[underwhelmed]

On start up, hit the 0 key and selsect USB from the start up menu.

If it doesn't work, try the other USB ports.

If none of them work, you most likely have a bad Mini. Maybe a bad or disconnected cable.

The Mini 9 and the A90 are the same machine. The BIOS numbers do not mesh, but other than that, they are the exact same machine, other than the Vostro is all black.

Did, or does the USB work with Ubuntu once it boots?

Also, in the BIOS, you can disable the SSD entirely. You can still install to it, it just won't try and boot. However, if your USB ports aren't working, it still wouldn't boot.

On the USB HD you used, did you run NetBookMaker on the drive after you restored the SL disc to it? You need to do that, so you have a boot loader to tell the mini how to boot.

Was the MacBook you used an Intel or PPC machine? It shouldn't matter, but I figured I would ask.

[connman]

Originally Posted by underwhelmed

On start up, hit the 0 key and selsect USB from the start up menu.

If it doesn't work, try the other USB ports.

I've tried each of the USB ports in various combinations.

Originally Posted by underwhelmed

Did, or does the USB work with Ubuntu once it boots?

Yes, once it boots, the USB devices are recognized, but can't be mounted since they are being reported as having an HFSplus file system.

Originally Posted by underwhelmed

Also, in the BIOS, you can disable the SSD entirely. You can still install to it, it just won't try and boot. However, if your USB ports aren't working, it still wouldn't boot.

On the USB HD you used, did you run NetBookMaker on the drive after you restored the SL disc to it? You need to do that, so you have a boot loader to tell the mini how to boot.

Yes, ran NetBookMaker on the SL HD, also used a USB key that had NetBookCD 0.8.3RC3 on it while attempting to boot from the HD.

Originally Posted by underwhelmed

Was the MacBook you used an Intel or PPC machine? It shouldn't matter, but I figured I would ask.

Intel.

I have to admit to just about giving up. The reason I bought this is that it seemed the perfect solution for having an ultralite OSX machine, and the process just doesn't seem to be that hard - due in large part to the heroic efforts by these programming gurus on this forum - but there's something going on with mine.

I have a teacher who is a member of my church bringing their Mini9 to church. I'm going to see if my USB sticks will boot theirs. If so, there's something up with mine.

If not, I have to admit that I don't know what I'm doing wrong...

[underwhelmed]

Sorry, I'm out of ideas.

Did you buy it from Dell, or from an individual?

It should still be under warranty if it turns out to be the machine.

[chewy]

I would say that your efforts have been more than heroic. your persistence is amazing, and it sounds to me like you have done everything possible.

only thing I can think of is to borrow you friend's mini and swap the ssd's? try the install there and you might have success?

let us know. and, as others have said, the usb nearest the power plug seems more reliable.

perhaps you can send it back to dell for a replacement? you could say that it doesn't recognize external drives for boot up, which is crucial for debugging some times.

[meklort]

Well, if you want to, you can do the following to create a usb boot drive:


1) Download the following files:
http://osx.mechdrew.com/downloads/Ne...8.3RC3.iso.zip
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/863180/SelfP...chameleon/boot
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/863180/SelfP...hameleon/boot0
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/863180/SelfP...ameleon/boot1h

2) Format a usb drive (say, 64mb and larger) using HFS+ and GUID or MBR if possible.

3) Determine the bsd disk number for the newly formatted drive. You can right click on the partition in Disk Utility, select Info, and it should tell you info about it. If not, you can type "mount" into the terminal and it'll tell you.

4) Copy the Extra folder from NetbookCD onto your newly formatted usb drive

5) Copy the downloaded file "boot" to the newly formatted usb drive. Place this at the root of the drive.

6) Run the following commands, where /path/to/ is the path to the downloaded files in the beginning of the post. X is the disk number, while Y is the partition number as determined in step 3.

fdisk -u /path/to/boot0 -f -y /dev/diskX
dd if=/path/to/boot1h of=/dev/diskXsY

Once you do that, you'll have a usb drive that will boot both 10.5 and 10.6 dvds / usb drive / etc. It'll self patch the 10.6 drive so that it works just like running NetbookBootMaker on a usb drive would.

0.8.4's NetbookBootMaker will work like this instead of the way it currently does. (Which reminds me... I need to get out 0.8.3)

[connman]

I had a friend bring their Mini 9 to church this morning, and brought it home to see what I could determine. The Mini9 booted immediately using the USB sticks I had created yesterday (and also from the ones I made the day before using the PowerPC Tiger machine).

"Hmm." I thought.

Hmm indeed.

So, figuring at this point the only other thing short of sending back to Dell was flashing the bios.

I have to tell you after reading some of the comments here, I was a little worried about doing it, but flashed to A05 just fine.

Restarted, allowed Ubuntu to load to make sure the bios update was fine, then restarted with USB stick (created using the Leopard Intel MacBook and NetBookMaker).

Grey Apple screen.

Rest of install went flawlessly. 18 minutes later I was running 10.6, 5 minutes later 10.6.1.

I tweaked some settings using louididdy's guide located here,

Now I have sleep and audio from speakers and headphone jack.

Whew!

I just wish I new the difference between A04 and A05 that made the difference in booting and not. I did not reformat the USB disks at all, A04 they would not boot, A05 they booted right away.

Thanks everyone for your help! I'm really overwhelmed by everyone trying to help. Even meklort got involved!

Thanks everyone. This board is great!!

[underwhelmed]

Hey, glad to here everything worked out for you. Enjoy your new Hackintosh.

[chewy]

congrats. hope it was worth it. at least you know you did all those steps correctly, and it was something in the BIOS.