Can OSx86 be Installed on a SATA Drive

[xpc200]

Hey guys,

 

I tried to install OSX onto a SATA drive, and starts the boot fine,

 

but then it gets stuck and all it says is "Still waiting for root device", repeating itself over and over.

 

So my question is, has anybody actually successfully installed onto a SATA drive, or is it just IDE drives that people are using? I assume that SATA drives are being accessed from OSX when people say that SATA works in the compatability lists?

 

Thanks

 

(BTW: If this question has been posted before, I do apologize, but if the case is that you cannot install onto a SATA drive (as boot) then it should be very obvious, no guides I have read have mentioned anything unless, maybe thats just me not reading it all )

[nagal]

I installed just fine on a SATA drive but I did experience the same issue as you. I am using an ASUS P5B-Deluxe which has 6 SATA ports. I found that if the hard drive I was installing too was on one of the 1st two Red sata connectors, everything was fine. I believe this has to deal with the sata ports 1-4 (the 1st 2 red ports and the 2 black ports) are controlled by the chipset while the other 2 red ports (5,6) are controlled by the JMicron controller thingy. All guess work there but with my HD on the 1st red port and my DVD drive (IDE using an IDE to SATA convertor) on the 2nd red port, no issues with the waiting for root device.

[-TiLT-]

Weather you can use a sata connected drive or not depends, as nagal already said, on the chipset. ICH7 and ICH8 are supported out of the box, nforce3/4 driver is still a bit sloppy and produces r/w-errors, some Silicon Image raids are supported, most information can be found on the wikis hcl. Start reading at wiki.insanelymac.com for further information.

Edited December 26, 2006 by -TiLT-

[Soündless]

i only have sata drives and it works fine for me

[xpc200]

Ok, I've fixed that problem, but got another.

 

I'll document here how I fixed my problem first tho.

 

I have a Intel E6600 2.4 Ghz Processor, with a motherboard with Intel's 945G Northbridge, and ICH7 Southbridge.

 

The bios used, is American Megatrends (AMI).

 

Select the Advanced Tab.

 

Select IDE Configuration

 

Change ATA/IDE Configuration to "Compatable"

 

Selected SATA 1, SATA 3, IDE 1

 

Saved and Exited Bios.

[xpc200]

Okay, I've got Mac OS X running. I had to boot into safe mode, then make the partition read/writable by following the provided instructions by darwin, then delete the ATI drivers that were there. I'm using a X300 SE, and the drivers installed were for the Radeon 9700 in the actual system, and was being incorrectly detected as a 9700 best match.

 

Need to see if I can get networking to work now. These forums are good