The Hackintosh Thread

[darth maul]

Hoping that all the parts I need will be here this week. One last question, FireWire card? I need one, what are you guys using for cards, will be used with Mavericks.

 

[Zaap]

Hoping that all the parts I need will be here this week. One last question, FireWire card? I need one, what are you guys using for cards, will be used with Mavericks.

I haven't used FW in years, so I have no idea of a specific model card.

Details to consider: FW 400, 800 or both? PCI or PCIe?

The last part of this thread on Tonymac86 offers some insight:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-advice/59767-firewire-800-400-card-own-100-compatibility-10.html

The moderator BoomR seems to be an authority on FW, and suggests the same card he's used with success on his audio production rigs.

Otherwise keep in mind that FW seems to be a bit tricky- depending on the controller type and UEFI vs BIOS and other factors, FW seems to be hit and miss. Depending on what you're doing with FW, it can make a big difference. For example, as an audio interface people report audio glitches with the wrong type of card. In that case I'd personally take the advice of someone already using a certain card for pro audio.

Also there doesn't seem to be any consensus on the "100% compatible" card that's the subject of that 2 yr old thread still being an option for newer hardware/Mavericks.

 

[vailr]

Cards using TI's firewire chipset seem to be OSX compatible, since that's what was used with the Quo AOS board.
Two examples:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA3VP1E61128
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815292017
Quo board:
http://quocomputer.com/#home-hero
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/285920-new-os-x-compatible-motherboard-quo/#entry1883913

 

[darth maul]

I plucked one from amazon that was on tony mac's forum as being working, TI chip and all. And both 800 and 400.

Ya I should have said it will be used for DV in from a DV deck. No audio interface, I will get a low end presonus/tascam/maudio USB something or another some day, as I will be mixing from this computer, but not recording to the computer. So latency is neither here nor there, for my needs.

 

[darth maul]

Gigabyte GA-Z87-DS3H
4770k running at 4.3Ghz
G.Skill 8GB 2133 9-11-10
Cooler Master 212 evo
Antec GX500 Case, along with the three fans it came with
Crucial SSD M500
2 Rosewill fans
LG DVD
HP 23xi monitor
Logitech M510 Mouse
USB wired Keyboard
Corsair CX500 PSU
Syba Firewire card with one 400 and two 800 ports
And I have a 7870 Radeon coming...

But I am up and running typing this on the build. Still have to work thru over clocking, and how far I can/should go. RAM is at 2200MHz.

 

[aman74]

Hello all, I'm looking to possibly join the club. I'm on an ancient MacbookPro that's dying a slow death. I was waiting on the new Mini, but looks like that may never come. I do want an iPad, but other than that their hardware options don't appeal to me much. I did really want to avoid any "fussing" around, but here I am with a couple more general questions before I see if I want to dive in or not. I have access to MC, so the value proposition over the Apple tax is hard to resist.

-What ever happened that QUO board? I did some googling around yesterday and saw that they had a lot of fulfillment issues and such, but does the board work well and does it really provide much advantage over other known good setups?

-I saw mention that you aren't even allowed to talk about it on one of the Hackintosh boards?

-A big concern in the past was that an OS update could "break" your rig at anytime. Is this still the case? How much work to be able to do updates and does it take awhile for people to figure out the workarounds? If this is still a big issue I'm probably going to stay away. I don't want to end up with a system that can only update so far.

-What is around the corner for Intel. I read about Broadwell, but that's delayed and not even assured that it will have a desktop version? A current i7 or maybe i5 would be ok for me, but if something is just around the corner I'm really in no hurry, so if it's just a few months away, I'd wait. The main thing I'd like is an update in the IGP which is supposed to be significant?

-Would the IGP's work well with Photoshop. They're starting to use the GPU more nowadays, but is this only for Nvidia?

-How big of an SSD do I need for just the system drive? I'll be doing photo work, so Photoshop and also audio, with Garabeband and probably Logic. I see that Logic is like 30gb, but that's with all the sound libraries and can be put on another drive, so I imagine most programs aren't very large. I was thinking of a 120 or 250gb, don't really want to spend more than that.

-I built a PC years ago, so have some experience, but I find figuring out hardware much easier than the actual software. I feel competent to follow a guide and instructions if well laid out for my specific hardware, but if I have to go beyond a bare minimum of troubleshooting, it will probably keep me away. Or if I have to fuss with it after I have it up and running.

Thanks!

 

[darth maul]

Hello all, I'm looking to possibly join the club. I'm on an ancient MacbookPro that's dying a slow death. I was waiting on the new Mini, but looks like that may never come. I do want an iPad, but other than that their hardware options don't appeal to me much. I did really want to avoid any "fussing" around, but here I am with a couple more general questions before I see if I want to dive in or not. I have access to MC, so the value proposition over the Apple tax is hard to resist.

-What ever happened that QUO board? I did some googling around yesterday and saw that they had a lot of fulfillment issues and such, but does the board work well and does it really provide much advantage over other known good setups?

-I saw mention that you aren't even allowed to talk about it on one of the Hackintosh boards?

-A big concern in the past was that an OS update could "break" your rig at anytime. Is this still the case? How much work to be able to do updates and does it take awhile for people to figure out the workarounds? If this is still a big issue I'm probably going to stay away. I don't want to end up with a system that can only update so far.

-What is around the corner for Intel. I read about Broadwell, but that's delayed and not even assured that it will have a desktop version? A current i7 or maybe i5 would be ok for me, but if something is just around the corner I'm really in no hurry, so if it's just a few months away, I'd wait. The main thing I'd like is an update in the IGP which is supposed to be significant?

-Would the IGP's work well with Photoshop. They're starting to use the GPU more nowadays, but is this only for Nvidia?

-How big of an SSD do I need for just the system drive? I'll be doing photo work, so Photoshop and also audio, with Garabeband and probably Logic. I see that Logic is like 30gb, but that's with all the sound libraries and can be put on another drive, so I imagine most programs aren't very large. I was thinking of a 120 or 250gb, don't really want to spend more than that.

-I built a PC years ago, so have some experience, but I find figuring out hardware much easier than the actual software. I feel competent to follow a guide and instructions if well laid out for my specific hardware, but if I have to go beyond a bare minimum of troubleshooting, it will probably keep me away. Or if I have to fuss with it after I have it up and running.

Thanks!

-Quo? I don't know, old news?

-??

-Making major leaps from lets say snow leopard to Mavericks isn't the easiest because of hardware you probably used way back when snow leopard was the thing. Probably easier to just go with the newest mavericks unless you have a program that can't be used on it? From there you might just have to rerun a updated Multibeast, when Mavericks gets an update...BUT don't upgrade to the next Mavericks release until "they" have Multibeast figured out cause, going back with out a wipe of the OS might not be possible.

- not sure on the state of Intel.

- For now I am using the IGP on a 4770K, haven't used photoshop yet, but Final Cut Pro X flies with it....but on the other hand I know Adobe built its Premiere Pro around Nvidia's cuda cores, so if you are going Adobe's way, a Nvidia card is almost a must have.

-For a boot drive I choose a 120GB SSD, the other 2 desktop hacks I built used 60GB SSD's, at the time that was what was cheap, err affordable for me. Sound Libraries could probably and maybe even should be installed on your data drives, hopefully fast HDD or SSD's themselves...IMHO.

-I built a new PC every week when playing quake3 CTF competitively, or so it seemed. Now I build when needed not wanted. So lets say you follow a golden build over in Tonymacx86.com site, and you follow how to install everything as laid out by the guides they have there, you shouldn't have to fuss with it at all, till you NEED an upgrade to the OS, or change out a video card. Even then its less fuss then when building it in the first place. If you have builds from the olden days of plug and pray builds under your belt, this SHOULD be a walk in the park. Really search, and researching are your two best new friends in building a hackintosh.

 

[Zaap]

Hello all, I'm looking to possibly join the club.

Main thing: read a lot at tonymacx86.com. Perfect place to start your research and figure out if this is for you or not. Stick with what's known to work, the tried and true, motherboards and GPU combinations with a big user base of people that are running OSX on them and who have/will figure out all problems so you don't have to. If a person wants to be a trailblazer themselves and figure out things on their own with random hardware, that's great, but if you're just interested in a reliable system and no futzing around, then stick with what already works.

-What ever happened that QUO board? I did some googling around yesterday and saw that they had a lot of fulfillment issues and such, but does the board work well and does it really provide much advantage over other known good setups?

IMO, QUO was a bunch of nonsense. There was nothing all that special about the motherboard from the start- now it's a fossil. Maybe there's a few people that didn't get shafted, but all I saw were people complaining that they were ripped off, or got the actual board after a loooong wait, only to find it wasn't even particularly Hackintosh friendly.

Anyway, I digress. Quo= outdated motherboard, overpriced as hell, sold via sketchy means. I'd stay far, far away.

I saw mention that you aren't even allowed to talk about it on one of the Hackintosh boards?

Any place legit like TonyMac would steer people away from sketchy nonsense like QUO. The whole subject of Hackintosh is taboo, especially in light of the fact that a gazillion-dollar, humorless, behemoth like Apple is at the center of this. Anytime someone wants to get 'uppity' and start trying to commercialize OSx86 in any way, it's taking things too far. Had it been successful, it probably would have gotten Apple's attention, and everyone who's a true enthusiast about this, not just a shameless expoilter, doesn't WANT Apple's attention on any of it.

-A big concern in the past was that an OS update could "break" your rig at anytime. Is this still the case?

First off, it's a matter of changing your view about what "breaking a rig" actually is or would entail. In this case, software simply can't 'break' hardware, so the worst that can really happen is the OS isn't bootable.

But when you're not looking at this from a hardware limited/Mac-centric viewpoint, you realize this problem is: 1. *easily* preventable, and 2. *easily* recovered from in even the worst case, and as such, isn't really a big deal. It's just something to watch for and be prepared for, but once you are, it's not that big a deal.

Simply: keep a backup(s) of your OS. It doesn't actually require anything more than 30-100GB of storage and ideally, a 2nd bootable location (independent hard drive.)

Tools like Carbon Copy Cloner keep my Hackintoshes backed up so well that they're pretty much bulletproof. I'm actually putting more on the line when I do a major update on my rMBP than on my Hacks- if the single SSD on my rMBP got hosed or the OS couldn't boot, it'd be a royal mess to sort out. The Hacks on the other hand have multiple redundant OS's and cloned backups- the absolute *worst* a system update could do would be cost me two minutes of restoring a cloned image. I plan for this possibility, but I should point out I've not had to actually do this in 6 years of Hackintoshing.

(Ironically, my rMacBook Pro has also KP's more times than my sig Hack- 0 for the sig Hack, about 5 or 6 times for the rMBP).

How much work to be able to do updates and does it take awhile for people to figure out the workarounds? If this is still a big issue I'm probably going to stay away. I don't want to end up with a system that can only update so far.

When an update comes out (take 10.9.2 for example) generally if you've built a tonymac-spec'd build, the very same day it comes out you'll start to see people reporting what the update process was. Most of them are pretty much the same: update the same as you would a real Mac, from Software Update, or from a downloaded Combo update. Sound will likely be lost, so you simply redo that from Multibeast. Reboot, and it's done. That's the way I'd say the majority of updates have gone for me all the way from 10.6.3 or so, up to the latest. (Exceptions of course being major updates, like from Snow Leo to Lion, Lion to ML, ML to Mavericks.) Those usually are a pretty big deal.

But even there, Hacks usually enjoy a much greater advantage over actual Apple hardware. You can currently run Mavericks on PC hardware that's several generations older than the required Apple hardware for it.

Occasionally a point update will change the system kernel and those updates may take a bit more effort than just re-running an audio patch. A few updates in the past did unexpected things like break iMessage on a Hackintosh, because the Ethernet ID wasn't recognized on Apple's servers. But issues were fixed pretty quickly.

If there's something questionable to an update on the hardware I'm using, I simply wait until I see whatever it is has been solved before I update. The goofiest things about updates to me is, I virtually *NEVER* see where any of them actually matter in any noticeable way to me. A number in About This Mac goes from point 3 to point 4 or something, but other than that, rarely anything that's even remotely noticeable. If you're someone that simply must see a number change right away this instant or else feel your computer that works perfectly fine but for that number- or you work with software that constantly requires the latest version of the OS (like a developer) then I simply wouldn't put too much worry into the point updates.

-How big of an SSD do I need for just the system drive? I'll be doing photo work, so Photoshop and also audio, with Garabeband and probably Logic. I see that Logic is like 30gb, but that's with all the sound libraries and can be put on another drive, so I imagine most programs aren't very large. I was thinking of a 120 or 250gb, don't really want to spend more than that.

I run my Hacks with 120GB SSD for the main OS install and all my applications. I also recommend at least a 1TB hard drive as a bootable backup- that is, an exact clone of the system in pristine DAY 1 working order, that's completely independently bootable, with all your needed apps installed as well should be on it, and the remaining space used as data storage.

You can always boot back to the DAY 1 install to repair/recover anything on the main SSD if needed.

Best of all worlds- the 1TB also stores an incremental daily snapshot of your main system that can be restored to the main SSD or another drive and bring you back in around two minutes to 100% working pre-disaster OS and system just as you were using. (The full versions of Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper can do this task for you- it's awesome bulletproof insurance on any Mac.)

Anyone complaining that an update or something 'bricked' their Hackintosh, simply didn't know about or didn't think it was worth it ($30 + cost of a backup hard drive/partition) to make sure they were never putting their *ONLY* working installation of OSX at risk, and then lost that gamble. Yet even the most elaborate backup won't cost anything like a similar spec'd Mac.

I built a PC years ago, so have some experience, but I find figuring out hardware much easier than the actual software. I feel competent to follow a guide and instructions if well laid out for my specific hardware, but if I have to go beyond a bare minimum of troubleshooting, it will probably keep me away. Or if I have to fuss with it after I have it up and running.

If you stick with the most popular builds on TonyMac (main things that matter are the motherboard #1, and the GPU #2, and RAM that's well-rated for the motherboard. Everything else can vary all over the place.) then you can absolutely build a system you won't spend much time futzing with. A board that's pretty popular should have plenty of setup guides to get you up and running OSX. And once again I emphasize, once you're up and running- clone- then you'll FOREVER be up and running- it's just the same time machine principal for the OS- always be able to return to when it did work.)

I'm confident enough in it now that I build these things for some people it'd be an absolute disaster if it wasn't going to make for a 100% stable, reliable system. (like my boss!)

I wouldn't have time to waste writing out replies like this if I was always futzing with the computer- frankly I have zero time to futz around with my Hacks. I always do my research and choose a board I know is going to be rock-solid running OSX and that has a community of people using the exact board- if I had to spend any real amount of time futzing with it myself, I wouldn't bother with this anymore.

It's not for everyone- some people just can't seem to get past it not being in every single minute detail a Mac, and so will futz around until they manage to wreck things. (It has to chime when I start it up! I has to show the Apple logo and never the BIOS! It has to be shoved into a real Mac case, etc, etc...) I personally think all that kind of thing is missing the point, but if cosmetics and support from Apple and other things are a priority for people, then I'd say don't bother.

 

[aman74]

Thanks to Darth Maul and Zaap for the very nice replies. I have a million questions, but just a couple to help me out.

What's a KP?

When you do your clone of the clean install and programs do you keep this completely separate from any other backups after that point?

I might add programs after that point, but then those would also include everything that's happened in the meantime. So I guess those added programs could never be a part of the "pristine" image?

I think I can handle the build and first time setup, but it gets a bit tricky for me when managing drives and backups. I'd have an OS/Programs drive, I guess a scratch drive/sample drive/photo library drive, then a backup image drive, but then I quickly get lost as to whether that always has to be it's own drive or just a partition and the remainder can be a backup and then I'd probably want to have another backup. Without someone willing to help me through that part I'm not sure I can do it. It's definitely something I need to learn though as I get more into recording and photography...backups in general are a necessity for me now, but even more-so when it represents a lot of creative work.

 

[Zaap]

What's a KP?

Kernel Panic. Its sort-of the Mac equivalent to a Blue Screen of Death on Windows. System halts with a grey screen telling you to restart.

When you do your clone of the clean install and programs do you keep this completely separate from any other backups after that point?

I might add programs after that point, but then those would also include everything that's happened in the meantime. So I guess those added programs could never be a part of the "pristine" image?

I should clarify that my backup strategy consists of several different processes. (And I personally recommended similar to bulletproof any computer.)

1. I do a bootable "Day 1" backup of my main OS install. This should reside on any free hard drive or bootable partition and generally will use less than 20GB of space for the OS and a few more gigs for essential applications. It will clone the bootloader as well, so that this drive can boot completely independantly of the other drives in the system. Keep in mind, the entire rest of the harddrive is useable as normal for any other backups or file storage. Its essentially just the OS in untouched, perfect Day 1 condition so that it can always be booted into should something prevent the main hard drive from booting. Anything installed after Day1 will NOT be part of this. Consider it a "liferaft" install.

(Also you can freely experiment on this install vs your main one. You can test updates on it first before the main install. You can also re-clone your main install to it anytime you want to either restore or bring it more up to date.)

2. Incremental snapshot backups of the OS and installed Apps is a second backup in the form of a image file created by Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Each can scheduel these backups, or manually. These images DO include every newer installed application and settings right up to the point of last backup. You can keep them on the same drive as the Day1 clone, or another location. Ideally, anywhere but on the drive being backed up.

3. File and document backups such as with Time Machine. This is yet another backup of whatever critical data you have, not the OS. And again, the location ideally is anywhere other than the main boot drive.

So say you're working on something critical and....bam. Main drive goes blooey taking your OS and installed apps with it. Or its not bootable due to the worst sort of upgrade mishap, or whatever.

No sweat. Your critical data is backed up. Your OS just as you left it last it worked perfectly (and all installed apps) is backed up as an incremental image. And your machine is still perfectly bootable because of the "liferaft" Day 1 clone.

So you simply boot that. You probably could just continue your work right from that without missing a beat, but better yet you can take a few minutes and restore your latest OS image back to the main SSD and be right back where you were. (Restoring an OS image to an SSD takes about 2 minutes.)

So basically, with just a few steps of planning you've all but eliminated the possibility of dealing with an unbootable machine, or any data loss.

Redundancy prevents a lot of headaches with computers. Obviously I'm a big advocate of it. I wouldn't run a Hack without these measures. (But like I say, I've never actually had a critical failure where I've needed to use most of this, but there's always the possibility.) Earlier when I first did Hackintoshing, having a backup made it easy to experiment freely without any worry of "bricking" a system.

 

[mosslack]

Good newbie advice Zaap. Sometimes we, who have been at this hobby for awhile, tend to forget that those just starting are not familiar with the basics of Hackintoshing. They may be able to get a system up and running, but to keep it updated, and test system updates, does require planning.

 

[darth maul]

Ok I am in a position to say my fourth hackintosh is done, sort of:

i7 4770K $280
Gigabyte GA-Z87-DS3H motherboard $79
G.Skill Sniper 9-11-10 2133Mhz 2x4GB $75
Antec GX-500 case $30
Crucial m500 boot SSD $67
XFX R7870 GHz edition $140
Cooler Master 212 EVO $30
2 - Rosewill white LED 120mm fans $4
LG DVD drive $0 (had it already)
Corsair CX500 $30
Syba Firewire card ?$29?
HP USB Keyboard $3
Logitech M510 mouse $16
HP Pavilion 23xi monitor $160
And for now, Dayton bookshelf speakers run off of a line to the main receiver in the living room, and back to the speakers. (zone 2 setup from the receiver).


Processor is OC'd to 4.3Ghz, and the Memory to 2200Mhz at speed settings of 9-11-10.

I will be adding in one "big" SSD ?500GB? or so, plus a HDD of 2TB or so, thats the sort of done part, will hopefully have those soon enough.

Under $1,000, and geek benching around 16,000 32bit multi core.

 

[Zaap]

^ Nice system! Amazes me the level of system one can rock for $1k or less.

 

[Zaap]

Good newbie advice Zaap. Sometimes we, who have been at this hobby for awhile, tend to forget that those just starting are not familiar with the basics of Hackintoshing. They may be able to get a system up and running, but to keep it updated, and test system updates, does require planning.

True. I probably go into too much detail trying to clarify, but at the heart of it its super simple. All any Hackintosh really is, is a hard drive with OSX installed, in an otherwise standard PC (of the right critical components of course). Simply make it more than one hard drive with OSX and you're covered.

 

[aman74]

True. I probably go into too much detail trying to clarify, but at the heart of it its super simple. All any Hackintosh really is, is a hard drive with OSX installed, in an otherwise standard PC (of the right critical components of course). Simply make it more than one hard drive with OSX and you're covered.

I very much appreciate the time you took. Some of it is over my head, but your input is going to give me something to refer to if I take on this project. It's stuff I need to learn to do anyhow, even beyond the Hackintosh portion, as part of a good backup plan....something I've needed to tackle for a long time now.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to go about it all, but it will give me some clarity in the goals I need to accomplish and then I can research and ask questions from there.

 

[Muadib]

I have a tail of woe that I hope someone can help with. I recently updated the main drive in my pc. I did a new install of windows 8.1 on it, which works great.

I was using Chimera to bounce between OS X and windows before the upgrade. I had OS X also on a flash drive, that I thought I would boot to restore Chimera. Sadly, the flash drive won't boot now. So I need to know my next move. The original drive has been wiped, and is now working for someone else.

 

[darth maul]

I have a tail of woe that I hope someone can help with. I recently updated the main drive in my pc. I did a new install of windows 8.1 on it, which works great.

I was using Chimera to bounce between OS X and windows before the upgrade. I had OS X also on a flash drive, that I thought I would boot to restore Chimera. Sadly, the flash drive won't boot now. So I need to know my next move. The original drive has been wiped, and is now working for someone else.

Do you have another flash drive, that you could install unibeast to? And do you have a mac/hackintosh that can download your version of mac OS you had, or maybe go newer like mavericks?? I had to use a second flash drive cause my one I wanted to use and looked like it would work, never did work. Yours could have gotten corrupted. Either way I would get a second drive just for OS X. Its safer, and you won't run into problems like this if you can afford another drive? SSD's like 120GB~ size are "cheap" these days, under $70 for a new one.

 

[Muadib]

I have Mavericks installed on a different drive, but since my last post I've learned that it won't boot now either. I don't have another hack to make another bootable flash drive. I was thinking about going to an apple store and making one.

 

[Zaap]

I have Mavericks installed on a different drive, but since my last post I've learned that it won't boot now either. I don't have another hack to make another bootable flash drive. I was thinking about going to an apple store and making one.

You haven't quite given enough detail, but it sounds to me like you installed Windows at the same time your OSX boot drive was connected to the system and set as the default drive.

If so, this will inevitably wreck the bootloader.

As a rule of thumb, when installing Windows after OSX on separate drives, ALWAYS unplug the OSX drive from the system completely. Install Windows as the only drive in the system.

Windows will write its bootloader to the default drive regardless of which hard drive you're installing Windows on. This will then cause two problems: 1. it will render your OSX drive unbootable until you can boot again from either USB or another OSX install and restore the bootloader. 2. If Windows has used the OSX drive for its own bootloader, then it will fail to boot once the OSX drive is removed or restored.

In theory you can just switch the default drive to the target drive for Windows when installing Windows, but I don't even trust this- I've STILL seen Windows wreck installs of OSX in this case. It's heavy-handed- Windows installer will often just assume other drives in the system are its to mess with.

Just temp-remove the SATA cable or power cable to the OSX drive (and all other drives in the system) when you install Windows, and Windows has no choice but to self-contain itself on just the drive you're installing to- which is how things should be ideally. Once done, you can plug the OSX drive back in, and set it again as the default boot drive. The bootloader (Chimera, Chameleon, etc) will see and be able to boot the Windows drive, and of course OSX will remain bootable and untouched. But the Windows drive will also boot completely independently as well. Best possible setup.

(Keep in mind the opposite isn't the case- you can install OSX and bootloader after a Windows install and it will NOT mess with the Windows install/drive in any way.)

It sounds like it's too late for this advice in your case, as Windows has probably already nuked your bootloader.

If so, sounds like you're on the right track- you'll need a bootable USB setup that allows you to reinstall the bootloader to the OSX drive, and set it as the default boot.

You might be able to do this without finding a Mac to recreate your USB boot drive- would probably require having a bootable OSX DVD (like say for Snow Leopard) and booting it from a CD boot image. (IE: the old-fashioned way Hackintosh used to work). SL was the last official OSX on a DVD and you'd have to either have a copy or perhaps borrow one from somewhere. Also, it depends on your system being able to boot SL in the first place.

This situation is just another case of where having a backup bootable OSX drive (a life raft) would save you a ton of headache in finding some other Mac to make a bootable USB drive. Whatever it is that could potentially wreck your OSX install, can be bypassed with a bootable backup that remains untouched and ready to bail you out of trouble. A case like this is where for me personally, an extra hard drive and a few minutes time is well worth it, vs. jumping through hoops to recover my only bootable copy of OSX.

 

[Muadib]

You are correct Zaap. I did have the OS X drive connected when I installed windows 8.1 . I wasn't worried about it at the time, because I had OS X on my usb drive. Your post reminded me that I have the snow leopard DVD somewhere. I just have to find it now. I'm on vacation, so it will have to wait until I get back. Thanks to you & darth maul both.

 

[destrekor]

I had started, but not finished, working on a Mountain Lion install nearly a year ago. Where I left off, it was not exactly stable or high-performance, and I just couldn't get things working out right.

Since different tools have progressed, I wonder if any of it can be of assistance for my situation.

Mind you, I don't have a purpose-built system, rather, a desktop I made for my own purposes and I want to dual boot into OS X.
Now, even more so, considering I have found out how much different OS X treats color management (ICC profiles and LUT), I might just want to get into working with OS X for real - and, long-term, way long-term, perhaps have an actual Mac (MBP?) and a high-end monitor for photo editing. Long term, with the assumption I stick with and at some point go professional with photography. Just entertaining the ideas for now, it's not at all realistic in the short term (any of it ).

Getting my feet wet with OS X would definitely be a boon, either way.


That said, the hardware presented a problem before, and I fear it will still be just as difficult to the point I give up (since I'm not getting paid for this, I have less motivation to work through the problems ).

Hardware:
Asus P8Z68 Deluxe (non-Gen3 - aka the older variant)
i7 2600K
2x GTX 560 Ti 2GB (SLI)

For one thing, I will do no such thing as patching or screwing with my BIOS. Why? Because it took some effort to configure my BIOS to make a stable overclock, and I will not be removing that OC. For example: some of the C-states are disabled, iirc. There were other changes made to facilitate the OC.
(the 2600k is at 4.4 GHz)

With where things are at today, any chance of getting a stable install? I mean stable to the point I can run with some heavy RAW processing and Photoshop work... I don't necessarily have any plans to utilize the SLI aspect for gaming under OS X.
I'd also want to move right to Mavericks if I could get Mountain Lion stable and prepared for it.

Thoughts?

 

[vailr]

The GTX 560 is known to have problems with OSX (as I recall).
I'd recommend replacing with a single GTX 760 video card.
AFAIK, there's no SLI support in OSX.
Most other GTX 600 or 700 series video cards would also work, except for the GTX 750, which is not supported as of now.

 

[destrekor]

The GTX 560 is known to have problems with OSX (as I recall).
I'd recommend replacing with a single GTX 760 video card.
AFAIK, there's no SLI support in OSX.
Most other GTX 600 or 700 series video cards would also work, except for the GTX 750, which is not supported as of now.

Well - replacing hardware just to satisfy a craving to install OS X is out of the question right now. No job.

Regardless, considering I'll be dual-booting, I don't need SLI so long as a card works.

I've been able to get up and running before, and recently, I have been able to get it to boot into the installer.



Current goals and issues:

I'm trying to a) install Mavericks, and b) nuke the current ML installation.
Problem is, no matter which USB bootloader I try, when I go to Disk Utility, it never sees the disk or partition that currently hosts a Mac filesystem.

Both Unibeast and MyHack got me to the installer where I can select the language, but there's nowhere to go from there thanks to it not finding my disk(s).
Now, I know the issue: my Intel controller is set to RAID, because I am using Intel's raid for a few drives. Now, my Windows system disk, and the other disk currently split between OS X (ML) and Win Server 2012 are not doing any RAID functions. The controller's RAID setting IS AHCI at the core, and this was exactly the setup it was before.
It does not need changed, I need to change something with the kexts somewhere. I think I edited/copied/pasted some lines in one of the AHCI kexts before and got things working - but I've tried to either find the right kext I worked on before, or put it in the correct directory, to get the bootloader to actually allow me to proceed in the install. No go yet.


As I am already up to my neck in muck with water overhead and figure the extra struggle can't make things any worse, I've decided my next effort is a vanilla install with Clover. From what I've seen, it looks to be a little more friendly toward the Asus boards, with extra options specifically to deal with certain limitations.
My last go at it yesterday resulted in a complete failure to boot into the installer, but it looks like I failed to include a few kexts. I'm going to give it a shot with the one kext I THINK is corrected for my RAID/AHCI situation... but damn, motherboard-specific documentation for Mavericks, especially for the Deluxe, non-GEN3 model, is like a needle in a haystack situation.



note: I AM hoping to be able to force access to the storage drives that are in RAID, but I'm not betting the house on that goal - It would be nice, since that's where all my RAW files currently go, but in the end, it's all Windows software downloads, media, some documents, and some program installations. The RAW files and media could be relocated to an external enclosure or NAS for that purpose, once I could afford to do it proper. A cheap external that I backup often could do the job for the RAW files in the meantime - IF I decide the workflow is better in OS X like I reckon it might be.
I'm after the improved colorspace handling, fwiw. And depending on where I take certain career goals, getting more experience with OS X definitely helps for more than one direction.

 

[vailr]

http://www.tonymacx86.com/417-chimera-3-0-update.html

Chimera v3.0 Changes:

• Based on Chameleon 2.2 r2378 while retaining the following previous Chimera v2.2.1 fixes and changes:

- Disabled writing the command line boot options to nvram
- Edited ATI/AMD card names to remove vendor name
- Kept Chimera verbose strings in ATI/AMD
- Kept Chimera CPU speed detection
⁃ Forced display of generic names for NVIDIA GPUs
- Kept Chimera IGP code and keys, removed trunk keys
- Updated Boothelp to reflect above changes

• Added basic support for desktop Intel HD Graphics 4400
• Added boot key IGPDeviceID=nnnn for unsupported devices
• Improved Intel HD Graphics Support
• Fixed Haswell CPU speed detection
• Added support for Intel Ivy Bridge EP CPUs
• Added hardcoded DMI speed for LGA2011 CPUs
• Including HDAEnabler module, not enabled by default.

 

[destrekor]

Well I managed to get Clover to boot into the vanilla installer - but it sees no internal disks.
And I had found the modified AppleAHCIPort.kext - for the ICH10R controller (iirc), I see I had put in second string value, which was to enable access to the controller when set to RAID mode.
It had to work at one point, but I don't know if Mavericks has changed things up.

Maybe it was a kext permissions issue... I'll have to try again, or dig up what I just found suggested: LegacyAppleAHCIPort.kext - which I have seen stated also includes the same correct key to recognize the controller in RAID mode.