[dnburns]

Hi all, first post from me but I have always found these forums absolutely brilliant so I'm hoping someone can help.

A few weeks ago I bought a mini 10v for my wife and successfully installed SL with absolutely no problems. I was so impressed with how well the machine worked that I have now bought a second machine for myself however I cannot get the new machine to boot from USB.

What happens is I get the initial Mac OS X Install DVD screen with the progress bar and then it usually just stops with no activity in the USB stick or hard disk. I have also had Kernel Panics but downgrading BIOS to A05 seems to have stopped those.

Has anyone had experience like this before?

The only difference I can think of is that this is a fresh out the box machine - i.e. I haven't even set up windows. I did try to set up windows but that didn't resolve the issue so I did a Dell Restore and tried again.

Any suggestions would be brilliant.

Ta
DNB

---------- Post added at 09:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 AM ----------

sorry one more detail I forgot to mention - occasionally (i've tried a good few times) I get a 'memory allocation error' and don't even get to the os x install disk page

hope that helps somehow!

[Side.Step.Society]

Perhaps there's something wrong with the SL/NBM install on your stick. Does it work on your wife's computer? Have you got Legacy USB enabled in BIOS?

[dnburns]

Thanks for the reply!

It did work on my wife's computer - I was using the same USB stick that worked on hers. I thought the same thing so I repeated the process using Netbook Bootmaker 0.8.3 RC5 with the same Kingston USB stick and same problem. I then tried a USB hard drive... same problem. Very weird.

I do have USB legacy support enabled in the BIOS

[Side.Step.Society]

Did you just re-run the NetbookBootMaker or did you completely reformat the drive and re-restore Snow Leopard to the drive?

[dnburns]

I completely reformatted the drive and re-restored SL to the drive - twice - once on original Kingston 8GB USB that worked with my wife and another on a USB hard drive

[Side.Step.Society]

Hmmm... very strange indeed.. It's funny cause I literally just got my 10v a couple of days ago, and I'm dual booting Windows 7 Ultimate and Snow Leopard 10.6.2, on BIOS A06 yet, and I haven't had a single problem (Outside of dealing with cruddy Windows bootloader.)

This might be elementary, and please don't take this as an insult or anything, but are you sure you got a 10v and not a 10? Or one of the newer models of mini's?

If nothing else, I would suggest booting to Windows USB stick and completely formatting your drive and then giving it a try. Perhaps something with that Dell Restore is causing a problem.

[dnburns]

Funnily enough I did have the same thought about the Dell 10 vs 10v as it was a private sale however the ref & model nos match my wife's 10v and all the accompanying literature which was sealed says it is a dell 1011 which is a 10v.

I will give reformating the hard drive a go - it must be something to do with the dell restore I think.

Thanks so much for your help.

[Side.Step.Society]

No problemo, be sure to report back with the details.

[dnburns]

OK so the plot thickens...

I tried booting from my windows restore disk and it tells me it's inspecting hardware and then gives me the following error message:

line 8575 of the inf file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing

Anyone seen anything like this before - any other ideas how to reformat harddrive?

[dnburns]

ok after a frustrating morning I have now established that my 10v won't boot
1. into NBI 0.8.3 OSX install
2. into windows XP restore CD
3. into windows XP Professional retail CD
4. into Ubuntu NBR
5. into A04 dos downgrade USB stick

In all cases I either get an error or the whole process just stops, with no activity. I've left it for over an hour and nothing changes. If anyone has any ideas I would thank them forever!

Very frustrating considering my first 10v installed without a hitch