"Still waiting for root device" Cant launch installer

nForce4 DDR: 9NPA7I / 9NPAI Series EPoX COMPUTER CO., LTD

When the screen said Press enter to install or f8 to boot options or something..

If i press enter white screen with an apple logo shows up, and after 2 minutes a stop sign comes up.

I rebooted, and tried pressing f8, and enterd -v in the boot line.

a whole lot of text comes up on a black screen, and after 1-2 minutes this comes:

Still waiting for root device.

every 2. minute.

Waited for 2 hours and nothing happens.

[cite] pokertamz:I Inserted the DVD, and pressed enter to install. But it just says, "Still waiting for root device"? Anyone know how to solve it? AMD 64 3700+ NVidia Geforce 6600 GT 1gb ram 250gb SATA hardisk DVD IDE drive

Is this when the dvd is booting up or when installer has launched?

I have the same problem on 2 different machines. On ONE I solved the problem:

It has an IDE DVD that was plugged in as the "slave" with no drive on the "master" connector. That arrangement didn't work. (I had an IDE drive as the master but I had it unplugged.) As soon as I plugged in a "master" drive on the IDE cable, it all worked properly. I may have also just been able to switch over the DVD drive to the "master" connector on the cable (the drive is set up for CS (cable select)) and had it work that way.

Don't know if that will help, but it may be worth a try to see how you drives are connected and maybe trying different connection combinations for your drives...

No need to wait past the first or second "still waiting for root device"...
It's not going to go.
Try changing your drive configuration if possible (like I said above) or you may be SOL (like I am (still) with my laptop)...

I have the same problem as pokertamz where I can't get to the installer because it doesn't seem to find any of my hard drives and says "still waiting for root devices". In the 10.5.1 release the installer worked fine and I could get my system up and running.

Any help would greatly appreciated

@ pokertamz,
You may have to change your SATA HDD to an IDE one, my friend once had the same problem and we solved it by changing the IDE drive,sometimes NForce chip may NOT work with SATA HDD.

Wish it can help you!

Good Luck!

Reagrds!

Kael'thas

Um, at THIS point, it's still reading from the DVD - the HD's don't actually come into play yet. It's during the initial boot up to the Installer...

i am having a similar problem, it does not matter if i am using IDE or SATA hard drives. I have messed with the master/ slave ports, and nothing works.

tried to boot with -v and it says
"still waiting for root device"

dvd drive is SATA
hard drive is SATA or IDE (ATA)

get this little guy AFTER going into installer, thus I dont think that it is the DVD drive and the same DVD drive was used to install Zeph 10.5.1…

I managed to install after changing my DVD from S-ATA to my old IDE (HD is an IDE)... at least I could install ... now I m stuck on firdt boot with "still waiting for root device" *sigh*

i'm having a similar problem, i wasnt able to get to the installation

someone help!

Hey, I'm having the same problem! I boot it up with f8 and get this picture:

I boot it up in -v mode and i get the "Still waiting for root device" error.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2 GHz)
NVidia Geforce 6600 GT
1 GB DDR SDRAM
60 gb IDE Master HDD
DVD IDE Drive

I just updated the wiki to help those with this issue.

http://osx86.wikidot.com/known-issues#toc10 ↗

ok, great. How do I know what chipset I have? with CPU-Z?

if all i have to do is install a newer version of AppleNForceATA.kext then why did Zeph just not update it in the image that he sent out himeslf…

geoc ities.com/sweebezhtml/cpuz.htm

I'm trying to use an internal IDE quantum fireball cx 20gb hard drive

What am i looking for kext wise?

[cite] christurner:ok, great. How do I know what chipset I have? with CPU-Z? if all i have to do is install a newer version of AppleNForceATA.kext then why did Zeph just not update it in the image that he sent out himeslf…

Zephyroth has made his install as universal as he could, but there is no way of adding every single combination of hardware. By looking at your motherboard info, yours should be supported as your vendor ID 03f610de is included in his AppleNforceATA.kext. Try disabling any extra SATA and IDE ports you don't need for the installation.

[cite] sweebez:Hey, I ran CPU-Z, and I got this information: geoc ities.com/sweebezhtml/cpuz.htm I'm trying to use an internal IDE quantum fireball cx 20gb hard drive What am i looking for kext wise?

Your chipset is supported by the AppleVIAATA.kext. Try disabling the SATA ports if your using an IDE drive. There are two Vendor ID's associated with the SATA ports and one of them is not supported from what I can see.

How would i go about disabling the SATA ports?
I use a SATA drive to boot XP and an IDE drive to boot OSX.
Will disabling the SATA ports essentially disable my XP drive?
Is there a way around that?

Yes disable the XP drive while you install and get OSX up and running. Once you get everything setup you can turn your XP drive back on.

[cite] eddie11c:[cite] christurner:ok, great. How do I know what chipset I have? with CPU-Z? if all i have to do is install a newer version of AppleNForceATA.kext then why did Zeph just not update it in the image that he sent out himeslf…

Zephyroth has made his install as universal as he could, but there is no way of adding every single combination of hardware. By looking at your motherboard info, yours should be supported as your vendor ID 03f610de is included in his AppleNforceATA.kext. Try disabling any extra SATA and IDE ports you don't need for the installation.

understandable i was not trying to be rude, i just thought that it was something he forgot to do... but i guess not.

so, i did this what the "known Issues site" said to do, still unable to load (O with \), also tried with the original disc per disabling drivers not needed. it still did not work

took a photo of the error (see pic)

and the code it spits is
It says that at first it finds the drive and that it is a SATA - MCP 61

AppleNForceATA: found 1 units.
then
(CMD 0x9f0, CTR 0xbf0, IRQ 23, BM 0xec00)
(CMD 0x9f0, CTR 0xbf0, IRQ 23, BM 0xec08)
then
Still waiting for root devices

have anything else for me to try?

[cite] pokertamz:I Inserted the DVD, and pressed enter to install. But it just says, "Still waiting for root device"? ...

I had "Still waiting for Root device until i swapped my SATA DVD-ROM for a IDE one, Connected to Primary Master,
Disabled the second IDE Controller aswell as the Secondary Device on Primary IDE and I am Using a 500GB SATA HDD,
connected to SATA Master 1. The Other SATA Ports are disabled. Setup is now running, Disk Utility Shows my 500GB
SATA Harddisk and now i'm about to continue installation... We'll see if it works out at the end.

So in fact, the Problem seems to come from the Drive containing the Source Disk, as it says, waiting for root device, imo
the root device during a setup process is the disc drive, therefore the NforceATA Driver seems to cause the problems.

Weird thing tho that the Harddrive works connected to SATA but not the DVD.

Well i anyways prefer swapping of DVD Drives then cloning discs or whatever

Keep up the great work Zeph!

What people forget is we all dont have spare ide dvd drives lying about. Ive only got my Plextor sata one which cost me a fortune. There is NO physical way I can plug anything IDE in my computer.
Im having the exact same problem waiting for root device, but the above linked wiki didnt help because I dont have a clue what a kext is and where to put the commands it states.

[cite] Protocol82:What people forget is we all dont have spare ide dvd drives lying about. Ive only got my Plextor sata one which cost me a fortune. There is NO physical way I can plug anything IDE in my computer. Im having the exact same problem waiting for root device, but the above linked wiki didnt help because I dont have a clue…

I don't think most forget (or fail to realize) that not everyone has extra hardware and/or spare computers... But what you need to realize is that: if that's YOUR situation, YOU are going to have to put in EXTRA time and effort learning to make things work (or at least those things that WILL work).

OSx86 simply IS NOT guaranteed to work on all PC hardware... Hell, it's not supposed to work on PC hardware at all... I still only have it running successfully on 3 of the 8 computers I've tried.

If you're serious about it running on yours: "get a clue" about what a .kext is - and learn "where to put the commands". There's tons of information here, on the Wiki and on the other OSx86 Forums.