Hey all,

I've been working for a little over a month to get 10.5.6 (now 10.5.7) installed on my AMD Phenom machine. I have scoured this forum (and others) trying lots of suggestions - documented below - to no avail. So now I am asking for guidance from the minds here at infiniteMac.

My machine:
AMD Phenom 2.2 Ghz (Quad core)
NForce Chipset (with onboard Ethernet)
Dual 360GB SATA HD
SATA DVD-R
Single 250GB PATA HD
ALC888 sound

What I have tried
1) Downloaded and Successfully installed 10.5.4 using LawlessPPC-Leo-10.5.4-Phenom&AMD

The only problem I have using this distro is that A) it's only 10.5.4 and B) I have to manually install the forcedeth3 drivers I found on another board for the ethernet to work. Otherwise I get a fully functioning 10.5.4 environment. Yay!

I followed a couple of upgrade instructions I have found online (copying the Kernel, using System Update and using safe mode to reload the right kernel, and using the iDeneb upgrade pacakge) but have not been able to upgrade this to anything beyond 10.5.4.

2) Downloaded and attempted to install ideneb 1.4 (or 1.3) - not successful. Ideneb 1.4 hangs up at a "Waiting for System" error before getting to the install screen. I have read this error is common and happens because of a number of BIOS related things. I checked my BIOS settings and can't find anything that indicates there is a problem. AND Lawless works so I don't think it's a BIOS issue.

3) Download and attempt to install iPC OSx86 10.5.6 Universal PPF5 (Final). This gets me through the installer and up to the very first Mac OSX 10.5.6 opening screen, but then tells me I don't have a keyboard. I installed again with the PS2 keyboard hack checked and it never seemed to work. I'll try again while I wait for a response here...

4) Installed LawlessPPC and then attempted to create a bootable USB disk following instruction found on iHackentosh. Again, Lawless installed with no issues, but I haven't been able to lick creating the bootable USB key and getting it to boot. I restore the install disk from an ISO (the ideneb 105.6 ISO) and run the OSx86 tools hack the site refered to but got nowhere - I get a black screen that says "Boot: MBR" "Boot:done"

So, now I don't know what to do next. I would really like to use something other than 10.5.4 - I want to use iLife 09 and Apaerture 2 specifically...

Any ideas on what I should do next?

Thanks in advance for any help or light you can pass my way. I really appreciate it.

Tim C.