRE]

PUT all this kexts in Extra/Extensions of your USBInstaller, if this not detect your disk try put device id of your controller in infoplist the kexts.



 PCI IDE.zip   715.56KB   3 downloads

[tommrazek01]

Okay, thanks a lot! Can I use transmac to add these? I can't seem to find the Extensions folder...

[Gringo Vermelho]

Are you using a 80 conductor cable and is the drive properly jumpered as master and installed at the end of the cable? Make sure there is only one device on each cable and both are jumpered as master. Disconnect any slave devices.

Check the BIOS settings for the ICH5. You have combined, enhanced and compatible mode or something like that. It can be set to one of three different modes, only one of them will work when using only PATA drives, and I can no longer remember which one it is. Try them all and make sure that jumpering and cabling is correct.

[tommrazek01]

The jumper is on master, in fact, that id's what got me to this error, before it was set to something like CS. Still same error, but earlier, message about iTunes, not what I wrote in my previous post. I'll try the bios settings.

[Gringo Vermelho]

I repeat; make sure you're using an 80 conductor cable. It will never work if you aren't. Do a google image search to compare with your cable.

[tommrazek01]

I have the 80 pin.

[tommrazek01]

Dell's BIOS is practically option-less. But I sorted out the 80 pin connector problem. After setting the jumper to 'master', my HDD was not recognized! Now, as I have set the drive back to 'cs', the drive is being extremely slow and my current OS 'ElementaryOS' (Based on ubuntu) does not boot as it shows tons of errors (it would probably eventually boot, as I predict it is also being slow). And yes, setting the jumper back brings me back to "Still waiting for root device" Now booting os x I get still waiting for root device all over the place as the boot is super slow, but eventually freezes on the lines below:

Still waiting for root device
AppleIHCxSATA: Primary PCI IDE Channel Disabled
AppleIHCxSATA: Secondary PCI IDE Channel Disabled
Still waiting for root device
IOUSBMassStorageClass has no kernel dependency
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device
Still waiting for root device
and then it just keeps on still waiting for root device.

There is (little) distinguishable HDD activity.

[Gringo Vermelho]

Well it does state very clearly that both channels are disabled.

Still waiting for root device means that the OS can't see your hard drive (your drive is the root device) which is normal when there's no driver loaded for the controller it's attached to.
AppleICHxSATA is the wrong driver. As I said earlier, you should be using AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext for Intel ICH5.

[tommrazek01]

Can you then tell me how to add the kext to an iso in windows? Can I use Transmac? I can't see the extensions folder in either iatkos and tiger

[Gringo Vermelho]

No idea, I've never had to do that. I'm sure there's a tutorial here somewhere, problem is it'll probably require access to a Mac or working Hackintosh. I don't think you'll be able to rebuild the installation packages on Windows.

I can't help you any further with this, we're going in circles here.

I know that both JaS 10.5.4 and iPC 10.5.5 Universal PPF5 final have the driver you need. JaS 10.5.4 had solid support for i865/ICH5. I also remember vaguely installing Kalyway 10.5.2.


There's really no way you can get a hold of a DVD drive?

That DVD drive of yours won't read DVDs at all, or are you saying that it just won't boot from them?

I'll say this once more:
Each drive must be on its own IDE channel, each jumpered as master, plugged in at the end of the cable, both cables must be 80 conductor.
Do not plug both drives into the same IDE channel/the same cable, it will not work.

[tommrazek01]

The DVD drive can't read dvds. Under linux (and previously windows) clikcing on the cd drive did nothing. CDs are perfectly bootable. I will try to get a hang of a drive, because the distros are all bigger than 4GB (FAT32 limit for booting)