It all runs fine up until the part when it reads the cd. I get errors like "error=0x0 secCnt=0x2 secNum=0x1...". The IDE driver I chose during setup was the generic dual IDE driver. It sees both the hard drive and the CD drive ok. It does recognise the volume in the cd drive, and displays the disc label and size. It's just when it starts to try and read files or whatever it does from the drive that things stuff up. I get a few errors like the one before, then: "Load of /etc/match_init, errno 5, trying /etc/init" then "Load of /etc/init failed, errno5" and it stops there and gives me an option to reboot or enter a debugger.
I've tried using a few different cd drives in the computer and burnt a few different discs at the slowest speed I could with the superdrive in my MacBook (8x). After burning Disk Utility verified and it passed. I still get the problem with each disc. I know the disc image I used to write the cd is ok, because I've previously used it to install in Parallels. I've read through a few topics here and I'm pretty sure that this computer is capable of running it. Specs are as follows:
CPU: P3 600Mhz
RAM: 128MB SDRAM (2x64MB)
Motherboard: MSI 6168
Chipset: Intel 440ZX AGPset, Intel PIIX4E chipset
Video: Integrated Voodoo 3 (I don't think it's supported, but it's VESA compliant)
Audio: Integrated Esoniq 1373 (Soundblaster AudioPCI)
NIC: Inter EtherExpress PRO/10 (ISA)
IDE Primary Master: 10GB Quantum Fireball CX1
IDE Secondary Master: Matshita CR-584 (oldest one I had. Have tried others: LG CD-RW and a Sony CD-ROM I had laying around)
Everything in the system appears to be working absolutely fine. right now it has Dos 7+Win 3.11, Win 95, Win Me and BeOS 5 running on it (boot magic :P)
Should I try anything else or do I just give up now? I don't know a whole lot about Openstep so I may have done something wrong :?
try burning the CD at like 2x or 4x.
From NeXT on this subject...
Note on ATAPI CD-ROM(From NeXTanswers number 1933, EIDE and ATAPI CDROM Support in NEXTSTEP 3.3)
ATAPI devices appear to the system as SCSI devices. Hence it is possible to install NEXTSTEP using an ATAPI CD-ROM and use it with other applications like CDPlayer.
If you are installing NEXTSTEP using an ATAPI CD-ROM you must connect the IDE hard disk and CD-ROM to the primary controller. The hard disk should be configured as master or as master with slave present (if this option is available). The ATAPI CD-ROM should be configured as slave. This is usually accomplished by changing a jumper on the device.
After this you can proceed with NEXTSTEP installation in the usual way. See Installing and Configuring NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for Intel Processors and NeXT Computers for details.
When prompted to select the SCSI adapter connected to your CD-ROM drive, select the Adaptec 154x SCSI driver to continue. When prompted for the type of disk controller the hard drive is connected to, select the EIDE and ATAPI driver. Once NEXTSTEP is installed you should remove the Adaptec154x driver with Configure.app. Requiring a SCSI driver to be loaded is a bug and will be fixed in a later version of NEXTSTEP.[/list]
As RacerX points out, NeXT was quite picky about using ATAPI devices (lovely Rhapsody resource page, btw RacerX).
However, if one uses the 'Primary/Secondary (Dual) EIDE/ATAPI Driver' from the 4.2 Beta Drivers disk, one can use an ATAPI CD-ROM on the secondary EIDE bus to install from.
If you are not using that driver, then I suggest you get your hands on that driver disk image (it's in nextcomputers.org's file archive)
If you are using those drivers, then if the drivers couldn't actually do anything with the CD-ROM, there would be no disk label printed, and it would come up with 'VFS: Could not mount root' and you would be prompted to enter the device. The fact that you're getting a disk label and then a heap of errors means you're getting seek errors, and you should pay close attention to the media that you are using to install from.
What application are you using to burn and on what media are you burning the image on?
I'm using the Dual-Channel driver on a p4 system, and it seems to be working so far.