[solved] Dell XPS420 retail installation: No SATA

Jay2Cee · July 12, 2009

Hello,

I'm trying to install Mac OS X on my Dell XPS420 desktop using a 10.5.6 retail DVD. My computer has the following hardware

CPU: Core2Duo E8500
Chipset: X38 + ICH9
Grafikcard: GeForce 8800 GT
Sound: Intel HDA + Creative Labs SB X-Fi
Ethernet: Intel 82566DC-2
Drives: 2x 500GB HDD, 1x DVD, 1x DVD-RW, all connected through SATA

Here is the lispci -nn output with vendor and device IDs:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82X38/X48 Express DRAM Controller [8086:29e0]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82X38/X48 Express Host-Primary PCI Express Bridge [8086:29e1]
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82X38/X48 Express Host-Secondary PCI Express Bridge [8086:29e9]
00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82566DC-2 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:294c] (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:2937] (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:2938] (rev 02)
00:1a.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 [8086:2939] (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:293c] (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:2935] (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:2936] (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:293a] (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801IR (ICH9R) LPC Interface Controller [8086:2916] (rev 02)
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller [0104]: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller [8086:2822] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8800 GT [10de:0611] (rev a2)
04:04.0 Audio device [0403]: Creative Labs SB X-Fi [1102:0005]
04:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) [104c:8023]

First I have tried to boot the retail DVD with several versions of boot-132 (including SlimBoot boot CD) with different compinations of boot parameters, but with no luck: The boot process stucks with the message `Still waiting for root device'.

After that I managed to copy the DVD to an external USB harddrive and use chameleon to boot from it. Now the installer starts, but after the language selection dialog I got the message `Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer' and the installation aborts.

After that I opened Disk Utility to see my hard drives but it shows up only the external USB drive. Inspection the hardware with the System Profiler shows that the S-ATA controller was not detected by the installer.

Than I have tried to edit the IntelAHCIPort.kext according to this thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...47102&st=20

At boot time, the externel USB drive is now detected as disk1 instead of disk0 and NTFS drivers are loaded. But the installation aborts at the same point with the same error message. Opening Disk Utility or selecting the S-ATA entry at the right in the System Profiler cause the environment to freeze.

Currently the SATA controller runs in `AHCI, No-RAID' mode, but changeing it to ATA brings no success, too.

Are there any further things that I can try?

Has anybody managed to install Mac OS X on a XPS420?

Thanks for help!

Greets,

Jay2Cee

Jay2Cee · July 12, 2009

I managed to get my disks recognized by the installer: The solution was to edit AppleAHCIPort.kext and add the ID from the SATA RAID controller to the ICH9-R AHCI subsection:

<key>Legacy ICH9R-DO-DH AHCI</key>
	<dict>
		<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
		<string>com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort</string>
		<key>Chipset Name</key>
		<string>ICH9R/ICH9DO/ICH9DH AHCI</string>
		<key>IOClass</key>
		<string>AppleICH8AHCI</string>
		<key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>
		<string>0x28228086</string>
		<key>IOProbeScore</key>
		<integer>2000</integer>
		<key>IOProviderClass</key>
		<string>IOPCIDevice</string>
		<key>Vendor Name</key>
		<string>Intel</string>
	</dict>

But the error message `Mac OS X connot be installed on this computer' is still present. Any ideas?

Thanks and greets,

Jay2Cee

Jay2Cee · July 16, 2009

My fault, I used a recovery DVD instead of a retail DVD

CJ977 · July 31, 2009

My fault, I used a recovery DVD instead of a retail DVD

Did the retail version work, I have a 420 also

Jay2Cee · August 1, 2009

Yes, the retail DVD works fine. But it was a little bit tricky to boot and install from the disk:

Boot an arbitrary Mac or PC (your XPS420 wouldn't work) into Mac OS X (boot an x86 from the retail DVD should work too)
Attache an USB hard disk or stick (at least 7GB) to the PC
Open disk utility, label it "OSXDVD" and erase the disk with HFS+ (case sensitive, no journal)
Go to the restore tab, select the retail DVD as source and your external drive as destination and restore the DVD to your drive
Create a folder called "Extra" at the root of your external drive
Create a subfolder in the "Extra" folder called "Extensions"
Copy the file "System/Library/Extensions/AppleAHCIPort.kext" to the newly created Extensions folder
If you've boot from the retail DVD, you have to use the terminal:
```
# cd /Volumes/OSXDVD
# mkdir Extra
# cd Extra
# mkdir Extensions
# cd Extensions
# cp -R ../../System/Library/Extensions/AppleAHCIPort.kext .
```
It is important that there is NO slash after "*.kext" if using "cp" to copy the file
Boot into a Linux, e.g. using a Live CD
Mount the OSXDVD partition

Open a terminal, type "lspci -nn" and search for your raid controller:

...
00:1f.2 RAID bus controller [0104]: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller [8086:2822] (rev 02)
...

Write down the 8 digit number in the squared brackets in reverse order (in the example 28228086)
Open the file "Extra/Extensions/System/Library/Extensions/AppleAHCIPort.kext/Contents/Info.plist" in a texteditor
Search for the block with the ICH9R controller and replace the number behind the "IOPCIPrimaryMatch" with the number of your rait controller (see post above), don't forget the 0x in front of the number
Copy the two files in the archive attached to this post into the Extensions folder, too. "Intel82566MM.kext" is the network driver and "dsmos.kext" is to be able to boot from a retail DVD.

Fix the permissions of the directories:

# cd Extra/Extensions
# chmod -R 755 *
# chown -R 0:0 *

Attache the external drive to your XPS and insert a chameleon boot CD
Select the volume "OSXDVD", type "-x -v" and press enter to boot from your external drive
Now the installer should boot fine and you should be able to install Mac OS X to your XPS420

Let me know if it work for you!

What configuration has your XPS420? Grafics card, CPU, RAM, ...?

xps420.zip

[solved] Dell XPS420 retail installation: No SATA

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