- What does “Still waiting for root device” means? Its very simple, it means that the source from which you’re booting is not detected properly in other way it can be explained as the operating.
- What does “Still waiting for root device” means? It means that a driver/kext for the source from which you are booting is not detected properly by the mac operating system (USB kext not detected or loaded) Mac OS released prebuilt with the latest drivers that supports SATA out of.
- Topic says it.can't install due to 'still waiting for root device'. I've taken a Mac OS X 10.6 Server DVD, created a cdr image of it in OS X (due to the fact that the DVD is dual layer, and the Windows machine here has only a single layer DVD), and attached it to IDE Primary.
- For example, a DMG image on the Mac OS X install disks created with the DiskUtility in Mac OS X itself will generate this message if you try to boot PearPC with it. From various websites and some created with on a linux box. I run pearpc with my config file and I get 'Still waiting for root device' over and over.
This error manifests itself on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion only if you boot your Hackintosh with UseKernelCache=Yes, as booting with “-f” results in a normal boot sequence.
Get a IDE Hard Disk (you can attach the IDE hard disk, but still install the OS on the SATA drive. It just helps to get past the 'still waiting for root device error'.) If accompanied by a CMOS checksum bad error at boot, reload BIOS optimised defaults, change to AHCI and HPET to.
The reason is believed to be due to a timing change Apple has introduced in the IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext, results in a bug on Hackintosh builds: the system enumerates the disk partitions too fast and the boot partition gets skipped. The fix involves patching the IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext and adding a slight delay that allows enough time for disk enumeration.
The shell script patcher is available from the author’s Dropbox, but if you prefer to do everything by hand yourself, here is the list of the commands:
Reboot and see if this fixes the problem for your Hackintosh.
Update: This patch DOES NOT work for 10.8.1’s IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext
Update 2:Updated fix for “Still waiting for root device” on OS X 10.8.1 Mountain Lion
Still Waiting For Root Device In Mac Os
This fix has been made possible due to countless hours spent by bcc9 from InsanelyMac forums reverse-engineering Apple’s work and his original script.