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Author Topic: [How To]: Installing OSX without access to a Mac  (Read 82131 times)

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r0m30

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[How To]: Installing OSX without access to a Mac
« on: November 02, 2009, 04:27:51 AM »
Here's how I installed OSX without access to a MAC

Update:

After some feedback and several reports of success!  I have updated the process.
The updated process only requires one USB stick and it can be as small as 300MB.

Update:
Added a few clarifications, fixed a few typos and added notes relevant to RC4

Update 12/23/2009
Modified to remove MacDrive from process.  The process can now be used from a Linux machine as well and no need to save SLE because Linux never expires.

Update 9/28/2010
There is a new pressing of the OSX DVD and it has a different partition location.  If you use the newer DVD (10.6.3) then use 827510784 as the offset for the losetup command.  I'll update the doc soon.

Update 10/10/2010
Update document for 10.6.3 SL DVD
« Last Edit: October 10, 2010, 09:11:33 PM by r0m30 »
--- r0m30 ---
HP Mini 1033CL (Costco) OSX Retail 10.6 Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658
HP m9077c -  ASUS IPIBL-LA MoBo with Core 2 Quad Q6600
    Retail 10.6.2 Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684

Kabyl

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2009, 06:23:20 AM »
Hey r0m30,

Just a shallow review:

- It's Mac not MAC, MAC is a different thing.
- arch is a booter flag, not a "Kernel Flag", so it needs to have its own entry in the plist (key/value pair).

Thanks for your effort!

gordonf

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2009, 04:20:09 PM »
Impressive!

Ignoring all of the Mac-specific stuff, using Parted Magic looks like the simplest way to create an EFI installation onto a PC.  Boot that, create an EFI volume, install Chameleon on it. Done.

thorazine74

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2009, 08:57:12 PM »
I'm surprised you got this to work this way, specifically:
- You restored the hfs+ dvd to a fat32 partition and the installer worked from there without errors?
- In the other thread it was stated that dd'ing boot0 to the mbr was not feasible but you still include that, didnt you break your partition table?
Mac OS X 10.5.6 Retail (Updated to 10.5.7) with Chameleon 2.0 RC1+BootIt NextGen 1.86 (MBR Single Drive)
Gigabyte 73PVM-S2H + C2D + 2 Gb
2 SATA HD (AppleAHCIport.kext) + 1 PATA DVD+RW (DarwinATAPort.kext)
Realtek ALC889 (VoodooHDA.kext)
Geforce 8600GTS (EFI String) PS/2 M & KB: VoodooPS2.kext

r0m30

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #4 on: November 03, 2009, 02:55:02 AM »
thorazine74

- the fat32 partition only loads the kernel and kexts, the rd=disk?s3 then mounts the retail DVD and runs the installer from there.  Further testing seems to indicate that all you need on the FAT32 drive is mach_kernel and /S/L/E, so you can do this with a very small pen drive.

- if you look at the dd statement for boot0 it has bs=400 count=1, by only writing 400 bytes you don't blow away the partition table.  I don't know for sure how much you can write before it goes boom but 400 works with RC3.

Kabyl

Thanks, I'll fix those.  I'm surely confused about the arch flag then, reading the docs had me believing it was a kernel flags parameter.  I'll just remove it since I don't understand it and an ATOM will only run 32bit.
--- r0m30 ---
HP Mini 1033CL (Costco) OSX Retail 10.6 Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658
HP m9077c -  ASUS IPIBL-LA MoBo with Core 2 Quad Q6600
    Retail 10.6.2 Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684

gordonf

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2009, 07:29:44 PM »
So if I read this right, I'm using a USB boot device containing Parted Magic to install Chameleon RC3 to a target PC, then (assuming all the Mac stuff) I'm using a second USB boot device to boot just the mach_kernel enough to then start the Snow Leopard DVD installer?

I suppose that's one way to get Chameleon to boot the install DVD... though it's not really booting the install DVD; it's booting a kernel on another fixed device that then in turn starts the installer. That's twisted.

Just one thing: Being a comparable newbie, what is /S/L/E?

r0m30

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2009, 09:04:44 PM »
That's the gist of it.  Chameleon starts the kernel, the kernel mounts the retail DVD and runs the install from the DVD. As I said above all you really need on the USB drive is mach_kernel and /S/L/E (/System/Library/Extensions - the directory where the Apple standard kexts are stored). It is one way and it allows you to build a retail install using only a Windowz PC no Mac access required.

I've been able to build a combination Chameleon/Kernel USB drive that is under 300MB that successfully installs OSX, the one problem is that I can only get Chameleon to offer it as a boot device if there are no valid partitions on the hard drive(s).  There is probably a way to get Chameleon to use it after the drive is partitioned but I haven't found it and my mini decided I didn't really need a screen so I'm unable to continue testing until that does a round trip to HP repair  >:(
--- r0m30 ---
HP Mini 1033CL (Costco) OSX Retail 10.6 Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658
HP m9077c -  ASUS IPIBL-LA MoBo with Core 2 Quad Q6600
    Retail 10.6.2 Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2009, 10:39:56 PM »
Disclaimer:  I've never used a Mac or Max OSX and have never attempted a setup such as this before, so please excuse me if this post is really really dumb!!

Questions:

1: Do you actually need a com.apple.Boot.plist?  The Chameleon Docs don't really say, and there's not one showing in the screenshot.

2: Are the kext files included with Chameleon?  Maybe they're only included with the Hackintosh software?  It's hard to say.

Following this guide, I've made it to the tar --strip command, and that's where I've run into issues.  The error states:

pbzip2: *ERROR: Bad magic number (file not created by bzip2)!  Skipping...

I'm kind of uncertain what the goal here is, other than unzipping the Chameleon gz file somewhere....

Could anyone give me any tips?

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2009, 11:03:07 PM »
Never mind, I figured it out and am continuing, though still without Boot.plist or kext files.

r0m30

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2009, 11:18:20 PM »
kukhuvud -

Sorry typo on my part as you figured out it should be -xzf not -xjf....

I don't think a com.apple.Boot.plist is required but you will have to type your boot options every time you boot and getting the first successful boot is a challenge.

Without any kexts you won't get very far.  You should at least start with Disabler.kext (included in Chameleon /Optional Extras/) and a decrypt module dsmos.kext is the one I used.  I found most of the kexts by Googleing the device name and osx86.  if you aren't familiar with what hardware you have you can do a lspci while in pmagic and get the info that Linux sees.

I'd be interested in hearing your suggestions for clarifications/fixes
--- r0m30 ---
HP Mini 1033CL (Costco) OSX Retail 10.6 Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658
HP m9077c -  ASUS IPIBL-LA MoBo with Core 2 Quad Q6600
    Retail 10.6.2 Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2009, 11:52:14 PM »
I typed your com.apple.Boot.plist into a file and changed only the Graphics Mode and then redid all the copying and dd commands but the machine wouldn't boot from the hard drive.

So, I tracked down what I believe to be the appropriate kext files for my machine and I'm going to try this again :)

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #11 on: November 03, 2009, 11:57:39 PM »
I think these are the steps to create the Chameleon boot partition, assuming the disk is clean:

gdisk /dev/sda
n
1
default
+200M
ab00
w
y

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2009, 12:10:35 AM »
Also, there's a typo...

where it says: mv /C/Optional\ Extras/smbios.plist /Chameleon/Extra

should read: mv /C/Optional\ Extras/smbios.plist /C/Extra

and the unmount command doesn't work ;)

r0m30

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #13 on: November 04, 2009, 02:15:52 AM »
if it won't boot at all then check these things

is boot in /C ?  .... ls /C/boot

if it is then make sure you got the dd commands correct, if your using sda to install on then:

cd /C/i386
dd if=boot0 of=/dev/sda bs=400 count=1
dd if=boot1h of=/dev/sda1

boot0 goes at the beginning of the disk
boot1h goes at the beginning of the partition
--- r0m30 ---
HP Mini 1033CL (Costco) OSX Retail 10.6 Chameleon-2.0-RC3-r658
HP m9077c -  ASUS IPIBL-LA MoBo with Core 2 Quad Q6600
    Retail 10.6.2 Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684

kukhuvud

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Re: Installing OSX without acces to a MAC - HOWTO first draft
« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2009, 05:45:30 PM »
Trying again when starting over from scratch does boot :)

It loads a bunch of stuff but eventually fails.  I guess it's a kernel panic of some type, but none like I've ever seen on linux.  I'm reckoning that I have some wrong kext and wrong hardware setup, so I'll do some googling and see what I can find!