19 replies to this topic

[Fyreball]

Since I recently got an 8gb flash drive, I was wondering if it was possible to install a bootable version of snow leopard. Not an installation disk, but a fully working installation, sort of like Linux Live on a USB. I've used google, but could not find ANYTHING aside from unanswered questions or creating a snow leopard installation flash drive. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

[Lester56]

Fyreball, on Sep 8 2009, 06:56 PM, said:

Since I recently got an 8gb flash drive, I was wondering if it was possible to install a bootable version of snow leopard. Not an installation disk, but a fully working installation, sort of like Linux Live on a USB. I've used google, but could not find ANYTHING aside from unanswered questions or creating a snow leopard installation flash drive. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

[min3z]

It's definitely possible. To do so, just erase the Stick in the HDD Utility and create a guid partition. When it comes to the step choosing the drive you want to install to, choose the stick as target. Dont forget to install Chameleon on the stick too!

Exactly there is my problem. My D620 boots SL fine off the USB Sitck (Sandisk 16GB) but the drive cloned to a S-ATA harddisk doesnt boot at all .... All kext files are in it's place, uuid is correct but just before it should go into graphical mode, it hangs forever....

greetz
min3z

[Fyreball]

min3z, on Sep 9 2009, 10:52 AM, said:

It's definitely possible. To do so, just erase the Stick in the HDD Utility and create a guid partition. When it comes to the step choosing the drive you want to install to, choose the stick as target. Dont forget to install Chameleon on the stick too!

Exactly there is my problem. My D620 boots SL fine off the USB Sitck (Sandisk 16GB) but the drive cloned to a S-ATA harddisk doesnt boot at all .... All kext files are in it's place, uuid is correct but just before it should go into graphical mode, it hangs forever....

greetz
min3z

Ok, also, I'm inexperienced in this sort of thing, but why would I need Chameleon if it's the only OS on it? Also, do you think you could be a bit more specific? Like, do I install it using the snow leopard dvd? or directly from the macintosh?

[Sabr]

Fyreball, on Sep 8 2009, 11:56 PM, said:

Since I recently got an 8gb flash drive, I was wondering if it was possible to install a bootable version of snow leopard. Not an installation disk, but a fully working installation, sort of like Linux Live on a USB. I've used google, but could not find ANYTHING aside from unanswered questions or creating a snow leopard installation flash drive. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

You should try partitioning your USB stick. Make one 50MB partition (or however big you want) for chameleon, and make the second partition the one you install SL on. Then, when you boot to the USB stick, you will boot to the chameleon partition, and the choose the SL partition within the Chameleon boot menu. I did something similar to this, except rather than installing SL to the second partition, I restored the SL install DVD to it so I could install it to my HD (kind of like a boot-132 CD, except using a USB stick instead).  Nevermind what I just said - as min3z said, you can install SL to any sort of disk, whether it's a USB stick or a HDD (making a Live DVD is something else)...

min3z, on Sep 9 2009, 03:52 PM, said:

It's definitely possible. To do so, just erase the Stick in the HDD Utility and create a guid partition. When it comes to the step choosing the drive you want to install to, choose the stick as target. Dont forget to install Chameleon on the stick too!

Exactly there is my problem. My D620 boots SL fine off the USB Sitck (Sandisk 16GB) but the drive cloned to a S-ATA harddisk doesnt boot at all .... All kext files are in it's place, uuid is correct but just before it should go into graphical mode, it hangs forever....

greetz
min3z

What southbridge does your motherboard have? Sounds like it's having a hard time trying to find your boot device, but without seeing what's going on under verbose mode I'm in no position to accurately give advice...

- Sabr.

[Krishna21]

Assuming you already have Leopard installed on your PC...

1. Requirements:
  a. An 8GB Flash Drive
  b. A flat DVD Copy of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
  c.Time


2. Step one: Prepare your flash drive:
   a. Launch Disk Utility
   b. Plug in your flash drive, it should show up in the device list.
   c. Highlight it, and partition it.
   d. Select Mac OS X Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled) from the Format selection, then set the scheme to GUID Partition  Scheme

  e. Select Apply and wait for Disk Utility to finish re-partitioning it.

3. Applying the DVD to your flash drive:
    a. Insert your Mac OS X Snow Leopard DVD, and select it in Disk Utility from the device list.
    b. Click on “Apply new image” and save it to the Desktop.
    c. Highlight MacOSX (Or the name of your flash drive) and click “Restore”
    d. Drag and drop your flash drive to the destination field, then drag and drop the Snow Leopard dmg file to the Source field then restore.



4. Extra things to take care of for your drive:
  a. Having your flash drive still plugged in, open up Terminal and type the following command
  b. diskutil list
  c. Copy all the identifiers down for later.
  d. Download the latest Chameleon Boot loader, and uncompress it on your desktop.
  e. Going back into Terminal, enter the following command:
  f. cd /Users/Your username here/Desktop/Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640-bin/i386
  g. Enter the following commands, replacing rdisk2 with your flash drive’s root identifier, and rdisk2s2 with your partition:

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk2

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk2s2


5. Adding the boot loader and preparing the drive:
    a. Download the EFI Boot loader from Netkas, and save it to your desktop.
    b. Back into terminal, enter the following command:
    c. sudo cp /Users/Your username here/Desktop/boot /Volumes/Name of your flashdrive
   d. Now for the easiest part, download and save the “Extra” folder to your desktop, and drag n’ drop it to your flash drive along with your setup files.
   e. Configure your BIOS, then set your boot priority to boot to your flash drive.



6. THE INSTALL!
   a. Select your language.
   b.Agree to the ToS
   c.Then go to the Disk Utility, select 1 Partition, Mac OS X Journaled, name it, and make sure GUID Partition is set in the Options!
   d. When you reboot after the installation is complete, press the arrow keys at the graphical boot menu and select the  newly Snow Leopard drive.

[min3z]

Fyreball, on Sep 9 2009, 10:43 PM, said:

Ok, also, I'm inexperienced in this sort of thing, but why would I need Chameleon if it's the only OS on it? Also, do you think you could be a bit more specific? Like, do I install it using the snow leopard dvd? or directly from the macintosh?

You need Chameleon (or EFI) to boot Snow Leopard on a PC. If you don't install it on the stick, your PC won't find anything to boot, just plain files it doesn't know how to use them.

Krishna21 wrote a good step by step tutorial. If you follow it step by step you will have success.
Here's how I did it:

(0. Make sure you allready have a working Leopard running)

1. First I prepared the stick like I wrote before
2. I loaded the DVD and opened "Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/" and started OSInstall.mpkg
3. Set the stick as installation target
4. After installation was complete (took about an hour) I installed Chameleon to the stick
5. Did all the EFI-String, UUID etc stuff
6. rebooted and tadaa it was working

Sabr, on Sep 10 2009, 01:47 AM, said:

[s]
What southbridge does your motherboard have? Sounds like it's having a hard time trying to find your boot device, but without seeing what's going on under verbose mode I'm in no position to accurately give advice...

- Sabr.

As soon as I got home I will have a look and post back.
Basically there are two things. First is DSMOS doesn't 'arrive', second It gives me an error about AppleIntelCPUManagement. Strange thing, I don't have these errors while booting off the thumbdrive....

min3z

[gosa]

Sabr, on Sep 9 2009, 11:47 PM, said:

Nevermind what I just said - as min3z said, you can install SL to any sort of disk, whether it's a USB stick or a HDD (making a Live DVD is something else)...
- Sabr.

So I don't need to have a separate partition for Chameleon?

[min3z]

gosa, on Sep 10 2009, 10:35 AM, said:

So I don't need to have a separate partition for Chameleon?

No you don't, just start the chameleon installer and select your allready installed SL stick as target.

min3z

[gosa]

min3z, on Sep 10 2009, 02:36 PM, said:

No you don't, just start the chameleon installer and select your allready installed SL stick as target.

min3z

Sweet!

[min3z]

Sabr, on Sep 10 2009, 01:47 AM, said:

What southbridge does your motherboard have? Sounds like it's having a hard time trying to find your boot device, but without seeing what's going on under verbose mode I'm in no position to accurately give advice...

- Sabr.

@ Sabr

My Southbridge seems to be an ICH7-M. Will post the verbose output later got to charge my cam or my phone to take a picture

greetz
min3z

[Fyreball]

Thank you krishna. Just what I was looking for.  I'd be using a friends Mac, so would it be OK if I'm using 10.4.11 to install all the files and whatnot? Also, about how long would all of that take?

[Krishna21]

Fyreball, on Sep 10 2009, 06:32 PM, said:

Thank you krishna. Just what I was looking for. I'd be using a friends Mac, so would it be OK if I'm using 10.4.11 to install all the files and whatnot? Also, about how long would all of that take?

If you mean by putting Snow Leopard over 10.4.11 - yeah - just make sure its a OSx86 version..

But if its just using 10.4.11 on a borrowed mac to make the flash drive FOR your PC, that will work, just go make it with the instructions, then go on ur PC and install

[inimicus]

I was just about to make a thread about a Snow Leopard Flash Drive Installer when I saw this one.  Missing the "Installer" portion, but apparently the process is the same.

My intention is to create an installer via USB with all the necessary kernels, kexts and DSDT bits for my motherboard.  This would also allow me to easily modify the active components to install on other motherboards, as well.

So far, this is what I've done:

1.  16GB flash drive has been formatted HFS+/GUID
2.  The Mac OS Install DVD has been restored to the main partition of the flash drive (diskXs2)
3.  Chameleon RC3 r658 installed (via dd) and boot copied to the (above) main partition
4.  Disabler.kext, PlatformUUID.kext (UUID added to Info.plist), dsmos.kext and friends copied to /Extra/Extensions
5.  DSDT.aml for my motherboard (CMOS fix included) copied to /Extra along with com.apple.Boot.plist and smbios.plist
6.  mach_kernel.test7 copied to / with Boot.plist pointing to load this kernel instead of mach_kernel... nope, can't run the vanilla kernel with a Pentium D 950

Okay, not sure if I'm missing anything.

When I insert the flash drive, the "autorun" pops up with the typical "Install Mac OS X" prompt you'd see if it was an actual DVD.

The flash drive boots Chameleon off the flash drive, selects mach_kernel.test7, and begings to iterate through all the kexts.  Then it happens.

Kernel panic.

I sorted through a few different kernel panics related to ATA and have removed IOATAFamily.kext to solve this issue.  Now the kernel panic cause is unknown to me.  And here I am.

Photo of the kernel panic attached...

Any ideas?

Attached Files

•  IMG_1665.JPG   285.36K   55 downloads

[inimicus]

Well well.  Apparently this LifeHacker dudeguy has a guide on creating a USB-based installer.  Well, good to know I'm not barking up the wrong tree.

Off topic: Any other non-vanilla Snow Leopard kernels floating around?  All I found is .test7 from another thread (not sure the original origin of it).

[tinux]

inimicus, on Sep 11 2009, 06:09 AM, said:

I was just about to make a thread about a Snow Leopard Flash Drive Installer when I saw this one.  Missing the "Installer" portion, but apparently the process is the same.

My intention is to create an installer via USB with all the necessary kernels, kexts and DSDT bits for my motherboard.  This would also allow me to easily modify the active components to install on other motherboards, as well.

So far, this is what I've done:

1.  16GB flash drive has been formatted HFS+/GUID
2.  The Mac OS Install DVD has been restored to the main partition of the flash drive (diskXs2)
3.  Chameleon RC3 r658 installed (via dd) and boot copied to the (above) main partition
4.  Disabler.kext, PlatformUUID.kext (UUID added to Info.plist), dsmos.kext and friends copied to /Extra/Extensions
5.  DSDT.aml for my motherboard (CMOS fix included) copied to /Extra along with com.apple.Boot.plist and smbios.plist
6.  mach_kernel.test7 copied to / with Boot.plist pointing to load this kernel instead of mach_kernel... nope, can't run the vanilla kernel with a Pentium D 950

Okay, not sure if I'm missing anything.

When I insert the flash drive, the "autorun" pops up with the typical "Install Mac OS X" prompt you'd see if it was an actual DVD.

The flash drive boots Chameleon off the flash drive, selects mach_kernel.test7, and begings to iterate through all the kexts.  Then it happens.

Kernel panic.

I sorted through a few different kernel panics related to ATA and have removed IOATAFamily.kext to solve this issue.  Now the kernel panic cause is unknown to me.  And here I am.

Photo of the kernel panic attached...

Any ideas?

Don't ask me why but try using boot 132 and  boot using -x32(if it does not have the latest chameleon2 RC3 because you can't use -x32) and -x -s repair your Disk. i had that many times and as soon as i used boot 132 it worked on one of my USB
2nd things
make sure your bios is using sata=AHCI mode
and yes
if nothing works try removing IOATAfamily.KEXT because some  users are facing an early boot KP with SL, related to IOATAFamily.kex
Try using different Kext  in /Extra/Extensions, and remove IOATAFamily.kext from /System/Library/Extensions on Snow Leo partition
That is what I did and it worked fine

[Fyreball]

Krishna21, on Sep 10 2009, 07:57 PM, said:

If you mean by putting Snow Leopard over 10.4.11 - yeah - just make sure its a OSx86 version..

But if its just using 10.4.11 on a borrowed mac to make the flash drive FOR your PC, that will work, just go make it with the instructions, then go on ur PC and install

ok, thanks. also, regarding the rules of the forum, i'll try to be as non-specific as possible. Will pretty much any dvd burning programs with DL support work for burning a dmg to a DL dvd? or can I just use ImgBurn for example, and just rename the file extension to an .iso?

[inimicus]

tinux, on Sep 11 2009, 12:22 PM, said:

Don't ask me why but try using boot 132 and  boot using -x32(if it does not have the latest chameleon2 RC3 because you can't use -x32) and -x -s repair your Disk. i had that many times and as soon as i used boot 132 it worked on one of my USB

I'll try the x32 flag and see if that helps.  I've already tried safe mode (-x) and I can't get far enough to use single-user mode (-s).  But I'll see if I can get in to repair permissions... even though everything appears to be proper.

Quote

2nd things
make sure your bios is using sata=AHCI mode
and yes
if nothing works try removing IOATAfamily.KEXT because some  users are facing an early boot KP with SL, related to IOATAFamily.kex
Try using different Kext  in /Extra/Extensions, and remove IOATAFamily.kext from /System/Library/Extensions on Snow Leo partition
That is what I did and it worked fine

Already done done and done.  Regardless, this is a USB flash drive, so the SATA mode is irrelevant at this point.  No more issues with the ATA kexts, but that tidbit may certainly help others.

[martin_gall]

Krishna21, on Sep 10 2009, 03:41 AM, said:

   d. Now for the easiest part, download and save the “Extra” folder to your desktop, and drag n’ drop it to your flash drive along with your setup files.
   e. Configure your BIOS, then set your boot priority to boot to your flash drive.

Hi !
[Krishna21] Sorry for the long time after your post...
I can't boot my usb flash drive following your tuto, step by step... just a detail : when you say :"download and save the "extra" folder to your desktop..."
From where you download it ? and why you have to save it ?

Thank you for your help ! I spend several days in settings manipulations, and get always the so frustrating "boot 1 = error" message !...

EDIT : Finally! it's done!
Well, for all, that is the way :
1/ In Disk Utility, select USB flash drive and partition it with GUI option, Mac OS, case sensitive, journalised
2/ restored mounted ISO (=dmg) in "source", & USB flash drive partition to destination.
Wait...
3/ Close Disk utlity
4/ Get your USB media bootable, opening the downloaded "Netbook Boot Maker" app.
5/ Select your USB media containing the ISO, and click on "Prepare Boot Drive" button.

And Voilà !!!!     

[oSxFr33k]

Krishna21,

Why do you choose Case Sensitive for the file system on a USB Flash Drive?

OSX has problems when it is installed onto a Case Sensitive Journaled File System?  Are you saying the installer needs to be Case Sensitive when put onto the USB Flash Drive and if so why?

Thanks