Mattsasa Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Update: okay so I booted to ubuntu via usb, an I could acess all my drives and partitions except my mac hard drive... which normally ubuntu could mount guid drives and HSf+J partitions. So thats strange that UNIX can't access it but windows 7 can? So this means that mac os, isnt able to mount the drive right? So I need to back everything up and reinstall? can someone clarify that i am thinking logically.. and this is what I need to do HELP ME PLEASE! Tell me what I need to do! K so first of all the problem I am having is "still waiting for root device" But the strange part is my hackintosh setup has been working fine since 2008! I have had to make some changes time to time with new hardware or new mac os update. then one day when i am switching back from windows to mac os 10.6.5, it wont boot! And I know for certain I have made no hardware change, and no software change, it just randomly stops working. The error I am getting is "still waiting for root device." So I have been googling all around to figure out what "still waiting for root device" is. And it doesnt make sense, I have a pretty clear sense of what still waiting for root device is, but it doesnt seem like its my problem. So the only explanation I can think of is that my hard drive has disk errors, because does, so under windows I was able to repair the hard drive with windows. and I can read and write files from the hard drive via windows easily. and the errors were repaired. using a program called macdrive. I have tried tons of things! and nothing has been helping! its confusing because it seems like the error: "still waiting for root device" is an error people get when they are still setting up there hackintosh, but not for me where it has been working fine, then randomly stops working! If anyone knows whats going on, or what to do please help me!!! my full specs: Ga-ex58-ud4p 10.6.5 64 bit/ pc efi v10.6 sata hard drives (GUID) i7-920 and ati 5870 x58 and ICH10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsasa Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 sorry for my impatience! anyone out there? what do I do? help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otacon6530 Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Maybe some data corruption has occured, trying booting to single user mode and running fsck -fy and see if that fixes your issue, otherwise you can boot to your install disk and repair your disk from Disk Utility. ----------------------- Sorry about the above comment. I obviously only read your post partly. Sometimes with my bootup process I will get an error like that, but all it needs is a good kick in the pants. Try pressing Enter a couple of times and see if it skips that step. (works for me) As far as a solution, I am not sure what I can do other than maybe reinstall the efi bootloader you have been using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsasa Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 Maybe some data corruption has occured, trying booting to single user mode and running fsck -fy and see if that fixes your issue, otherwise you can boot to your install disk and repair your disk from Disk Utility. thanks for the help. When I boot single user mode i still get "still waiting for root device" and when I boot to an install dvd(via usb) I also get "still waiting for root device" . I am so confused... any other suggestions? Sorry about the above comment. I obviously only read your post partly. Sometimes with my bootup process I will get an error like that, but all it needs is a good kick in the pants. Try pressing Enter a couple of times and see if it skips that step. (works for me) As far as a solution, I am not sure what I can do other than maybe reinstall the efi bootloader you have been using. ok just got the rest of you post.... So if i press enter during booting, it will skip that step?! So i tried hitting enter... did nothing. I will now try installing the bootloader to a usb drive, then booting it up. Yea, I am still getting "still waiting for root device" I am so confused! could it be that mac os is still unable to mount the volume, since macdrive didnt repair it throughly.... but the bootloader is on that volume ... so if its getting to the boot loader.... which it is... then that means its mounting the volume fine right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsasa Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 anybody else have any ideas?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otacon6530 Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 Yeah I would say it is fully repaired and you would not need to repair the drive again. I would agree with backing up the data you can see through windows 7 and then reinstalling the OS. Something weird is happening if Linux is unable to see it and it could before this issue occured. Please give us a response if the reinstall works... obviously the efi booter is working for your computer if you are able to get up the install disk, so logically speaking it should be able to boot you the mac osx drive unless something is wrong with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsasa Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 Yeah I would say it is fully repaired and you would not need to repair the drive again. I would agree with backing up the data you can see through windows 7 and then reinstalling the OS. Something weird is happening if Linux is unable to see it and it could before this issue occured. Please give us a response if the reinstall works... obviously the efi booter is working for your computer if you are able to get up the install disk, so logically speaking it should be able to boot you the mac osx drive unless something is wrong with it. okay so.... I managed to get a usb sata adapter, an I plugged my hard drive into a macbook, and I got the, "can not recognize this drive would you like to initialize it?" Then I also booted to "Gparted" and it showed the disk with 0 partitions, and says its just all unformatted free space. So I guess I have to backup the data and reinstall. Dang. But still strange windows could mount and read and write the files. thought I think I tried booting to mac os x install dvd via usb a little while ago, and I sill got the "still waiting for root device" so I wil need to make sure I can get an install and the files backed up before I reformat my hard drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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