Intel Xserve won't boot from 3rd party drive in ADM

Right, I've got a Late 2006 Xserve Dual 2.66 with the normal non-RAID SAS/SATA board, which has been running fine for 2 years with a pair of non-Apple Seagate Barracuda ES 250GB drives (Bay 1 & 2), and an original 80GB ADM in Bay 3 as a spare boot disk.
Bay 1 & 2 are set up using SoftRAID and are partitioned into a boot volume (30GB) and a data volume (200GB), both RAID 1 mirrors. The boot volume is cloned nightly to Bay 3 (single volume, set up using Disk Utility). Data is backed up to a utility machine, so this is arrangement lets me handle any single drive failing.
This arrangement has worked fine for 2 years, and allows me to remotely boot off Bay 3 and run DiskWarrior or other disk maintenance software on the normal boot drive without having to drive across town with a firewire drive. I originally started with Mac OS X Server 10.4, but I'm now on Mac OS X Server 10.6.4.
Where things have come unravelled is, I need to upgrade the two 250GBs to something larger. I didn't realise that the Intel Xserve is pretty fussy with ADM sleds and the model of SATA drive they will work with. I didn't have any issues when I set up the Barracuda ES 250GB so wasn't expecting any problems this time.
I bought a pair of Seagate Constellation ES 500GB drives (well 3 actually, one to keep on the shelf as a spare).
I installed them in the sleds and inserted them in the Xserve. The green power LEDs came on but the drives weren't recognised in Disk Utility or System Profiler. I then added the jumper to set them to 1.5Gb/s and then they mounted. I went through my normal process of cloning the OS to them from a standard disk image I have of a known working OS install, ran Disk Utility to repair disk & repair permissions, Disk Warrior to check everything else (my standard paranoid procedures). Set the startup disk to the new install and rebooted. No joy, just the flashing question mark folder. Reboot with the option key, and the new volume doesn't appear in the list of available boot options.
I installed the drives in a firewire enclosure, and it booted without any problems, so it's not a corrupt install, it's something to do with the ADM sleds.
So to go back to basics, I tried initialising a single drive as a single volume and installed 10.6.4 server fresh from the DVD. Same result, no boot when in installed in ADM sled, boots fine in firewire case.
Erased drive, changed formatting to APM (rather then GPT), cloned OS, etc. Won't boot when in ADM sled, boots fine from firewire case. So that screws the theory that drives have to be GPT to boot on Intel hardware.
So I ordered a set of WD RE3 500GB drives (x 3) and repeated this whole process. Same deal, boots fine in firewire, won't boot when installed in ADM. GPT vs APM doesn't make any difference.
Try #3. Ordered desktop variants rather than server class drives. So armed with a pair of WD Caviar Black 500GB. Same deal, boot fine from firewire, will not boot when installed in ADM. Also required jumpers for 1.5GB/s and also the undocumented pins 7&8 (apparently this might be related to the new Advanced Format they are using)
Try #4
A pair of Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB. This is where it gets tricky. One of the Barracuda will boot the Xserve when installed in an ADM, and one will not. So 2 Barracuda 7200.12, both same model number (ST3500418AS), both same firmware (CC38), yet they behave differently.
Try #5
Barracuda ES.2 250GB (x 3). Won't boot in ADM, will boot firewire.
Try #6
WD Caviar SE16 250GB (WD2500KS)
Boots in ADM (Yay!!) and firewire
Try #7
WD Caviar SE16 500GB x 2 (WD5000AAKS)
Boots in ADM and firewire
I've managed to get access to G5 Xserve (2.3DP) so I've repeated all this testing on it as well. The G5 doesn't care about the model of drive and boots from any of them using a 10.5.6 install with APM formatted drives.
I've tried all these drives in 4 different models of ADM sled. One thing I have determined is that the model of sled determines if you need to use the 1.5GB/s jumper. I have 2 sleds from G5's, they require the jumper, a 80GB Intel ADM sled with separate data and power plugs requires the jumper, and an Intel 160GB ADM sled with the ribbon cable and combined data/power plug doesn't require the 1.5GB/s jumper. APM vs GPT formatting again makes no difference.
So on the Intel machine, the drives work in the sleds, appear as normal drives on desktop or in Disk Utility when logged in, and also appear as normal drives when connected via SSH if Auto Login is disabled. So to me they appear to be working drives.
It appears to me that something changed at a low level between the Barracuda ES and ES.2 generations of drives (for WD drives as well since the Caviar SE16 that boots is a similar age to the Barracuda ES)
So then why won't it boot from them? Is there some magic dance I've missed?
And how come one of the 7200.12 will boot, while another identical model won't?
Any tips or suggestions greatly appreciated.

I don't have an answer for you, but you deserve thanks for all the useful hardware information you posted from your trial-and-error testing.
My impression has that the XServes need specific kinds of firmware and hardware monitors on their drives in order for everything to function smoothly. My own efforts swapping drives in ADMs has produced "mixed results" to put it mildly. It would be so much easier if we knew what kinds of drives worked properly in what kinds of ADMs and on which Macs/XServes.

Similar Messages

Intel Xserve will NOT boot from hard disk drive

I have two Intel Xserves 2.0 QC machines
I have tried to re-install version 10.4.11 OS (don't ask) onto a Hard disk drive that is in a Disk drive caddy and inserted in the machine.
When booting from The installation DVD media
The disk is seen by the "Disk Utility" (the disk is partitioned as GUID boot) and the installation proceeds to the disk.
Once the first pass of the installation is complete and the system reboots, the system shows the folder and ? mark.
If I boot and hold "ALT" key to view all avaialble boot options the Hard Disk Drive does NOT appear as valid boot disk.
It does show, the still inserted Installation DVD.
I CAN boot from an external firewire drive and the Hard disk drive is visible to the OS once logged in.
I have tried different caddy postions (left, middle and right)
I have tried bona fide Apple supplied Disk drives
I have tried various different caddies
I have tried installing Operating System 10.5.* and 10.6.8 server
I have run SMC reset and system reset
But still I cannot boot off from any Hard Disk Drive inserted in a caddy at the front of the system.
Has anyone seen this behaviour?
Is it fixable?
Do I have replace something like the Hard Disk Drive back plane circuit board? Or even the main logic board?
I have now run out of ideas and cannot find any help in discussions or just googling.
ANY help would be very appreciated
Regards
Tony

Antonio Hi !
QC = Quad core or QX as it is written on the "pull out" serial number tab at rear of system
I have 3 late 2006 Intel xserves
On my intial posting I declared 2 were 2.0 machines - when I was trying to be concise
2 of the macines are 2.66 systems and 1 is 2.0 system - all are QX machines
the 2.0 and 1 of the 2.66 will NOT boot from the ADM and disk inside the system - whereas the other 2.66 system will.
I have many different Caddies and these have different product/model number labels
603-9965
603-9545
603-9796
these are marked "intel SATA"
The 80Gb was only one of the drives tested - I have used Seagate 400Gb 750Gb and 1Tb - all of which have been used in systems at one time or another
and as I said the drives ARE visible once the operating system (either installation DVD or external firewire are booted from) - they are just NOT visible when the system is searching for boot media.
Thanks for the guide - I will look through that and continue to try and find an answer

XServe won't boot from any drive, but recognizes them in OS X Installer

I know I have another post here but this is a different issue, and I've already fixed that one thanks to Camelot .
I just received an 2 used xserves for work. One booted into OS X Server fine, so I scrubbed it and reinstalled without issue.
The second however never booted into an install. That is, I never found it on my network when I started it up and when I pushed the power button it would turn off immediately, suggesting that there was no OS on the disk or that the xserve couldn't find it. I didn't have a spare monitor to plug into it (surprisingly) so I just chalked it up to the fact that it was a new disk and hadn't had OS X Server installed on it.
Now I have a spare monitor, I've gone and installed OS X Server on the xserve. It boots from the DVD just fine, runs through the installer, then when it goes to restart, it won't boot from the hard drive that it just installed OS X Server on, it'll just boot back from the DVD unless I pop it out. If I let it boot up without the DVD in it, I'll get the standard Folder with a ?.
At first I thought it was the drive, so I installed OS X Server on another drive. Still wouldn't boot to that drive, so I booted from the DVD and repaired the disks in Disk Utility. Still nothing. I booted to DVD again and when I went to Startup Disk, it actually did show my disks with their respective OS X Server installs.
When I boot the machine holding alt/option, the system doesn't show my drives, only the DVD if it's in the slot.
I figured ok, this has to be the drives, so I swapped them with those of the identical xserve in the rack below, but my top xserve wouldn't boot from those drives either. Somewhat expectedly however, the bottom xserve would boot the drives that I took out of the first one.
Now I'm just stumped. Any ideas?
PS, drives are unlocked.

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

G4 XServe won't boot from CD

Newbie to XServe here...
I bought a used G4 XServe DP with 4 installed HDs and "Pre-Installed" (No Disks or SNs provided) OS 10.2
When it boots from the system drive, it immediately goes to the Setup Assistant, and I get to the point where I have to enter the software SN. Since I don't own 10.2 Server, I bought a copy of OS 10.4 Server.
Now I can't get the system to boot from the 10.4 CD or DVD, it always seems to boot from the HD despite following the "Boot from CD" instructions doc I accessed here on Apple's site.
Also, the SN it asks for is a different scheme than the one provided with 10.4, (the first digit is a single letter) while the 10.4 SN starts out XSVR.
Any help would be appreciated! And Thanks!
G4 XServe DP Mac OS X (10.4)

First, a 10.4 serial number is not going to work with a 10.2 installation, so you're going to have to (re)install Mac OS X Server 10.4 to get this machine to work.
So the questions are:
What happens when you try to boot from CD?
Does it ignore it completely? eject it? try to boot from it and fail?
Have you checked the front panel enclosure lock is open?
(the XServe won't boot from CD/DVD if the enclosure is locked)
Does the OS recognize the drive once the system is booted (you should be able to log in via SSH or the console port while the system is waiting for Server Assistant to do it's thing).
The XServe G4 had an option for CD-RW or DVD drive. It's possible you have the CD drive in which case it won't read the DVD drive.

I purchased an unclaimed luggage at the airport that had a mid 2010 13" MB-Pro -- It comes up to a boot screen with snow leopard or Windows -- I tried to boot from Optical with Lion install -- it woon't won't boot from the optical drive, help

It won't go to taget disk mode -- I took the drive out and used disk utility to re-partition and format - now I get the folder with a question mark and it still won't boot from optical or usb or go to target disk mode -- I haven't tried installing lion on the disk while it is out and then putting it back in the machine --
according to the serial number, it is still under apple care but since I don't know the person that used to own it I can't get it transferred to me -- or will apple do that since I bought it in an auction?

Ok so I've done what you said and this is what it's come back ....
I don't know that these are the errors , but they're the things which don't look right ...
Throughout the shut down there is a recurring line ;
It says ;
Com.apple.launchd 1 0x100600e70.anonymous.unmount 301 PID still valid
Then there are 2 more which I think are related ;
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Then the same with fseventd 48 and diskarbitrationd 13
Oh and on Launchd1 : System : stray anonymous job at shut down : PID 301 PPID13 PGID 13 unmount...
Then the last process says "about to call: reboot (RB_AUTOBOOT).
Continuing...
And stops ...
Hope this means something to you ... Thanks again for your help so far :-)

My mac won't boot from the hard drive

Hi Everyone
Yesterday, I tried to dual boot my mac using the Bootcamp Assistant. The hard drive partitioned fine & then started the Windows setup. About half way through it found a corrupt file & cancelled the install. It went back to OSX absolutely fine & was working perfectly. I deleted the partition that had been created & then noticed that the amount of free space on my hard drive was missing the 20GB that I had partitioned off for Windows. I used OnyX to try & find the missing 20GB; it finished & then I tried to open Safari & received an error message. I tried again & received the same message so tried to restart the mac & ever since it hasn't wanted to boot using the hard drive.
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I'm hoping that someone will have an answer other than erasing my hard drive & starting again (which isn't that big a problem as I backed up all the important bits before starting any of this!)

Why did you wipe the drive?
Were you having problems?
If you were those problem may be related to a failing hard drive and that is why the TM backup could be restored.
In you topic header you say the system won't boot from the SL DVD, But it di for you to wipe the drive. Then it should again boot from the SL DVD.
Insert the DVD and reboot, hold down the Option key and select the Optical drive, SL DVD, as the Boot source.

Won't boot from USB hard drive?

Hi, all. My daughter has a brand-new Aluminum Macbook a week old, with all Apple software updates applied and everything running smoothly. She has a Seagate FreeAgent Go external USB 2.0 hard drive divided into two HFS+ Journaled partitions using the GUID partition scheme: a large partition on which to back up her internal drive, and a small partition for use as an emergency boot "disk." We've used the latest version of SuperDuper to make a bootable clone of her internal drive on the large backup partition, and I've just begun installing Leopard from her MacBook installer DVD onto the emergency boot partition as I write this (using my own computer). After 25 minutes, the installer DVD is still being "checked for consistency"; I hope things will finally begin to move along faster when the installation actually starts.
We'll see what happens when that installation is done, but before I began it, I checked to make sure the SuperDuper clone on the backup partition would boot the MacBook. To my dismay, it did not, although I held down the Option key during startup, selected the backup partition in Startup Manager, and clicked the arrow to proceed with booting from that partition. The MacBook booted from its internal drive anyway.
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I have noticed that the start-up disk appears just about anywhere except in the upper right-hand corner. I too, was convinced once that I was booted from the wrong drive. However, I have implicit faith in SD and since it has never let me down, I searched and found the boot drive hiding amongst some files littering my desktop.

MacBook won't boot from new hard drive.

I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive, but my macbook will not boot to the new hard drive. I have erased and cloned the hard drive about three times now, using both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. It won't boot while it is in the macbook and it won't boot from an external hard drive case. All I get to is the screen with the mac logo and the spinning wheel. I have made sure the drive is GUID formatted, but it still doesn't work. When I put the new drive in an external case and plug it into the USB port of my macbook I can see and access everything on the drive. Can somebody please tell what I am doing wrong?
By the way the new hard drive is a 500gb western digital Scorpio blue drive.

I got a new hard drive recently 500gb seagate. I followed the directions on this page http://www.ehow.com/how2063795format-hard-drive-mac-os.html , Mine was a little more complicated since i had 2 partitions windows and mac on mine. Initially the process took a day and it started getting to the same thing as yours where it would get to the mac logo and not find the hard drive. I reformatted several times before i got to the point where i could boot up.Eventually I just figured out all the info was there the drive was formatted i could boot into windows 7 but not mac. So i put old hard drive back in the computer booted up with that. Attached new hard drive via usb in external case i was trying to put in the mac. I was able not to boot up but it would show the drives that have been formatted into the new drive and i simply copied my existing Disk by dragging it onto the new hard drive. Than turn off your mac keep your hard drive plugged in. Press and hold the option key in start up and you should see the 2 seperate hard drives and be able to boot into the new one. Was a long process for me took several complete deletes of the new hard drive and reformatting before it would work. once you get to the mac logo and spinning wheel its just saying mac cant find your boot up disk though. Sorry its confusing a bit any questions email me.

Hard drive crash in G4 - won't boot from 2nd hard drive

Hi,
My G4 has 3 internal hard drives: 2 on the ATA bus and one on a SCSI card. The main drive crashed yesterday. At least I assume it crashed: the first error was not being able to store a CD imported into iTunes, followed by a system crash and a request to restart. On restart it failed to boot, showing a floppy icon with a ? and repeatedly beeps twice. In an attempt to fix this I booted from my OS X software install CD and installed OS X on other ATA hard drive, however it refuses to boot from the second drive and shows a broken folder icon and is still doing the double beep thing. All suggestions gratefully received!
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I do indeed. Here's what happened when I ran the extended test:
No Airport present. Logic board, mass storage and RAM all passed. I couldn't see if the modem test completed, but somewhere between the end of that and the video RAM test the screen was filled with a multi-coloured grid. Eventually there was a default catch:
code=300, %SRR0: 00000020, %SRR1:00081010
with the option of mac-boot or shut-down.
mac-boot also caused a default catch:
code=900, %SRR0: 01c10ffc, %SRR1:00003030
mac-boot then brought an alternate happy mac / folder with a ?
A reboot from there finally brings up the broken folder. All of these icons are very small OS9 style icons in the centre of the screen.
Phew!
Bearing in mind your suggestion about a blown stick, I have tried a swapping out each stick (1x512, 1x256) and rebooting with the same results. I also tried them in different slots and that made no difference either.
Blown video RAM perhaps?

IMac 24 Aluminum won't boot from USB Hard drive

I just got an iMac 24 from the Apple Refurb store. It comes with Snow Leopard, but I need to install a Leopard partition for my wife to ensure 100% compatibility with Photoshop CS3, among other things. I created a partition just for Leopard, so that's good to go.
I can choose the boot partition on my Leopard install drive when starting by holding the "alt" key, that's no problem. However, after I choose that USB drive, it reboots... over and over and over and over. To be sure it isn't the drive, I tested it with my Macbook Pro, and it booted up just fine. I tried another USB drive, same exact problem.
I don't have a Firewire external that I can repartition for the purpose of installing Leopard. I only have it on hard drive. Then I tried making a DMG with disk utility and burning it to a DVD+R DL, but it tells me the disc isn't large enough, even though it's 8.5GB and the image is 7.6GB.
Pulling my hair out here guys! Is this refurb a lemon?

The Leopard install DVD I used to make the image is not available, it got stolen along with laptop bag it was in last Spring.
Is it this "image" (clone) of the installation disc that you are trying to boot from a USB drive, or a full installation of Leopard? If it's a clone of the installation disc on a USB drive, there are a few considerations.
First, what type was the original Leopard disc (the one you lost)? Was it a retail disc (the type sold separately in a box) or one that came with another Mac model, such as a MacBook Pro. If it's the disc from a MacBook Pro, it will not work because your iMac is a different model. Those included disc usually only work with the model it came with.
If it's a retail disc, the other consideration is the version on the disc. If you look at that everymac.com profile page, it says that the (earlier) pre-installed version of Mac OS X is 10.5.6 (9G2030). If that retail Leopard disc was earlier than 10.5.6 (such as the original 10.5.0 disc), then it will not boot that iMac because, as I said in the first reply - +Macs can generally boot the version of Mac OS it came with, or LATER (up to hardware limits), but NOT earlier.+
If that USB drive you are trying to boot the iMac from has a full installation of Leopard, please post back.

Intel iMac won't boot from disc or in safe mode - cannot repair disk

I have an early Intel iMac 20" (2GHz core duo) that generally works fine. I recently ran Onyx and it reported a startup disk error, suggesting I insert the install disk, hold 'c', and use disk utility to repair the disk.
NOTE: I have performed this operation successfully in the past and know how to do it.
On this occasion, the iMac simply booted up to the normal desktop each time after multiple attempts at booting from both the original OSX 10.4.4 install disc and the OSX 10.5.1 install disc (current os is 10.5.8).
I then attempted to start holding 'shift' to start in safe mode but again, repeated attempts all landed me on my normal desktop.
I then attempted to hold 'option' to be given the choice of startup disc but again was ignored and went straight to my normal desktop after multiple attempts.
Note that my iMac appears to be running fine otherwise. I was just trying to perform some routine maintenance and have run across this problem.
Any ideas? This mac will be 5 years old soon and I would like to keep it running for a while longer.

Hello Devoidarex
You'll want to use the Leopard Install DVD to Repair your Startup Volume and may want to try a USB keyboard if your using a wireless.
Another option is to insert the DVD and go to: System Preferences > Startup Disk > select the Install DVD > then Restart.
Dennis

Intel iMac won't boot from HD

About a month ago, HD booted to Loading OS X, then froze at blue screen before showing logon screen. Returned under warranty, techie used external FW drive and DiskWarrior to repair and system restored to normal. Now have my own external drive with OS X and DiskWarrior.
Last week, installed Parallels. Spent some time with networking to old PC in order to make transition from PC to mac easier (GBs of file transfers). Around this time, 4 of my prefpane files somehow reverted to Power PC, not Intel versions and I couldn't change system preferences on sound, speech, sharing and another beginning with s. Performed an archive and install, all seemed to be working OK.
Last night, screen went black with white power sleep light on constantly. Could only shut down with 5-sec power button push. Attempts to boot from HD get as far as Loading OS X, then freezes at blue screen (why are they always blue?). Restarted holding down option key. Can boot from FW drive. Ran Disk Utility and DiskWarrior. After lots of "node" messages and catalogue this and directory that, DU now shows drive green and OK. However, on trying to boot again from HD, system hangs after "Loading OS X".
Have reset PRAM, used command-s to enter console and did the 2 commands listed there but still no joy. Gone to apple support, have removed and reinstalled RAM iaw their instructions. Have done the SMC thingy, all iaw Apple's instructions. The mac is only 4 month's old and I don't know if anything else can be done before I take it back. Any assistance anyone could give me would be gratefully received.
All the best
jj
PS. Also updated firmware yesterday (1.2?). All seemed to go OK iaw Apple's instructions.
Message was edited by: jumbojock

{quote:} Last night, screen went black with white power sleep light on constantly. Could only shut down with 5-sec power button push. Attempts to boot from HD get as far as Loading OS X, then freezes at blue screen (why are they always blue?). Restarted holding down option key. Can boot from FW drive. Ran Disk Utility and DiskWarrior. After lots of "node" messages and catalogue this and directory that, DU now shows drive green and OK. However, on trying to boot again from HD, system hangs after "Loading OS X".{quote}
To return back to the Internal after a "Startup Volume Repair" from an (External HD or Install Disk 1) restart again holding the Option key (for Startup Manager) and select the "Mac OS X 10.4.10 on Macintosh HD".
Also go to: "Apple / System Preferences / Startup Disk" and select Mac HD, then click the lock so the system will allways attempt to boot from the Internal HD on startup or restart instead of searching.

Xserve won't boot from RAID after a Shutdown

Hello
I'm running a new Intel Xserve 2x2.0Ghz with Apple Raid Card an 3x250GB Apple Drives in.
Starting from 10.5 Setup DVD and setting up a Raid 5 using the Apple Raid Utilitie works fine an also the installation works great. Raid set is ok, Volume initilized, all up an green.
If I then power down the Xserve (to move in to a rack or so..) an power it up again, the raid setup is gone, no bootdevice. No raid sets nor volumes are available when checking again with the Apple Raid Utilitie from the setup dvd. Backup batterie is charged an I also replaced the raid card one time.
Has anyone an idea whats wrong with this box?
Best regards,
Christian, Switzerland

MrHoffman wrote:
The EFI firmware, the SMC and possibly the disk I/O path seem good potential candidates for culprit.
Load and run the hardware diagnostics.
Reset the SMC, and reset the LOM.
I'm running the EFI diagnostic tool now. Firmware and disk I/O path came to mind, let's just hope it's not a major hardware issue
beatle20359 wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Do you have the specs of the xserve and the version of OSX server you are trying to install? Does the Xserve have the RAID card installed in it and what size are the drive modules.
All the best
Beatle
2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon
8GB RAM
OS X Server v 10.6.3 (the version I'm trying to install, that is)
No RAID card. The system drive is 80GB and a second storage drive is 1TB.

BRAND NEW LENOVO K300 5316 1BU (WON'T BOOT FROM DVD SUPERJULTI DRIVE/CD-WRITER

Would appreciate info from the Lenovo Community as to what might be the problem and a fix.
I just received my new Lenovo K300 5316 1BU. As one of the first tasks I made a Lenovo Repair Disc.
To test my disc I rebooted my computer with disc in drive. During reboot I pressed F12 to get to the proper menu.
I chose the cd/dvd drive as the first boot option. It showed that the drive was recognized stating Boot Priority but then went directly into my Windows 7 deskop.
I called Tech Support and tried everything with them with the same results.
They instructed me to do a complete System Restore to see if that corrects the problem.
I have not done this yet since I will do a backup of my present setup, not to loose all my hard work and time setting up all my programs and settings.
Before I do a complete system restore I would appreciate any comments or suggestions from the community regarding this situation.
Do you also believe that doing a full system restore will help or should I send this computer back?
I do find it hard to believe that a computer less than a week old would have this problem with the DVD Supermulti Drive /CD writer.
If I still have no success after a full restore or a resolve from the Lenovo IdeaCentre Community then I will return this computer back to TigerDirect.
To conclude I would like to mention the following regarding this brand new Lenovo K300 5316 1BU top of the line desktop computer.
One of the reasons I purchased this particular desktop was because of the Lenovo Windows 7 ENHANCED operating system that Lenovo has been advertising so much.
To my surprise and disappointment, this BRAND NEW Lenovo Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit does not have the Enhance version, it is Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit only.
Apparently, Lenovo is making some with Enhanced and some without.
Finally, another reason I purchased the 1BU version is because it has a TV Tuner.
To my surprise again, the TV Tuner card in this model does not have an FM Tuner, which almost all TV Tuner Cards have. So, as a result, no FM Radio with Windows 7 Media Center.
Thank you for taking the time to read this long post, but thought it was important to share with the community.
Comments and Help will be most appreciated.
MateusMan
Moderator note; e-mail address removed to stop the spambots getting it

What brand DVD drive did you install? Some third-party drives won't boot by holding down the C key at startup, because they lack the Apple/OEM drive's ROM programming. I recently installed a Memorex (manufactured by LG) DVD burner in a B&W G3, which is recognized by Toast and (with PatchBurn) the iApps. The compatibility problem occurs when selecting a CD/DVD as the startup disk using the Startup Disk Preferences/control panel or by holding down the C key during the restart. In either case, the drive ejects the disk during the POST, so that I have to immediately close the tray and hold down the C key again, to persuade it to boot from the disk. Is this similar to what you're experiencing?

Panther is installed but won't boot from iBook hard drive

Hello,
I made a similar post in the iBooks colors section of Discussions on this topic not quite knowing whether this was a hardware or software issue. I finally got Panther to install after using Disk Doctor to check for and fix errors on 9.2.2 (I would never use with OSX) and also rebuilt the directory while booted from an OS 9 CD and running Disk Warrior from a floppy and taking out the airport card. The Panther CD told me to restart the computer after installation. During the OSX start up from the hard drive I saw a gray screen and the dark gray Apple logo with the spinning gear then the computer crashed and a message appeared that I needed to restart the computer. After restart, the same sequence of events happened again. I have tried to restart from the OSX using the full retail CD used for intallation and the computer also crashes. I cannot start up from the Disk Warrior CD either. I have also tried make a Safe Mode start up and the iBook again crashed with the restart message appearing again. When I restart in OS 9 everything works perfectly, OS, airport and applications. I did have Jaguar installed on this iBook until five months ago, but incounterred issues with it and decided that more RAM would solve my problem. I then decided to initialize the hard drive and reinstall OSX after purchasing 256 RAM. The 256 stick of RAM was bought from ifixit.com and a guy there told me he thought that the logic board needed to be replaced. I explained to him that the computer works perfectly fine in the OS 9 mode, but he said that 0SX is more demanding and 9 can get by on less than perfect logic board. I also reinstalled the 128 MB RAM that was in the computer when Jaguar was running on it, but that didn't help either. I have scoured the iBook and Panther OSX sections of Discussions for any others having a similar problem, but not such luck.
I would appreciate any information or suggestion that you might have as to what may be causing this issue on my iBook.
Thank you.
Greg
iBook Mac OS X (10.3.5) 300 mhz 320 MB RAM

Greg:
You have probably already tried this, but the first thing I would do is reset the PRAM.
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
Also, check out this Apple article Your Mac won't start up in OS X.
Good luck.
cornelius
PismoG4 550, 100GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM; Pismo 500 OS X (10.4.5) Mac OS X (10.4.5) Beige G3 OS 8.6

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