I have recently bought a Dell PowerEdge 750 server which has an Intel 7210 chipset and ATI Rage XL embedded, as well as an ATI PCI-X 64bit slot which contains a Dell Adaptec CERC SATA RAID, and am trying to get Mac OS X working on it. I have managed to get loaded and booted 10.4.7, 10.4.8, 10.4.11, and 10.5.4, but with each I have a problem.
The hardware RAID did not work, and I wasn't expecting it to, but the onboard SATA does work... to an extent. The onboard SATA is Intel ICH6R, which from reading up on it *should* work. But it doesnt.
With any 10.4.x it seems to run fine at first, graphics okay, especially for a server, but the one thing that doesnt work properly is the Hard Drive transfers. It appears to be using the AppleGenericPCATA.kext file with a max transfer rate of about 2MB/sec. It shouldnt be using that kext right? It should be using the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext right? Having tried all the different AppleIntelPIIXATA patches out there I have had no luck with it so far in that it does not even boot and gives me the "still waiting for root device" error.
With 10.5.4 its a bit of a longer story, however I managed to get iDeneb booted (JaS would not even boot), and then used a boot-132 disc to load up OS X then needed to replace the IOATAFamily kext from the boot-132 disc to the OS X Install. Same 2-3MB/sec problem as it is still using the AppleGenericPCATA.kext file, and removing that and patching the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext file gives me the same root device waiting error.
When using the AppleGenericPCATA.kext file the system does not see the drives as SATA drives, but shows them as ATA drives.
I really want to get this thing working, but don't understand why it won't. I'm hoping someone out here will be able to help me as I'd really like to run OS X (preferably Leopard 10.5.4) on this server.
I'm kindof reading the end of this road here...
Thanks in advance for helping
