Installation Failure

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Hey everybody, I'm a silent reader of this forum up till this point. I've been reading through everyone's posts and gathering ideas for my own build. What I decided to go with is as follows:

 

MLB: D945GNTLKR

Processor: INTEL D930

RAM: 1GB

HDD: 250 GB Sata w/ Windows installed on the first 60 GB, second 60 GB is free, and back 120GB is designated for OS X

Optical: Plextor 740A

 

The issue I’m having is during the installation of OSX. The installer keeps failing on essential items. It appears that after the install unpacks all the installation files that the install fails somewhere during the early stages of actually writing data to the disc. I’ve tried several different copies of 10.4.3 and 10.4.4. I’ve also tried all sorts of variations of installation customization. I’ve also tried installing to a smaller unpartitioned 30GB disk connected via IDE as well as on an external Firewire bus.

 

Is anybody else familiar with similar installation issues? I believe all my hardware is supported. I don’t see why each of the 4 different disk image files I’ve tried to install all seem to fail at the same point of installation.

 

I would appreciate any feedback those might provide.

 

Thanks!

[amsm]

The issue I’m having is during the installation of OSX. The installer keeps failing on essential items. It appears that after the install unpacks all the installation files that the install fails somewhere during the early stages of actually writing data to the disc. I’ve tried several different copies of 10.4.3 and 10.4.4. I’ve also tried all sorts of variations of installation customization. I’ve also tried installing to a smaller unpartitioned 30GB disk connected via IDE as well as on an external Firewire bus.

 

I'm seeing exactly the same thing.

 

Checking the error log shows it failing early in the preflight. It looks like it is attempting to copy some files, but can't find the sources. If I copy that directory from the DVD to the destination hard drive and restart the installation, it gets a litle further but fails on some more files.

Obviously something's wrong somewhere and copying files isn't really the way to go.

 

 

Anyone have any idea what's causing this ? My hardware is also all supported and I see this failure in precisely the same spot with both Myz and Essential iso's Media check reports the DVD to be OK if I let it run.

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Glad to hear someone else is having this issue. Well maybe not glad, but I feel less lonely. Yeah, if anybody has seen this or has any ideas, do tell.

 

It's driving me nuts...I've owned an Apple since the IIe. My 15 inch Powerbook's MLB just pooped the bed, the video is all garbled on the LCD and over DVI. I'm going through withdrawl without OS X.

[bofors]

Are you guys performing clean "erase and install", not update, nor transfer data, installations?

 

Can you tell if any files are successful in being written to the target partition? If so, does it always fail on the same file?

 

HDD: 250 GB Sata w/ Windows installed on the first 60 GB, second 60 GB is free, and back 120GB is designated for OS X

Again, I would recommend that you forget about Windows for the moment, re-partition your entire hard drive with OS X's Disk Utility.app, and try installing OS X on a clean slate.

[phaseon]

Read the rules please this forum isnt for posting questions its for posting guides

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A common point of failure seems to be writing the address book. I'm unsure if it is writing anything at all to the disk. I did totally erase windows and try to instally on the full 250GB partition with the exact same outcome. I'm reinstalling windows as I write this. I save the log file of the install. Once I get an OS on the machine and can read the log, I'll post it in.

 

*on a side note: I apologize for posting incorrectly.*

[bofors]

I thought you told me that 10.4.3 worked before, yet now you clam it has the same problem. Can you expand on that?

 

Do your DVD burns pass verification?

 

Are there any reports of OSx86 problems with your Plextor DVD drive?

[Oden2k]

update your firmware on your plextor! i had the exact same problem until i updated the firmware from Plextors website using XP. and I'm using the same dvd burner model your using. or you can try another DVD drive.

[leaf]

Well here's the skinny. I didn't post last night because I was trying everything to get this thing to work.

 

I thought you told me that 10.4.3 worked before, yet now you clam it has the same problem. Can you expand on that?

and I'm using the same dvd burner model your using. or you can try another DVD drive.

10.4.3 never did work. Sorry about the miscommunication there. Each and every build was failing at the exact same point. I just would always go back to the 10.4.3 disc when trying to reinstall versus perhaps 10.4.4 ISOs because 10.4.3 fully supported the MLB.

 

Bofors Wrote:

 

Do your DVD burns pass verification?

 

Are there any reports of OSx86 problems with your Plextor DVD drive?

 

The 740A was listed as fully supported. I never thought that it was possibly the drive. However, last night I was digging around and found a thread talking about similar issues. I called my friend who brought a DVD Drive from his Dual Processor G5. We popped that in, nothing. Opened it up and blew inside as it was covered in dust....BINGO!!! 10.4.5 installed. Mac Bench initially gave me a result of 89.7, and a few marks below that on more testing.

 

Oden2k Wrote:

 

update your firmware on your plextor! i had the exact same problem until i updated the firmware from Plextors website using XP. and I'm using the same dvd burner model your using.

 

I have yet to try updating the firmware on the Plextor drive but I'll be sure to try that soon. That is great information if I can get the Plextor to work since that's a great drive.

 

Other Notes:

 

Sound is not working, however I know that is just a ktext file that needs changing. System information is reading the processor as 1 single 4GHZ instead of two 3.0GHZ. I wasn't able to do Dual boot as I was receiving HFS+ Partition errors. I shall try to work on that some more. Currently I just have OSX on the initial partition of the drive and windows/linux are gone.

 

Everything seems ULTRA Speedy. HOWEVER, Data transfer speeds seem to be miserable. I was wondering if anybody had any ideas as to why. Do you need to patch something to fully support the SATA bus???

 

You guys are great though, thanks for ALL the support. I'm very thankful. I'm excited to have this thing working, to keep tweaking it, and continuing in discussion with the folks in this community.

[bofors]

Opened it up and blew inside as it was covered in dust....BINGO!!! 10.4.5 installed. Mac Bench initially gave me a result of 89.7, and a few marks below that on more testing.

Odd, but at least the you know where the problem is now.

 

Sound is not working, however I know that is just a ktext file that needs changing.

Someone actually posted it in my box thread, I think it is post #405.

 

System information is reading the processor as 1 single 4GHZ instead of two 3.0GHZ.

The 4GHz part is "normal" for the Myzar pre-patched 10.4.5, otherwise my CPU is recognized as a Pentium D with 2 "CPU's".

 

Everything seems ULTRA Speedy. HOWEVER, Data transfer speeds seem to be miserable. I was wondering if anybody had any ideas as to why. Do you need to patch something to fully support the SATA bus???

 

You can set your BIOS to AHCI but that will not give anything more than a nominal speed increase. Perhaps you should describe in detail what the problem is.

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You can set your BIOS to AHCI but that will not give anything more than a nominal speed increase. Perhaps you should describe in detail what the problem is.

 

I haven't gotten to go into the BIOS and change it to AHCI. Right now I'm copying my Adium folder, and my address book over from my power book's HDD via target mode. It's only about 45 MB of data and it's estimated completion time is around 3 minutes. That seems high for 45MB of data.

 

Also, I had tried to play a 30MB video in Quicktime from my Desktop folder. When I went to drag the playhead, I wouldn't get instant visual feedback. In fact I got nothing. Once I moved the playhead and let go, then after a few seconds video would pick up.

 

This is my second install of OSX86. I trashed my first one because I did a data migration from a PPC machine, there were some PPC Applications that were crashing the X86 machine. However, to do the Data Migration took about 4 hours over FW for 60GB of Data.

 

This could be more of a FW1394 issue, but the video playback from the System Disk seemed to indicate to that there were slow R/W rates.

 

I'm going to start using this installation full time now. I'll keep things updated as I use the system more and try to narrow down any issues.

[bofors]

However, to do the Data Migration took about 4 hours over FW for 60GB of Data.

That's sounds about right, not a problem, to me.

 

I would not use your QT experience to imply a disk problem either.

 

Try posting your Xbench disk results if you are still concerned about this.

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OKAY, it's been a few days I know. Been busy with work and such. However, I'm proud to note that my machine is fully working!!!

 

As stated before, the issue was traced back to the optical drive. With a new drive everything installs flawlessly and beautifully. I am getting the HPET driver error. After a quick google search, I've tracked things down to a driver that supports the Intel Core Mac and doesn't apply to these X86 home built macs.

 

I've managed to get dual booting up and running. If anybody is interested in how I got mine working, I installed OSX fresh on the first partition of the drive, then I installed windows fresh on the second. Then I've used the extremely well documented chain0 technique. Chain0 was not working when Windows was on the first partition. I think I'm going to try to install Kororaa linux on the third partition, not for any particular reason other than to say that it Tri-boots.

 

So far the machine seems very fast. HDD read/write speeds no longer seem to be an issue. Perhaps I was being overly picky and critical of the new system. Personally, the machine feels extremely fast and responsive. I'll post Xbench speeds when I get a chance.

 

I'd like to throw some more ram in the machine. I'm looking into upgrading to a Dell 24inch LCD and running it off the ADD2 card. It'd be nice to see some real viable GFX solutions soon. I'm also interested in upgrading the sound output with something that supports surround sound or at least has optical/digital outputs.

 

I have yet to look into all the non-essential tweaking and upgrading. I'm planning on using this as my everyday Mac as my Powerbook is out of commission and will soon be sold off for parts. I too am looking to make this machine as compatible and capable as possible, so far I see no reason why it can't be. Thanks for everybody's support!!!

 

PS. maybe I'll post some picts of it soon, I'm not sure what good that'll do anybody but it'll be interesting.