Multi boot on a Dell Optiplex 170L

[ejp]

Here's some background on this machine; I'm not sure what's important or I'll miss something important.

 

Firstly, the machine is completey stock; it has onboard audio and video (Intel Graphics). CPU-Z shows it's running a Celeron 2.40GHz. Instructions include MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3.

 

The only other additions are a second hard drive, upgraded to 512MB RAM, and a DVD-ROM.

 

Following this tutorial, I wasn't able to make any significant changes to my BIOS -- very limited BIOS. The only changes were the boot sequence and to also automatically sense primary slave (2nd hard drive).

 

As of right now, I'm running 3 operating systems and I want to add OSX. On the primary master, I have Windows XP on partition 1 and Windows Vista on partition 2. On the primary slave, I have Linux Ubuntu on partition 1, a clean partition for OSX, and a Linux Swap partition on partition 3.

 

I'm using the Vista Boot manager (with the help of EasyBCD) to be able to boot into XP, Vista, or Ubuntu.

 

Here's my install process:

1. Boot up with Kalyway 10.5.1.

2. Run Disk Utilities.

3. Choose the 2nd partition on the 2nd hard drive, format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and named it as "osx" (without the quotes).

4. Continue installation, install to the "osx" partition.

5. Under Customize, I only checked "Vanilla_Kernel ACPI Platform" (which checks both "Vanilla_Kernel" and "Vanilla_ACPI_fix") and "BOOT_efi_mbr". Everything else is left unchecked; none of those drivers apply to this machine.

6. Continue installation.

7. Reboot, take DVD out.

 

Result: Boots to the Vista boot manager.

 

8. I went into Vista to add OSX to the boot manager with EasyBCD (Generic x86 PC).

9. Reboot; choose OSX.

10. I get the Darwin boot screen that has my OSX partition selected: hd(1,2) osx

11. I hit enter.

 

Result: The system reboots. I try it again, this time with a -x; it takes a bit more time, but then reboots the same.

 

12. I put the install DVD back in.

13. I go into Terminal.

14. diskutil list (shows my OSX partition of disk1)

15. fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1

16. p (currently shows the * on 1, which is my Ubuntu partition; 2 is my OSX partition)

17. f 2

18. w

19. yes. reboot.

 

Result: No change.

 

20. I go back to step 1.

21. When I get to step 5, I choose "BOOT_efi_guid" instead.

22. I continue to step 9 (skipping step 8).

 

Result: "HFS+ partition error"

 

At one point, I followed that linked tutorial, matching the Customize screen exactly; same results.

 

Am I doing something wrong; did I skip a step? Or does my machine not meet the requirements do install OSX?

 

When installing it with "BOOT_efi_mbr", shouldn't this have replaced my Vista boot manager with Darwin? Why isn't it doing that?

 

Thanks.

[ejp]

Can someone please verify if my install process is correct? Thank you.

[DannoXYZ]

I have this exact machine and haven't even been able to get as far as you. The Kalyway DVD bombs and reboots right before it loads the GUI after the grey apple screen. The iATKOSv1.0r2 DVd gets further and actually gets to the installer. But after the installation, the boots up just fine to the grey apple screen and crashes and reboots right before the GUI.

 

I've tried -s option to boot into single-user mode, but it doesn't get that far before crashing & rebooting.

 

Anyway, my 170L has a 2.8ghz Northwood P4 (socket-478) CPU without SSE3. What do you have in yours?

[Maximus3D]

I'm no expert at this, but i did a successul installation once of Kalyway 10.5.1 on my rig and then you had to label the partition (or hdd) "Leopard" without the quotes or else the system wouldn't be able to find it during installation and boot. But i could be wrong..

 

/ Max

[simcolor]

I have this exact machine and haven't even been able to get as far as you. The Kalyway DVD bombs and reboots right before it loads the GUI after the grey apple screen. The iATKOSv1.0r2 DVd gets further and actually gets to the installer. But after the installation, the boots up just fine to the grey apple screen and crashes and reboots right before the GUI.

 

I've tried -s option to boot into single-user mode, but it doesn't get that far before crashing & rebooting.

 

Anyway, my 170L has a 2.8ghz Northwood P4 (socket-478) CPU without SSE3. What do you have in yours?

 

I have had similar problems as yours. I have an old SSE2 only CPU, and was using iAtkos 1.0v2+EquatePatch(I don't know if I need that EqUatePatch or not, but just to be safe, won't hurt). It installed successfully. And then gives me "blinking cursor" problem. In my case, it is due to I didn't select a correct video driver during install.

 

You can try -v option at boot, and see what error message it gives. And try to re-install Leopard with a different customization. You may want to try SSE2 only kernel, and good luck

[davieFL]

I have a stock 170L

 

I was able to complete the install with Kalyway but during and after the install the screen is a fuzzy grayscale (except for the linux commnand line stuff -- which is black)...but all the Mac interface is a very fuzzy, hard to read grayscale.

 

Seems that it's "not liking" the onboard graphics card.

 

any ideas? should I tweak anytihng on the bios?

 

thx!