nForce OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) RETAIL INSTALL GUIDE on a Series 6 or 7 nForce chipset / Intel CPU MOBO

[Lonewolf1991]

I could never boot with elliotforcelegaccyRTC.kext installed. Once I removed that it booted fine.

 

Can you tell me how to remove it? Everything installed fine, I just can't boot

[RaMDaY]

I have both Windows and Mac on my systems so when a kext prevents me from booting up mac I go into the extensions folder from within windows and just delete the kext. Then I boot up into Mac with -F and repair permissions.

[Lonewolf1991]

I have both Windows and Mac on my systems so when a kext prevents me from booting up mac I go into the extensions folder from within windows and just delete the kext. Then I boot up into Mac with -F and repair permissions.

 

I see, I'll get macdrive 8 and do that. THANKS TO YOU AND VERDANT!

[darkoo69]

Hello Verdant.

 

I have followed "part F" of this guide. And been able to successfully install a osx 1.6.

But when booting to the osx drive using the bootloader I get the following screen.

 

 

I've used a sata dvdrw and a IDE(which I have tested it on master, slave and also cable).

they both give the same results. Any thoughts on what else I could try?

 

thx!

[verdant]

Hello Verdant.

 

I have followed "part F" of this guide. And been able to successfully install a osx 1.6.

But when booting to the osx drive using the bootloader I get the following screen.

 

 

I've used a sata dvdrw and a IDE(which I have tested it on master, slave and also cable).

they both give the same results. Any thoughts on what else I could try?

 

thx!

 

What kexts have you got in /Extra/Extensions/ and are you using an Extensions.mkext file in /Extra...?

[darkoo69]

No I don't have any extensions in /Extra.. haven't even created the folder Extensions in the Extra folder,.. And also there is non "Extensions.mkext" in the Extra folder..

 

 

PS. now that I have taken a look in "/Library/Extensions/", there are no kext's there either.. maybe that's the problem. Nothing gets recognized!?..

[verdant]

No I don't have any extensions in /Extra.. haven't even created the folder Extensions in the Extra folder,.. And also there is non "Extensions.mkext" in the Extra folder..

 

 

PS. now that I have taken a look in "/Library/Extensions/", there are no kext's there either.. maybe that's the problem. Nothing gets recognized!?..

 

Yes it is..........

 

Unless you are using a Snow Leopard distro, the simplest method of installing Snow Leopard (if you do not already have Leopard installed on the PC) is to do a distro install of Leopard on one volume (which you have now done I hope......) and then use the Leopard OS X system to:

 

1. Generate a RTC patched DSDT.aml file for Snow Leopard [Part B]

 

2. Format a HFS+ volume as your target Snow Leopard OS X volume (OSX_MAIN) and any other volumes your require on the GPT partitioned HDD using Disk Utility

 

3. Use Disk Utility to get the UUID for your target SL OS X volume

 

4. Establish OS X target HDD ownership

 

5. Run EFIStudio or OSx86Tools to generate the graphics string for your graphics card

 

6. Install Chameleon 2.0 RC3 (or RC4) onto your target Snow Leopard OS X volume (OSX_MAIN) and in the process generate a /Extra directory.....

 

7. Put all the necessary kexts in /Extra/Extensions/, sort out the com.apple.Boot.plist and SMBIOS.plist files to put in /Extra, as well as putting DSDT.aml in / or in /Extra......

 

That is, you have to complete step (1) to step (13) in post #1 Part F. Section 2. before even booting from the nForceSLBoot132DVD you made in step (14), and then following steps (15) to (20)...........

 

I will check back in a while when I have more time than now...........in the meantime, confirm that you have done all the above.........

[darkoo69]

I have done all the above, but not entirely step 7.

necessary kexts nope don't really know what's necessary(apart from audio and nforce lan kext's).. could I just take all the kext's from leo "library/extensions" osx and use those?

com.apple.boot.plist done

SMBIOS.plist nope

DSDT.aml Done

[verdant]

I have done all the above, but not entirely step 7.

necessary kexts nope don't really know what's necessary(apart from audio and nforce lan kext's).. could I just take all the kext's from leo "library/extensions" osx and use those?

com.apple.boot.plist done

SMBIOS.plist nope

DSDT.aml Done

 

Part F. Item 6 tells you what kexts are essential and what kexts are optional in /Extra/Extensions/.......Item. 8 deals with your SMBIOS.plist...........honestly, it is all in the guide, step-by-step......

 

Put nForceLAN in /S/L/E/ and do not worry about audio initially.........

[darkoo69]

Yeah I see that now, I am sorry about that.. Got confused.

[verdant]

@ Lonewolf1991

@ RaMDay

 

Regarding iATKOS S3 v2 and the RTC choices in the Installer Customise window, note that the default choice RTC installs the ElliottForceLegacyRTC.kext, which is 64bit........whereas, selecting RTC(32bit) installs the LegacyAppleRTC.kext, which is 32bit.........

 

Even if you choose to stay with iATKOS S3 v2 rather than follow my recommendation do a full vanilla Snow Leopard Retail OS X Install DVD installation, with the necessary non-vanilla kexts placed, if at all possible, only in /Extra/Extensions/, using the guide in post #1, I still would recommend using a RTC patched DSDT.aml file in /Extra or in / because it will allow you to boot into 32bit, or into 63bit mode (if all kexts are 64bit only) at will........

 

Otherwise, if you are booting with arch=i386 and have installed the ElliottForceLegacyRTC.kext, or are booting with arch=x86_64 and have installed the LegacyAppleRTC.kext, you will have boot problems........

[darkoo69]

Just wanted to post and say that everything worked out all right.. running SL 1.6 now

graphics works out of the box(no efi used)

audio/mic and network ofc works..

 

will be making a more extensive test later on, maybe tomorrow.

 

Thank you Verdant!

[verdant]

Just wanted to post and say that everything worked out all right.. running SL 1.6 now

graphics works out of the box(no efi used)

audio/mic and network ofc works..

 

will be making a more extensive test later on, maybe tomorrow.

 

Thank you Verdant!

 

Glad to help......... and thanks for proving that my retail install guide does work.......

 

Re graphics, what about full CI/QE and switching resolutions on the fly? See graphics section near the top of post #1........it explains what you need to do........

[DJAngelicon]

Believe it or not I just used the nForceSLBoot123DVD for Sata Drive and my retail Snow Leopard disk and I got to boot directly into the desktop on normal mode using -f -v cpus=1 maxmem=2048 without any problems.

 

I am currently doing a TimeMachine backup so I can start experimenting with the drivers to get my devices fully working and to make sure I can boot without needing the nForceSLBoot123DVD disk.

[verdant]

Believe it or not I just used the nForceSLBoot123DVD for Sata Drive and my retail Snow Leopard disk and I got to boot directly into the desktop on normal mode using -f -v cpus=1 maxmem=2048 without any problems.

 

I am currently doing a TimeMachine backup so I can start experimenting with the drivers to get my devices fully working and to make sure I can boot without needing the nForceSLBoot123DVD disk.

 

Note that TimeMachine backups will not be directly bootable because the HDD bootloader is not backed up with the OS X system backup.......

[darkoo69]

 

As you can see everything seems to have worked out with the graphics.. this was the case after installing chameleon rc4 on leo, so I guess the same thing goes here on SL.

And ofc adding:

	<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>yes</string>
<key>PciRoot</key>
<string>1</string>

to com.apple.boot.plist.

 

 

Regarding CI/QE, got the transparent " application title bar" and the wave effect in the Dashboard.

 

 

*Restart and shutdown seems to work, but not sleep.

 

*From time to time on reboot I get "Still waiting for root device" and also random freezes(have done a repair permission and we shall se if the freeze comes back, running now for 10min).

 

 

 

More testings to come later on, backup first priority now .

[verdant]

 

As you can see everything seems to have worked out with the graphics.. this was the case after installing chameleon rc4 on leo, so I guess the same thing goes here on SL.

And ofc adding:

	<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
 <string>yes</string>
 <key>PciRoot</key>
 <string>1</string>

to com.apple.boot.plist.

 

 

Regarding CI/QE, got the transparent " application title bar" and the wave effect in the Dashboard.

 

 

*Restart and shutdown seems to work, but not sleep.

 

*From time to time on reboot I get "Still waiting for root device" and also random freezes(have done a repair permission and we shall se if the freeze comes back, running now for 10min).

 

 

 

More testings to come later on, backup first priority now .

 

Sleep/waking on nForce is still a problem........Southbridge/Northbridge temperature may be an issue on some nForce 780i MOBOs.......seemingly more so EVGA and XFX than Asus........see earlier posts with links........

[DJAngelicon]

Note that TimeMachine backups will not be directly bootable because the HDD bootloader is backed up with the OS X system backup.......

 

ic I notice that today.

[darkoo69]

Hello, got a update on my progress regarding the freeze..

 

for the last couple of days I have been going crazy with the random freezes I get. Today I was trying to organize some folders on my win7 HDD while being booted in OSX and 10-30 sec's I got the freezing(every single time I was roaming around the win7 drive the freeze occurred).. Well I figured I'd unmount the drive and see what happens. was trying to figure out a good why to unmount the drive so that when osx booted it wouldn't mount the drive but unsuccessfully I decided to instead physically remove the drive. Now I have been running for more than 4 hours without a freeze.. Hope this helps others

 

And for those more experienced, any idea on how to keep a drive unmounted on startup.

[verdant]

Hello, got a update on my progress regarding the freeze..

 

for the last couple of days I have been going crazy with the random freezes I get. Today I was trying to organize some folders on my win7 HDD while being booted in OSX and 10-30 sec's I got the freezing(every single time I was roaming around the win7 drive the freeze occurred).. Well I figured I'd unmount the drive and see what happens. was trying to figure out a good why to unmount the drive so that when osx booted it wouldn't mount the drive but unsuccessfully I decided to instead physically remove the drive. Now I have been running for more than 4 hours without a freeze.. Hope this helps others

 

And for those more experienced, any idea on how to keep a drive unmounted on startup.

 

Try the following:

 

1. Go to Terminal and type

sudo nano

 

2. In the nano editor window that opens, type this line

LABEL="VolumeName" none ntfs noauto

where "VolumeName" is the name of the Win7 volume you want to stop mounting in OS X

 

3. Move the cursor the Terminal window down until it no longer moves, then press Ctrl O and type at the File Name to Write: prompt

/private/etc/fstab

then press Enter, to save the new fstab file.

 

4. Then to see if the newly created fstab file is in the /private/etc/ directory type

cd /private/etc/
ls

 

5. Press Ctrl X to Exit and type

exit

at the $ prompt to log out of the Terminal and then close and quit Terminal......

[MacheT]

Hello, got a update on my progress regarding the freeze..

 

for the last couple of days I have been going crazy with the random freezes I get. Today I was trying to organize some folders on my win7 HDD while being booted in OSX and 10-30 sec's I got the freezing(every single time I was roaming around the win7 drive the freeze occurred).. Well I figured I'd unmount the drive and see what happens. was trying to figure out a good why to unmount the drive so that when osx booted it wouldn't mount the drive but unsuccessfully I decided to instead physically remove the drive. Now I have been running for more than 4 hours without a freeze.. Hope this helps others

 

And for those more experienced, any idea on how to keep a drive unmounted on startup.

 

Hi, I've been very concern about the freezing lately also; but I think maybe there should be another reason; since yesterday, after some freezings I realized I had physically unplugged my win 7 sata drive so it couldn't be responsible for the freezings.

 

Maybe It has to do with the sata disk usage ... in my case the freezings started to become very frequently from 4 weeks ago .. and it happens much more frequently when I boot into 10.6.2. Now I started to use more a new install with 10.6.4 but it also freezes every now and then.

 

I've checked all HDDs with Disk Utility, DiskTools Pro and Disk Genius and they seem to be OK.

 

In other matters, have you tried to give a shot on the new updates on the chameleon 2 RC5 does it's been updating lately ... It seems to me that all that power management It suppose to solve may be a path for us in the quest of sleep issue solving. Don't you agree?

[verdant]

Hi, I've been very concern about the freezing lately also; but I think maybe there should be another reason; since yesterday, after some freezings I realized I had physically unplugged my win 7 sata drive so it couldn't be responsible for the freezings.

 

Maybe It has to do with the sata disk usage ... in my case the freezings started to become very frequently from 4 weeks ago .. and it happens much more frequently when I boot into 10.6.2. Now I started to use more a new install with 10.6.4 but it also freezes every now and then.

 

I've checked all HDDs with Disk Utility, DiskTools Pro and Disk Genius and they seem to be OK.

 

In other matters, have you tried to give a shot on the new updates on the chameleon 2 RC5 does it's been updating lately ... It seems to me that all that power management It suppose to solve may be a path for us in the quest of sleep issue solving. Don't you agree?

 

As for freezing issues..........one way or another, it comes back to the nForce Southbridge chipset, which controls all the device I/O such as USB, SATA, PATA and Firewire.......if you have freezing during heavy data transfers, then boot with -v cpus=1 maxmem=2048 to transfer the data ......when data transfer to/between HDD(s) is complete, boot into OS X again as normal, so that all cores and memory are available......

 

It is a possibility..........it depends upon the MOBOs used for testing Chameleon 2.0 RC5..........we will see........

[darkoo69]

I really hope that I have stroked gold by unmounting my win7 HDD, have not had a freeze for more than 12 hours I would say.. been transferring data, listening to music and surfing all at the same time.. have not had any problems at all.. one other note is that I use firefox.. I did also get freezes for a while back with safari..

[verdant]

I really hope that I have stroked gold by unmounting my win7 HDD, have not had a freeze for more than 12 hours I would say.. been transferring data, listening to music and surfing all at the same time.. have not had any problems at all.. one other note is that I use firefox.. I did also get freezes for a while back with safari..

 

So, did you use the command line

LABEL="VolumeName" none ntfs noauto

from earlier my post.........?

 

You can use Disk Utility to repair the OS X permissions and then try Safari again.........

[darkoo69]

no, I haven't used the command line guide you posted earlier yet.. have been transferring so much files around that I forgot about it... but I'm sure it will work(everything by verdant works )... I will try out that tomorrow..

 

OSX is so much nice to use that I have completely forgotten about win7...

 

btw.. atm I'm running osx 1.6 could/should I upgrade to 1.6.4?