Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

[mosslack]

Yeah fire away, what's mine is yours!

Reposted, thanks man!

 

[mosslack]

Hah thanks, good to be missed :biggrin: My schedule is a bit more flexible this semester - I actually get a couple nights free, whoo! I just might have something up my sleeve :whiste:

Well, this is news. Tell me it's an inexpensive tablet PC running SL perfectly and I'll be the happiest camper ever!!!

 

[mohkahn]

Vow.. Wasn't expecting such detailed guide on the very basics of hackintosh.
Thanks Kaido. I really had no idea the situation was simple...errrr, yet so complicated.. I guess, I really got lotsa googling and insanelymac searching to do.
Very well laid out, indeed.
(something up your sleeves? hmm..don't tell us they are leftover chip crumbs from late last night snacking)

 

[Kaido]

Vow.. Wasn't expecting such detailed guide on the very basics of hackintosh.
Thanks Kaido. I really had no idea the situation was simple...errrr, yet so complicated.. I guess, I really got lotsa googling and insanelymac searching to do.
Very well laid out, indeed.
(something up your sleeves? hmm..don't tell us they are leftover chip crumbs from late last night snacking)

Yeah, the idea is simple, but the implementation is complicated. Same as PC's...reinstalling Windows on an older computer and then having to dig around the net to find working drivers, only it's worse with Hackintoshes because there may not be a driver for your hardware, or it may only work in the previous OS X point release, etc. A lot of success on this project depends on how much patience you have :biggrin:

 

[Aikouka]

Yeah, the idea is simple, but the implementation is complicated. Same as PC's...reinstalling Windows on an older computer and then having to dig around the net to find working drivers, only it's worse with Hackintoshes because there may not be a driver for your hardware, or it may only work in the previous OS X point release, etc. A lot of success on this project depends on how much patience you have :biggrin:

Also seems to help if you have some older and more compatible hardware that you can switch for the time being . I couldn't install with my 5870 (even in safe mode), but my old 8800GT worked fine. Once I used MultiBeast, I was able to use the 5870.

 

[scootermaster]

Does anyone know if sleep is working on a DS3L? From looking around, it doesn't seem like it is, but I thought I'd check.

I'm at 10.6.4, and honestly happy, but at some point I'm going to want to update something that's App Store only, and I'll be SOL.

 

[Kaido]

Has anyone gotten sleep working on an X58 machine?

I was able to get sleep working on a Core 2 system (my UD3P) via DSDT edits, but I can't seem to do the same with the X58 chipset. There's no official 10.6.6 SleepEnabler yet and the modded ones don't work for me. Bleh!

 

[Aikouka]

Any advice on dual-booting OSX with Windows 7? I've done some research on it, but I just can't seem to get it to work.

I installed OSX on a separate HDD using the usual GPT. I used EasyBCD and then replaced the .mbr file with chain0 (or what I assume I downloaded as chain0). Whenever I boot, I just get the "chain booting error". I tried the same steps with setting EasyBCD to MBR instead of EFI, but I get the same thing .

Anything I might be missing?

 

[mosslack]

Any advice on dual-booting OSX with Windows 7? I've done some research on it, but I just can't seem to get it to work.

I installed OSX on a separate HDD using the usual GPT. I used EasyBCD and then replaced the .mbr file with chain0 (or what I assume I downloaded as chain0). Whenever I boot, I just get the "chain booting error". I tried the same steps with setting EasyBCD to MBR instead of EFI, but I get the same thing .

Anything I might be missing?

I found the easiest way to dual boot when using 2 hard drives it to use Chameleon as the boot manager. Best to install each system in the computer by itself, IOW, unhook the 2nd hard drive when installing. Then once both systems have been installed on their own hard drive, hook up both and make sure the system boots from the SL drive. Chameleon will detect the other hard drive and you can boot from either one. HTH

 

[mosslack]

It's official, the HQ-A ProjSys2 is up and running! You can view the contest video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCsricUaEUk

There is a link to the contest rules as well. The system this year is an HTPC with an i3 550 CPU! Check it out.

 

[Aikouka]

I found the easiest way to dual boot when using 2 hard drives it to use Chameleon as the boot manager. Best to install each system in the computer by itself, IOW, unhook the 2nd hard drive when installing. Then once both systems have been installed on their own hard drive, hook up both and make sure the system boots from the SL drive. Chameleon will detect the other hard drive and you can boot from either one. HTH

That seems to work just fine, although I think I need to find a way to configure the Chameleon boot loader. I'd prefer it act more like the Windows bootloader and let me choose a default and always provide the list or at least provide a longer time for me to push a button .

But, I have another larger problem on my hands. I decided to move my server back into this room along with my other i7 machine (the hackintosh / windows 7). I wanted to make my solution more elegant, so I decided to use an old KVM with the Hackintosh/Win7 and the Win7 server. Well, this is an old KVM and it uses PS/2... and apparently, OSX does not like PS/2.

It booted up and sat there unable to do anything, so I just kind of hit my PC's reset button. Now, OSX just shows my wallpaper. Do I really have to reinstall OSX because I hit the reset button once?

 

[mosslack]

That seems to work just fine, although I think I need to find a way to configure the Chameleon boot loader. I'd prefer it act more like the Windows bootloader and let me choose a default and always provide the list or at least provide a longer time for me to push a button .

But, I have another larger problem on my hands. I decided to move my server back into this room along with my other i7 machine (the hackintosh / windows 7). I wanted to make my solution more elegant, so I decided to use an old KVM with the Hackintosh/Win7 and the Win7 server. Well, this is an old KVM and it uses PS/2... and apparently, OSX does not like PS/2.

It booted up and sat there unable to do anything, so I just kind of hit my PC's reset button. Now, OSX just shows my wallpaper. Do I really have to reinstall OSX because I hit the reset button once?

I can't tell you the number of times I've had to hit the reset button to get out of a sticky situation, I doubt that is why you are having the problem. My desktop solution uses 2 KVM switches, but both are newer USB models. My primary system is my MSI P55-GD80, but I also have my DS3L here at my desk and a new Mac mini as well. It gets a bit confusing at times to say the least.

As far as Chameleon, you can configure the time delay in the com.apple.Boot.plist file and the other settings as well, but I would have to look them up on the net to know what they are. Just Google for Chameleon docs and you can find them. HTH

 

[Aikouka]

I can't tell you the number of times I've had to hit the reset button to get out of a sticky situation, I doubt that is why you are having the problem.

Well, it was working fine until I did that. Right now, it's about the equivalent of what would happen in Windows if Explorer.exe didn't start up on boot up. I could fix the problem in Windows, but I have no idea what to do in OSX... except for reinstall it .

 

[Kaido]

That seems to work just fine, although I think I need to find a way to configure the Chameleon boot loader. I'd prefer it act more like the Windows bootloader and let me choose a default and always provide the list or at least provide a longer time for me to push a button .

But, I have another larger problem on my hands. I decided to move my server back into this room along with my other i7 machine (the hackintosh / windows 7). I wanted to make my solution more elegant, so I decided to use an old KVM with the Hackintosh/Win7 and the Win7 server. Well, this is an old KVM and it uses PS/2... and apparently, OSX does not like PS/2.

It booted up and sat there unable to do anything, so I just kind of hit my PC's reset button. Now, OSX just shows my wallpaper. Do I really have to reinstall OSX because I hit the reset button once?

You could try VoodooPS2Controller and see if that works for you:

http://chameleon.osx86.hu/articles/voodoo-team-proudly-presents-voodoops2controller

Or you can get a PS/2 to USB adapter for under $10 shipped on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812199008

Generally Hackintosh does not like PS/2 input devices and the hanging you are experiencing at boot time could be one of the symptoms of your PS/2 problem.

 

[Kaido]

Any advice on dual-booting OSX with Windows 7? I've done some research on it, but I just can't seem to get it to work.

I installed OSX on a separate HDD using the usual GPT. I used EasyBCD and then replaced the .mbr file with chain0 (or what I assume I downloaded as chain0). Whenever I boot, I just get the "chain booting error". I tried the same steps with setting EasyBCD to MBR instead of EFI, but I get the same thing .

Anything I might be missing?

Like mosslack said, the easiest way is to use two separate hard drives. Set your Hackintosh drive to be the first drive to boot in BIOS, which will launch the bootloader. You will have three options when you boot up: your Hackintosh boot drive, your Windows 7 boot drive, and a 100mb "System Reserved" partition. The 100mb partition is the Windows 7 bootloader and this is what you need to select in order to boot into Windows 7 (if you're just running Windows 7 on your machine, this partition is invisible to you unless you go into Disk Management).

You can modify the timeout (how many seconds you have to choose which drive to boot to) in the Boot Plist, you can modify the Theme in the /Extras folder, and you can modify which drive is the default to boot up, so if you'd prefer to have Windows 7 be the default boot drive, you'd still set your BIOS to point to the Hackintosh boot drive, which kicks off Chameleon, does the timeout countdown, and then launches into Windows 7. iirc this is also controlled via a Boot Plist function:

<key>Default Partition</key>
<string>hd(x,y)</string>

You put the hard drive number in for X and the partition number in for Y. You can find out this info by opening up Terminal in OS X and typing in "diskutil list". It will say something like /dev/disk0, /dev/disk1, etc. and then have numbered partitions for each of the partitions on each of your drives. I believe 0 is usually the drive partitioning method and then 1, 2, etc. are each of the actual partitions. You'll see a 200mb-ish EFI partition on your Hackintosh drive; this is where Chameleon lives.

 

[Aikouka]

I did end up trying the Chameleon boot and it works fine. Although, I kinda would love to be able to "configure" it to also not show all of the NTFS partitions. Once I put my spare "scratch" drive back into the system, it will have 5 options (Hackintosh, System Reserved, NTFS x 3) when it really only needs 2.

Generally Hackintosh does not like PS/2 input devices and the hanging you are experiencing at boot time could be one of the symptoms of your PS/2 problem.

I thought about getting this newer KVM:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817399056

Unfortunately, I have to stick with VGA monitor input. I have two Samsung 20.1" LCDs and the model I have has a well-known (at least on Google) issue where the DVI port goes bad and all you can reliably use is VGA. So I decided to hook the good monitor up to the Hackintosh as a default monitor 1 and the KVM would serve as either monitor 2 for the Hackintosh or monitor 1 for the server.

Do you think that even having the PS/2 ports plugged in would cause a problem? It booted up fine the first time, but I couldn't even do anything (given I had no valid inputs). I should have just not been lazy, walked over and grabbed a spare USB mouse to shut the system down properly.

 

[mosslack]

I've got 3 or 4 of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817107417

They work very well with my Hacks in SL or Windows. Same company, should be similar.

 

[Kaido]

I did end up trying the Chameleon boot and it works fine. Although, I kinda would love to be able to "configure" it to also not show all of the NTFS partitions. Once I put my spare "scratch" drive back into the system, it will have 5 options (Hackintosh, System Reserved, NTFS x 3) when it really only needs 2

Try this in your Boot Plist:

<key>Hide Partition</key>
<string>hd(1,2) hd(2,1)</string>

Replace the numbers with your disks/partitions. You can probably hide everything but the Hackintosh partition and the 100mb "System Reserved" partition that is required to boot Windows 7.

 

[Aikouka]

Ahh, that sounds good. I'll have to do that after I reinstall OSX, 'cause it's completely hosed . I'll probably just wait until the new KVM comes in.

I am a bit disappointed that the system got messed up so easily... although, I wish I knew what to try to do to fix it, but I'm pretty damn clueless with anything *NIX-related.

 

[Kaido]

Ahh, that sounds good. I'll have to do that after I reinstall OSX, 'cause it's completely hosed . I'll probably just wait until the new KVM comes in.

I am a bit disappointed that the system got messed up so easily... although, I wish I knew what to try to do to fix it, but I'm pretty clueless with anything *NIX-related.

My advice for working on a Hackintosh - buy a spare drive. The old "one to run, one for fun" concept. A fast 1TB 7200rpm Samsung F3 is $55 shipped on Newegg, so it's pretty affordable to get a nice spare nowadays. It's way too easy to break stuff, so I do all my updates and other testing on my spare drive, and if it doesn't boot up, I don't care too much - I just clone my boot drive to it using SuperDuper, re-run the bootloader to make it bootable, and try again. You don't really need to know much *nix, more just the ins & outs of Hackintosh-ville, which is all over the place

edit: I know it's a pain to keep a spare, and to clone, but it's a cost/benefits thing - you can spend 20 minutes *now* doing a clone to test on, or you can spend *hours* fixing your drive and doing a full reinstall etc. Small pain now or possible big pain later.

 

[Zaap]

A partition of the same drive works just as good as a complete spare drive for a backup install. OSX can be installed multiple times on the same hard drive; you only need about 20GB or so for a complete OSX install or clone.

But definitely keeping just one copy of OSX on a Hackintosh is for people that enjoy problems and can't stand easy, virtually cost-free remedies. To each his own!

 

[Aikouka]

I actually got it to load finally... I don't know if it was having a USB mouse/keyboard available or loading into safe mode once that fixed it, but it works again... well, except the dual-monitors doesn't seem to work properly in "normal mode", but the desktop continuation worked properly in safe mode... odd.

I also tried editing the com.boot.apple.plist file, which was fun getting it to let me boot. I ended up sudo'ing and using vi(m), which I couldn't remember a single vi command! The entries looked correct, but Chameleon didn't seem to do anything differently. I loaded up an example one that I'll have to compare later.

 

[Zaap]

Has anyone gotten sleep working on an X58 machine?

I was able to get sleep working on a Core 2 system (my UD3P) via DSDT edits, but I can't seem to do the same with the X58 chipset. There's no official 10.6.6 SleepEnabler yet and the modded ones don't work for me. Bleh!

Sleep works with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and 10.6.6 /Cham RC5 + properly patched DSDT.

Have you tried the kernel flag 'pmVersion=21' in the boot.plist file when using the new sleep enabler kext?

I have no problem with sleep on my DQ6 with 10.6.6 + RC5 + patched DSDT, and ditto UD3P systems I've updated to 10.6.6 as well. Sleep has never worked reliably on my < P45 systems.

 

[Kaido]

A partition of the same drive works just as good as a complete spare drive for a backup install. OSX can be installed multiple times on the same hard drive; you only need about 20GB or so for a complete OSX install or clone.

But definitely keeping just one copy of OSX on a Hackintosh is for people that enjoy problems and can't stand easy, virtually cost-free remedies. To each his own!

I like doing a spare drive because then I can screw around with the bootloader without fear of rendering both partitions unbootable. Not that I've ever done that before :whiste:

 

[Kaido]

Sleep works with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R and 10.6.6 /Cham RC5 + properly patched DSDT.

Have you tried the kernel flag 'pmVersion=21' in the boot.plist file when using the new sleep enabler kext?

I have no problem with sleep on my DQ6 with 10.6.6 + RC5 + patched DSDT, and ditto UD3P systems I've updated to 10.6.6 as well. Sleep has never worked reliably on my < P45 systems.

Yeah, I've tried a couple different SleepEnablers, the pmVersion trick, various DSDT patches, nada. The UD3P works like a champ with the DSDT mods for sleep, but my X58-based stuff doesn't. That's really the only thing that's bugging me about the MSI, too (well that and reboot on shutdown, but that's a different story haha).