(SOLVED) Snow Leopard on P5Q-E, stuck in the first boot

[bomsom]

Hi there,

 

After reading a lot of posts/threads/tutorials I finally manage to install Snow Leopard 10.6 Retail in the HDD, but after that I can't boot into the system at all and here I am, stuck, and needing your help, Oh wise ones!

 

My System is:

 

Asus P5Q-E/Core 2 Quad Q6600/8GB RAM/Radeon HD4850 Video Card/DVD Drive/HDD1 - NTFS with Vista 64/HDD2 - Guid MACOS Journaled SNOW LEOPARD/HDD 3 - NTFS Data storage Drive

 

BIOS Settings:

 

Sata as AHCI / TWEAKER: All in Auto / POWER: Suspend Mode (Auto), Respost Video S3 resume (No), ACPI 2.0 and ACPI APIC (Enabled)

 

Installation History:

 

I started following a lifehacker guide and had access to a real Mac to partition and format a flash drive in Guid MacOS Journaled and copy the Retail DVD install into the Flash drive. It also had a bootloader installer too that I installed in the same flash drive.

 

Tried to install but the bootloader always failed to start.

 

Then I found Ian T's guide here at insanely, http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=189414

 

I burned the image boot file of that guide to CD an used it to boot the installer but I couldn't use the retail DVD as the guide pointed, it didn't work at all. Instead i used the flash drive and Bingo! it worked.

 

Used disk utility to partition and format the HDD and installation went ok till the end. Got the installation complete screen and rebooted. (Important note: My BIOS at that time was 1406 official from Asus.)

 

After that nothing happened anymore. Tried to follow Ian's guide and boot again from CD, then selected HDD as boot device and the had kernel panic, grey screen with black dashes. Tried with -v command and had the same problem, this time with black and white corrupted screen, same as reported here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...amp;mode=linear

 

Since then I updated my BIOS to Juzzi's 2001 and then to the newest ASUS official 2101, my BIOS revision at this moment and had no luck too.

 

I've been playing around with a lot of kexts, tried all that Watcher_sk posted in this topic loading then in the flash drive Extension folder using Transmac in Windows. I also replaced the "boot" file with Chameleon RC3 and removed DSDT.aml because it always caused kernel panic asking to shut power down and restart.

 

By the way I can see all the file structure of Snow Leopard installed in the HDD in Transmac but can't change anything (Read only). I don't have access to a MAc anymore so I'll have to solve it in Windows.

 

I uploaded a screenshot from the boot sequence just before panic. It's a little hard to read but if you need some clarification I can "translate" what the pictures are showing.

 

Please Help! Thanks

[alienpd]

hi bomsom,

i think i can´t help you that much, but perhaps...

 

i have the same mainboard (p5q-e) a 8500 cpu, 4gb ram, a gtx 260 and followed the same guide yesterday and everything worked like it should. (writing from snow leopard now)

from my point (im not that into osx86) i would say i have a system more comparable to ian t.

i suggest investigating the drivers/kexts for your graphics card, as i see thats your only major difference.

 

with what bios is your board now flashed? i used the 2001-BIOS-Asus_P5Q_E_for_MAC_OS_X_VISTA_SLIC_all_OS__incl._by_Juzzi..ROM.zip

 

(sorry for my bad english)

[bomsom]

hi bomsom,

i think i can´t help you that much, but perhaps...

 

i have the same mainboard (p5q-e) a 8500 cpu, 4gb ram, a gtx 260 and followed the same guide yesterday and everything worked like it should. (writing from snow leopard now)

from my point (im not that into osx86) i would say i have a system more comparable to ian t.

i suggest investigating the drivers/kexts for your graphics card, as i see thats your only major difference.

 

with what bios is your board now flashed? i used the 2001-BIOS-Asus_P5Q_E_for_MAC_OS_X_VISTA_SLIC_all_OS__incl._by_Juzzi..ROM.zip

 

(sorry for my bad english)

Alienpd, 

 

 

Yesterday i flashed the same bios as you and still had trouble with it. I tried different boot CDs from various tutorials here in the forum but had no luck.

 

About the graphic card, I read that Radeon HD 4800 series have native support in Snow leopard. Maybe it's a processor rejection then? I have a Core 2 Quad Q6600.

 

I'm posting my BIOS settings , can you tell me if they match with yours?

 

 STORAGE CONFIGURATION

 

Configure Sata as <AHCI>

 

ADVANCED - CPU CONFIGURATION

 

CPU Ratio Settings <Auto>

 

C1E Support <Enable>*

 

Max CPUID Value Limit <Disable>

 

Intel Virtualization <Enable>

 

CPU TM Function <Enable>*

 

Execute Disable Bit <Enable>*

 

Intel SpeedStep Tech <Enable>*

 

I already tried with the * marked set as <disable> , following quaza's guide http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=185701 but didn't make it too.

 

POWER

 

Suspend Mode <Auto> (Should I use S3 Only?)

 

Repost Video S3 Resume <No>

 

ACPI 2.0 Support <Enable>

 

ACPI APIC Support <Enable>

 

 

 

 

Thanks

[alienpd]

I'm posting my BIOS settings , can you tell me if they match with yours?

you are lucky that i have my macbookpro

writing down all these bios settings to paper would be very ......

 

so these are my setting

if the settings are identical i write "-yes" under it, if something is missing i expand it.

 

STORAGE CONFIGURATION

Configure Sata as <AHCI>

-yes

hard disk write protect disabled

ide detect timeout 0 (because ide is disabled)

 

ADVANCED - CPU CONFIGURATION

CPU Ratio Settings <Auto>

-yes

C1E Support <Enable>*

-yes

Max CPUID Value Limit <Disable>

-yes

Intel Virtualization <Enable>

-yes

CPU TM Function <Enable>*

-yes

Execute Disable Bit <Enable>*

-yes

Intel SpeedStep Tech <Enable>*

-yes

intel c-state tech disabled

 

advanced - chipset

memory remap enabled

memory hole disabled

initiate graphic adapter peg/pci

 

advanced-onboard devices

hd audio enabled

front panel hd audio

marvel ide disabled

marvel lan1+2 enabled

marvel 1+2 boot rom disabled

lsi firewire enabled

serial port adress disabled

 

advanced-usb

usb functions enabled

usb2.0 enabled

usb2.0 controller mode high speed

bios ehci hand-off enabled

legacy usb support auto

 

advanced-pcipnp

plugandplayos yes

 

POWER

 

Suspend Mode <Auto>

-yes

Repost Video S3 Resume <No>

-yes

ACPI 2.0 Support <Enable>

-yes

ACPI APIC Support <Enable>

-yes

apm-configuration

everything disabled

 

so i think thats all you need to know from my bios :-)

 

i tried to follow these two guides (without succes, i think it was my graphics card)

http://coderazzi.net/osx/p5q-e/snowleopard/index.htm

http://coderazzi.net/osx/p5q-e/leopard.htm

before i found the one from ian t, and there are some more bios settings recommended. so thats where different settings from you and me may come from...

 

i hope i could help...

if you need more just write

[bomsom]

YES, YEEEEESSSSSS!!!!! It worked!! I'm typing from safari in OS X!!!!!

 

Thank you for your replies alienpd, BIOS settings we're right after all, but it was what you said before that caught my attention. The problem was with the video card, it was causing Kernel panic.

 

The solution -> I manage to finally boot into Leopard using -v -x arch=i386 (secure mode) in Chameleon boot menu using the tip from this thread.

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...p;mode=threaded

 

Then I installed all required kexts with Kexthelper and then installed Chameleon RC2 pkg and replaced boot file with EFI 10.4.1 boot file, required for ATI HD4850, and that's it!!!!!!

 

Now I have three minor problems,

1. keyboard layout is a mess, can't get Crtl key to work at all and all the punctuation and symbols are a lucky guess

2. My hard drive is reading all the time, doesn't stop at all

3. I'm really afraid of updating to 10.6.1 and mess with the config

 

Well, the hardest part is done, thanks for all the helpful guides.

[alienpd]

Now I have three minor problems,

1. keyboard layout is a mess, can't get Crtl key to work at all and all the punctuation and symbols are a lucky guess

2. My hard drive is reading all the time, doesn't stop at all

3. I'm really afraid of updating to 10.6.1 and mess with the config

 

you should try to disconnect and reconnect your keyboard, pherhaps it starts the keyboard installation assistant.

if not you could look under the system preferences for the keyboard layout, its usualy standard usa (wrong for me, i need german :-)

 

im downloading the 10.6.1 update file right now,

im not that afraid. i made a time machine backup, and if thats not working i will reinstall. (doesnt take that long)

 

im glad that you managed to install it or to get the graphics card driver installed ;-)

and im also glad i could help with my poor knowledge of osx86 hehe

 

edit:

you should consider changig the subject of the original post to (solved) or something like this.

 

greets

[youngrandy]

my motherboard is a P5Q-E

Q6600

4 gigs ram

9800gt

western digital sata

after several attempts at installing snow leopard , I realized that my BIOS settings were not correct.

 

in addition to the usual bios tweeks you will need to check the speed step and C1E

 

Under CPU Configuration Disable Intel Speed Step and C1E

 

this worked like a charm for me

 

my system is purring like a kitty.

 

I hope this info helps

[alienpd]

Under CPU Configuration Disable Intel Speed Step and C1E

 

thats strange.

bomsom and i both have this enabled.

and speed step is something i would never disable :-)

i would suggest you check your bios settings with the list i posted before, or check your bios version.

[mattiafe]

hi bossom

i pm'd you

 

with my hd4850 i got kernel panic or 1024*768 res only

and i noticed you've solved

 

can you send me your working graphic kexts?

 

i hope you can

thanks in advice

[mattiafe]

any help?