The Hackintosh 101 Thread

[K6IIIFan]

Great advice Zaap, I will do this.

This sounds like a solution that is more up my alley as OS X has quickly become my main squeeze and will only need to boot into XP 2 or 3 times a week for gaming needs... gotta put this new Palit 8800GT 512MB to good use.

On a side note, OS X is simply amazing and runs beautifully on my hardware. In the 24hrs ive been using it, ive noticed my normally mundane tasks of email, photoshop, and endless markup have become fun again. Honeymoon phase I know, hope it lasts longer than I expect.

 

[aphex]

Think i'm gonna give a shot at turning my wife's toshiba laptop into a Hackintosh today. Debating if I should clone her 80gb drive onto a 40gb, erase the 80 and use it. Or just swap for the empty 40 and use that.

 

[Tyranicus]

I'm assuming the recent security update is safe to install. Can others confirm this?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Tyranicus
I'm assuming the recent security update is safe to install. Can others confirm this?

No issues on my end!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: aphex
Think i'm gonna give a shot at turning my wife's toshiba laptop into a Hackintosh today. Debating if I should clone her 80gb drive onto a 40gb, erase the 80 and use it. Or just swap for the empty 40 and use that.

If you have an installation on the 80gb, just use the 40gb for now. Laptops are hideous to get working right with Leopard, so you'll want something you can screw around with. You can always clone later

 

[mshan]

Hey Kaido:

Do you get the impression that Apple is intentionally trying to break Hackintoshes with each update?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: mshan
Hey Kaido:

Do you get the impression that Apple is intentionally trying to break Hackintoshes with each update?

Given that 10.5.4 cleanly installs without any modifications, clearly that's not the case.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: mshan
Hey Kaido:

Do you get the impression that Apple is intentionally trying to break Hackintoshes with each update?

Given that 10.5.4 cleanly installs without any modifications, clearly that's not the case.

Yeah, I don't think Apple really cares. It's probably part of their secret marketing strategy...allow users to install Hackintosh, some of whom get so frustrated they buy real Macs

 

[silverpig]

Before I take the plunge, can anyone here quickly tell me if there are any red flags in my hardware?

CPU: Opteron 165 (dual 1.8 GHz)
Mobo: DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
RAM: 1 GB Mushkin Redline
Video: EVGA 7900 GS
Sound: SB Live! 5.1
Drives: 74 GB Raptor and a 320 GB WD SATA
Optical: 16x DVD+R Plextor PATA

From my own investigations it seems my mobo and video card are well supported and those are the major hurdles, but I can't find info on the cpu. It's SSE2 but not SSE3.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Before I take the plunge, can anyone here quickly tell me if there are any red flags in my hardware?

CPU: Opteron 165 (dual 1.8 GHz)
Mobo: DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
RAM: 1 GB Mushkin Redline
Video: EVGA 7900 GS
Sound: SB Live! 5.1
Drives: 74 GB Raptor and a 320 GB WD SATA
Optical: 16x DVD+R Plextor PATA

From my own investigations it seems my mobo and video card are well supported and those are the major hurdles, but I can't find info on the cpu. It's SSE2 but not SSE3.

Are you building new? If so, get the Gigabyte P35-DS3L. And maybe a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad CPU. You got a budget in mind?

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: silverpig
Before I take the plunge, can anyone here quickly tell me if there are any red flags in my hardware?

CPU: Opteron 165 (dual 1.8 GHz)
Mobo: DFI Lanparty Ultra-D
RAM: 1 GB Mushkin Redline
Video: EVGA 7900 GS
Sound: SB Live! 5.1
Drives: 74 GB Raptor and a 320 GB WD SATA
Optical: 16x DVD+R Plextor PATA

From my own investigations it seems my mobo and video card are well supported and those are the major hurdles, but I can't find info on the cpu. It's SSE2 but not SSE3.

Are you building new? If so, get the Gigabyte P35-DS3L. And maybe a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad CPU. You got a budget in mind?

Nope. I've had this system for a few years now. It's got ubuntu on it and I'm typing this on it

 

[silverpig]

Gah, it's not working so well yet. I'm using leo4all. If I just let the dvd boot up I get the "waiting for root device" error, however if I hit F8 and then let it boot with no options it works fine. I installed fine, used GUID etc and it hung on the reboot. When I try to boot off the hard drive I get the "waiting for root device" error. The drive I installed to is an SATA raptor on the nforce4 sata controller.

 

[silverpig]

Okay I got it to work!

I just gotta get my video card working now.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Okay I got it to work!

I just gotta get my video card working now.

If you briefly summarize your problem and how you fixed it that might help others fix their issues....

 

[Zaap]

I saw that waiting for root device message once with an install on an Intel brand motherboard. The solution for that was to set the SATA mode out of native. I'm curious what your solution was silverpig, because it seems like that error must be SATA related.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: silverpig
Okay I got it to work!

I just gotta get my video card working now.

If you briefly summarize your problem and how you fixed it that might help others fix their issues....

So there are two separate issues.


First, booting from the install disc and letting the installer attempt to start hung the system at the "waiting for root device". It did this every time. Luckily I was curious about the boot options available so I did the F8 thing when I had a chance one time and, not knowing what options to set, just hit <enter> to continue booting as per normal. This fixed the problem of not being able to get into the installer although I have absolutely no idea why as I didn't set anything different. My ONLY hint is that when I selected the F8 option, it asked what disk to boot from, but the only one available was the install DVD so I had to pick it. Maybe for some reason the installer got confused at that point and tried to boot a different drive.

After installing I kept getting the same error message on boot. I have a PATA Plextor DVD burner on Primary Master, and two SATA hard drives, one of which I was using for the OS. The way I fixed it was to select the "old nforce" chipset driver in the custom settings of the install. Things I tried and did not work (although they apparently work for some people) were:

specifying rd=rdiskXsY (X = disk number, Y = partition number) for the OS location in the boot options
Unplugging the SATA drive I was using for data
Unplugging the PATA dvd drive after the installation
Re-installing from scratch
Completely wiping the drive (bye bye ubuntu) and just having OSX installed on one partition
Plugging the SATA drive into various SATA ports on the mobo
Disabling USB 2.0 and forcing 1.1

There were some other BIOS setting I played with and nothing worked, but the old driver does so I'm happy.

Now I just have to get my video situation to improve from 1024x768 to 1680x1050 and I'll be a convert.

edit: Any tips on how to get my last two issues solved?

1. 7900GS only works at 1024x768. I used nvinject 0.21 but I'm not sure it's working right?
2. I need to be able to read/write JFS. Any kexts for that?

 

[Zaap]

As I recall with NVinject you need to edit the kext files to enable QE/CI and res switching.

Try the instructions in the first post of this tutorial:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=75246

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: silverpig
1. 7900GS only works at 1024x768. I used nvinject 0.21 but I'm not sure it's working right?

Just use NVinstaller:

http://scottdangel.com/blog/?page_id=20

Select the amount of RAM your 7900GS has and then reboot after it's done installing. Works with my 7900GT, might work with your 7900GS

 

[K6IIIFan]

Zaap,

Have you been able to get sound-in working on your ga-g31m-s2l?

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: silverpig
1. 7900GS only works at 1024x768. I used nvinject 0.21 but I'm not sure it's working right?

Just use NVinstaller:

http://scottdangel.com/blog/?page_id=20

Select the amount of RAM your 7900GS has and then reboot after it's done installing. Works with my 7900GT, might work with your 7900GS

Gah, I'm having huge problems with this card.

I've tried nvinstaller, I've tried nvinject, I've tried doing a full re-install and having the OS installer put the right kexts and nvinject in

holy crap

As I was typing this out it worked!!!

I had to use a mish-mash of files... I think I used the .kexts that nvinstaller put in, but then I had to download nvinject manually, and edit all the .kexts manually.

WEEEEEE!

 

[silverpig]

Okay, just to confirm, all this is looking good right?

Graphics by NVIDIA:

Chipset Model: Graphics by NVIDIA
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0292
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: NVinject 0.2.1
Displays:
DELL 2005FPW:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

 

[silverpig]

Now I just have to get jfs to work

 

[silverpig]

I know I'm kind of spamming this thread, but I thought I'd add another issue I had and fixed.

I've got an nforce4 board and was using the forcedeth driver. It would load fine, I'd get on the net fine, but whenever I was downloading for more than 5 minutes it'd freeze up on me. I fixed it by installing and using the forcedeth-nockd driver instead.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Okay, just to confirm, all this is looking good right?

Graphics by NVIDIA:

Chipset Model: Graphics by NVIDIA
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0292
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: NVinject 0.2.1
Displays:
DELL 2005FPW:
Resolution: 1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

Yup, you have a fully-functional card! You can input the model name using this mini-guide:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/i...&p=839447&#entry839447

That way instead of reading "Graphics by nVidia" it can read "nVidia 7900GT" or whatever you'd like it to say

 

[silverpig]

Okay, so 2 more issues. I've almost got everything ironed out.

1. I get an EHCI could not gain control from BIOS on boot. It means I'm stuck at USB 1.1 speeds which is annoying, but not a dealbreaker. I'm using a DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D motherboard and an SSE2 cpu.

2. Any good upgrade guides for me to get to 10.5.4 without breaking everything? I followed a guide on the hackint0sh forums which said to use the official .dmg but to edit some files before rebooting. The install didn't finish, it kicked my comp into a reboot loop and I couldn't do anything other than boot from the DVD, reformat, reinstall, and then restore with time machine (gonna do a superduper image now to make it easier).



edit: 2. is taken care of. If anyone with a 10.5.2 install on an AMD SSE2 cpu wants to know how I did it, they can PM me.