help with efi

[heshan]

can anyone help

i have looked up for various methods for efi installation and none seem to work

 

my system

intel core 2 duo 3.0ghz

asrock conroe1333-d667 bios rev 1.2

2gb ram (? manufacturer)

tsstCorp dvd RW DL (Ide master)

HL-ST-?? DVDRW (IDE slave)

(one ide channel only)

sata 1 - 250gb sata drive, 2 partitions with bootable xp and vista

sata 2 - 160gb IDE drive with IDE to SATA adaptor with leopard 10.5.1 (no efi)

sata 4 - 500gb sata drive - samsung spinpoint (got my home directory, files etc)

 

boot setup. Bios is directed to the 250gb sata drive where Easy BCD successfully directs to the osx indtallation, vista or xp. as expected, i have the f11 bios boot options available also.

 

My leopard installation works as it is, i have a Maxtor USB onetiouch external HDD with a carbon copy clone of the IDE leopard installation.

 

My leopard installation is the "flat install" with ToH update to 10.5.1. Using a dvd installation disk never worked, i just got a flashing cursor at boot despite making drive bootable and active. the flat install worked everytime

 

i'd like to install the efi and use my licensed 10.5.0 disk to make a new installation and update via apples website

i've tried every installation method.

 

Kalyway installed but never booted - i didn't try using -v and finding out where the error was. i say "darwin bootloader", EFI installed flash by my eyes, then the system would reboot. Itried this on my usb drive once, the same thing happebned but interestingly, it booted to my pc laptop successfully. That made me wonder about question 4 below. The laptop has both the intel pro/ve network problem (solvable on these forums) and the 3945 ABG wireless problem. (thats for anpther day)

 

Iatkos disk never installed as i said twice that "essentials package could not be validated"

 

using my USB installation, i followed i am me's efi installation method but again, "efi installed, darwin bootloader" flashed up very quickly before the whole system restarted.

 

tried a method to install boot_v5 described by someone for the flat image - again, flashing cursor..

my questions

 

1. what is the boot setup for the leopard flat install that requires a dd.exe. is it MBR or GUID?

2. can it be changed after installation?

3. which efi would i use - v5 doesnt seem to work#

4. does it matter that i have an SATA to IDE adaptor on my leopard disk? would it be better to switch to using SATA or try putting the IDE as master and removing one dvdrw? I suppose, since i dont use windows much, i could restart the installations and install vista and xp on the 160gb ide to sata drive and put a new copy of leopard on the sata drive.

 

I think question 4 may hold the answer and will try that tonight.

 

my reasons for using osx86 was the superior video editing and photo imaging software and presentations it offers. I also use Osirix as i am a doctor and need it for imaging purposes

 

At the moment, (as i said earlier) all works fine. The final option is to stay at 10.5.1 and never update until i can buy a mac pro.

 

oh, if it helps, i have a Macbook Pro owned by work that i am 'borrowing' long term. It suffered massive software failure so its reliability is in question...but enough about that.

 

Thanks

heshan

 

Many thanks

 

heshan