Lifehacker Guide with GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard

[MacTech84]

That sounds great, but I cant turn the machine on. Your push the power button and it just flicks on and off instantly.

 

Im going to replace the power supply to test the power supply first. But like I said, once I got a NIC ethernet worked fine.

 

Unlpug your PS for about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. The computer should boot properly. I had that problem a few times when I was messing with setting in BIOS, or when adding/subtracting devices from the computer, such as the PCI Nic.

 

P.S. Happy Holidays Everyone!

[chewdog316]

Unlpug your PS for about 30 seconds, then plug it back in. The computer should boot properly. I had that problem a few times when I was messing with setting in BIOS, or when adding/subtracting devices from the computer, such as the PCI Nic.

 

 

Thanks for the reply.

I know I unplugged it and plugged it back in quite a few times. I think im gonna just get a diffrent power supply anyways, because Ive read reviews about the coolmax psu and frankly im not impressed. i shouldve researched before instead of buying cheap. Sometimes parts dont neccesarily matter on the brand, but occasionally even midgrade products like coolmax fail to deliver. It may still work, but that is okay im going with a corsair 650w psu it got great reviews on newegg.

[MacWannaBe]

Thanks for the info. So i can proceed with my existing installer and install SL again, but not do any software update. After that is done I can get V3 version of the installer. By V3 you mean the Chameleon loader right? I see from their website the latest release is 2.0-RC4. Do I just copy the boot file to the root directory if I have applied the EP45..zip file in Andy's guide on the installed disk?

 

I apologize in advance for all the n00b question. This is all new to me.

 

 

Yes. Proceed with V1 (linked from the no hack lifehacker article). Update to 10.6.2. Then use version 3 of the installer that Stell put together... see here:

 

http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/23846198...-update-ud3p-v3

 

-Ed

[Jason_B]

Reading through the thread, interesting stuff, and obviously an awesome discovery!

 

My current set up is Q9650, UD3P, Corsair Dominator 4Gb, 2x 640Gb WD Cavair Black configed in Raid 0, and a GTX 275 Video Card. I have this running currently with Vista Ultimate but am running into issues when selecting hard drives. I have a funny feeling this is because they are in Raid 0 on the windows side. Im going to be dropping a WD 250gb drive in my PC monday and see if we can experiment any further with the instillation. Im using the UD3LR boot from DVD method with the according CD, and it has worked flawless up to this far.

 

I tried setting up a separate partition (100GB) both RAW, and Formatted as NTFS and the disk utility did not recognize the partition, or even display it. Is there a work around to create a partition on the drive?

 

Thanks, and ill keep reading on!

[mrquacker]

Another n00b question for you to laugh at. I have the exact lifehacker setup going, with 10.6.2 running perfectly. However I want to install Windows 7 as a dual boot, without messing up my perfectly running SL install.

 

Please correct me if I am understanding this wrong.

For Windows 7 I need a separate hard drive, just for windows.

To install it, I shut down the machine, unplug the Mac HD's, plug in Win HD. Startup machine from Win DVD, format and install to hard drive. Then shut down machine, plug back in the Mac HD's, and start up.

 

Now what happens? How do I pick what OS to use during startup? I want it to default to the Mac. Do I set this in the bios? Then how do I choose what to use during startup later? Do I hit F12, or will the Win drive show up in the Hackintosh boot menu during startup?

 

And lastly, if I get virus/spy/mal/ad ware on the windows, will it also my connected mac drives? I am aware that the two OS's cant read each others drives, but can the virus/ware still do damage?

[MacTech84]

Now what happens? How do I pick what OS to use during startup? I want it to default to the Mac. Do I set this in the bios? Then how do I choose what to use during startup later? Do I hit F12, or will the Win drive show up in the Hackintosh boot menu during startup?

 

And lastly, if I get virus/spy/mal/ad ware on the windows, will it also my connected mac drives? I am aware that the two OS's cant read each others drives, but can the virus/ware still do damage?

 

The first half is correct, although you could do a new partition on your primary drive, I would just say for ease its best to use a 2nd hard drive. When you plug in the Mac HD, be sure that your BIOS is set to boot from that as the primary drive. When you see the loading icon from the Mac Drive, just hit any key on your keyboard to pause the boot. Then you can select the Win7 drive from the bootloader. As for the Virus, it cannot affect both, only windows that we know of.

[HAVEC]

The first half is correct, although you could do a new partition on your primary drive, I would just say for ease its best to use a 2nd hard drive. When you plug in the Mac HD, be sure that your BIOS is set to boot from that as the primary drive. When you see the loading icon from the Mac Drive, just hit any key on your keyboard to pause the boot. Then you can select the Win7 drive from the bootloader. As for the Virus, it cannot affect both, only windows that we know of.

"

I have separate drives for SL and Win7. If I try to select the Win7 drive from the bootloader I get "BOOTMGR is missing". So I have to hit F12 at the first splash screen to select the Win7 drive. Not that it is a problem.

[jamis2001]

Yes. Proceed with V1 (linked from the no hack lifehacker article). Update to 10.6.2. Then use version 3 of the installer that Stell put together... see here:

 

http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/23846198...-update-ud3p-v3

 

-Ed

 

Thanks! Giving a try right now.

[Christian 1985]

Another n00b question for you to laugh at. I have the exact lifehacker setup going, with 10.6.2 running perfectly. However I want to install Windows 7 as a dual boot, without messing up my perfectly running SL install.

 

Please correct me if I am understanding this wrong.

For Windows 7 I need a separate hard drive, just for windows.

To install it, I shut down the machine, unplug the Mac HD's, plug in Win HD. Startup machine from Win DVD, format and install to hard drive. Then shut down machine, plug back in the Mac HD's, and start up.

 

Now what happens? How do I pick what OS to use during startup? I want it to default to the Mac. Do I set this in the bios? Then how do I choose what to use during startup later? Do I hit F12, or will the Win drive show up in the Hackintosh boot menu during startup?

 

And lastly, if I get virus/spy/mal/ad ware on the windows, will it also my connected mac drives? I am aware that the two OS's cant read each others drives, but can the virus/ware still do damage?

Install SL again but this time have two partitions. One for SL(journaled and GUI), the other in FAT32. Install SL on the second partition. After you're done installing, MAKE SURE YOU CAN BOOT WITHOUT THE USB DRIVE(use lifehacker's method).

Or while on your current setup, Partition your Harddrive and format it using FAT32.

 

 

Then, insert the Windows 7 DVD and install it. It should recognize the FAT partition and convert it NTFS. Once it's installed, your computer should boot windows 7 as a primary OS or show windows bootloader. Select Windows 7 and proceed. Download and install EasyBCD and add the SnowLeopard Partition to the windows bootloader. You can choose which one can be your primary boot.

 

Have fun

[CoHPhasor]

Install SL again but this time have two partitions. One for SL(journaled and GUI), the other in FAT32. Install SL on the second partition. After you're done installing, MAKE SURE YOU CAN BOOT WITHOUT THE USB DRIVE(use lifehacker's method).

Or while on your current setup, Partition your Harddrive and format it using FAT32.

 

 

Then, insert the Windows 7 DVD and install it. It should recognize the FAT partition and convert it NTFS. Once it's installed, your computer should boot windows 7 as a primary OS or show windows bootloader. Select Windows 7 and proceed. Download and install EasyBCD and add the SnowLeopard Partition to the windows bootloader. You can choose which one can be your primary boot.

 

Have fun

 

Although that is one way to do it, I much prefer the method I outlined earlier.

I prefer Mac being the default, and the Chameleon Bootloader as the boot manager.

 

Feels more Mac'ey. ;-)

(Plus EasyBCD makes things complicated)

[mrquacker]

I'm picking up an extra drive tomorrow to try it out. My main issue is just the whole security thing. My brother uses this computer a lot, and he's one of those people that clicks and opens everything. So I know sooner rather than later that something shady will get installed. I dont care if the windows drive gets shot, but I dont want to lose data on the mac ones.

 

Is there a way to "lock out" one OS from doing anything with the other OS's drives? Or am I just being paranoid?

[CoHPhasor]

I'm picking up an extra drive tomorrow to try it out. My main issue is just the whole security thing. My brother uses this computer a lot, and he's one of those people that clicks and opens everything. So I know sooner rather than later that something shady will get installed. I dont care if the windows drive gets shot, but I dont want to lose data on the mac ones.

 

Is there a way to "lock out" one OS from doing anything with the other OS's drives? Or am I just being paranoid?

 

Good question.

Generally Win doesn't "see" HFS partitions, although I believe it generally

knows there's a drive there.

(Which enables you to format it)

 

If I'm right and that's the case a very, very crafty virus would shank you.

(Though I think the odds of a virus looking for other drives, formatting them, then your Win drive is net-to-none)

 

Other than that, Win just won't try to write to that type of partition. You're good.

 

(Though I'd be shafted as I run MacDrive allowing Win to see/read/write to my Mac drive.

[spyrogyro]

I'm having a similar problem with my Lifehacker System. I've got the stock build with no added NIC and a Galaxy GTX250 512MB card connected to a 46" Aquos HDTV. 10.6.2 gives a Black screen when plugged via Native HDMI to HDMI or through the DVI to HDMI converter.

 

I'm stuck in the same situation as the others in this post. Holding back at 10.6.1 until there is a solution that works better then rolling back to the 10.6.1 drivers. I was never able to get that to work properly my resolution dropped down to 1280x1024 and I lost QE/CI.

 

If I happened to miss the solution through the 46 post pages please someone PM.

 

Merry Xmas/Happy holidays.

[AkronElliott]

I'm having a similar problem with my Lifehacker System. I've got the stock build with no added NIC and a Galaxy GTX250 512MB card connected to a 46" Aquos HDTV. 10.6.2 gives a Black screen when plugged via Native HDMI to HDMI or through the DVI to HDMI converter.

 

I'm stuck in the same situation as the others in this post. Holding back at 10.6.1 until there is a solution that works better then rolling back to the 10.6.1 drivers. I was never able to get that to work properly my resolution dropped down to 1280x1024 and I lost QE/CI.

 

If I happened to miss the solution through the 46 post pages please someone PM.

 

Merry Xmas/Happy holidays.

 

Since we may have more people asking about this feedback. Thought to write it here to save time for other requests.

 

I found a post similar to yours in post #503 page 26 about a different graphics card and HDMI. You can start there, and follow the feedback. Stell's blog mentions that it could be a 64-bit issue.

 

In addition check if video is working through DVI. DVI / VGA. Just to narrow the issue down to HDMI rather than something else.

 

About the QE/CI found this item in page 2.

 

"I can only help you a little bit. Doing searches, both within IMac and in the larger community will certainly help. QE/CI status aren't displayed in SL, as it's supposed to work for all supported graphics. There are three ways to test if it is working: one way is to open the Chess game and move one of the white pawns. If it works, QE/CI is working."

[jamis2001]

Yes. Proceed with V1 (linked from the no hack lifehacker article). Update to 10.6.2. Then use version 3 of the installer that Stell put together... see here:

 

http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/23846198...-update-ud3p-v3

 

-Ed

 

Still not working. I can taste it but it seems so unreachable.

 

- I updated my flash drive using the V3 installer (renaming the Extra folder to Extra_Backup and then install the V3 installer there.)

 

- Reinstall SL from scratch like before.

 

- Restart and boot from flash drive, choose the new installed disk and proceed.

 

- Welcome screen shows up and I got sound now. Excellent.

 

- Boot into SL and updated it to 10.6.2.

 

- Restart and KP.

 

Should I have installed the V3 installer to the HD prior to updating to 10.6.2?

 

I think I have done it before but I don't remember after so many reinstalls

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[captcrunch24]

"

I have separate drives for SL and Win7. If I try to select the Win7 drive from the bootloader I get "BOOTMGR is missing". So I have to hit F12 at the first splash screen to select the Win7 drive. Not that it is a problem.

 

If you are using Stell's package (which uses the Chameleon R3 bootloader), then when you get to the boot screen, do not select the Win 7 drive directly but rather select the System Reserved Partition. This is what Windows 7 uses in an EFI setup for a boot device. You then will not get the BOOTMGR is missing message and not have to use F12 or F8 to boot.

[AkronElliott]

Still not working. I can taste it but it seems so unreachable.

 

- I updated my flash drive using the V3 installer (renaming the Extra folder to Extra_Backup and then install the V3 installer there.)

 

- Reinstall SL from scratch like before.

 

- Restart and boot from flash drive, choose the new installed disk and proceed.

 

- Welcome screen shows up and I got sound now. Excellent.

 

- Boot into SL and updated it to 10.6.2.

 

- Restart and KP.

 

Should I have installed the V3 installer to the HD prior to updating to 10.6.2?

 

I think I have done it before but I don't remember after so many reinstalls

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

When I installed Snow Leopard from the thumb drive loaded SL 10.6.

 

Rebooted to finish the install, Welcome Screen, yada, yada, yada. Once at version 10.6.

 

Deleted the extra folder. Ran V3 installer from the thumb drive. Which populated, installed, and arranged drivers.

 

Rebooted with new drivers. So I was SL 10.6 with drivers for 10.6.2

 

Went to Apples website to update with the OS Update.

 

I needed the V3 drivers/setup prior to updating to 10.6.2.

[corefile]

I have a problem were I have my system up and running fine, using the V3 install. everything is going great, then randomly I'll start my computer up, and my video card, which was recognized (nvidia 9800GT) and working perfect all of a sudden is not recognized and I get:

 

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 32 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0614

Revision ID: 0x00a2

Displays:

Display:

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

 

 

Like I said this has happened twice now, I'll be running everything fine for a couple days. then all of a sudden it starts up with out the 9800GT driver. The first time I had to reinstall, I've got my system dialed in, I'm hoping I can get it working. Help!!!

[HAVEC]

If you are using Stell's package (which uses the Chameleon R3 bootloader), then when you get to the boot screen, do not select the Win 7 drive directly but rather select the System Reserved Partition. This is what Windows 7 uses in an EFI setup for a boot device. You then will not get the BOOTMGR is missing message and not have to use F12 or F8 to boot.

 

Way too easy. This dual boot system is super stable, very fast and runs both operating systems flawlessly. Thanks

[corefile]

I have a problem were I have my system up and running fine, using the V3 install. everything is going great, then randomly I'll start my computer up, and my video card, which was recognized (nvidia 9800GT) and working perfect all of a sudden is not recognized and I get:

 

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 32 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0614

Revision ID: 0x00a2

Displays:

Display:

Resolution: 1280 x 1024

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

 

 

Like I said this has happened twice now, I'll be running everything fine for a couple days. then all of a sudden it starts up with out the 9800GT driver. The first time I had to reinstall, I've got my system dialed in, I'm hoping I can get it working. Help!!!

 

I was able to fix it, I did a re-ran the V3 installer, and I did a disk permission repair on the disk. That fixed it, but would like to know why this happens. Now I have the right driver running:

 

GeForce 9800 GT:

 

Chipset Model: GeForce 9800 GT

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0614

Revision ID: 0x00a2

ROM Revision: xx.xx.xx - internal

Displays:

Display:

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Display Connector:

Status: No Display Connected

[MacWannaBe]

Should I have installed the V3 installer to the HD prior to updating to 10.6.2?

 

Yes. 10.6.2 works with V1 and V3. To be safe, it's better to be at 10.6.1 with V3 before updating to 10.6.2.

 

-Ed

[jamis2001]

When I installed Snow Leopard from the thumb drive loaded SL 10.6.

 

Rebooted to finish the install, Welcome Screen, yada, yada, yada. Once at version 10.6.

 

Deleted the extra folder. Ran V3 installer from the thumb drive. Which populated, installed, and arranged drivers.

 

Rebooted with new drivers. So I was SL 10.6 with drivers for 10.6.2

 

Went to Apples website to update with the OS Update.

 

I needed the V3 drivers/setup prior to updating to 10.6.2.

 

 

I just tried again and it didn't work...

 

Installed 10.6 using V3 installer in the flash drive. Everything stable.

 

Installed V3 installer in HD, reboot , everything is still fine.

 

Installed 10.6.2 combo. Reboot. KP

 

Yes. 10.6.2 works with V1 and V3. To be safe, it's better to be at 10.6.1 with V3 before updating to 10.6.2.

 

-Ed

 

Should I upgrade to 10.6.1 prior to attempting 10.6.2? Where can I still get 10.6.1?

 

I just tried going from 10.6 to 10.6.2 with V3 and I got KP again.

[Rasstar]

I have the same motherboard. Installed retail snow leopard, installed the v3 pack then updated to 10.6.2 and no issues. sleep and everything is working.

[mrquacker]

Good question.

Generally Win doesn't "see" HFS partitions, although I believe it generally

knows there's a drive there.

(Which enables you to format it)

 

If I'm right and that's the case a very, very crafty virus would shank you.

(Though I think the odds of a virus looking for other drives, formatting them, then your Win drive is net-to-none)

 

Other than that, Win just won't try to write to that type of partition. You're good.

 

(Though I'd be shafted as I run MacDrive allowing Win to see/read/write to my Mac drive.

 

Ok, one more question. I got Win7 installed all right, and everything runs great. Now, anyone know of a way to get SL to "ignore" the Win7 drive?

 

It just gets annoying to have an extra drive just sitting there in all the menus, desktop, etc. Is there a way to eject it on login, or not load it at all? Other than that minor cosmetic issue, everything worked great. Thanks for all the help!

[Wowzer42]

I'm using the V3 of the stellarola installer, wicked easy thanks! One thing I don't like is the custom "OBEY" graphic instead of the apple logo when its booting up (grey screen). How can I change it back to just the apple?

 

 

In your /extra/themes/default folder, you'll find a file named boot.png.

 

Just make a .png file that you want and replace (you'll have to authenticate), voila!