Snow Leopard 10.6 Retail install on ASUS P5K via USB-Stick

[RaMaDaSa]

When I install Snow on an ASUS P5K via Simon's very nice guide (bootable USB-stick method)

 

http://osx86sv.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/ma...-usb-pen-drive/

 

the following happens:

 

The system boots via the USB-stick and the Snow Installer GUI starts. Then when I come to the point “Select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X”, there is no harddisk available to choose. Also the System-Profiler shows that this computer doesn’t have any Serial-ATA devices!

 

I tried with the following components:

- ASUS P5K (ICH9)

- Core 2 Duo E8400 / 4 GB

- ASUS EN8800GTX

- HDD on SATA0

- DVD on SATA3

- BIOS: AHCI + ACPI + S3 all enabled.

 

Any idea why Snow doesn't find the SATA devices? Thanks for help!

 

 

Btw, the BIOS settings and hardware should be OK, because Leopard 10.5.8 runs pretty good on this machine (with iATKOS v7 + P5K_Family_10.5.8.zip patch).

[kiu777]

When I install Snow on an ASUS P5K via Simon's very nice guide (bootable USB-stick method)

 

http://osx86sv.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/ma...-usb-pen-drive/

 

the following happens:

 

The system boots via the USB-stick and the Snow Installer GUI starts. Then when I come to the point “Select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X”, there is no harddisk available to choose. Also the System-Profiler shows that this computer doesn’t have any Serial-ATA devices!

 

I tried with the following components:

- ASUS P5K (ICH9)

- Core 2 Duo E8400 / 4 GB

- ASUS EN8800GTX

- HDD on SATA0

- DVD on SATA3

- BIOS: AHCI + ACPI + S3 all enabled.

 

Any idea why Snow doesn't find the SATA devices? Thanks for help!

 

 

Btw, the BIOS settings and hardware should be OK, because Leopard 10.5.8 runs pretty good on this machine (with iATKOS v7 + P5K_Family_10.5.8.zip patch).

 

Try to cross flash this board with the firmware for the P5KR. Then you can use AHCI for the SATA drives. It's absolutely identical but uses ICH9R instead. Google helps...

[RaMaDaSa]

Try to cross flash this board with the firmware for the P5KR. Then you can use AHCI for the SATA drives. It's absolutely identical but uses ICH9R instead. Google helps...

 

 

kiu777 thanks for reply!

 

My objection to this: Crossflashing is always risky. Because the P5K doesn't have raid and I'm not sure if it still works stable with the P5KR BIOS. Btw, AHCI is already enabled on this MB even with the original BIOS. Did you already succeed P5K crossflashing with P5KR and installing Snow?

 

But tell me, why is it essential that Snow finds a ICH9R? Does't Snow accept a ICH9 w/o raid?

 

Is there no other way to cope with this issue by for example adding/modifying kexts etc.? I used the following kexts in /Extra/Extensions:

 

AHCIPortInjector.kext

AppleRTC.kext

ATAPortInjector.kext

Disabler.kext

dsmos.kext

fakesmc.kext

IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext

NullCPUPowerManagement.kext

OpenHaltRestart.kext

PlatformUUID.kext

VoodooHDA.kext

 

Any idea?

[kiu777]

kiu777 thanks for reply!

 

My objection to this: Crossflashing is always risky. Because the P5K doesn't have raid and I'm not sure if it still works stable with the P5KR BIOS. Btw, AHCI is already enabled on this MB even with the original BIOS. Did you already succeed P5K crossflashing with P5KR and installing Snow?

 

But tell me, why is it essential that Snow finds a ICH9R? Does't Snow accept a ICH9 w/o raid?

 

Cross flashing is no more risky than normal updating the bios.

 

It is necessary (or makes installing much simpler) because it let use AHCI for the drives. Having cross flashed and switched to AHCI you will see the drives with the described usb stick method.

[RaMaDaSa]

Cross flashing is no more risky than normal updating the bios.

 

It is necessary (or makes installing much simpler) because it let use AHCI for the drives. Having cross flashed and switched to AHCI you will see the drives with the described usb stick method.

 

 

OK, thanks for explanation! I tried but wasn't able to cross flash with the ASUS tools (EZ Flash 2 and ASUS Update). Both refused the P5KR-BIOS. Which flashing tool do you recommend to cross flash ASUS boards?

 

EDIT: After some playing around I now can confirm that xflashing with ASUS AFUDOS v2.11 worked like a charm for me! Because this version doesn't perform an ID-Check of the BIOS file.

[Mac Gyver]

hi

 

to "kiu777":

i'm also curious to know how did you crossflash your P5K ?

i've tryed using alt F2 then choosing my P5KR file (P5K-0703.rom) on a usb stick

because i'don't have floppy drive.

and unfortunatly i get the message "id does not match.." too ...

[RaMaDaSa]

hi

 

to "kiu777":

i'm also curious to know how did you crossflash your P5K ?

i've tryed using alt F2 then choosing my P5KR file (P5K-0703.rom) on a usb stick

because i'don't have floppy drive.

and unfortunatly i get the message "id does not match.." too ...

 

 

Hi Mac Gyver,

 

thanks for sharing! I also tried via booting from a plain DOS floppy disk - as I do it always with older ASUS boards - but all ASUS tools refused the BIOS (id does not match...). The same happens when flashing from the BIOS menu itself or from within Windows. Maybe we need a third party flashing tool where one can override the file id-check...

[Mac Gyver]

hi,

 

ok here are some good news, the answer is "KODAKEY".

 

a very powerfull utility to make bootable USB stick or CD including a lots of Bios

regarding ASUS mobo's.

 

you'll get the English USB version here ( 256 mo)

and the English CD version here

 

for tutorial go Kodakey' website

 

 

but use it very carefully you'll be able to crossflash everything with this tool !

 

regards

[RaMaDaSa]

@Mac Gyver

 

sorry for late reply. This are really good news. Thank you!

Btw, did't you already flash your P5K successfully with it? And could you do a retail install with 10.6 on your P5K?

I was only able to do this on Gigabyte mobo...

 

 

@kiu777

 

which tool did you use to flash your P5K? Thanks for info!

 

 

 

Regards

[Mac Gyver]

RaMaDaSa:

 

yes i've been able to cross-flash my P5K to P5KR bios (latest 7xx ...)

 

i can't retry a retail SL now.

but i can tell you that it works like a charm with minor problemes under 10.5.8 (Time Machine don't reconize Backup and my drives are Orange like if they were unplugable).

as i plan to go for 10.6.2, i certainly won't fix those few problems ... i think it's causing by the "Unknown AHCI Standard Controller" in fact i have no kexts for the S-ATA controller and i don't even know the model that is.

 

be sure i let more infos when i'll get a 100% retail SL on this Board.

[RaMaDaSa]

Hi Mac Gyver,

 

great work flashing your P5K!

 

I know the Time Machine Problem with the orange icons. Maybe you can fix it with the "OrangeIconFix.kext" from the blackosx threat #180954. It works great for me on the GA-EP45-DS3L mobo with 10.6. You can find it here (Part 4 - 3 - Kexts - 10.6):

 

http://redirectingat.com/?id=292X457&u...es%2520v1.0.zip

 

EDIT: You can find it here directly:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...st&id=62663

 

But nevertheless I'll also try to get running a full Retail 10.6 Install on my P5K later on when I've again more time.

 

Good luck!

[GTOTURBO]

@Mac Gyver

 

sorry for late reply. This are really good news. Thank you!

Btw, did't you already flash your P5K successfully with it? And could you do a retail install with 10.6 on your P5K?

I was only able to do this on Gigabyte mobo...

 

 

@kiu777

 

which tool did you use to flash your P5K? Thanks for info!

 

 

 

Regards

 

You can use a dos bootable usb stick to run afudos. I have crossflashed my P5K to P5KR rom is p5kr0703.rom.

To flash type the following in dos:

 

AFUDOS /n /ip5kr0703.rom

 

this will force p5kr0703.rom to be written without romid match.

 

I installed OSX Snow Leopard using chameleon boot RC4 with restart mod by duvel and usb stick method. P5K requires dsmos.kext or latest fakesmc.kext to load snow leopard installer properly and to run as well.

 

Currently I have Sleep, Restart, Shutdown, audio out (using voodoohda.kext ok but not great), and Gts 250 Nvidia graphics (via GraphicsEnabler).

 

Wake after sleep audio and network errors solved by unloading and loading the kext associated with them. Found this out from P5KC guide by scrax in italian section of the forum. I set them up automatic using sleepwatcher, but you have to set privilege in sudoers to run sudo without password for kextload and kextunload. use: man sudoers in terminal for a guide to selective command grant.

[RaMaDaSa]

Hi GTOTURBO,

 

thanks very much for this detailed post. Great help for Asus-Xflashers!

 

Btw, sorry for late reply. I was out of town for some weeks...

 

Regards

[Azuzl]

First of all I'm sorry to resurrect a partially dead thread, but as I've run through hell in the past few days on this subject, I thought I'd lend a hand and write a detailed post on the matter, also on the drawbacks of a Win/Mac/Linux on the same MBR disk.

 

 

1) Pre-Flash: Steps to adjust Win7/Vista

 

What I didn't know, and I would have dearly liked to know, is that windows will collapse after the flash if it has no AHCI enabled. This is pretty easy to achieve. Just boot into Windows and run RegEdit and navigate your way into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci. If you have installed it on a P5K, you will see that the Start value is equal to 3 (Disabled). You need to change its value to 0. This way when we will change the SATA mode from IDE to AHCI, the driver will load fine and Windows will boot with no problems.

 

Note that, even though I had none install and thus couldn't try, there is a workaround for WinXP too: it's just sufficient to download and install the AHCI drivers, but on this matter I can't give you informations, although it should be pretty easy to google about.

 

As for Linux, I didn't login but it booted fine, so it should be safe.

 

 

2) Flash your P5K with a P5K-R

As suggested by Mac Gyver above, the solution to our problems for crossflashing is KodaKey. You can download the version you prefer from the website. You will find the different version on the right sidebar under the title Telechargement (Downloads). Grab the one you want, initialize it and boot it. I personally downloaded the CD version, burned and booted it.

 

[2010/11/15 Edit] It seems that DNS and path of the website are a bit messed up. If you want to download it from the website, you need to add koda.nokytech.net domain to your hosts file, pointing at the IP of www.nokytech.net (/etc/hosts for *nix/MacOS, %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts on Win). I will let you google for that, as it does not matter on this subject. Also if you want to download the english version of the file, you need to remove the KodaKey/ path, so the url becomes http://koda.nokytech.net/KodaKeyCD_v0.8_EN.7z. I know, it's messed up, but not my fault (: [End of Edit]

 

There you will find a selection of menus. If I'm not mistaken you will find the P5K series under the P35 menu, but you can find also other versions browsing around. When you have found the P5K-R, select it and you will be presented with a choice. 1 for the flash, 2 for the forced flash, 3 to quit. We are going to force the flash since it's a crossflash, and after that being done you will be prompted for a reset, do so.

 

 

3) BIOS settings

 

The only thing you will need to change, which is also the reason we crossflashed, is the SATA configuration from the main screen. You will have a choice of IDE/RAID/AHCI. After you select AHCI, you can go on setting back the configurations you had before, like for instance disabling the floppy disk from the bios. After AHCI mode is setup you can relog in Windows. If everything is alright it will logon perfectly, install some drivers and reboot, then relog, install other drivers and reboot. This is a good sign, win wise.

 

 

4) Installation

 

If you have a modified version of the retail disc for installations on MBR, you should now be able to pick up your partition properly, if not and have a different GUID hard disk, then it's the same, since the disks are now visible.

 

As for me I installed it through a modified dump with USB-Stick, using a little package which can be found here: http://osx86.sojugarden.com/installer/. I will eventually replace those manually, but it's a good way to start. Also to be noted that if using the last package (which I advise in case you're using the myHack) you will need to replace the OSInstalls manually if you're using the vanilla Snow Leopard DVD (10.6.0), since the latest version is packed with the 10.6.3 OSInstalls.

 

Also in my case I had problems with my ATI drivers. Snow Leopard would boot fine but just give me a black/gray monitor. If this happens it should be enough in most cases to log in single user mode, backup your drivers and then erase them from S/L/E.

 

 

5) Post-Install

 

At this point you will probably have it installed but still a few problems may arise, or at least they did for me: ethernet card, PS2 keyboard & 64 bit mode.

 

Let's begin with the last point. To enable the 64 bit mode you should modify the com.apple.Boot.plist and add/modify the kernel flag with arch=x86_64. To revert it, is as simple as writing arch=i386. Depending on how your Snow Leopard will boot you will need to modify it in E and/or L/P/S, or passing those options at your loader in boot time. The only way to find out if you're running 32 or 64 bit is to check out System Profiler => Software. If you can see 64-bit Kernel and Extensions: Yes then you're running 64 bit, else 32. This is especially important because in my case I was sure it was running 64 while it was not, and thus the drivers for the ethernet/PS2 were not booting up fine, leaving me stuck in wonder. To know more about it there's this post from netkas which explains in pretty great detail the differences of 32/64 under Snow Leopard, which has helped me in great lenghts.

 

Then, if you have a PS2 keyboard, you will probably need to use it instead of a USB one (I had to borrow it). I initially used the standard VoodooPS2 drivers, before realizing that I was running 32 bit and that they were not compiled for 64 bit. On this matter dong comes to the rescue with a 64 bit compiled drivers which can be found on these forums here and here.

 

As for the onboard Attansic/Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet drivers working with 10.6.4, you can find open source drivers derivating from linux at iats on Google Code. There are both 64 bit versions for Snow Leopard and 32 bit versions. From what I heard (though didn't test post-fix) the Leopard 32 bit versions work just fine under Snow Leopard. If you have installed the drivers and they show up but there's no connection in transit even though it looks like hardware is working, read on.

 

 

6) Onboard Attansic L1/Atheros L1 fix

 

The onboard version of these ethernet cards on P5K MoBos have a "little" problem. The card themselves work fine, but no connection can be made. This is due to the fact that while in a non-promiscuous mode, Snow Leopard won't process/receive the MULTICAST packets. Therefore no connection is possible. This has two possible workarounds, like for example running Wireshark/VMware, or manually enabling the Promiscuous mode on the card. The first is the simplest to try, the second is the best. To do that we, in theory, need just to run a command, sudo ifconfig en0 promisc (or -promisc to disable), but the problem is that the ifconfig version which comes with Snow Leopard is chopped. On this website you will be able to find a modified version of ifconfig, which allows to enable promiscuous mode. After downloading you can try straight off the bat to open a terminal and run the modified ifconfig as described above. You will then be able to navigate just fine.

 

 

7) Conclusions

 

One of the major problems I had with this was the idea of cross-flashing and the weird ethernet problems which were giving me sever headache. But as it stands now, writing this post, I have a perfectly working Snow Leopard. There are still a few things to fix, like DSDT, video and audio drivers, but we what we can surely have is a working gigabit ethernet drive (tested with a gigabit switch), on a retail installed Snow Leopard on a multiboot MBR disk running alongside with Win7 & Linux distro, all of them running 64 bit.

 

 

I'm sorry if this is a lengthy post, but as I've been running in circles for days (weeks if we consider when I first started to look at the matter) I thought it was a good idea to post this infos here. Also I might have made some forum policy mistakes, if so feel free to modify.

 

Enjoy (:

[Armit]

As for the onboard Attansic/Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet drivers working with 10.6.4, you can find open source drivers derivating from linux at iats on Google Code. There are both 64 bit versions for Snow Leopard and 32 bit versions. From what I heard (though didn't test post-fix) the Leopard 32 bit versions work just fine under Snow Leopard. If you have installed the drivers and they show up but there's no connection in transit even though it looks like hardware is working, read on.

 

 

6) Onboard Attansic L1/Atheros L1 fix

 

The onboard version of these ethernet cards on P5K MoBos have a "little" problem. The card themselves work fine, but no connection can be made. This is due to the fact that while in a non-promiscuous mode, Snow Leopard won't process/receive the MULTICAST packets. Therefore no connection is possible. This has two possible workarounds, like for example running Wireshark/VMware, or manually enabling the Promiscuous mode on the card. The first is the simplest to try, the second is the best. To do that we, in theory, need just to run a command, sudo ifconfig en0 promisc (or -promisc to disable), but the problem is that the ifconfig version which comes with Snow Leopard is chopped. On this website you will be able to find a modified version of ifconfig, which allows to enable promiscuous mode. After downloading you can try straight off the bat to open a terminal and run the modified ifconfig as described above. You will then be able to navigate just fine.

 

Done. The problem I have to do at every boot. Why.

I don't understand this : "The archive also contains a LaunchDaemon that automatically puts en0 into promiscuous mode at startup and every 60 seconds thereafter (in case another application — such as VMware — disables promiscuous mode at any point)"

 

An other question : is that mode is not dangerous for my network compared to other mode (unicast, multicast, broadcast) ?

[Armit]

An other question : is that mode is not dangerous for my network compared to other mode (unicast, multicast, broadcast) ?

[Armit]

I didn't see that. Firewire is ot OK since I flashed the bios to P5KR. It works on seven but not with Leopard 10.5.2 and Swow Leopard 10.6.5 ?

[Appledelux]

Super!

 

Thanks to all of you, now my Mac-Pc is exactly as I like him!!

 

Top work you make here!

 

Thank you so much !!!!!!

 

Edit1:

My Onboard Netwok is woring fine after running ifconfig, but if I restart my System, then I got a new IP 192.168..42, 192.168..43, 192.168..44 and so on, it changed at every reeboot.

And I'm edit "com.apple.Boot.plist" (<string>arch=x86_64</string>) and afer reboot my System stoped with the Apple and the turning circle.

 

Please help me.

 

Edit2:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...p;#entry1592957

 

Now it works fine!!

 

PS:I'm so sorry about my bad english

[RaMaDaSa]

First of all I'm sorry to resurrect a partially dead thread, but as I've run through hell in the past few days on this subject, I thought I'd lend a hand and write a detailed post on the matter, also on the drawbacks of a Win/Mac/Linux on the same MBR disk...

 

...I'm sorry if this is a lengthy post, but as I've been running in circles for days (weeks if we consider when I first started to look at the matter) I thought it was a good idea to post this infos here. Also I might have made some forum policy mistakes, if so feel free to modify.

 

Enjoy (:

@Azuzl: Thank you very much for this great post!! This surely will help a lot of P5K-Users...

[devilsadvocate]

http://www.root86.org/showthread.php/2132-Asus-P5K-still-waiting-for-root-device?p=49496&viewfull=1#post49496

 

Here is a P5K BIOS with AHCI re-enabled and an apple logo included.

Hope, anybody will enjoy this.