I currently have a partially functioning iDeneb 10.5.5 install partition working. Still have ATI video problems (Understandable) and hit or miss network connectivity but it works.

My desire is to pull off a retail install with a working small EFI or boot partition so that updates aren't a problem. My dream is a vanilla kernel install but I'm not holding my breath anymore. I've read the appropriate posts and tried to follow them to a "T" but i'm not getting anywhere.

My problem is that none of the boot132 bootloaders function as described. 99% of them don't boot at all, and one boots to the Darwin prompt like described in everyone's instruction and then replacing the boot disc with the retail (10.5.4), it pauses out and refuses to read the disc, offering SATA choices instead.. I believe this was the Kabyl version. Upon hitting <esc> with the 80,81 (9f) blah, blah, it does nothing. No waiting, or cycling through the disk numbers works.. I can re-select the CD (9f) and it spools up and then stalls out.

I assumed that it was the burn drive as I couldn't be the only idiot that this didn't work for, so I replaced the DVD drive with a known good unit with the same results. Also tried burning the .iso at the slowest speed since Jesus was walking. Also with a large and unsuccessful, bupkus..

I also tried the generic .iso, machine specific .iso's and Macinized's V4 Macloader with no results. There was also the repeated tries to create an iso with Slimbuild with basic kexts and different kernels.. All to no avail.

I know I'm missing something really ignorant and small, but for the life of me I can't figure it out and I'm quite tired of yelling at my monitor.

I also know the startup drill, as that's been done at least a couple of hundred times and I can boot in and out of the distro no problem via rd=diskXsY. I even set it up as a dual boot for a while via Vista but since erased that because I wanted to upgrade to the retail version and wanted predictable updates in the future.

My setup is a fairly stock Dell Inspiron 518

- Intel Q6600 with a new 600 W power supply
- 6 GB ram
- Stock mboard with current Phoenix
- Two WD 640Gb Sata drives (No Raid)
- ATI 4870 512 Dual DVI
- Two monitors, (But that can wait for a stable boot and what Netkas came up with recently..)
- Currently booting Vista 64B into 1920x1280 and iDeneb into 1024x768. (Never bothered to fix the audio, multi-core or video as it was ATI 3450 at the time.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks..

what kind of DVD drive do you have? SATA or IDE ?
What is the brand / Model # if your motherboard?

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

The DVD/CD is a LG SATA stock drive for the Insp 518. I also swapped it out with another known good SATA drive I borrowed from work with the same results.

The motherboard is a stock Dell unit (0K068D) with Intel P35/G33/G31 Northbridge and (ICH9R) Southbridge. All running with the most current bios from last week.

Thanks.