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

verdant

By verdant,
in OSx86 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

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Snow Leopard on nForce + Intel CPU MOBO in Desktop  

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  1. 1. Have you successfully installed a working, bootable Snow Leopard system?

    • Yes, on a Series 7 (750i, 780i, or 790i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using the USB flash drive installer method
      34
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (650i or 680i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using the USB flash drive installer method
      50
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (610i or 630i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using the USB flash drive installer method
      18
    • Yes, on a Series 7 (750i, 780i, or 790i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using verdant's nForceSLBoot132DVD installer method
      14
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (650i or 680i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using verdant's nForceSLBoot132DVD installer method
      13
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (610i or 630i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using verdant's nForceSLBoot132DVD installer method
      6
    • Yes, on a Series 7 (750i, 780i, or 790i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO using OSInstall.mpkg method from Leopard to another HDD/volume
      10
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (650i or 680i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using OSInstall.mpkg method from Leopard to another HDD/volume
      9
    • Yes, on a Series 6 (610i or 630i) nForce chipset Intel CPU MOBO, using OSInstall.mpkg method from Leopard to another HDD/volume
      8
    • No, none of the above methods has worked for me
      35
    • I have sold or plan to sell my nForce chipset MOBO to go over to the "light" side....Intel chipset MOBO.....
      10
    • I have sold or plan to sell my nForce chipset MOBO to buy a "real" Mac
      6

  2. 2. Would you say that your Snow Leopard system is working to your satisfaction (e.g. compared to Leopard)

    • 100%
      60
    • 90%
      53
    • 80%
      20
    • 70%
      19
    • 60%
      4
    • 50%
      6
    • <50%
      18
    • Are you running 10.6.1 successfully , having auto-updated without any problems
      21
    • Are all the standard Apple applications running OK
      12

  3. 3. Is your Snow Leopard system working 100% on

    • SATA HDD
      173
    • SATA DVDRW including burning disks
      47
    • PATA (IDE) HDD
      42
    • PATA (IDE) DVDRW including burning disks
      51
    • Video
      146
    • Onboard LAN (Ethernet)
      131
    • USB devices (mounting/unmounting), plus USB keyboard and USB mouse
      161
    • Firewire
      54
    • PS/2 keyboard and mouse
      42
    • Audio including Front Panel headphones and microphone
      63
    • Audio except Front Panel headphones
      38
    • Audio except Front Panel microphone
      27
    • Sleep including waking from sleep
      24
    • PCI NIC
      24
    • eSATA
      20
    • Bluetooth
      41
    • WiFi
      38
    • Time Machine
      53
    • Overclocking
      35
    • Auto Software Update e.g. to 10.6.1
      90

2,142 posts in this topic

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raze599
raze599
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Did you by any chance burn the two .iso files to CD rather than to a DVD......? EBIOS read errors and an offset background picture to the right with these .iso files are usually the result of not burning to a DVD......

 

Also remember to follow:

 

Nope, definitely a DVD. Verbatim DVD-R. Quite a good brand too.

 

But lol I forgot about the second bit so will try again now.

 

EDIT: Did the F5 thing with the boot flags and its currently installing. It worked even with all the EBIOS errors. Good work on making a disc that works even when the computer doesnt lol

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verdant
verdant
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Nope, definitely a DVD. Verbatim DVD-R. Quite a good brand too.

 

But lol I forgot about the second bit so will try again now.

 

EDIT: Did the F5 thing with the boot flags and its currently installing. It worked even with all the EBIOS errors. Good work on making a disc that works even when the computer doesnt lol

 

Thanks..... :D Yours is the first report of I had of EBIOS read errors using a DVD.......glad using -v -f has got your OS X installation underway....... :)

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raze599
raze599
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Thanks..... :D Yours is the first report of I had of EBIOS read errors using a DVD.......glad using -v -f has got your OS X installation underway....... :)

 

Having a bit of a different problem now lol, I'm booting into the hard drive install with -v -f maxmem=2048 and i just get loads of "firewire guid ffffffffffffff is invalid!"

 

I'll try again this time turning off the firewire from the BIOS and report back.

 

Edit: works now. Booted into it and all working fine. Apart from sound, graphics, network and maybe a few other things lol. First thing i'll do though is backup. I've never used Firewire anyway so that doesnt bother me ;)

 

EDIT 2: This is strange. I thought after the last boot the -f flag would have made extensions.mkext cache the new loaded kexts (or does -f do something other than reload kexts?) so this time I tried booting with maxmem=2048 alone and that gave me a "You need to restart" screen. Rebooted and this time used the same flags as the first time (-v -f maxmem=2048) and it worked. Backing up now.

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verdant
verdant
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Having a bit of a different problem now lol, I'm booting into the hard drive install with -v -f maxmem=2048 and i just get loads of "firewire guid ffffffffffffff is invalid!"

 

I'll try again this time turning off the firewire from the BIOS and report back.

 

Edit: works now. Booted into it and all working fine. Apart from sound, graphics, network and maybe a few other things lol. First thing i'll do though is backup. I've never used Firewire anyway so that doesnt bother me ;)

 

EDIT 2: This is strange. I thought after the last boot the -f flag would have made extensions.mkext cache the new loaded kexts (or does -f do something other than reload kexts?) so this time I tried booting with maxmem=2048 alone and that gave me a "You need to restart" screen. Rebooted and this time used the same flags as the first time (-v -f maxmem=2048) and it worked. Backing up now.

 

The -f flag does not work with Snow Leopard as it did with Leopard......so in Terminal type, as one line:

 

sudo kextcache -v 1 -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions/

 

BTW I am assuming you will move to OS X Lion and so want OS X Snow Leopard to run in 64bit mode, thus use the following command to create Extensions.mkext for both 32bit and 64bit operation using (again typed on one line):

 

sudo kextcache -v 1 -t -a i386 -a x86_64 -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions

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raze599
raze599
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The -f flag does not work with Snow Leopard as it did with Leopard......so in Terminal type, as one line:

 

sudo kextcache -v 1 -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions/

 

BTW I am assuming you will move to OS X Lion and so want OS X Snow Leopard to run in 64bit mode, thus use the following command to create Extensions.mkext for both 32bit and 64bit operation using (again typed on one line):

 

sudo kextcache -v 1 -t -a i386 -a x86_64 -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions

Hmmm I'm still having the usb problem with my backups. No mouse or keyboard input. I tried repairing disc permissions but that didn't work. I'll wipe the backup partition and try with carbon copy cloner this time. Don't want to attempt any terminal commands on my working partition at the moment lol. I am sure that most peoples backups work properly so is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there a better, more reliable way of backing up?

 

 

Edit: using ccc I'm backing up to my "backup" partition now. This first one was a small vanilla partition. I think the problem might have been because I was copying to my main partition which had the "backup" in between it and vanilla

 

Edit: thank God the backup worked now lol. Will backup again to my main partition (i know I'm probably being overly cautious lol) and get to work with those terminal commands after I install a bootloader. I've been booting off my iatkos dvd chameleon all this time lol

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verdant
verdant
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Hmmm I'm still having the usb problem with my backups. No mouse or keyboard input. I tried repairing disc permissions but that didn't work. I'll wipe the backup partition and try with carbon copy cloner this time. Don't want to attempt any terminal commands on my working partition at the moment lol. I am sure that most peoples backups work properly so is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there a better, more reliable way of backing up?

 

Try the following:

 

[1] Boot your working system using cpus=1 maxmem=2048......

 

[2] Use Disk Utility to format your backup volume as MS-DOS (FAT32) and then re-format it again as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)......

 

[3] When you run Carbon Copy Cloner, selecting your working drive as the source and your backup as the target, choosing to clone all files on the source to the target......

 

[4] Then re-install Chameleon 2.0 RC5 bootloader on your backup volume.....

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raze599
raze599
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Try the following:

 

[1] Boot your working system using cpus=1 maxmem=2048......

 

[2] Use Disk Utility to format your backup volume as MS-DOS (FAT32) and then re-format it again as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)......

 

[3] When you run Carbon Copy Cloner, selecting your working drive as the source and your backup as the target, choosing to clone all files on the source to the target......

 

[4] Then re-install Chameleon 2.0 RC5 bootloader on your backup volume.....

 

Thanks CCC worked before I saw this post but thanks anyway lol I think it was the fact that I was cloning to a partition that wasnt the next physical one on the disc because all the other settings were the same. Will try out those terminal commands and report back.

 

EDIT: Seems that Chameleon broke my installation somehow, I installed RC5 which gave a "Still waiting for root device" error. I could still boot into it from my Atkos DVD so I installed RC2 like in the main guide and that stalled aswell. It also gave me the USB problem again on my backup partition when I booted from Atkos. Today I'm going to wipe the main partition that has the Chameleon install on it to see if it fixes it. Before that though I'm going to try with those boot files. BTW I installed both while in the Backup partition, I told the installer to install to the Main volume.

 

EDIT 2: couldn't get the boot file stuff to work so I deleted the main partition. My backup partitions usb problems are now gone. Does this mean that there's some sort of incompatibility with chameleon and my system? I'm going to see if i can install Chimera, the other bootloader.

 

EDIT 3: That also gave me "waiting for root device". I think its because I dont have an /Extra directory because the Chimera installer mentioned that it needs .com.apple.chameleon.plist in there and not .com.apple.Boot.plist. How can I go about fixing this? I'm really stumped on this one lol

 

EDIT (again lol) : I was messing about with making an /Extra directory on the Main partition from the Backup partition. Of course it didnt work lol and for some reason it also made the USB problem come back with the Backup partition. Deleted both the Main and Backup partitions, first formatted to FAT and then back to Mac Journaled. I finished cloning Vanilla (still working at the time) to Backup (the next physical volume) and the USB's gone again. Its also gone from Vanilla now. Is this some kext incompatibility?

 

Im currently trying to reinstall SL on a completely different 40GB drive. This will be my "Vanilla" drive and I made two partitions on the old drive, Backup and Main in that order. This should at least determine if its a problem with the drive somehow.

 

-----Right, this time as soon as it finished installing on my 40GB drive I copied it to my backup volume from the Retail install disc. Both worked. Then I unplugged the 40GB and booted from the Backup to copy to the Main. During the backup (with disc utility) it froze and now the Backup is unusable because of the USB error. Im booting back into the retail mac disc now to copy the 40GB drive files onto the Backup again.

 

-----Its working again, but in Safe Mode (-x) the USB doesnt work, and during bootup there are a lot of "AppleUSBEHCI" errors with lots of different letters and numbers after each. These messages come in blocks of 5 or 10 with the occasional other message in between like "DSMOS has arrived". Any ideas on this?

 

-----Chameleon refuses to install now. It fails at Post Install Actions. Although I did try it and put all the kexts that you said to in E/E and changed the boot file, it is still saying "Still waiting for root device" when I try and boot straight from the HDD without my Atkos DVD.

 

BTW Cloning from the Install DVD is having a 100% success rate currently lol

 

EDIT: AHA! I GOT CHAMELEON WORKING! Like a fool I forgot to put com.apple.Boot.plist in /Extra .... ;)

 

Now I can finally get to work with those terminal commands after I get my graphics sorted. After a backup of course :D

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verdant
verdant
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@ raze599

 

At least you figured it out in the end........ :D

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verdant
verdant
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Lol thanks for reading my wall of text :P:D

 

Reading your wall of text I thought "how confusing and why are you having these problems that I have not had reported before about my install guide procedures"......and decided that the only person who could figure out what was going wrong was yourself...... :P:D

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raze599
raze599
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Reading your wall of text I thought "how confusing and why are you having these problems that I have not had reported before about my install guide procedures"......and decided that the only person who could figure out what was going wrong was yourself...... :P:D

 

LOL :D Just call me "Verdant-junior"

 

EDIT: AHA! I've managed to update to 10.6.8 with the NPCI kernel flag from the other thread! Thanks man, you'll certainly be getting a donation from me. Although it will be in a week sometime lol, student funds aren't anything to be proud of!

 

Oh by the way, where does the VoodooHDA kext go? E/E or S/L/E? And while using Safari my system sometimes locks up and I have to open Terminal (trying to open an application using its icon makes the dock unresponsive aswell) and do killall Safari (a command which I made up and it somehow worked lol). Using Firefox now and later I will do a CMOS reset to see if it fixes anything. My CPU is overclocked but I dont think that would have made too much of a difference considering it is perfectly stable in Windows?

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verdant
verdant
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LOL :thumbsup_anim: Just call me "Verdant-junior"

 

EDIT: AHA! I've managed to update to 10.6.8 with the NPCI kernel flag from the other thread! Thanks man, you'll certainly be getting a donation from me. Although it will be in a week sometime lol, student funds aren't anything to be proud of!

 

Oh by the way, where does the VoodooHDA kext go? E/E or S/L/E? And while using Safari my system sometimes locks up and I have to open Terminal (trying to open an application using its icon makes the dock unresponsive aswell) and do killall Safari (a command which I made up and it somehow worked lol). Using Firefox now and later I will do a CMOS reset to see if it fixes anything. My CPU is overclocked but I dont think that would have made too much of a difference considering it is perfectly stable in Windows?

 

Put VoodooHDA.kext in /S/L/E/ because being a non-Apple kext it is not going to be over-written during system updates and the kexts it has dependencies on are in /S/L/E/ too....also, it is not needed to boot the system i.e. like the non-Apple kexts in /E/E/.....

 

Try uninstalling Safari and then re-installing, followed by a Disk Utility system permissions repair......

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verdant
verdant
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Nvidia GTX470

Do i need to install the fermi drivers?

 

Have you read here.......?

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CoBrA2168
CoBrA2168
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Hey guys.

 

I'm new to the whole "OSX86" scene, and I need some help/advice.

 

I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on a fairly decent machine (but would nowadays be considered ancient!)

 

Here are my complete specs:

 

EVGA 680i SLi Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

XFX (Nvidia) 7900GS Video Card

160GB IDE HDD 7200RPM (target drive for OSX)

160GB SATA HDD 7200RPM (with Windows 7)

LG DVD-RW IDE Disk Drive

2GB Super Talent DDR2 RAM

Abit Airpace 802.11g PCI-E 1x Wifi Adapter (Atheros AR5007EG)

Creative X-Fi PCI Sound Card

 

I've spent quite a few hours researching how I can get Snow Leopard on this machine. I started by formatting the IDE Hard drive in Windows. Then I disconnected the Sound card, Wifi Adapter, and Windows 7 Drive. I followed the guide here to install OSX with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url].

 

Everything looked like it was going fine. I was able to get Snow Leopard installed and get to the desktop (with a crappy resolution, but I figured I'd fix this later). Sound also worked out of the box.

 

I proceeded with the guide to install the 10.6.8 update and [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]. The update installed fine, but [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] was a different story. When I try to boot without [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] after installing [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] (easy method), I get the "No Entry" sign. I tried booting with -v and I see the "Still waiting for root device" However, if I pop in the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc and boot again with that, I am able to get to the desktop again.

 

What I've already tried: reinstalling Snow Leopard, along with switching the jumper cables to the IDE drives. Currently I have the DVD-RW as the master and the HDD as the Slave. This didn't seem to change the waiting for root device error. I've also tried messing with the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] installer by installing the jmicron kexts and other things, didn't seem to help.

 

Right now I've got Snow Leopard installing with the 10.6.8 update booting with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]. Before messing around with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] again (or solving issues with my video resolution, and possibly getting that wifi adapter working) I figured I would post on here for advice.

 

Thanks!!

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verdant
verdant
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Hey guys.

 

I'm new to the whole "OSX86" scene, and I need some help/advice.

 

I'm trying to install Snow Leopard on a fairly decent machine (but would nowadays be considered ancient!)

 

Here are my complete specs:

 

EVGA 680i SLi Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

XFX (Nvidia) 7900GS Video Card

160GB IDE HDD 7200RPM (target drive for OSX)

160GB SATA HDD 7200RPM (with Windows 7)

LG DVD-RW IDE Disk Drive

2GB Super Talent DDR2 RAM

Abit Airpace 802.11g PCI-E 1x Wifi Adapter (Atheros AR5007EG)

Creative X-Fi PCI Sound Card

 

I've spent quite a few hours researching how I can get Snow Leopard on this machine. I started by formatting the IDE Hard drive in Windows. Then I disconnected the Sound card, Wifi Adapter, and Windows 7 Drive. I followed the guide here to install OSX with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url].

 

Everything looked like it was going fine. I was able to get Snow Leopard installed and get to the desktop (with a crappy resolution, but I figured I'd fix this later). Sound also worked out of the box.

 

I proceeded with the guide to install the 10.6.8 update and [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]. The update installed fine, but [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] was a different story. When I try to boot without [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] after installing [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] (easy method), I get the "No Entry" sign. I tried booting with -v and I see the "Still waiting for root device" However, if I pop in the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc and boot again with that, I am able to get to the desktop again.

 

What I've already tried: reinstalling Snow Leopard, along with switching the jumper cables to the IDE drives. Currently I have the DVD-RW as the master and the HDD as the Slave. This didn't seem to change the waiting for root device error. I've also tried messing with the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] installer by installing the jmicron kexts and other things, didn't seem to help.

 

Right now I've got Snow Leopard installing with the 10.6.8 update booting with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]. Before messing around with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] again (or solving issues with my video resolution, and possibly getting that wifi adapter working) I figured I would post on here for advice.

 

Thanks!!

 

Hi there,

 

As tonymacx86 site forum says "We do not support AMD CPUs or NVIDIA, ATI or VIA desktop chipsets" .......furthermore, "The [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] + [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] method is designed and tested for any desktop or laptop running the latest line of Intel processors, the Core i3/i5/i7s.".......both of which mean that the way you have tried to install OS X Snow Leopard on your MOBO is not ideal......

 

My advice, unsurprisingly, is to follow my guide in post #1 of this topic......and post your questions in this thread....... B)

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raze599
raze599
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Posted

Yes Verdants method at the start of this topic isnt the usual [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]/[url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] method. Takes a bit more work but you can get Snow Leopard to a functioning state within a few hours depending on your configuration. For example Verdants boot disc utilises drivers/kexts for using SATA devices within the Snow Leopard installer. The [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc doesnt have them and therefore the installer does not detect SATA devices such as hard drives or DVD drives most of the time.

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CoBrA2168
CoBrA2168
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Posted
Hi there,

 

As tonymacx86 site forum says "We do not support AMD CPUs or NVIDIA, ATI or VIA desktop chipsets" .......furthermore, "The [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] + [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] method is designed and tested for any desktop or laptop running the latest line of Intel processors, the Core i3/i5/i7s.".......both of which mean that the way you have tried to install OS X Snow Leopard on your MOBO is not ideal......

 

My advice, unsurprisingly, is to follow my guide in post #1 of this topic......and post your questions in this thread....... B)

 

Thank you for the quick reply. I wasn't aware that tony's guide was not meant for my chipset!

 

I've read over the first post of this thread several times. I'm a little confused about all of this terminology, like which "bootloader" to use, etc. It's also a lot of information, and I'm not sure where to start.

 

Any advice to get me started? I'm also confused about kexts, such as how to install them successfully.

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verdant
verdant
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Thank you for the quick reply. I wasn't aware that tony's guide was not meant for my chipset!

 

I've read over the first post of this thread several times. I'm a little confused about all of this terminology, like which "bootloader" to use, etc. It's also a lot of information, and I'm not sure where to start.

 

Any advice to get me started? I'm also confused about kexts, such as how to install them successfully.

 

Since you are new to OSx86, you will enjoy the experience more if you learn as you go along by doing things for yourself with my help, if you are willing to do this......?

 

To be honest, as you will see from my install guides compared to many others, I am not a great fan of the Tonymacx86 approach of using package installers etc........I prefer a more manual approach using Terminal commands etc. because then I am in control of what is being done......even if it takes a bit longer......but it makes it easier to sort out and fix any problems because you see them as they appear.....

 

If you are OK with this approach, then I can help you...... ;)

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CoBrA2168
CoBrA2168
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Since you are new to OSx86, you will enjoy the experience more if you learn as you go along by doing things for yourself with my help, if you are willing to do this......?

 

To be honest, as you will see from my install guides compared to many others, I am not a great fan of the Tonymacx86 approach of using package installers etc........I prefer a more manual approach using Terminal commands etc. because then I am in control of what is being done......even if it takes a bit longer......but it makes it easier to sort out and fix any problems because you see them as they appear.....

 

If you are OK with this approach, then I can help you...... ;)

 

Yes I'm prepared for that! I do have experience using Unix and Linux, so I'm comfortable using the command line.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

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verdant
verdant
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Yes I'm prepared for that! I do have experience using Unix and Linux, so I'm comfortable using the command line.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

Great......you should have few problems then....... ;)

 

You have a good starting point with a PATA DVDRW.......as you have found out, the DVDR should be jumper-set and connected to the MOBO as Master via an 80-wire IDE cable......and the IDE HDD as Slave.......

 

Your likely problem areas may be the Abit Airpace 802.11g PCI-E 1x Wifi Adapter (Atheros AR5007EG)

Creative X-Fi PCI Sound Card......if you can connect to the Internet by Ethernet cable temporarily and can temporarily remove these cards, that would be helpful......

 

As for your XFX (Nvidia) 7900GS Video Card, it is supported by the NVDANV40Hal.kext in Leopard and Snow leopard and hopefully by the NVDANV40HalG7xxx.kext in Lion.....

 

Do you have access to any OS X Install Distro DVDs.....?

 

If not, you could use TransMac, or MacDrive, in Windows to install the kexts (i.e. kernel extensions) required for booting your OS X system into the /Extra/Extensions/directory.....the /Extra and /Extra/Extensions/ directories should be created by the Chameleon bootloader installer (RC3, RC4 or RC5) but they can be set up manually if not......

 

When you tried installing OS X Snow Leopard previously, did you install the Chimera bootloader from tonymacx86....?

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CoBrA2168
CoBrA2168
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Great......you should have few problems then....... ;)

 

You have a good starting point with a PATA DVDRW.......as you have found out, the DVDR should be jumper-set and connected to the MOBO as Master via an 80-wire IDE cable......and the IDE HDD as Slave.......

 

Your likely problem areas may be the Abit Airpace 802.11g PCI-E 1x Wifi Adapter (Atheros AR5007EG)

Creative X-Fi PCI Sound Card......if you can connect to the Internet by Ethernet cable temporarily and can temporarily remove these cards, that would be helpful......

 

As for your XFX (Nvidia) 7900GS Video Card, it is supported by the NVDANV40Hal.kext in Leopard and Snow leopard and hopefully by the NVDANV40HalG7xxx.kext in Lion.....

 

Do you have access to any OS X Install Distro DVDs.....?

 

If not, you could use TransMac, or MacDrive, in Windows to install the kexts (i.e. kernel extensions) required for booting your OS X system into the /Extra/Extensions/directory.....the /Extra and /Extra/Extensions/ directories should be created by the Chameleon bootloader installer (RC3, RC4 or RC5) but they can be set up manually if not......

 

When you tried installing OS X Snow Leopard previously, did you install the Chimera bootloader from tonymacx86....?

 

I want to say thank you again for helping me through this.

 

Yes, I realize that the Sound card will definitely be a problem, and I've heard that the WiFi adapter will likely not work. I'll have a Windows laptop nearby with Wi-Fi, is it possible to share my connection over ethernet? Also I have available a USB wifi adapter that I could use if it will work.

 

And yes I have the OSX 10.6 Retail DVD. I think Chimera bootloader is installed with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]?? I'm not too sure on that though. Like I said I'm able to boot into Snow Leopard with the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc right now without many problems. But when I use [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url], I'm unable to boot ("still waiting for root device").

 

I'm willing to reinstall SL if I need to (I've already done it multiple times). I take it I will need to do this to install your custom bootloader, from what I've read.

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verdant
verdant
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I want to say thank you again for helping me through this.

 

Yes, I realize that the Sound card will definitely be a problem, and I've heard that the WiFi adapter will likely not work. I'll have a Windows laptop nearby with Wi-Fi, is it possible to share my connection over ethernet? Also I have available a USB wifi adapter that I could use if it will work.

 

And yes I have the OSX 10.6 Retail DVD. I think Chimera bootloader is installed with [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url]?? I'm not too sure on that though. Like I said I'm able to boot into Snow Leopard with the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc right now without many problems. But when I use [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url], I'm unable to boot ("still waiting for root device").

 

I'm willing to reinstall SL if I need to (I've already done it multiple times). I take it I will need to do this to install your custom bootloader, from what I've read.

 

Since you are able to boot into your Snow Leopard system on the HDD with the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disc, do the following:

 

[0] Open the attached .zip file: CoBrA2168.zip

 

[1] Download my Snow Support files v2.3 from post #1 onto your Windows laptop and copy the .zip folder onto a USB flash drive.....

 

[2] Use the [url=&quot;http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/&quot;]#####[/url] disk to boot into your Snow Leopard (SL) system on the HDD and copy the Snow Support files v2.3 .zip folder from the USB flash drive to the SL Desktop.....

 

[3] Run any one of:

 

Chameleon 2.0 RC4.pkg

 

Chameleon 2 RC3.pkg

 

Chameleon-2.0-r431.pkg

 

to install a Chameleon bootloader on your OS X HDD and in SL....

 

[4] Check if /Extra/ and /Extra/Extensions/ has been created.......if it has, then

 

{a} install the com.apple.Boot.plist and SMBIOS.plist files in /Extra

 

{b} install the following kexts in /Extra/Extensions:

 

AppleNForceATA.64AnV.kext

NullCPUPowerManagement.kext

OpenHaltRestart.kext

PlatformUUID.kext

fakesmc.V2.5.kext

 

[5] Install the following kexts in /System/Library/Extensions:

 

AppleHDA.10.6.2.kext

nForceLAN.0.64.5.kext

 

and repair the /System/Library/Extensions kext ownership and permissions and recreate Extensions.mkext using the Terminal:

 

sudo chown -R root:wheel  /System/Library/Extensions/
 sudo chmod -R 755  /System/Library/Extensions/
 sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/
 sudo kextcache -v 1 -t -a i386 -a x86_64 -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions

 

[6] Do you have a DSDT.aml file on your Snow Leopard HDD system.....if not, then follow Part B. in post #1......

 

See where the above gets you to as regards booting SL off the HDD........ :rolleyes:

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