[6upxc]

Hi all

3 late nights trying to solve this problem have left me a bit tired and wondering if my attempt to get OSX running on "the easiest OSX netbook" are doomed! Any help greatly received.

Ok first the specs;

Brand new out of the box Inspiron Mini 1018 - Bios version A02 - Atom N455@1.66 Ghz - 1Gb Ram.
Genuine new SL DVD 10.6.3
16 GB USB2 Stick

Method;
first time - created DVD image using Mac disk utility - made bootable with NBM 0.8.4 RC1. Did not pre-format the existing Mini HD which had Windoze pre-installed. No legacy option in Bios. set Bluetooth enabled, USB wake support disabled. Proceeded fine with instal, disk utility from install to format HD as per guides. Installation completes fine - reboot cycles endlessly with message "unable to patch 64 bit kernel. Use arch=i386 to use a 10.6.2 or newer kernel. Cant find mach_kernel"

Second time - format USB stick - recreate bootable install disk image. USB stick capacity 16 gb - used after disk image instal 7.25 gb.
Boot Mini with GParted bootable USB. There were 3 partitions after first failed install -
dev/sda1 - fat32 - EFI - 200mb capacity - 3.09 mb used - flagged boot
dev/sda2 - hfs - 232Gb -
unallocated - 128mb
deleted all partitions - created one large single partition - formatted NTFS.
Repeated the install - result exactly the same - "unable to patch 64 bit kernel. Use arch=i386 to use a 10.6.2 or newer kernel. Cant find mach_kernel"

third time - GParted Mini HD - created 1 partition HFS+ but did not format it. repeated install - same outcome "unable to patch 64 bit kernel. Use arch=i386 to use a 10.6.2 or newer kernel. Cant find mach_kernel"

Pulling my hair out now guys - ANY remotely sensible advice would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise i think I hear UBUNTU quietly calling! :-(

Quick post script - after the last failed install i booted GParted to examine the partitions
dev/sda1 - fat32 - name=EFI - size=200mb - 3.09mb used - flagged boot
dev/sda2 - hfs+ - name=untitled - size 232.57 Gb - 6.45Gb used
unallocated - 128mb

does 6.45 Gb sound about right for an installation?

Cheers
Chris