Install Guide for Snow Leopard on a P6T (non deluxe)

[kungfupanda]

hey Searay,

Thanks a lot for writing this awesome guide but when i try to boot from the efi disk the bios doesnt detect it but it detects another flash drive with the Snow Leopard installer on it. What am I doing wrong? I restored the EFI Disk Image correctly according to your instructions.

Another question: what format do I use for the efi flash drive? Should I use Mac Extended Journaled? My setup is in my sig.

 

Thanks,

Kungfupanda

[neonized]

Ok, resolved the issue. I was on SATA1 instead of SATA0 with my HD.

 

I have some sleep problems now. When I hit sleep it turns off the monitor, but the fans and HD are running. Can't wake up.

 

Any suggestion is welcomed.

 

 

Big thanks to the community.

[Searay_X]

Ok, resolved the issue. I was on SATA1 instead of SATA0 with my HD.

 

I have some sleep problems now. When I hit sleep it turns off the monitor, but the fans and HD are running. Can't wake up.

 

Any suggestion is welcomed.

 

 

Big thanks to the community.

 

Good point - Your SL drive HAS to be in port 0 to work at this time - this will be resolved with my future modified ICHx kext for the EFI drive.

 

 

Sleep is an issue on some machines - I am looking into it. In the meantime, tell it to never sleep, put HDD's to sleep whenever possible and set it to turn the monitor off after X minutes.

 

In testing, I have to enable speed step, C1 state and other PM features and I am running a couple experimental kext's - when I know exactly what is allowing sleep on the machines that are doing it I will post it in the guide as an update.

 

Respectfully,

 

Ryan

 

hey Searay,

Thanks a lot for writing this awesome guide but when i try to boot from the efi disk the bios doesnt detect it but it detects another flash drive with the Snow Leopard installer on it. What am I doing wrong? I restored the EFI Disk Image correctly according to your instructions.

Another question: what format do I use for the efi flash drive? Should I use Mac Extended Journaled? My setup is in my sig.

 

Thanks,

Kungfupanda

 

 

It is a matter of the EFI drive not being built right; the P6T will auto-search for a bootable device regardless of what you tell it to do in BIOS. You shouldn't have to worry about what format as restoring the EFI.DMG does this for you. You can initially make it GUID Max OS Extended (Journaled) though as this is what it will end up being anyway. Just be sure to make sure owners are enabled so the Kext Utility.app will function after the restore.

 

In your BIOS setup make sure the install disk is NOT plugged in and your EFI is and it is selectable.

 

The P6T has 2 sections regarding drives - one is drive order and the other is boot drive.

 

In drive order, the EFI has to be listed first with your SL HDD disk second. Under boot, you should ONLY have your EFI drive listed with #2 disabled

 

All that is happening is that with the EFI not being built right or perhaps not set right in BIOS, the system is just dropping to the next available bootable disk.

 

Hope this helps.

[neonized]

Ok, thanks man for your tutorial. I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.1 now and it's a fast thing

 

I'm still having some major problems:

 

My DVD (Sata) is working painfully slow on SATA1 port. I read that there is a fix but it involves DSDT.aml patching.

 

EDIT: I managed to get it working (my DVD) on a SATA5 port. Definitelly some IRQ conflict...

 

Don't have any clue how to resolve it. Also, I don't have any audio. My old kexts from 10.5.7 don't work.

 

Regards,

neonized

[Searay_X]

Ok, thanks man for your tutorial. I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.1 now and it's a fast thing

 

I'm still having some major problems:

 

My DVD (Sata) is working painfully slow on SATA1 port. I read that there is a fix but it involves DSDT.aml patching.

 

Don't have any clue how to resolve it. Also, I don't have any audio. My old one's from 10.5.7 don't work.

 

Regards,

neonized

 

 

To fix the DVD speed for now, plug it in to one of the JMicron ports and it will be fine - Additional drives are a know issue with this and many other boards - I am working on a fix now...

 

Audio is picky - I gave all you needed in the EFI.dmg for onboard to work. Rebuild the Extensions.mkext using my extensions AppleHDA.kext and HDAEnaler.kext using Kext Utility.app under Leopard (not SL - even though it will work under snow - i have my reasons in this particular case).

 

Also, if your always booting with -f, audio will NEVER work (not saying you are, just making note of it).

 

 

I am going to reiterate to EVERYONE - with the EXCEPTION OF THE Boot.plist and possibly the a few graphics kext's if your not using simple EFI strings, the EFI.dmg I provided should have you booting with no further edits!!!

 

Tho ONLY other thing you have to do is make sure owners are enabled on the EFI drive so Kext Utility.app runs without error. The guide details this process...

 

Regards,

 

Ryan

[neonized]

To fix the DVD speed for now, plug it in to one of the JMicron ports and it will be fine

 

Yep, that did the trick.

 

I'll post on the audio...

[neonized]

No, definitely audio is not working. Tried everything

 

I'll try to put the kexts in SLE on my HD instead of on the EFI.

 

Regards,

neonized

[caxio]

AppleHDA.kext.zip

No, definitely audio is not working. Tried everything

 

I'll try to put the kexts in SLE on my HD instead of on the EFI.

 

Regards,

neonized

 

try this in SLE, i have installed snow leopard in my p6t se whit other system i have extract the extra folder from efi.dmg, i have used for install digitaldream script i chose chameleon 3 and extra folder option, and after i have replaced the extra folder product by script with that i have extrated from efi.dmg,i have the sound working all 64 bit.

 

Searay_X thanks for working extra folder

[neonized]

SOUND - CHECK!

 

Ok, ok, my fault. When I was modding the com.apple.Boot.plist file i forgot to insert the 32bit arguments, so in turn the whole time I was using the 64bit kernel and extensions. Obviously the AppleHDA.kext and HDAEnabler.kext in the EFI.dmg file are 32bit and cannot be used in 64bit mode.

 

Now I'm in 32bit mode and the sound is up and working. Looking forward to 64bit kext though, the whole system felt snappier and more responsive in 64bit mode.

 

Regards,

neonized

[Searay_X]

I'm glad you got it - you are mistaken on 1 thing though - the kernel is running 64bit - I'll post the unix cmd to illustrate this when I get back (sending from my iPhone) - it's just the extensions that are running 32 bit mode - in fact, go to an Apple store; all of their machines are running 32 bit extensions - 64 breaks a ton of software including ntfs3g and about 100 others I can think of.

 

More on this when I get back...

 

----- I am back - Here is the scoop...

64 or 32?

 

As promised, when not typing from an iPhone, I would elaborate on the 64/32 bit thing...

 

If while in terminal of SL you type;

 

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

 

Your readout will (should) be;

 

| | "firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">

 

 

However, the same in standard Leopard will read

 

| | "firmware-abi" = <"EFI32">

 

 

If you look in system Profiler by clicking "Software" you will see this;

 

 

 

 

 

This is a capture from my 2009 MacBook pro. As you can see, by default, SL on a real Mac does this.

 

If i change this (by editing my com.apple.boot.plist to read -x64 or arch=x64 my ntfs3g fdails, my video converter fails and a nuber of other apps - and keep in mind that this is on a real Mac!

 

 

So if Apple is not doing it (yet) there is probably a good reason - I will continue to follow their lead since they did make the OS after all.

 

 

I hope this clears this up.

 

 

Regards,

 

Ryan

[neonized]

Yep, you're right, there are plenty of apps that are not compatible with the 64bit kernel... e.g. Vmware Fusion.

 

They will eventually make the jump, and I agree it's safer, until that moment comes, to keep the kernel and extensions in 32bit mode

 

I'm happy with it.

 

Nice work man!

 

Regards,

neonized

[kungfupanda]

Good point - Your SL drive HAS to be in port 0 to work at this time - this will be resolved with my future modified ICHx kext for the EFI drive.

 

 

Sleep is an issue on some machines - I am looking into it. In the meantime, tell it to never sleep, put HDD's to sleep whenever possible and set it to turn the monitor off after X minutes.

 

In testing, I have to enable speed step, C1 state and other PM features and I am running a couple experimental kext's - when I know exactly what is allowing sleep on the machines that are doing it I will post it in the guide as an update.

 

Respectfully,

 

Ryan

 

 

 

 

It is a matter of the EFI drive not being built right; the P6T will auto-search for a bootable device regardless of what you tell it to do in BIOS. You shouldn't have to worry about what format as restoring the EFI.DMG does this for you. You can initially make it GUID Max OS Extended (Journaled) though as this is what it will end up being anyway. Just be sure to make sure owners are enabled so the Kext Utility.app will function after the restore.

 

In your BIOS setup make sure the install disk is NOT plugged in and your EFI is and it is selectable.

 

The P6T has 2 sections regarding drives - one is drive order and the other is boot drive.

 

In drive order, the EFI has to be listed first with your SL HDD disk second. Under boot, you should ONLY have your EFI drive listed with #2 disabled

 

All that is happening is that with the EFI not being built right or perhaps not set right in BIOS, the system is just dropping to the next available bootable disk.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I will try rebuilding the EFI drive again this weekend. Thanks for your help Searay.

[Searay_X]

No problem - I will help anyone I can when I can.

 

On a seperate subject - while Im posting;

 

Also people - Before you say the guide didn't work in the poll, please contact me and I will try to help you get past whatever it is you are having issues with...

 

 

Regards,

 

Searay

[sapper]

Hey Searay,

So I think I've got everything I need together. This is a virgin install though and I was wondering if everything I need is in these files or if there are any other strings or kexts i need to get the basics running. Your guide is based on the fact that 10.5.8 is working but I don't see the point in wrestling leopard when I can go straight to snow.

 

Thanks,

Sapper

 

Asus P6T (non deluxe 0603)

i7 920

WD 1Tb Caviar Green

Asus nVidia 8800GS

[Searay_X]

Interesting news -

 

I have 2 250GB 7200 RPM drives - I decided to set them up as raid in the BIOS. SL will boot from the hardware raid using this method.

 

Additionally, I am still working on the additional SATA port/slow additional port issue. I should be able to fix this which will be a universal fix for many Intel X58 Express / Intel ICH10R boards...

 

I hope to post the update by the weekend with a more refined guide.

 

In the meantime - Happy installing!

[Searay_X]

Hey Searay,

So I think I've got everything I need together. This is a virgin install though and I was wondering if everything I need is in these files or if there are any other strings or kexts i need to get the basics running. Your guide is based on the fact that 10.5.8 is working but I don't see the point in wrestling leopard when I can go straight to snow.

 

Thanks,

Sapper

 

Asus P6T (non deluxe 0603)

i7 920

WD 1Tb Caviar Green

Asus nVidia 8800GS

 

 

You will need to mod your EFI string is all - My string should get you booted but It will show up as the wrong card is all. You can edit it after boot.

 

I only assume 10.5.x for this reason - you already know what you need as far as EFI strings and what you want your smbios.plist to read.

 

You will also need to get your UUID for your SL drive but I will add that I have typo'ed the UUID and the system still worked - not suppose to but it did for me so it may not be an issue for you. You my try simply restoring the EFI disk, making sure it restores properly and boot!

 

For my EFI string to work for your card, you will need to be in the first PCIe Slot.

 

Just make sure your SL drive is in port 0 (the first SATA port), your EFI stick/card/whatever is the only boot disk, you unplug your DVD/CD during install and you don't insert your SL install flash drive during bios setup you should be fine as long as your copy of SL to the thumb drive is good - the number ! cause of install failure is the fact the SL copy is bad and it fails to verify packages during installation...

 

If you have any issues let me know.

 

Regards,

 

 

Ryan

[sapper]

You will need to mod your EFI string is all - My string should get you booted but It will show up as the wrong card is all. You can edit it after boot.

 

I only assume 10.5.x for this reason - you already know what you need as far as EFI strings and what you want your smbios.plist to read.

 

You will also need to get your UUID for your SL drive but I will add that I have typo'ed the UUID and the system still worked - not suppose to but it did for me so it may not be an issue for you. You my try simply restoring the EFI disk, making sure it restores properly and boot!

 

For my EFI string to work for your card, you will need to be in the first PCIe Slot.

 

Just make sure your SL drive is in port 0 (the first SATA port), your EFI stick/card/whatever is the only boot disk, you unplug your DVD/CD during install and you don't insert your SL install flash drive during bios setup you should be fine as long as your copy of SL to the thumb drive is good - the number ! cause of install failure is the fact the SL copy is bad and it fails to verify packages during installation...

 

If you have any issues let me know.

 

Regards,

 

 

Ryan

Thanks Searay,

Sorry, new to the whole efi business. So just to confirm, the only thing I should need to modify is the UUID kext. everything else should run fine as it stands? The smbios is set for the i7 920?

 

Sapper

[sapper]

Well,

No recognition of the efi drive at all. Not sure where I went wrong, followed the guide exactly. Once with and once without the steps that were optional and shouldn't have been needed. The only thing that makes me concerned is that i get an error after the "fdisk -e /dev/rdisk2" command in step 8(your step numbers are a little wonky by the way). Triple checked all bios and physical connections. maybe something with the smbios? Time for some more reading. Real problem is the only leopard I have access to is at my buddies house, Makes for a lot of running back and forth. Will have another go at it after work tonight, any suggestions in the meantime would be greatly appreciated if they will save me another trip across town.

 

Thanks,

Sapper

[Searay_X]

Well,

No recognition of the efi drive at all. Not sure where I went wrong, followed the guide exactly. Once with and once without the steps that were optional and shouldn't have been needed. The only thing that makes me concerned is that i get an error after the "fdisk -e /dev/rdisk2" command in step 8(your step numbers are a little wonky by the way). Triple checked all bios and physical connections. maybe something with the smbios? Time for some more reading. Real problem is the only leopard I have access to is at my buddies house, Makes for a lot of running back and forth. Will have another go at it after work tonight, any suggestions in the meantime would be greatly appreciated if they will save me another trip across town.

 

Thanks,

Sapper

 

 

The numbers are for my system - i7 975... PM me and I'll build the efi image again and do a personal walkthrough when I'm back - on my iPhone and away from my computers for an hour.

 

 

Regards,

 

Ryan

[Searay_X]

The numbers are for my system - i7 975... PM me and I'll build the efi image again and do a personal walk-through when I'm back - I'm on my iPhone and away from my computers for an hour.

 

 

Regards,

 

Ryan

 

Ok - Now that I am back -

 

The error is normal - ignore it. As long as owners are enabled and you cp the boot to Volumes/EFI/ you'll be fine...

 

 

The smbios.plist has NOTHING to do with whether the disk EFI drive is recognized - THe figures are to show what my i7 97g runs at - the QPI takes place of the FSB - that's why Mac's show FSB's in the GHz range since the i7 technically has no FSB - and my multipliers are set to reflect what the system is (was at that time) running at. I am geekbenching at over 15000 now .

 

I will add that the P6T has a few issues with some brands of USB sticks and SD to micro SD adapters - I have to the system will NOT reckonize no matter what I do but they work fine when the OS is loaded. I can't explain it.

 

If your EFI disk is not booting you either have the above issue or one of the following - if it is not being detected, see the next bold print;

 

1. A bad restore of the EFI drive to the external media and it has corrupted the media in some way -

2. Both your install flash drive and EFI drive installed during BIOS setup.

3. Your BIOS is wrong - as in you have selected USB eternal media as your boot device (which is NOT your EFI drive - that is the P6T's generic "try any USB first" fake device...

 

If the board is not detecting the EFI drive and your not getting a specific brand such as Toshiba, Generic USB X (x being the media type such as SD, CF, XD, etc.) Device, Toshiba USB Flash Media, (you get the idea) then you can count on it being something physical or improper bios! Whether you put ANYTHING on your EFI drive or not, the P6T will detect almost any device as a boot device whether bootable or not!

 

To fix,

 

1. You need to try a different internal or external USB port

 

or;

 

2. There are 3 critical areas of your BIOS setup and they are wrong;

 

With the EFI device plugged in

a. The USB External device - try Auto or force it to HDD emulation - it is under the

Advanced/USB Configuration

-

If it "sees" a usb device, you will have an extra menu option there - if not, your machine is not "seeing the media and once again this has nothing to do with format.

b. Under

Boot/ Hard Disk Drives

, the

USB EFI drive/device must be listed first then your snow drive and nothing else

- you can plug your CD/DVD in to one of the JMicron ports (5 OR 6 - not the raid after the install)

c. under

Boot/Boot Device Priority

,

YOUR SPECIFIC device should be listed in 1. and 2. should be "disabled"

.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Ryan

[mounties99]

Hey Searay_X,

 

First of all, thank you so much for this tutorial and it seems easy enough to follow which is why I'm a little confused as to what may be the issue I'm having.

 

I've followed your steps, booting off a usb key with the EFI image. It loads up, no problem. I select the Leopard installer partition and -v it to see what's going on. It takes quite a while to go through and hangs for about 5 minutes on the ethernet mac address line then loads up a grey screen (no apple logo or anything just grey. A few more minutes go by and a cursor appears. As soon as I move the mouse, the original cursor stays, as tough it's frozen and then I get the beach ball and seems to hang there indefinitely. I can move the beach ball around no problems and I've tried reloading the imagine several times and even tried recreating the image using my SL copy I purchased.

 

Any idea what the problem may be?

 

My System setup:

Asus P6T SE

2.66

6 GB 1033 DDR3

2 1TB SATA II drives (Ports 5 and 6) Too lazy to move them around. The SL target installation drive is showing up as P0 in the bios so I think that's fine??

1 4GB usb stick with EFI

1 500GB usb external HD with my SL install image

Latest bios version (05.04)

Using your bios settings

 

*edit*

 

After a lot of messing around, I finally got the installer to load! ONe problem though. I cannot see my SATA drives which is where I of course would like to install SL. Any idea(s) as to what the problem may be and/or which kext(s) I'd need?

 

Again, your help is much appreciated!

[sapper]

Thanks Searay,

I will do some investigating when I get home. I am sure the efi restored proper and I cp'd the boot, and modded the uuid and fixed permissions with utility. Also sure that my bios settings are right. However, what I didn't see was any brand specifics in bios settings. I will see if I can get it to recognize a different drive. Serves me right for trying to use a flash bought at 7-11. Will keep you posted.

Thanks again for the help,

Sapper

[sapper]

Okay,

So as it turns out, my flash drive wasn't being recognized by MB. Damn 7-11. Managed to borrow another from my buddy and rebuilt efi. Got home only to discover that it's the same make (retail plus+) as the other one. Tried it anyway, this time MB recognized it as generic usb flash. Now I am looking at hanging cursor. Not sure if it's the flash drive or my efi build now. I suspect my build but I don't trust the flash either. I'll pick up a new flash(this one's only a loaner anyway) and rebuild tommorrow night.

Thanks yet again,

Sapper

 

So, just for fun, I used my Tiger to rerun Steps 4 through 10 again and Lo and Behold I am a step further. I was so excited I forgot to hit -v options and I am just looking at a sweet grey screen, but hey, it's better than a blinking cursor.

[Searay_X]

Okay,

So as it turns out, my flash drive wasn't being recognized by MB. Damn 7-11. Managed to borrow another from my buddy and rebuilt efi. Got home only to discover that it's the same make (retail plus+) as the other one. Tried it anyway, this time MB recognized it as generic usb flash. Now I am looking at hanging cursor. Not sure if it's the flash drive or my efi build now. I suspect my build but I don't trust the flash either. I'll pick up a new flash(this one's only a loaner anyway) and rebuild tommorrow night.

Thanks yet again,

Sapper

 

So, just for fun, I used my Tiger to rerun Steps 4 through 10 again and Lo and Behold I am a step further. I was so excited I forgot to hit -v options and I am just looking at a sweet grey screen, but hey, it's better than a blinking cursor.

 

I believe your issue is the EFI not being bootable at this point - I agree - the media is important. El-cheapo can cause issues. I like Toshiba flash drives and Sandisk - I personally use micro SD cards and when needed, as in a machine not having a built-in multi card reader, I have a micro to USB adapter.

 

I only get the hanging cursor if I am overclocked and my memory/cpu doesnt like the settings, have bad media, unbootable media or (before the Chameleon V3 boot file) an external drive on at boot time 2TB or larger.

 

Most likely, what is happening here is that you do indeed have the EFI as the primary boot device now but its not bootable so the system is automatically trying to boot from another source (you SL drive) with no EFI on it.

 

I feel if you get a Sandisk or Toshiba device your troubles will be over.

 

Also, don't forget to check the update at the top of my giuide!!!

 

Additionally, on a personal note, I updated to V3 and now dual boot from Snow Leopard - the V3 boot file rocks! Lets get you runnning first though. I will be building a new EFI drive with v3 this weekend.

[sapper]

Getting through to install now, but, recieving a kernel panic after a couple minutes. Log says something about picture cache and missing volumes. Took a look at the SL disk my buddy lent me and it says upgrade disc on it. Not sure this is the full install disc. Now waiting for "Golden Master" to download. I will give it a go with the new image when it's finished.

 

Sapper