[Dell 8600c]Installs fine, but doesn't boot

[snappieT]

Hi all,

I've got a Dell Inspiron 8600c (Pentium M ~1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, 128MB ATI 9600), and am trying to install 10.4.4 onto it. As far as I'm aware, the version I have isn't patched. Could someone explain to me exactly what patching does?

The install goes fine, everything is a success, but when the laptop automatically reboots, all I see is a flashing underscore in the top left of the screen.

 

I've tried re-installing, reformatting, playing with different partitions, but nothing works.

 

Even if I have an unformatted unpartitioned drive to begin with, and use Disk Utility to create a 100% partition for itself, it just won't boot.

 

If it helps, the reason I'm doing 10.4.4 is because 10.4.8 stalls during the loading of the installer. 10.4.4 has no such problems.

 

Please help!