Mac OS X Leopard on MSI NetBook and NetTop

[Danyel]

Hi Everyone!

 

It's been a while since I posted on this forum. I setup my first OSx86 PC in Summer 2006 which I built from custom parts to run Tiger.

 

Since then, I was able to obtain an MSI Wind U100 NetBook and MSI Wind 945G NetTop.

 

MSI Wind U100 NetBook

 

I bought the MSI Wind U100 NetBook from TigerDirect for $309USD (about $345USD including Taxes and Shipping). The unit shipped with Intel Atom 1.6gHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB Hard Drive and built-in Wi-Fi and BlueTooth. I also purchased an ASUS External DVD Writer (Portable USB-Powered).

 

I was pleasantly surprised to see the hard drive already partitioned:

1) Windows Recovery Partition (4GB FAT32): Used to restore Windows to default installation.

2) Windows XP Home Edition (40GB NTFS): Default installation of Windows XP Home.

3) Blank Partition (120GB NTFS): Blank NTFS Partition with nothing on it (!)

 

First, I booted into Windows XP Home and setup Windows the way I wanted (applied patches, install programs, etc). Then, I used Windows Disk Manager to remove the 120GB Blank Partition.

 

Second, I used Mac OS X Installer DVD-ROM (based on WindOSx86.iso - specifically made for MSI Wind PC's) to start installing Mac OS X Leopard (!) I launched Apple's Disk Utility and created "Mac OS Extended Journaled" using the blank partition. After installing Mac OS X Leopard, almost everything worked out of the box! (Full CI/QE and native 1024x600 Resolution, Sound, Ethernet, Wi-Fi (with included Utiliy), WebCam, etc.

 

There are couple tweaks I had to do: Install VoodooHDA Patcher to get external Speaker support. I had to manually patch DVD Player Extension to get DVD's to play using the External DVD Player. The Bison 0.3 seemed to work fine using Apple's iChat and web-based Chat clients, but did not work with Apple's Photobooth application. I also installed Chameleon 2.0 so I could have more flexible booting.

 

I used Apple's Migration Assistant to migrate my profile over from Tiger installation (was on Dell Inspiron 1300). Migration Assistant worked flawlessly to migrate my Applications and Desktop.

 

MSI Wind 945G NetTop

 

The MSI Wind 945G NetTop is the desktop equivalent of MSI Wind U100 NetBook. After reading reviews, I purchased the MSI Wind 945G NetTop from NewEgg for around $205 including Internal SATA DVD-Writer Drive and 2GB Memory. I used 3.5" Internal SATA Drive that I already had. Since this was a "barebones" setup, the system did not come with any Operating System.

 

I used CloneZilla on USB Stick to clone my hard drive MSI Wind U100 NetTop over to the 3.5" SATA Drive. I used to option to clone to whole disk (including all partitions). CloneZilla is based on open-source Linux so the interface may a bit technical.

 

After cloning, I put the 3.5" SATA Drive into the MSI Wind 945NetTop. I was pleasantly surprised to see the drive booting up (I saw the Chameleon Bootloader)! I was able to go into Windows without any problems. I rebooted and I was a bit dismayed when I could not boot into Mac OS X. After doing some research, I saw an article from "UselessNinjas" that mentioned that you had to change USB Speed from "HighSpeed" to "FullSpeed" in the BIOS. After I did that, voila! I was able to boot right into Mac OS X Leopard (!)

 

Since I just got my MSI Wind 945G NetTop working yesterday, I need to update my website. I do have some information on my previous Tiger and MSI U100 NetBook.

 

Only tweaks I did so far is: Install SwitchResX so I can support 1280x800 Widescreen Resolution.

 

Daniel's OSx86 PC's

 

Danyel

 

Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome...