[j3tang]

wow .. this seems pretty popular and seems to work well!

I just gave this a go and I think I did everything correctly .. restoring 10.5.6 to an 8gb USB key named OSXDVD and then running the DellEFiBootMaker 0.3.3, it says it's completed successfully. But when I boot to the USB, i just get a blinking cursor on the screen and it just sits there and does nothing

There is about 1-2 seconds of activity on the USB key, but after that everything just stops.

The USB key has everything from the OS X DVD plus the boot file, the Extra folder, and the mach_kernal.mini9

Anyone know what's wrong?

[JarcyAcosta]

Originally Posted by hackmytosh

Roger that. I'm thinking I'm gonna play it safe and just go with 10.5.6. I'm happy to buy a license for this project! :-)

Now if only my damn Mini would get here. Ordering from Dell is like going back to the dark ages... :-P

Has anyone had success with a 10.5.4 disk?
I've tried the more traditional two stick & single stick methods both without success. I get stuck on the gray screen forever.
I'm having to strip down the install as i only have an 8Gb
Will be trying this method later today and am very hopeful that it goes smoother.

Update:
So i tried this approach and everything seemed to work out until the reboot. I pulled the usb when i saw the logo, i press enter at the OSXMINI9 logo, i see pages of text but then i come back to the gray screen. Although this time it seems to go blue then switch to gray. I just booted from the USB again and it definitely seems like it gets stuck trying to display the leopard image

Would really appreciate any help that anyone has.
Refurb'ed Mini 9, 8 gb ssd, 1gb, webcam, no bluetooth, using a 8gb usb with the 10.5.4 dvd imaged to it, used the 0.3.3 dellefibootmaker.

The mini came with xp and it worked very well for a week or so but my only reason to get it was to have it as a second osx machine.

From other posts it seems my choices are to go out and get a 10.5.6 disk or maybe get a bigger ssd. But those feel like i'm throwing good money after bad at this point.

UPDATE:
So using a 10.5.0 disk allowed me to get as far as needing to upgrade. A small success. However, now i'm faced with the problem of not having enough room to upgrade to 10.5.6 using the combo. It says i need about 2 gb. all i can squeeze is 984ish.

What's the trick?

[currymac]

My Mini arrived today. I installed 2GB RAM and a 32GB Super Talent SSD, plugged in my prepared USB hard drive, held my breath and hit the power key. 15 min later... full MacOS 10.5.6 up and running perfectly. Thanks a whole bunch!! Beautiful work!

What's the chances that an update will see an automatic boot into MacOS, with the blue background and spinning wheel, just like a "real" Mac, instead of all that scrolling text?

[mechdrew]

Originally Posted by currymac

What's the chances that an update will see an automatic boot into MacOS, with the blue background and spinning wheel, just like a "real" Mac, instead of all that scrolling text?

Um, I think you've done something wrong, I always get the Apple logo with the spinning wheel at the bottom and then the blue screen with the beach ball cursor.

[lugesm]

Originally Posted by currymac

What's the chances that an update will see an automatic boot into MacOS, with the blue background and spinning wheel, just like a "real" Mac, instead of all that scrolling text?

Exactly when in the process do you see "scrolling text" on your screen?

[currymac]

Originally Posted by lugesm

Exactly when in the process do you see "scrolling text" on your screen?

When I hit the power button I get a grey screen like you do when you hold the option key down at boot. The only choice is my SSD. I just hit the return key and the computer boots up with a few hundred lines of terminal commands and then goes to a blue screen very briefly, before mounting my desktop.

Other than that, everything is functioning perfectly. As a matter of fact, I'm using the mini for this email.

[ugacdawg]

Originally Posted by jfritsche

OK, so I can't find my big USB key so I set everything up last night using my Western Digital Passport drive. Now I get an error when I boot to the drive on my Mini:

PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F Exiting PXE ROM
Operating System not found

Any ideas? Did I do something wrong, or is it the drive? I would think a USB HDD would work just as well as a flash drive. I opened it up on my Mac last night and everything appeared to be as it should be. I am really excited to install OS X on my brand new Mini! :-) Thanks in advance.

Did you ever find a solution for this? I'm faced with the same problem... :-(

[lugesm]

Originally Posted by currymac

When I hit the power button I get a grey screen like you do when you hold the option key down at boot. The only choice is my SSD. I just hit the return key and the computer boots up with a few hundred lines of terminal commands and then goes to a blue screen very briefly, before mounting my desktop.

Other than that, everything is functioning perfectly. As a matter of fact, I'm using the mini for this email.

This happens every time you boot up? I have been using an install from DellEFIBootMaker 0.3.3 since it was released. I saw these lines of B/W text, but only during installation.

Have you tried re-installing?
What DellEFI did you use after installation? I am using DellEFI 1.2a5.

[currymac]

Have you tried re-installing?
What DellEFI did you use after installation? I am using DellEFI 1.2a5.[/quote]

Missed the part in the instructions about running DellEFI at the end of the install. Did that but it made no difference, then I saw the part about doing a custom install. Did that and it's solved the problem.

Where do I find the app to make my About This Mac box look right?

[danb35]

I didn't see this mentioned on the thread (I might have missed it), but the machine you run DellEFIBootMaker on needs to be running Leopard. When I tried it on my wife's MacBook (running Tiger), it just disappeared immediately. Once I upgraded her machine to Leopard, when I ran the BootMaker, it came up with a window that actually appeared to do something. I'll know for sure once I get my Dell Mini, though.