Need a little Tech Support

[sej111]

I'm running OS 10.4.6 on my PC and have a couple of newbie questions. First some details about my machine:

 

Intel P4 Duo 2.4GHz Processor

Asus P5W-DH Motherboard

ATI Radeon 1950XTX

4 GB DDR 800MHz RAM

2 Lite-On CD/DVD-RW Drives

Western Digital 150GB HD (Drive 0=XP Pro.)

Seagate 250GB HD (Drive 1, partition 1=10.4.6)

Atech PRO-28U Flash Card reader

 

I'm running the sse3 patch, the soundblaster.USB.audio patch (sigmatel9220 patch prevented the machine from booting), the radeon patch, the GMA patch, and the wireless patch. (The Via patch killed my network interface.) No AMD patches are installed.

 

I'm switching between systems in BIOS because none of the dual boot instructions I've read make sense to me. Is there a set of dual boot instructions for complete idiots? (Acronis apparently requires OSX be installed after Acronis "creates" the OSX partition, I want to keep my existing installation if possible. I downloaded darwinx86-801.iso for the chain0 thing if that's any help.)

 

My sound doesn't work (no output device, same result with the sse2 patch). I’m downloading the 10.4.8 installer which might fix this problem.

 

Energy Saver doesn't work to shut down the monitor, is there a fix for this?

 

Finally, I'd like to change the screen resolution and refresh rate. I read some instructions and used F8 to get the Darwin screen on start-up, but entering; -x "graphics mode"="1280x1024x32@85" just booted me into safe mode. (I don't understand the part about platform=acpi or platform=x8693.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Apple Freak]

One thing I'm not sure how your machine, is that why do you have two HDDs each have one OS on it, don't you need to switch the jumper everytime you want to switch your OS?

If you want to dual boot here it is(Erasing HDD required):

1. Put in you OS X install DVD

2. After selecting language, go to the Apple Menu

3. Utilities > Disk Utilities > Erase tab> Select your HDD > Click Erase > Click on the Partition tab > Partition your HDD into two > Click Partition

4. Command-Q(Alt-Q)

5. Follow the instructions on Installer

6. Select the right patch(What you selected before, except don't select the USB audio patch, your internal audio card might not work after you select it)

7. Install, then restart, press F8, you should see two option you can choose

8. One of them is Mac, the other one is blank

9. Insert a Windows Installation Disk install it on the balnk partition

10. You're done. Everytime you want to boot to the other OS restart press F8, select your partition, then it will boot into the OS you want

 

That might help you a bit...

[Rammjet]

is that why do you have two HDDs each have one OS on it, don't you need to switch the jumper everytime you want to switch your OS?

No jumpers need to be changed.

 

If you go into BIOS and change the order in which the drives are booted, then you can easily switch between different hard drives. Some BIOS, like mine, allow you to press a function key during POST and it will present a menu of available drives so you can temporarily switch on the fly.

 

For a bootloader, Acronis will easily handle two drives. But Acronis is slow and often gets corrupted and messes with your Windows installation. If using Acronis, be sure to create the boot CD so you can save a corrupted bootloader installation. If Acronis doesn't recognize your OSX hard drive intitially, just copy the Floppy drive icon. Right click on the copied icon and select Properties. Change its name to something like "Mac OS X". Then click on Partitions and select the hard drive/partition that you want the icon to boot. Be sure to click the Active box. Then save it.

 

The chain0 file is available on your 10.4.6 install DVD. Just go into Windows and insert the DVD. When it is loaded, use My Computer to browse the DVD and you will see some boot files including the chain0 file. To install it, just copy it to your C:\ directory and add a line to boot.ini like this: C:\chain0="Mac OS X".

However, the Windows bootloader in combination with chain0 doesn't always work with multiple hard drives.

[sej111]

Thanks for the responses. As for the sound, the only two audio patches on the installer don't work on my machine, running no patch doesn't fix the sound. I'll wait and see if the 10.4.8 installer fixes the sound.

 

I'll give the chain0 thing a try, otherwise going into BIOS to switch between systems isn't inconvenient enough to try the Acronis solution, that sounds too flaky.

 

As for the two drives; on my Macs, I put the system on one partition and the apps on a second partition. If I have to reload the system, it speeds up the process of getting the apps going again. Also, having everything on one drive means a lot of extra work if (when) the drive dies. I'm a graphics person and keep customer files on a USB drive, Mac OS and apps on one internal drive, and XP and windows apps on a second internal drive. Both OSs have Adobe CS2 Professional installed so I can work from either OS (but prefer OSX) or move the USB drive to another work station if the whole computer has problems.

 

I'm still curious what I'm doing wrong on the screen resolution/refresh command.

[asap18]

sorry off topic, but why do people call it a p4 duo, is that the equivalent of a pentium d or is it just a pentium 4.

[sej111]

My documentation defines my processor as an "Intel Core 2 Duo Processor". Basically, it's two Pentium 4, 2.4GHz processors, combined on one chip.

[Sailfish]

Rammjet is correct. Acronis is great, it just is a little slow to boot. Have the Acronis MBR repair disk in hand prior to installation. When it goes wacky, that fixes it up in a jiffy. Consider Easy BCD too... Very quick and clean.

[sej111]

I finally got around to trying the chain0 thing, it works perfectly...Thanks.

 

I almost have the 10.4.8 installer fully downloaded. I don't know what patches are available in this installer, but I'd sure like to get sound back. The soundblaster.USB.audio patch and sigmatel9220 patch don't fix the problem, any suggestions on what patches I should install? Last time I installed 8 or 10 times with different combinations of patches (erasing the partition before each intall). The system seemed to work equally well with or without GMA patch, installing the radeon patch seems logical since I have a Radeon video board; could either of these be compounding my sound problem?

 

Thanks again.