Darwin nForce4 ATA/SATA controller

[ncfballkid]

i was looking the pci card in the forums and over in this forum they have had some success with the pci card with a simple edit to the .plist of the driver

[noodpope]

I have been trying for almost a year now to get OS X onto my laptop.

 

I have an Alienware m9700, and as far as I know, every bit of my hardware is compatible and I have found ways to fix most bugs except one. My laptop uses the nforce4 chipset and 2 SATA drives. I don't have an IDE drive or a way to add an IDE drive to my computer, so unless it can be installed directly to a SATA drive, it won't work for me.

 

I read that I can patch an install DVD with the proper kext to make this possible.

 

But after looking through the forums I can't find anyone explaining how to do this.

 

Someone please tell me how to patch an install DVD to work with nforce4 SATA (or point me to some explanation of this).

[tokyovigilante]

I have been trying for almost a year now to get OS X onto my laptop.

 

I have an Alienware m9700, and as far as I know, every bit of my hardware is compatible and I have found ways to fix most bugs except one. My laptop uses the nforce4 chipset and 2 SATA drives. I don't have an IDE drive or a way to add an IDE drive to my computer, so unless it can be installed directly to a SATA drive, it won't work for me.

 

I read that I can patch an install DVD with the proper kext to make this possible.

 

But after looking through the forums I can't find anyone explaining how to do this.

 

Someone please tell me how to patch an install DVD to work with nforce4 SATA (or point me to some explanation of this).

1. Get a > 2Gb USB drive.

2. Get the uphuck 1.3 DVD.

3. Install OS X to your USB drive.

4. Patch a copy of the DVD with my patch (in sig)

5. Burn the patched DVD

6. Install OS X to your SATA drive.

7. Hurray!

[noodpope]

1. Get a > 2Gb USB drive.

2. Get the uphuck 1.3 DVD.

3. Install OS X to your USB drive.

4. Patch a copy of the DVD with my patch (in sig)

5. Burn the patched DVD

6. Install OS X to your SATA drive.

7. Hurray!

 

 

thanks a lot, i'm downloading uphuck 1.3 now

 

is installing to my usb 80gb hard drive going to be similar to normal installation from the dvd or are there some special instructions for that?

[tokyovigilante]

thanks a lot, i'm downloading uphuck 1.3 now

 

is installing to my usb 80gb hard drive going to be similar to normal installation from the dvd or are there some special instructions for that?

Should be, you'll probably need to partition it in Disk Utility (in the tools menu as I recall) and format it HFS+ before it will show up in the Volumes window. Just install a minimal system+drivers, as you only need it to bootstrap the new DVD. Remember your NTFS partitions will be read only, so you'll need to copy it to your USB drive before editing.

[noodpope]

Should be, you'll probably need to partition it in Disk Utility (in the tools menu as I recall) and format it HFS+ before it will show up in the Volumes window. Just install a minimal system+drivers, as you only need it to bootstrap the new DVD. Remember your NTFS partitions will be read only, so you'll need to copy it to your USB drive before editing.

 

and by minimal system+drivers you mean

 

just the necessary things on the checkbox list, right? i'm not missing some other option somewhere

[tokyovigilante]

and by minimal system+drivers you mean

 

just the necessary things on the checkbox list, right? i'm not missing some other option somewhere

Yeah, I mean just don't bother with office etc.

[XaD]

hi...i own hptx1003au notebook i got almost evrything owrking except the sata nforc4 430/410 controller...right now m using the pendrive as an option for osx ...i hope the gurus at insanelymac come up with a proper driver for nforce 430/410 ...till then patiently waiting thnk..and best of liuck

[doradekell]

Success!!!

 

I am new to this forum as well as to MAC OS X. I have read nearly every post on this thread to find the answers I was looking for so here goes.

 

I have MAC OS X installed on an IDE HDD but I also have a SATA DVD Burner. I could install find from the JaS 10.4.8 but once I booted back up after the install I would lose the DVD burner. I feel like once I can get the DVD burner to show I can then copy the IDE drive over to a SATA drive (hopefully).

 

I have an Asus MB with Nforce 4 chipset. (not a 410 or 430) and I was looking for step by step instructions to get this to work since this is all new to me. Here is what I did to get the SATA to work.

 

1. Download the AppleNForceATA.kext.zip from the download link here.

 

2. Opened the archive and copied the AppleNForceATA.kext to /System/Library/Extensions/IOATAFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns. (To get inside the IOATAFamily.kext you need to right click and click on open package, then you can copy the kext file to the PlugIns folder.

 

3. Next open terminal and run the following:

 

sudo -s (type your password and press enter)

 

sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IOATAFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleNForceATA.kext

 

rm /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

 

rm /System/Library/Extensions.kext.cache

 

exit

 

exit

 

4. Now open the Disk Utility and run repair permissions and reboot!

 

I am by no mean a MAC guru but thorough reading of these forums and all the work all the developers have done made it possible for me to get this working. I can now use my SATA DVD burner and next is to move my installation over to a SATA HDD.

 

Thanks bikedude880 and MeDevil for your hard work!!

 

Dora

[ghakazian]

To all who might be interested in a working SATA driver for NForce 410/430, I have recently delved a little into IOKit programming and am going to take a stab at a completely new driver for these chips. Before I get started though, I want to make sure that I understand the current state of affairs.

 

1. There are working patched drivers available for NForce4 and earlier chipsets but nothing that gives reliable support for NForce 410/430 or higher.

2. Using one of the patched drivers, or the out-of-box AppleVIAATA.kext both result in "IOATAController blocking bus" errors and data corruption, correct?

3. The prevalent line of thinking is that the timing values in these drivers do not work for the 410/430 chipsets, and that none of the other drivers (Linux, FreeBSD) have timing information in the right format to use in OSX.

 

Does this sound accurate or am I missing anything? I've tried to peruse this thread as fully as possible but with 40+ pages I am sure to overlook things.

[tokyovigilante]

To all who might be interested in a working SATA driver for NForce 410/430, I have recently delved a little into IOKit programming and am going to take a stab at a completely new driver for these chips. Before I get started though, I want to make sure that I understand the current state of affairs.

 

1. There are working patched drivers available for NForce4 and earlier chipsets but nothing that gives reliable support for NForce 410/430 or higher.

2. Using one of the patched drivers, or the out-of-box AppleVIAATA.kext both result in "IOATAController blocking bus" errors and data corruption, correct?

3. The prevalent line of thinking is that the timing values in these drivers do not work for the 410/430 chipsets, and that none of the other drivers (Linux, FreeBSD) have timing information in the right format to use in OSX.

 

Does this sound accurate or am I missing anything? I've tried to peruse this thread as fully as possible but with 40+ pages I am sure to overlook things.

1. Yes.

2. Yes. Also the case on nForce4 using the VIA ATA drivers.

3. That was the case during development of the nForce4 driver. I assume that this is also the case for the nForce410/430 drivers, and that a lack of hardware availability for the developers of the original driver is the main reason no-one's coded it before now. However there may be additional unknown technical differences between the chips, as there is a substantial difference in things like the memory controller. I'd suggest the linux/BSD SATA drivers as a good place to start, however you correctly not the timing values are not applicable.

 

Good luck! You'll certainly make a lot of people happy if you can get this up and running.

[Norchogane]

To all who might be interested in a working SATA driver for NForce 410/430, I have recently delved a little into IOKit programming and am going to take a stab at a completely new driver for these chips. Before I get started though, I want to make sure that I understand the current state of affairs.

 

1. There are working patched drivers available for NForce4 and earlier chipsets but nothing that gives reliable support for NForce 410/430 or higher.

2. Using one of the patched drivers, or the out-of-box AppleVIAATA.kext both result in "IOATAController blocking bus" errors and data corruption, correct?

3. The prevalent line of thinking is that the timing values in these drivers do not work for the 410/430 chipsets, and that none of the other drivers (Linux, FreeBSD) have timing information in the right format to use in OSX.

 

Does this sound accurate or am I missing anything? I've tried to peruse this thread as fully as possible but with 40+ pages I am sure to overlook things.

 

I've been trying to install this for over a week, working basically from when I woke up to night, and I just found out I have the damned nForce 410/430. It's one of those very disappointing things in life. I have no option to sell and buy a new computer, so I will be stuck in Windows Vista for the while. (I can't get Linux to run very nicely on this either...)

 

I wish you the best of luck, and thank you so much for trying! I hope you are successful (ASAP as well). I wish more people would help. (I would, but I don't know anything.)

[drmr]

I've been trying to install this for over a week, working basically from when I woke up to night, and I just found out I have the damned nForce 410/430. It's one of those very disappointing things in life. I have no option to sell and buy a new computer, so I will be stuck in Windows Vista for the while. (I can't get Linux to run very nicely on this either...)

 

I wish you the best of luck, and thank you so much for trying! I hope you are successful (ASAP as well). I wish more people would help. (I would, but I don't know anything.)

 

Why don't you buy a PATA HDD and install Mac OS X on this. Then, use your SATA drive through USB external case. I have Mac OS X running on 80GB PATA drive and plan to buy an USB external case. It should work perfectly. I'll report my experience.

[Necrosan]

I got a sweet deal on an HP dv2416us (turion 64 x2, 2gb ram, 120gb hdd, dvd burner with lightscribe) but got shafted with its chipset: the nForce 4 410.

 

Whoever ported the other nForce 4 stuff, where are you these days?

You could report the latest sata_nv.c (which I presume you did to get the latest nForce 4 stuff going)

and give us all support.

Or you could contact me with instructions on what you all did and what values would possibly need to be changed.

I can't guarantee anything but I can try.

 

So the question is, are you still around these forums, medevil?

Thanks!

[XaD]

Finallly some good news for us nforce 430/410 ownerz..

to let u knw tht the latest tubgirl release works perfectly on my hp pavilion tx1000 only leaviing the sata part as it is dreaded nforce 430/410 board...

this single post of someone willing to develop is so good to hear...

best of luck...

i hope i cud do something for it but since no idea abt io programming ...

 

ne ways guys best of luck to u all

[Azurael]

So what you mean is that it doesn't work perfectly then, because a computer without a hard drive is a bout as useful as dry biscuits when you're dehydrated in the desert...

[Guest AaloPalto]

To all who might be interested in a working SATA driver for NForce 410/430, I have recently delved a little into IOKit programming and am going to take a stab at a completely new driver for these chips. Before I get started though, I want to make sure that I understand the current state of affairs.1. There are working patched drivers available for NForce4 and earlier chipsets but nothing that gives reliable support for NForce 410/430 or higher.2. Using one of the patched drivers, or the out-of-box AppleVIAATA.kext both result in "IOATAController blocking bus" errors and data corruption, correct?3. The prevalent line of thinking is that the timing values in these drivers do not work for the 410/430 chipsets, and that none of the other drivers (Linux, FreeBSD) have timing information in the right format to use in OSX.Does this sound accurate or am I missing anything? I've tried to peruse this thread as fully as possible but with 40+ pages I am sure to overlook things.

Some hints for you:The Device stucks immediatly after issue an ATA Command 0x35, "write dma ext" (maybe its worth to look into IOATABlockStorage?)There are no interrupts signaled after that command, just an timeout happened and the system gets freezed on execute the _currentCommand callback.All device/controller dependent things like (U)DMA,PIO modes etc are correrctly recognized.No matter what setting i adjusted (disable ncq, enable/disable prefetch & postwrite,etc,etc), the device did not respond to anything after an command 0x35.Counting PCI-Bars (must be six for NV SATA) and getting PCIBAR(5) were ok.If i had some more time i would like too look deeper into it, maybe we can work together on it?Greetings

So what you mean is that it doesn't work perfectly then, because a computer without a hard drive is a bout as useful as dry biscuits when you're dehydrated in the desert...

LOL

[Overclocked Tardis]

Alright! Good luck and god-speed to both of you!

There just might be a glint of hope for us 410/430 owners after all.

[Norchogane]

Why don't you buy a PATA HDD and install Mac OS X on this. Then, use your SATA drive through USB external case. I have Mac OS X running on 80GB PATA drive and plan to buy an USB external case. It should work perfectly. I'll report my experience.

Yeah, I have thought about that, and I might do it. (Don't exactly have a fund for that right now.) I'm worried about how fast it'd work, and it kind of negates the whole point of having a portable computer. It'd be great if I could just get one installed in my laptop instead.

So what you mean is that it doesn't work perfectly then, because a computer without a hard drive is a bout as useful as dry biscuits when you're dehydrated in the desert...

Lol, yeah.When I use the 1.3 uphuck dvd, everything else works that doesn't work with any other dvd, but it's certainly that useless if I can't do anything to my hard drive.

[jh1523]

Why don't you buy a PATA HDD and install Mac OS X on this. Then, use your SATA drive through USB external case. I have Mac OS X running on 80GB PATA drive and plan to buy an USB external case. It should work perfectly. I'll report my experience.

 

I tried doing exactly that. I have an Everex xt5000 laptop with MCP430 chipset, SATA drives only (it doesn't have IDE connectors). Tried the Tubgirl 10.4.10 DVD, it would see the SATA drive but can't do anything with it. I installed it to a PATA drive on my desktop, then connected that drive to the laptop through an IDE/USB adapter. Darwin starts booting then stops with "still waiting for root" msg. So I can't run OSX on my laptop that way.

[Necrosan]

It's a waste of time trying to even make it run if you got the 430/410 nForce SATA and y'r on a laptop.

All we can do is pray medevil comes back and helps us all out again, seeing as he seems to be the only one who ever got anything accomplished with this terrible chipset.

 

Everyone else says this and that but never DOES anything.

 

Hell, I'd give porting it over a shot but I get NO replies from anyone that's worked with this chipset before.

 

The development community over here is pretty pathetic, I must say. Whatever happened to helping each other out?

[ghakazian]

To get my NForce430-based system up and running, I bought a $30 USB 2.0 enclosure for a spare 40GB laptop drive I had lying around. I was able to install JaS 10.4.8 on this with no problem whatsoever. The model was a NexStar 3, although I think they are all fairly generic. The only internal hard disks I have are SATA so this was a nice solution to get me up and running. Also nice because it made transferring files from my already-running laptop easy when I needed to, to get marvell lan working and such. It is a bit slower than if it were running on the SATA disks but not horribly so, definitely workable for development purposes. Just don't accidentally unplug the drive instead of your flash key

[Guest AaloPalto]

It's a waste of time trying to even make it run if you got the 430/410 nForce SATA and y'r on a laptop.

All we can do is pray medevil comes back and helps us all out again, seeing as he seems to be the only one who ever got anything accomplished with this terrible chipset.

 

Everyone else says this and that but never DOES anything.

 

Hell, I'd give porting it over a shot but I get NO replies from anyone that's worked with this chipset before.

 

The development community over here is pretty pathetic, I must say. Whatever happened to helping each other out?

 

Not medevil nor bikedude are able to get it to work, due to lack of skills. Why do you think medevil were never seen again since 8 or 9 month now?

They tried to get it to work by simply coping Apples sources and modify here and there some values.

Well, you see the easy way didnt work.

 

If anyone has had the skills to get it to work ,im pretty sure you got an working driver no?

That means you must not pray for medevil. At least he were not kind enough to post his source so somebody could finish his work (if it was his work)...

 

Just wait and see what comes along

 

Greetings

[ghakazian]

It's a waste of time trying to even make it run if you got the 430/410 nForce SATA and y'r on a laptop.

All we can do is pray medevil comes back and helps us all out again, seeing as he seems to be the only one who ever got anything accomplished with this terrible chipset.

 

Everyone else says this and that but never DOES anything.

 

Hell, I'd give porting it over a shot but I get NO replies from anyone that's worked with this chipset before.

 

The development community over here is pretty pathetic, I must say. Whatever happened to helping each other out?

 

Thanks for the positive encouragement. I wish I could show you some progress right now but I haven't made much. As for time invested though, I've already blown through a couple of week's effort trying to recode the AppleVIAATA.kext piece by piece to try and figure out why it is failing. That effort proved inconclusive, other than identifying that the problem was either in the timing or the IOATAFamily code, not in the VIA-specific root, channel, or driver code.

That said, my research into the NForce430 chipset showed that unlike the previous NForce chipsets, which merely imitated a standard ATA interface, the 430 uses an ADMA engine, which seems to be a precursor to the AHCI protocol. It offloads responsibility of DMA execution and timing from the host driver to the controller hardware.

None of the Darwin open-source ATA drivers make use of ADMA; they all program the chipsets as variants of the generic ATA interface.

Researching ADMA I found documentation that explicitly describes how host software is supposed to interact with an ADMA controller. Thus I believe that through a combination of that documentation and the Linux driver, it would be possible to construct an Apple driver that actually implements ADMA support instead of generic ATA. Such a driver is not a simple undertaking; it is not merely a hack of an existing driver. It is more akin to the closed-source development of the AHCI drivers, which ended up creating an entire IOKit family. The benefits would be a driver that fully supported NCQ as well as (hopefully) other ADMA chipsets.

That said, I understand that the development community is pretty pathetic. Most users of this board are just that, users, they are looking for solutions rather than trying to come up with them. Driver development is pretty time- and resource-intensive, and it is hard to get people to commit to something like this, especially when they will never get paid for it. But I think it is a worthwhile investment of time because it is something unique that seems like it could help a lot of people. The nForce430 chipsets aren't going to all be thrown out; as far as I can tell it is a decent board and could make a nice osx86 machine with just this one additional piece of glue.

[drmr]

I tried doing exactly that. I have an Everex xt5000 laptop with MCP430 chipset, SATA drives only (it doesn't have IDE connectors). Tried the Tubgirl 10.4.10 DVD, it would see the SATA drive but can't do anything with it. I installed it to a PATA drive on my desktop, then connected that drive to the laptop through an IDE/USB adapter. Darwin starts booting then stops with "still waiting for root" msg. So I can't run OSX on my laptop that way.

 

Hm, I was more leaning toward using PATA disk for Mac OS X installation and use the USB external case, so you can have a big drive, where you store the information. I haven't thought about missing PATA interface:)