Updated fix for “Still waiting for root device” on OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion

Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion update to 10.8.2 has modified the IOAHCIFamily.kext once again, resulting in a failed boot with the “Still waiting for root device” error on the console. The previous fix won’t work, as well.

Here is the updated fix for 10.8.2’s version of IOAHCIFamily.kext. Don’t copy-paste everything into the Terminal at once, do it one line at a time. Pasting the whole code at once will result in the second half of the commands being used as your password at the first sudo command.

The following commands place a backup of the unmodified binary before patching it.

cd /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBlockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS
sudo mv IOAHCIBlockStorage IOAHCIBlockStorage.orig
sudo cp IOAHCIBlockStorage.orig IOAHCIBlockStorage
sudo /usr/bin/perl -pi -e 's|\x8b\x4a\x00\x00\xeb\x03|\x8b\x4a\x00\x00\xe8\x01|g' IOAHCIBlockStorage
sudo /usr/bin/perl -pi -e 's|\x74\x0e\x48\x8d\x3d\x72\x92\x00\x00|\xbf\xc8\x00\x00\x00\x90\x90\x90\x90|g' IOAHCIBlockStorage
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

Update: Updated fix for “Still waiting for root device” on OS X 10.8.3 Mountain Lion

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.

29 thoughts on “Updated fix for “Still waiting for root device” on OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion

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  13. Thank you man,
    It works on my probook 4530s with 10.8.2. Now is my laptop fully functional. Just copy and paste the lines – so simple 🙂

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  16. hmm, may i please know how i can get to terminal since i cannot even get to the bootscreen. i get the error (still waiting for root device) when i press enter to start the installation. i dont know how i can do that. i have tried all boot flags but nothing works.
    SPECS:
    Computer Brand Name: DELL Inspiron 5523
    Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (x64) Build 9200
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    Motherboard: DELL 0JRYH9 (Intel HM77 (Panther Point))
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