| Error Message | Why It Happens | The "Fixed" Solution | |----------------|----------------|------------------------| | Still waiting for root device | DVD drive not recognized early enough or missing IOATAFamily kext | Burn at 4x speed; use a different brand DVD-R (Verbatim/Memorex) | | System uptime in nanoseconds: ... Kernel panic | Incompatible kernel with your Mac’s CPU (e.g., 32-bit vs 64-bit) | The "fixed" image should include both mach_kernel and kernelcache | | Blinking question mark folder | DVD not bootable (wrong ISO format) | Ensure "Finalize DVD" was checked. Try on another Mac. | | com.apple.Boot.plist not found | Image structure corrupted | Re-extract the .7z and use TransMac's "Restore with Disk Image" feature to a USB, then clone USB to DVD |
However, macOS’s kernel and boot process (boot.efi, mach_kernel, and the BootX bootloader) expect a writable root filesystem. Mandating that the entire OS runs from a read-only compressed image requires extensive modifications to the boot arguments ( rd=udf , -s for single-user mode) and initramfs-like structures. Most attempts fail at the "Still waiting for root device" error—a direct result of the optical drive’s latency and the system’s inability to mount the compressed DMG in time. mac os x live dvd highly compressed dvd transmac 81 fixed