parklane79 Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 So after helping a friend of mine install Snow Leopard on his laptop, I decided to install it on a spare HDD I happened to have. When booting the disk I get a "Still Waiting for Root Device" error. So then I looked up the causes for this error and tried all the fixes I could, but it would still not boot. I tried using an external DVD drive, they get to the instalation screen but they go into a power save mode so the installation freezes up. So, I decided to install Snow Leopard onto a VM and then transfer it onto my HDD. After installation I installed all the kexts that I knew I had to install for my hardware to work. I then converted the virtual hard drive into a RAW and then used my Ubuntu partition to write it onto the new HDD. When trying to boot off that drive I still get the "Still Waiting for Root Device Error" Any help would be appreciated. 2 HDDs, 1 IDE (Snow Leopard, Primary Master), 1 SATA (Ubuntu/Windows 7) IDE DVD drive (Primary Slave) MOBO: ASUS P5N73-AM GPU: GTS 250 1GB CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 I think I am just missing a kext that would allow Snow Leopard to recognize my hard drives, but I am not sure. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
ifrit05 Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Is there an option in the BIOS to separate the SATA and IDE controllers? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1697946 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 14, 2011 Author Share Posted June 14, 2011 Do you mean setting to change the SATA drive to act like IDE/AHCI/RAID? If so, I have already tried that. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1697953 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 you need to have AHCi enabled first, and then, don't do that, installing snow leo on an hd via vmware by copying it or something like that is just not good, if you have 2 hard disks in your pc, you can try to install snow leo on the other hard disk (the one you're not using, i suppose now you have windows?) in vmware, i installed my Snow Leo just like that (you don't know the things i did to get snow leo to boot, that "still waiting for root device" error bothered me for years, because my pc has SATA mode greyed out on RAID in the bios so i couldn't change to AHCI) on an external USB Hard Disk and everything works just fine (no really, the hard disk is a high-speed one) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698139 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 I still get "Still Waiting for Root Device" even with AHCI enabled. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698357 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 try booting with rd=diskX (where X is the number of the hard risk you installed OSX on), start with 0 and then go on (1,2,3,4...) see if it works Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698398 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 no luck Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698415 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 is the hard disk you installed OSX on set as Primary Master? If not, then do it Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698582 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 my pc has SATA mode greyed out on RAID in the bios so i couldn't change to AHCI AHCI is grayed out when you select RAID because RAID mode implies AHCI, therefore there's no need to select it manually. Read "Operating modes": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahci Parklane: Your motherboard has Nvidia nForce 610i chipset. Read this: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=184224 Read this post: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1656828 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1698703 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 I will try that and see what happens Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1699112 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 AHCI is grayed out when you select RAID because RAID mode implies AHCI, therefore there's no need to select it manually.Read "Operating modes": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahci i'm telling you, Apple Loves AHCI, doesn't matter if you have RAID activated.... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1699171 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Ok, when I get to "Install Mac OS X" no drives show up EDIT: My windows/ubuntu drive shows up but not the IDE drive I want to use for OS X Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1699675 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokousic Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 you should use the disk utility to partition the drive to mac OS x journaled. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1700389 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 19, 2011 Author Share Posted June 19, 2011 It does not show up in disk utility Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1700469 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 snow leo just hates IDE, i tryed to install Snow on an IDE hard disk that i had, and i had the same problem, it didn't want to show up in disk utility, so i managed to install Snow on the hard disk via vmware but it wouldn't boot, just forget it, SATA or nothing.... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1700482 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokousic Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 I thought the same, but now I have made it install on IDE drive. Dont know how, but the nawcoms mod cd did display that non ACPI compliant hardware detected but it let me install and now it is running well. You may try that mod cd. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1700727 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atazanga Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 So after helping a friend of mine install Snow Leopard on his laptop, I decided to install it on a spare HDD I happened to have. When booting the disk I get a "Still Waiting for Root Device" error. So then I looked up the causes for this error and tried all the fixes I could, but it would still not boot. I tried using an external DVD drive, they get to the instalation screen but they go into a power save mode so the installation freezes up. So, I decided to install Snow Leopard onto a VM and then transfer it onto my HDD. After installation I installed all the kexts that I knew I had to install for my hardware to work. I then converted the virtual hard drive into a RAW and then used my Ubuntu partition to write it onto the new HDD. When trying to boot off that drive I still get the "Still Waiting for Root Device Error" Any help would be appreciated. 2 HDDs, 1 IDE (Snow Leopard, Primary Master), 1 SATA (Ubuntu/Windows 7) IDE DVD drive (Primary Slave) MOBO: ASUS P5N73-AM GPU: GTS 250 1GB CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 I think I am just missing a kext that would allow Snow Leopard to recognize my hard drives, but I am not sure. Hello, I had the same issue on my laptop - the 1st thing to check is that AHCI is always turn on in the BIOS. Another thing can be USB issue if your 2nd drive is USB... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1700760 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 21, 2011 Author Share Posted June 21, 2011 snow leo just hates IDE, i tryed to install Snow on an IDE hard disk that i had, and i had the same problem, it didn't want to show up in disk utility, so i managed to install Snow on the hard disk via vmware but it wouldn't boot, just forget it, SATA or nothing.... Hmm.. how disappointing. I may buy an IDE to SATA adapter and see how that works Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1701063 Share on other sites More sharing options...
LatinMcG Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 buy a sata drive.. better than an adapter. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1701716 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 I was able to get a SATA drive to install onto, but I am unable to get past the create your account section because of my PS/2 keyboard. The kexts I have tried in order to get PS/2 working have not helped. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705188 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sn1pest3r Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 hmm weird, have you installed the Retail version? I have a PS/2 keyboard too but i didn't have any problem with that, sorry, can't help you with this one... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705368 Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepanshu Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 I was able to get a SATA drive to install onto, but I am unable to get past the create your account section because of my PS/2 keyboard. The kexts I have tried in order to get PS/2 working have not helped. Well, you could've installed SL on an IDE drive using my newly modded IOATAFamily.kext. Nevertheless, the files attached will get you PS/2 support. (IF INSTALLED CORRECTLY) If they don't work: 1. Go to tonymacx86's blog. 2. Download [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], put it (not INSTALL it) in the USB you booted off for your install (I don't remember where, though) 3. Install it on your SL Disk through the installer. Archive.zip Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705431 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 30, 2011 Author Share Posted June 30, 2011 I put the kexts in S/L/E and repaired permissions but it still doesn't work. I can't to the desktop so I don't know how I am going to install [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705797 Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepanshu Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 You've to put the kexts in /E/E, because they're loaded by Chameleon and not OS X. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705845 Share on other sites More sharing options...
parklane79 Posted June 30, 2011 Author Share Posted June 30, 2011 Still no luck... I am using EasyBCD so I modified the nst_mac.iso as well, but no luck Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259363-still-waiting-for-root-device/#findComment-1705864 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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