Mac OS X on x86 Hardware 2008–2024 Technical Archive
InfiniteMac OSx86 › Leopard 10.5 › OSx86 install works, fails back to BIOS during boot
10,773 reads · 2009-03-07 – 2009-03-10
Report Leopard 10.5 AMD OSx86 ATI Radeon

OSx86 install works, fails back to BIOS during boot

Hi. I just installed iDeneb 10.5.5 and the install went great. I use Grub and it boots up the darwin bootloader on my OSx86 partition with no problem. When I try to boot with -v, I see the bootloader listing all the kexts it is loading…

Primary Author
@zon Published 2009-03-07
Collection
Leopard 10.5
Archival Footprint
10,773 historical reads · 3 curated field notes (from 5 dispatches) · 2009-03-07 – 2009-03-10
Credited Voices (4)
@zon (2)@Ali C.@nagu@Artcool

Hi. I just installed iDeneb 10.5.5 and the install went great.
I use Grub and it boots up the darwin bootloader on my OSx86 partition
with no problem.

When I try to boot with -v, I see the bootloader listing all the kexts it
is loading from HFS+ files. It gets through a list of them and then
there is a pause, the screen turn black, and BOOM! The screen turns
black, and I'm back in the BIOS, which takes me back to Grub.

I've tried various combinations of -x and -s and I still don't get a
shell prompt or any behavior other than this. Suggestions as
to how to proceed are very welcome.

Thanks very much!

My Configuration:
Sony PCG-Z1RAP(UC) Notebook
Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1500MHz (sse, sse2)
display: ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY
Intel 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller
Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter
Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller
memory size: 1GiB

Author Updates & Technical Revisions

Follow-up dispatches by @zon

Author Update #1 @zon 2009-03-08

Doesn't boot at all

No, it didn't boot at all, with or without flags.

I got past that point after a few hours by loading the proper drivers for
my hardware in the 'custom' part of the install.

I'm now at the point where the boot loader prints out:
MAC Framework sucessfully initialized
Using 5242 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers

It then hangs. I tried various flags combinations with no luck (-x -f -v -s).

I'm wondering if I picked the right kernel as part of the custom install. There
were several that said they were good for SSE2 (which I have, but not SSE3). I picked an
SSE2 kernel, but there were several that said they would work with SSE2 (sleep kernel,
speedstep kernel, etc.). I picked somthing that said (v.4, SSE2, SSE3) and had a
three letter name. Wish I could remember it!

Synthesized Community Field Notes

3 technical responses curated from 5 original dispatches

Field Note #1 @Ali C. 2009-03-08

So it boots fine but does this when you attempt to use -v?
I'd suspect a goofup somewhere with the bootloader or a hosed installation.

Field Note #2 @nagu 2009-03-10

Do you remember which video card Kext you selected?

You may need to install again only with very basic set of drivers..say kext for your chipset and video card.

I believe, video card is not completely supported..esp QE and CI might not work..but you should be able to boot it up.

Field Note #3 @Artcool 2009-03-10

i had a similar problem, with iPC 10.5.6 in a P IV (SSE2) FIC VC-11 motherboard, just hanged in the "Using xxxx buffer headers and xxxx cluster IO buffer headers"... it turned out it was a ACPI problem, which i solved choosing the ACPI_fix option during the Customize (install) screen...

Sources & Contributor Provenance (4 credited usernames · Thread #2327)
UsernameDossier ContributionDispatchesActive Window
@zonPrimary Author22009-03-07 → 2009-03-08
@Ali C.Contributor12009-03-08
@naguContributor12009-03-10
@ArtcoolContributor12009-03-10