ICH4-M Controller Problem

[mauritzius]

Hey,

 

I've got an ICH4-M IDE Controller that suffers from the infamous "Still waiting for root device" error.

Is anyone running OS X natively on an ICH4-M wihtout problems (PCI-ID 8086:24ca)?

The image used runs fine in VMWare, but doesn't boot natively (it was dd-ed from VMWare).

I'm using 10.4.1.

 

I tried every possible solution posted in this forum, like removing various .kexts (PCCard.kext, AppleIntel*.kex, AppleFPMemDriver.kext, Firewire-kexts, Serial kexts), copying .kexts off the Darwin-CD, disabling Mini-PCI, boot-optoins (-v, -x, platform=, etc.)

 

I can't boot Darwin off the CD, because my laptop lacks an optical drive (and therefore it's also impossible for me to replace any component).

 

What I find a bit strange is that the HD-LED is acctive when those waiting for root device errors appear, is this common?

 

Is there anything else known I can try out? And is the ICH4-M chipset known to work or not work?

 

thanks,

m.

 

EDIT: When disabline the AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext, the same problem occurs on the AppleGenericPCATADriver!