[jamesshoe]

I recently bought the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 DVD so I could upgrade my Dell Mini 9 from 10.5.8

However I'm having an extremely frustrating time getting the machine to boot from either a USB pen drive or from an External DVD writer. I followed instructions elsewhere in this forum to create a bootable USB drive using Disk Utility and restored from the 10.6.3 DVD. I then followed the steps to boot from USB.

I note the USB drive light flashes a few times at boot up but then the Apple Logo appears and it just loads 10.5.8 from the internal 64Gb SSD. I've tried putting the USB pen drive in all the three USB ports but it makes no difference. When the O/S does load from disk, the USB drive mounts as normal.

I then decided to hook up my external DVD writer and load up the 10.6.3 DVD. This time from Option 0, I selected CD/RW and save and exit. The DVD drive whirrs into life but again the machine just boots from the H/D.

I've tried changing the Boot Order in the setup (Option 2) and also Option 0 making sure the CD/RW is the top-most option. When the O/S loads, the 10.6.3 DVD does mount on the desktop and then open. So again like the USB pen drive, the O/S is recognising the drive and media.

These are my settings with the BIOS Setup utility

Boot-time Diagnostic Screen : Disabled
QuickBoot Mode : Enabled <-- I toggled this but no difference

Intel (R) SpeedStep (TM) : Enabled
No-Execute Memory Protection Enabled
On Board LAN Control : Enabled
WLAN Control : Enabled
BlueTooth : Disabled
USB BIOS Legacy Support : Enabled <-- I toggled this but no difference
USB Wake Support : Disabled
CardSlots : Enabled

My Boot order is:

CD/DVD/CD-RW (or USB Storage)
Hard Drive
Removable Devices
Network Boot

I'm running NBI 0.8.3 (i think the last version that supports 10.5.8)

Is there something I need to do with the Quiet Boot option, i.e. Disable Quiet Boot or is this a red-herring. I reran the NBI and just selected "Disabled Quiet Boot" and then rebooted the machine with the 10.6.3 DVD in the external DVD writer.

I then went back into the BIOS Setup and set Boot-time Diagnostic Screen to Enabled. I then let the machine boot, something briefly flashed on the screen (far too quick to see) and then it just loaded the O/S from the Hard Drive

.... aaargh !!!

So just to put things back in their normal place, I reran NBI, Enabled Quiet Boot, rebooted and changed Boot-time Diagnostic Screen back to Disabled again and rebooted.

I'm really keen to get SL on my machine but without being able to load from an external source, I'm lost on how to do this.

Any help would be a life saver as I want to get iLife 11 on my machine but can't without SL first.

Many thanks,
James

---------- Post added at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 PM ----------

Update
Doh ! I needed to hit the SHIFT key during the spinning \ but this only appeared when I had Boot-time Diagnostic Screen set to Enabled.

Sorry for that, but I'm sorted now :-)

James

[Slothtyper]

You are good to go?

[jamesshoe]

Yes thanks. Upgraded and now on SL 10.6.4. Just need Akkis mic fix for Skype and then I'll be sorted.

James.

[Akki]

Originally Posted by jamesshoe

Yes thanks. Upgraded and now on SL 10.6.4. Just need Akkis mic fix for Skype and then I'll be sorted.

James.

In my plan :-)

[Slothtyper]

Originally Posted by Akki

In my plan :-)

yeah, but what is the need for 10.6.4?

[jamesshoe]

I applied Akkis fix to the letter. I was extremely cautious and careful to ensure the steps were followed properly. Unfortunately when I reboot I just get a Kernel Panic. Tried several times and still the same deal.

I did a recovery=y to get back in.

I'll have to back it out for the moment with the saved copies.

Any ideas?

Thanks
James.

update: now working... reran and it is all ok!!!