[How To]: Installing OSX without access to a Mac

[audioian]

Hello,

Your guide is great and the version 2 much easier. I've almost got Snow Leopard on my Wind U100, but I'm having trouble getting the disk to boot. If I plug the disk in before booting the BIOS seems to hang when it reads the disk. I have to disconnect the disk to get it to boot.

However, if I boot normally the disk can be read by the operating system without problem (OSX, Linux and Windows) once it is plugged in. The disk has been formatted as HFS+ by OSX, but I've been unable to boot the dsik to complete the installation.

The disk is a WD 320GB SATA. The bios is MSI 1,0F.

The problem is the MBR boot header is hanging the Bios at startup. If I copy the full MBR of the disk formatted as FAT32 across to the disk the bios boots OK, but then Chameleon hangs with  boot0 error after boot0 testing.

Any ideas how I can get a valid MBR onto the disk to allow it to boot?

Whats the best tool to use to do this?

Note there seems to be a typo in your guide.The second mkdir /c/Extra should be mkdir /c/System

Thanks in advance guys

[r0m30]

The problem is the MBR boot header is hanging the Bios at startup. If I copy the full MBR of the disk formatted as FAT32 across to the disk the bios boots OK, but then Chameleon hangs with  boot0 error after boot0 testing.

Is the drive internal, or an external USB?  What version of Chameleon are you using?

Are you seeing messages like this?
boot0: GPT
boot0: testing
boot0: testing
boot0: error
If you are then Chameleon is booting it's just not finding boot1h.  How many testing lines are there? What are the exact messages?

You say that the disk is formatted HFS+ by OSX does that mean you booted the DVD and ran the OSX installer?
If you did then how did you format the install partition?  You need to add it ( use the "+" button) to the existing partition map not reformat the drive.

Sorry for having more questions than answers.

Note there seems to be a typo in your guide.The second mkdir /c/Extra should be mkdir /c/System

Fixed in the current version.
 

[audioian]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm using a USB drive as I don't want to touch my current installation until I've tried OSX.

I've tried formatting the disk using boot partition magic and Gdisk and via the OSX terminal. The bios seems to hang at boot up if the drive is plugged in.


The only messages I see are the two lines:

boot0: testing
boot0: error

From what you say it seems that I have chameleon on the boot sector, but it's not finding boot1h. Could it be the USB to SATA housing that is causing the problem?

I originally got the OSX dvd to boot using NetbookCD to boot Chameleon from CD. I got OSX installed using this method, but could never get the disk to boot - it always hung the Bios. Chameleon booted fine from the CD if the USB drive wasn't plugged in, but if I booted and then plugged in the drive, it wasn't recognised.

Now I've got it formatted via Partition Magic as per your latest guide and I'm trying to get Chameleon to boot before I try installing OSX again. The problem is that once it is formatted as a GPT disk, it hangs the bios at boot up and the problem is in the 440-512 byte region.

I've tried using Chameleon 2 RC4 and Cham2 RC3 r658.

[r0m30]

I'm using a USB drive as I don't want to touch my current installation until I've tried OSX.

Understand, did it that way too.

I've tried formatting the disk using boot partition magic and Gdisk and via the OSX terminal. The bios seems to hang at boot up if the drive is plugged in.

What do you mean you BIOS hangs?  If you are getting the messages below then your BIOS had passed control to Chameleon.

The only messages I see are the two lines:
boot0: testing
boot0: error

This means you aren't formatting the disk properly. The first line you should see is boot0: GPT.  If it works this would be followed by one boot0: testing and the Chameleon boot menu.  If it fails this would be followed by two boot0: testing lines and a boot0: error line.

Now I've got it formatted via Partition Magic as per your latest guide and I'm trying to get Chameleon to boot before I try installing OSX again. The problem is that once it is formatted as a GPT disk, it hangs the bios at boot up and the problem is in the 440-512 byte region.

I've tried using Chameleon 2 RC4 and Cham2 RC3 r658.

Again, what do you mean by the bios hangs?  If you are getting boot0 messages then the BIOS has passed control to Chameleon.  If those messages only come out after you fix bytes 440-512 then all you are doing is destroying the GPT partition tables and you have either a BIOS bug or an incompatibility with your USB drive.

[audioian]

What do you mean you BIOS hangs?  If you are getting the messages below then your BIOS had passed control to Chameleon.

Thanks again for your input.

When I say the bios hangs I mean that if I format the disk as GPT and plug it it and reboot I get as far as pressing F11 to get the boot menu, the bios tries to read the disk - the red led comes on - and stays on - and nothing happens. It hangs. I have to unplug the disk to get the boot to continue.

The strange things is that if I boot into Pmagic without the disk plugged in, get PMagic running and then plug the disk in it is recognised as the GPT disk, with all the data intact.

The problem is that I can't boot with the disk (formatted as GPT) plugged in.

If I format the disk as FAT32 the red led flashes briefly and I get to the boot menu.

I only get the boot0 messages if I overwrite the GPT MBR record with a FAT32 one. Seems like a bios bug or USB incompatability. I'd just like to find out what the bug is - I suspect the USb as there are plenty of MSI Winds out there running OSX.  I'm just trying to find a way round it.

[r0m30]

OK, now I understand what you mean by your bios hangs.  The only suggestions I have at this point are
1: Check on a BIOS update for your machine
or
2: Try a different USB drive
or
3: Backup your internal drive using clonezilla (on the pmagic disk) or WINPE or your favorite backup program to your USB drive and try the install on your internal drive.

[rocco]

first, thanks for this great tutorial!

my problem is, that after i create the gpt partition table with gparted i get an error (after typing "gdisk \dev\sda" in terminal) which says:

"fdisk (gdisk) version 0.5.1
note: write test failed with error number 2. it will be impossible to save changes to this disk's partition table!
problem oppening devsda for reading! error is 2"

thats really strange as i did everything as descriped in the pdf.

hope somebody knows a solution to this.

[r0m30]

my problem is, that after i create the gpt partition table with gparted i get an error (after typing "gdisk \dev\sda" in terminal) which says:

"fdisk (gdisk) version 0.5.1
note: write test failed with error number 2. it will be impossible to save changes to this disk's partition table!
problem oppening devsda for reading! error is 2"

That usually means that you  typed in the device name incorrectly. Perhaps you have an IDE (hda) drive?
At the console type in

Code: [Select]

fdisk -l (that's a lowercase F and a lowercase L) and see if it shows /dev/sda.

I'm assuming that you typed (not cut and paste) the error message, it says devsda without the slashes.
It looks like parted magic has a new release with an updated gdisk, hope that's not a bug....
You can try an earlier version of the gdisk program by putting http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/files/gptfdisk/0.5.0/gdisk_0.5.0-2_i386.deb/download in the "pmagic/pmodules" folder on your pmagic disk.

ps gdisk != gparted, if you're using the gparted gui you're doomed (google "gparted microsoft reserved").

[rocco]

my problem is, that after i create the gpt partition table with gparted i get an error (after typing "gdisk \dev\sda" in terminal) which says:

"fdisk (gdisk) version 0.5.1
note: write test failed with error number 2. it will be impossible to save changes to this disk's partition table!
problem oppening devsda for reading! error is 2"

That usually means that you  typed in the device name incorrectly. Perhaps you have an IDE (hda) drive?
At the console type in

Code: [Select]

fdisk -l (that's a lowercase F and a lowercase L) and see if it shows /dev/sda.

I'm assuming that you typed (not cut and paste) the error message, it says devsda without the slashes.
It looks like parted magic has a new release with an updated gdisk, hope that's not a bug....
You can try an earlier version of the gdisk program by putting http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/files/gptfdisk/0.5.0/gdisk_0.5.0-2_i386.deb/download in the "pmagic/pmodules" folder on your pmagic disk.

ps gdisk != gparted, if you're using the gparted gui you're doomed (google "gparted microsoft reserved").

i used the gparted gui to set the disk partition table to gpt. no error received. then i switched to terminal and typed gdisk \dev\sda in, then the error message came up. i'm pretty sure it's sda but i'm gonna try your suggestion when i'm back at home.

hey buddy, thanks for your help!

[audioian]

Hi, thanks to your help I have now succeeded in getting OSX to boot, but I'm confused about where the kexts that Chameleon reads are. In your 500M partition you have /Extra/Extensions as well as /System/Library/Extensions. Which one takes priority as I'm having some problems with AppleintelCPUPowermanagement causing a kernel panic?

 

[r0m30]

Hi, thanks to your help I have now succeeded in getting OSX to boot, but I'm confused about where the kexts that Chameleon reads are. In your 500M partition you have /Extra/Extensions as well as /System/Library/Extensions. Which one takes priority as I'm having some problems with AppleintelCPUPowermanagement causing a kernel panic?

When you boot the Chameleon partition the load order should be EE then SLE from the Chameleon partition.  Once you install and boot the OSX install disk EE is loaded from the Chameleon partition and SLE is loaded from your OSX partition (you can delete SLE from the Chameleon partition once OSX is installed.)

What kexts do you have in EE?  Are you using NullCPUPowerManagement.kext or Disabler.kext? Either of those should disable the Apple kext.  You are running an Intel processor right?  You can't do a vanilla retail install with an AMD processor.

[audioian]

What kexts do you have in EE?  Are you using NullCPUPowerManagement.kext or Disabler.kext? Either of those should disable the Apple kext.

Thanks again for your help. I've now got it booting into OSX with the following kexts. I haven't got the audio working yet, but the rest looks promising. I'm running an MSI Wind, so it's an atom processor.

AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext
AppleIntelGMA950.kext
AppleIntelGMA950GA.plugin
AppleIntelGMA950GLDriver.bundle
AppleIntelGMA950VADriver.bundle
AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext
ApplePS2Controller.kext
fakesmc.kext
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
RealtekR1000.kext
VoodooBattery.kext
VoodooHDA.kext

I suppose my next question is should I be running update.sh. These all seem to be set up for disk0S1, but I'm running on your setup on disk 1. Do I need to update the kexts or just put them in Chameleon EE and reboot?

[r0m30]

Thanks again for your help. I've now got it booting into OSX with the following kexts. I haven't got the audio working yet, but the rest looks promising. I'm running an MSI Wind, so it's an atom processor.
....snip.....
I suppose my next question is should I be running update.sh. These all seem to be set up for disk0S1, but I'm running on your setup on disk 1. Do I need to update the kexts or just put them in Chameleon EE and reboot?

Great, glad you got it booting. 

On using VoodooHDA for sound, I can't get it to load from EE so I set up a modules.d in /Library and have a LaunchDeamon load it at boot time, you can just put it in SLE if you don't mind a non-vanilla SLE.  Run "sudo kextstat | grep VoodooHDA" in terminal to see if it loaded.

I don't know where you got update.sh from so I really can't help you there.  If it's updating your EE kexts, then yes they should go into EE of the Chameleon partition, but some kexts just don't want to load from EE and I haven't figured out the proper incantation to make everything load from EE.

PS you know that you can't let the 10.6.2 update run for an atom, Apple removed atom support from the kernel, there are some patched kernels around if you want to go that route.

[audioian]

On using VoodooHDA for sound, I can't get it to load from EE so I set up a modules.d in /Library and have a LaunchDeamon load it at boot time, you can just put it in SLE if you don't mind a non-vanilla SLE.  Run "sudo kextstat | grep VoodooHDA" in terminal to see if it loaded.

You were right - neither of the Voodoo kexts loaded, not even after I moved them to SLE. Setting up a launchdeamon is beyond me, so I need to play some more. On the other hand I now have wifi working with the Realtek card thanks to their unofficial OSX driver.

Thanks

[ewela]

Hy,
I´ve a Problem to mount the Retail DVD.

When I enter

mkdir /s
losetup -o 1034489856 /dev/loop3 /dev/sr0
mount -t hfsplus /dev/loop3 /s

I Get the Message :
Wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop3,
missing codepage or helper programm .....

So I think that my DVD is wrong.
I get it from a new MacBook. You can see it by the Attachment.

Can anyone help ?
Thank´s