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I got the 10.4.8 JaS image and burned it to a bootable DVD

 

Upon loading the DVD it says "Press any key to install OSX or hit F8 for installation options"

 

I hit any key, and a bunch of white text is on the screen now.

 

I wait a bit, and I get the message at the bottom "Still waiting for root device"

 

I wait three more minutes, and it pops up again. Then again.. 8 mins later... again and again.

 

Pretty soon the white text reads:

 

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

Still waiting for root device

etc.

 

I have tried other boot options, such as -v, and -x (safe mode?) and its the same outcome each time.

 

Anyone have any idea what's wrong? I've installed version 10.4.6 before on my PC with minimal problems and used it for a while, can't remember why I decided to remove it, but that's unimportant.

 

Thanks

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yeah, i feel ya bro. I have P5N-E SLI board, and it does the same thing when i try to install 10.4.8. Very discouraging... I also get messages like "IOATA Controller device blocking bus"

 

I was excited about installing mac, but now i cant. I guess ill do what i always do in cases similiar to these...

 

I blame Microsoft!!

guys i think the problem is the SATA hard drive problem, i had a simular problem with windows xp it didnt load the drivers for my hard drive and it didnt work and when it says "still waiting for root device" i think thats refering to that aswell maybe it cant detect that you have a SATA hard drive installed and it needs the drivers, like windows xp does. i have a dell dimension 9200, if you guys have SATA hard drives then this might be the problem

Edited by bardz

right waiting for root device means that your hard drive cant be accessed, if you see no mention of the following in the text before this then you're hard drive controller hasn't been installed:

 

Apple GenericPCATADriver (followed by memory and irq allocations)

Apple VIA ATA Driver: VIA 8237 SATA

 

You will have a variation of the driver depending on your controller. I managed to get my onboard PATA controller working with IDE (not AHCI option in the BIOS) but I still get a problem about IOATA Device blocking bus ... very annoying!

 

I'm on the p5b

Edited by Jimbwlah
  • 2 weeks later...

I have an exactly same problem as yours. I am using a P4P800 mainboard with LiteOn drive. Everything is working when using 10.4.6 DVD. However, when trying to install the latest 10.4.8 from JAS I got the stilling waiting for root device error.

 

I've try to play around with those master slave IDE0 and 1 things and none of them work at all.

 

10.4.8 does not support my DVD drive while 10.4.6 does? I wonder....

check your jumper on your DVD/CD device!! I had the same problem with installation and when i booted into Mac OS x my DVD device was not shown. and it's all because the jumper on DVD device was set as "SLAVE" but cable was connected as "MASTER". Then I set jumper to "MASTER" and the problem was dissapeared. Good luck! :)

I am getting this issue on another PC as well.

 

This PC is all SATA both Hard Drives and even the DVD drive, so there are no jumpers to set MASTER :)

 

Dell 745.

 

Actually, thinking of it now, no machine I have ever tried loading OSX on with a SATA DVD rom has worked...

I had exactly the same problem util i found that when the installer asks you to choose the diferent drivers to install you can click at the black arrows to show more options inside the main one. I've always tried to install without checking the "support for the most common hardware" so it always gave me the "still waiting for root device message". If you expand that arrow, at the end you can choose the sata driver for nforce4 based boards. That solved my problem after more than a week trying to work it out. yes i know i was really dumb not knowing that... :)

 

I believe this only works for nforce4 chipset but i'm not sure.

I installed JaS 10.4.8 Intel-AMD SSE2-SSE3 PPF1 + Defiantdiskutil7 + blacksoulAppleNforceATAafterdefiant.ppf

Me got the same problem when installing JaS AMD SSE2 SSE3 ISO.

 

Actually the error occurs immediately after it boots from the DVD, I do not have chances even to patch SSE2 nor SSE3.

 

It's not booting into GUI either, by default I get the white text screen :(

check your jumper on your DVD/CD device!! I had the same problem with installation and when i booted into Mac OS x my DVD device was not shown. and it's all because the jumper on DVD device was set as "SLAVE" but cable was connected as "MASTER". Then I set jumper to "MASTER" and the problem was dissapeared. Good luck! :P

 

Thanks for ur info :thumbsup_anim:

  • 2 months later...

Just came to this forum today after trying to boot 10.4.8 Jas on a P5B Deluxe mobo and came across the root device issue. I went into BIOS, then IDE options and changed 'Enhanced' to 'Compatible'. Seems to have fixed the SATA problem... Good thing since I have a SATA DVD drive as well. Hope this helps ;-)

The for the root device error is OSX's inability to boot correctly from your dvd drive. This is most likely because it is sata, so turning it to legacy mode in the bios could help. however, in many cases this doesn't , so it is easiest and best to boot from a different dvd drive(external on usb works), or install from vmware.

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