Beginners Guide to Software Raids - Retail & Kalyway versions

[Slither2008]

(currently under construction)

 

Beginners Guide to Software Raids - Retail & Kalyway versions

I'll try and keep it short and simple. (WALKTHROUGH PICTURES SOON!)

 

 

Contents :

1.0 -

Prerequisites

1.1

-

What you'll need

1.2

-

Questions Before We Start

 

2.0 -

Creating the RAID

3.0 -

Preparing Your Hardware

4.0 -

Installing KALYWAY 10.5.2 or Any Retail Version of Mac OSX 10.5.x To Your New RAID Drive

5.0 -

Installing Chameleon Easily

1.0 - Prerequisites

1.1 -What you'll need :

• 1 x Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD
  
• Latest Chameleon files.
  
• 2 x Identical Hard drives (SATA preferably) for your raid
  
• 1 x Spare Hard drive for that already has ANY OSX 10.5/10.4 on it.
  
• 1 x USB storage key (32mb minimum)
  
• 2 x Can's of Redbull or Coffee
  

1.2 - Questions Before We Start :

1. Why do I need a spare HDD with OSX 10.5/10.4 already installed???

From trial and error I've found that actually creating the raid is more guarenteed to work in the program Diskutility that both OSX 10.5/10.4 come with. Now it is true that this same program is found on the Kalyway disc but I've never been able to make a successful raid and raid partition with it.

 

2. What is Chameleon and what or how will I use it???

 

Chameleon is the software that will fool OSX into thinking you have a Macintosh computer. More importantly it can detect Software Raids and allow you to boot from them. To use it you're going to pop the files on your USB storage key and manually patch/copy them onto your OSX raid installation. Sounds hard but really isn't....just requires patience.

 

3. Which drive will I boot from after I've finished???

 

This was the first question I had when trying to attempt all of this. There is a simple answer so please read on.....

 

I have 2 HDD's called HDD1 and HDD2.

These will be the HDD's for my RAID.

Both have 1 GUID partition called "MYRAID".

After I create the RAID both of those "MYRAID" partitions will be recreated and named as "RAID SLICE".

But the most important thing is that there will also be another partition created automatically by the RAID on both HDD's.

They are automatically called "BOOT OSX".

 

It looks like this :

 

HDD1

RAID SLICE

BOOT OSX

 

HDD2

RAID SLICE

BOOT OSX

Right now you're not really that interested in this fact but this has some significance. Why? Your Chameleon "boot" file will need to go on both of the "BOOT OSX" partitions...or you won't be able to boot from the raid!

 

So now that you know this much I can say that when you eventually install OSX on your RAID and apply the Chameleon files you can set any of the two raided HDD's as your first boot device....because both have a bootable partition called "BOOT OSX" and both "BOOT OSX" partitions have the required "boot" file on them to point to your RAID.

 

 

 

2.0 - Preparing Your Hardware

Get your USB Storage Key ready

Unzip/extract the Chameleon Files and copy them to a folder called "/Chameleon/" in your USB Storage Key.

 

Ensure both your HDD's for your raid and the spare HDD are connected and ready to use.

Some Motherboards work best with AHCI enabled and SATA Native Mode enabled in your BIOS so do some research on your particular motherboard here to ensure you can make all drives available for use.

 

3.0 - Creating the RAID

 

We must first create the raid drive.

Step 1. Boot your computer into OSX using your spare HDD.

Step 2. Open Applications-> Utilities-> Diskutility.

Step 3. Create a partition on both your Raid HDD's called "RAID".

Step 4. Click on the RAID tab and name your new RAID "RAIDMAC" (or something else with no spaces and not too long)

Step 5. Select the type of raid you want and then click the + symbol to add your raid.

Step 6. Drag both "RAID" partitions you made from the left colum listing to raid window under your "RAIDMAC".

Step 7. Click the create raid button (might be called apply, I have to check when I do the screenshots later).

Step 8. It should give you an error the first time. This is alright. Just close the Diskutility and restart into the OSX on your spare HDD again.

Step 9. When it boots up it will say there is a device it couldn't mount. Just hit ignore and open the Applications-> Utilities-> Diskutility.

Step 10. Click on "RAIDMAC" in the left column listing.

Step 11. Click on the RAID tab on the rightside. Click the delete button to remove the "RAIDMAC" raid.

Step 12. Close the Diskutility and then open it again.

Step 13. Your "RAIDMAC" should be gone now and you need to remove the diskXsY partitions under both your raid HDD's. Best way is to just click the - symbol under the HDD's Partition Tab on the right.

Step 14. Follow steps 3 to 7. It should now successfully create the raid and it's partition and also mount it.

Step 15. Don't Shutdown or restart....please continue

 

 

4.0 - Installing OSX to RAID Drive

 

Now we have a raid drive created called "RAIDMAC". Let's install our Leopard OSX onto it.

 

Step 1. Turn PC on and boot into the Kalyway 10.5.2 DVD installation. (This may take 5-10mins)

Step 2. Agree to the Kalyway terms of conditions.

Step 3. Proceed and select the "RAIDMAC" drive to install to.

Step 4. Click customise and choose the drivers/kexts and kernal that apply to your hardware.

Step 5. Click install and skip the DVD verification.

Step 6. When it completes click restart to restart your PC.

Step 7. Turn it off as soon as it restarts

Step 8. Leopard 10.5.2 is now installed.....onto the Chameleon.....

 

 

5.0 - Installing Chameleon Easily

 

I usually do this all from the Installation DVD terminal and diskutility but I'm going to try and save you some time and see if you can do this using your Spare HDD's OSX 10.5/10.4

 

Step 1. Turn on your PC.

Step 2. Boot from your Spare HDD in your existing OSX 10.5/10.4.

Step 3. Open Diskutilities.

Step 4. On your "RAIDMAC" raid partition Right-click->Information.

Step 5. Look for the Unique Universal ID field and copy it to the clipboard.

Step 6. Open the "RAIDMAC" hdd and navigate to "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Step 7. Open the com.apple.Boot.plist file in TextEditor.

Step 8. Insert your UUID you copied in step 5. Make sure you add the "boot-uuid=" in front of it also.

Step 9. Save the file and close it.

Step 10. Open the Terminal. Type "sudo -s". Enter your admin password.

Step 11. Type "diskutil list" This lists all partitions and hdd's

Step 12. Look for both of your raid HDD's. They would be listed with a "BOOT OSX" partition as partition 3. Mine were disk0 and disk1.

Step 13. Since my raid hdd's were listed as disk0 and disk1 I placed a "1" and "0" after each corresponding "disk" below. So type :

 

cd /Volumes/<YOUR USB STORAGE KEY NAME>/Chameleon/

 

fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk1

 

dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s3

dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk1s3

 

 

diskutil mount disk0s3

cp boot /Volumes/Boot OSX

diskutil unmount disk0s3

 

diskutil mount disk1s3

cp boot /Volumes/Boot OSX

diskutil unmount disk1s3

 

Step 14. Shutdown your PC. Disconnect your spare HDD.

Step 15. Boot up from either of your raided HDD's and you should be done!!!

 

Many thanks and credit goes to Kareekaha1 for his Leopard Retail Chameleon Guide

 

You can find the Chameleon Files at Kareekaha1's thread also. Well if you've gotten this far without a hitch you are knowledgable enough to try installing the retail copy of Mac OSX 10.5 (you purchased...) using Kareekaha1's guide above. I haven't managed to successfully update to 10.5.4 using a software raid but it appears to be a piece of cake using the retail version since it's practically vanilla.

 

Hope this helps someone enjoy!!!

[VenimK]

I 've got this working also, but still use USb or cd 2 boot up

 

IN my system log, 'ive got a lot of these messages

 

08:21:42 VenimK kernel[0]: AppleRAIDMember::synchronizeCacheCallout: failed with e00002ca on EF4E5ED2-6FF5-4699-A833-D72A71BB683E

Aug 5 08:21:42 VenimK kernel[0]: AppleRAIDMember::synchronizeCacheCallout: failed with e00002ca on A26D250F-E7DE-4B86-A9F7-ED8B01546ECD

 

 

You know wheiter this is normal or safe

[Slither2008]

I 've got this working also, but still use USb or cd 2 boot up

 

IN my system log, 'ive got a lot of these messages

 

08:21:42 VenimK kernel[0]: AppleRAIDMember::synchronizeCacheCallout: failed with e00002ca on EF4E5ED2-6FF5-4699-A833-D72A71BB683E

Aug 5 08:21:42 VenimK kernel[0]: AppleRAIDMember::synchronizeCacheCallout: failed with e00002ca on A26D250F-E7DE-4B86-A9F7-ED8B01546ECD

You know wheiter this is normal or safe

 

Unfortunately I haven't come across this before. Sorry that I can't help. I noticed that you're running this using a Retail version of Mac not Kalyway which might be different as there are patches and things you need to apply etc... I'm actually going to give the Retail version ago so my PC is out of action for a while. I check the log and let you know how I go.

 

Regards,

 

Slither2008.

[Slither2008]

Quick Guide to install the Retail version of Leopard 10.5.4 on a Software RAID

 

Just a quick run down of how I did it :

 

Step 1. Using my Spare HDD I booted into Kalyway OSX 10.5 and I followed the same steps as above to create a raid + raid partition.

 

Step 2. I then mounted my Leopard OSX 10.5 Retail DVD (DVD-9) and started the install setup by opened up Terminal and typing :

cd /Volumes/Mac<PRESS TAB KEY>/Sy<PRESS TAB KEY>/Ins<PRESS TAB KEY>/Pac<PRESS TAB KEY>

open OSInstall.mpkg

 

Step 3. Once the installation started I chose my RAID partition to install to and let it finish.

 

Step 4. I then Installed the 10.5.4 combo update just by downloading it from Apple and running it and installing it onto my RAID partition.

 

Step 4.5 If you are installing this to an external USB drive then you must enable disk ownership by typing :

 

sudo /usr/sbin/vsdbutil -a /Volumes/<HDD NAME GOES HERE>

 

Step 5. Download the post-patch and extract the contents into your /Users/<YourUsername/<here> folder. Post-patch file here

Step 6. You must edit the post-patch.sh script and replace every occurence of the word 'Leopard' with the name of your RAID hdd. Step 7. I ran the post-patch by dragging the post-patch.sh file into a terminal window. (this removes a few incompatible kexts/drivers and adds some compatible ones in).

 

Step 7. I installed the Chameleon Patch the same way as the method above. Files here

 

Step 8. Rebooted into Mac OSX Leopard 10.5.4 Retail on my by choosing one of the Raid drives as the first boot device in my BIOS!!!

 

 

 

Minor Issues (Easily Fixed)

• Onboard Sound not working
  
• Onboard Network not working
  
• Sleep function will not wake/resume.
  

After Installing the right kext's these issues should be fixed.

[lithium06]

what are your xbench raid disk scores vs. 1 disk? does it seem to boot up faster and can you notice it? my hack seems to take awhile to load when i 1st login.