Sveetly Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 Hello, I've spent the past few days working to get Snow Leopard installed on my new computer: EVGA X58 (E758) Intel Core i7 920 6GB DDR3 1600Mhz ram 1TB Seagate SATA HDD 500GB Seagate SATA HDD NVIDIA 7300GT (From my Mac Pro—my 3870 x2 seems to have broken, and I haven't bought a new card yet.) I've gotten past all my problems so far my searching these forums (and the rest of the Internet.) But now I'm stuck. I boot up my external USB hard drive containing a restored image of the Snow Leopard retail DVD. I get to the Chameleon boot loader and choose the Mac OS X Install DVD. It proceeds to boot without problem, I select my language and it shows the "Install Mac OS X" screen. I choose Utilities->Disk Utility and notice that no hard drives are in the list, except for the install 'CD' that I'm booting from. (Other external hard drives do not show up in this list either, as far as I can tell.) Confused, I chose 'System Profiler.' I noticed every single aspect of my computer is recognized correctly, except for the FireWire and the SATA drives. It says, "There was an error while checking for Serial-ATA devices." I tried booting both with and without the JMicron Port Injector KEXT. It still doesn't work. Any ideas of what might work? Thanks in advance! Oh, and for the boot loader I'm using the latest Chameleon (rc3, 658.) I'm using Teknojunkie's Snowfiles for most of my KEXTs and Airwalk's KEXT for the audio, as well as the Chameleon-supplied JMicron Port Injector. (As noted above, I've tried both with and without this.) I am also using a DSDT.aml, and according to System Profiler, it is working correctly, as I show up as 1 processor, 4 cores, 3.2GHz (which is what I'm clocked to, and what the BiOS and Windows recognizes.) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushabh Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 i guess you need to configure your hdd as ahci from your bios Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1323407 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 8, 2009 Author Share Posted November 8, 2009 i guess you need to configure your hdd as ahci from your bios It is set the AHCI. Are there any other settings that might affect this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1323449 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushabh Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 i recommend trying a pendrive just to see if mass storage works and also you can try eliminating all extra kexts.. the best method i found for installing snow leopard on 4 of my computers is the one below http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=183751 although you do need leopard for it.. you could also try kalyway 10.5.2 just to make sure leopard works well and then upgrade Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1323510 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 8, 2009 Author Share Posted November 8, 2009 I've installed the Kalyway 10.5.2 distro, which allowed me to format the drive and all. It installs fine, though I'm not sure how to boot it... Either way, I'm not sure how I'll be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard, because when booting from the Snow Leopard disc, even the Mac OS X hard drive doesn't show up. Also, it hangs for about fifteen minutes on the "Select Language" screen when booting from the Snow Leopard disc (and did before, too,) if this is any indication of anything. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1323894 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 At this point, I'm pretty sure it's a lack of kexts for my SATA ports. Is it possible to use the kexts from Kalyway for the Snow Leopard install? They had some embedded in the DVD that worked. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1324101 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushabh Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Since Kalyway works fine i guess snow leopard should be easy to install i m not sure of your hardware in particular but as i stated before i sincerely recommend trying the method below without adding any kexts of your own http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=183751 also i do not believe you can update a hackintosh's leopard and as for the bootloader i recommend setting up the boot think bootloader after a successful install which allows you to boot into almost any operating system without problems. It even allows muti booting leopard and snowleopard which seems to be a herculean task for some Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1325596 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 11, 2009 Author Share Posted November 11, 2009 Alright, I finally got Windows 7's "System Reserved" partition onto the same hard drive as the install, allowing me to reformat for Mac. I tried your recommended guide, but plugging in the formatted drive freezes my BiOS. I tried with the default extensions and my own. Do you know of any other guides that might work? Preferably one that uses the install disc, and not a preinstalled hard drive. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327409 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rushabh Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 i didnt quite get you.. 'plugging in the formatted drive freezes my BiOS'..does this mean your bios dosnt let you boot with that hard disk plugged? i recommend removing all hard disks but the one you are installing sl.. also if you ve tried my recommended method, does it boot from the usb pen drive at all? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327421 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 11, 2009 Author Share Posted November 11, 2009 I've been messing around for the past few hours, and sorta combined three or four different methods. I've got it to boot, recognize my graphics card (now a NVIDIA GTX 260,) and have the Snow Leopard installer finally recognizes my hard drives. Just one problem left; I get about 4 or 5 minutes, then I get a CPU-related kernel panic (panic(cpu 0 caller...) The zero could be any of the cores, but when cpus=1 it's always 0, logically. I assume this has to do with my DSDT.aml, but none of the ones that are for my motherboard (EVGA X58 E758) seem to work. Could it (a) be something else, or ( there be an easy way to generate one? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327587 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 11, 2009 Author Share Posted November 11, 2009 Okay, so I managed to get it installed. Now it panics (the same panic as before) either after the video or during the initial setup. I fixed the install by removing the DSDT.aml. Is it possible that this was installed during the setup? If so, how can I remove it? Also, it could be a need for a 32-bit kernel. How do you add the -x32 bootflag in the Chameleon bootloader? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327856 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Brasky Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 Also, it could be a need for a 32-bit kernel. How do you add the -x32 bootflag in the Chameleon bootloader? For chameleon, it's not -x32, it's arch=i386. You can put that in com.apple.boot.Boot.plist under KernelFlags to do it every time. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327893 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 11, 2009 Author Share Posted November 11, 2009 For chameleon, it's not -x32, it's arch=i386. You can put that in com.apple.boot.Boot.plist under KernelFlags to do it every time. Thank you. How can I check to see if it's in 32-bit? My KEXTs still don't work for the Network or for Sound. (Or does anyone know of 64-bit KEXTs for the EVGA X58?) Also, my video card shows up perfectly with the EFI string (except it has the wrong amount of VRAM) but it preforms oddly. There is a huge delay from the mouse when dragging. Like with windows, folders, scrolling, etc. But everything runs smoothly. It's just delayed. Kinda annoying. I use a NVIDIA GTX 260, which I've heard works in Snow Leopard. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1327947 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 Alrighty, so I've acquired a new problem. I've got the sound and the network working, and all the USB ports (haven't tested firewire yet.) My video card functions, but not well. (Shows as a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 with 896MB VRAM.) But there is choppy graphics, and dragging is still delayed. The main problem, though, exists in my BIOS. Every time I shut down OS X and reboot, the first BIOS screen gives me this message: "CMOS checksum error — Defaults loaded" Any idea how to fix this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1328014 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Brasky Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Alrighty, so I've acquired a new problem. I've got the sound and the network working, and all the USB ports (haven't tested firewire yet.) My video card functions, but not well. (Shows as a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 with 896MB VRAM.) But there is choppy graphics, and dragging is still delayed. What are you using for enabling graphics? Are you using GraphicsEnabler=Yes from chameleon? Sometimes, choppy graphics can also be caused by CPU cores being out-of-sync. I believe the kext to try for that is VoodooTSC. The main problem, though, exists in my BIOS. Every time I shut down OS X and reboot, the first BIOS screen gives me this message: "CMOS checksum error — Defaults loaded" Any idea how to fix this? I saw a kext for this somewhere on the board. Not sure the name though. How can I check to see if it's in 32-bit? If you open the system profiler and click on "Software", you'll see an entry for "64-bit Kernel and Extensions" Yes/No. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1328552 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 What are you using for enabling graphics? Are you using GraphicsEnabler=Yes from chameleon? I tried that, and it didn't change anything. I've been using a self-generated EFI string. It still runs awfully. I think it's missing support for some sort of graphics accelerator or something…for QuickView, dragging dragging things, and simple desktop applications like 'Bullet' run awfully, whereas a full-screen game runs fine. Once I get the software reinstalled I'll see how it renders in a GPU-intense application such as Color. Sometimes, choppy graphics can also be caused by CPU cores being out-of-sync. I believe the kext to try for that is VoodooTSC. VoodooTSCSync appears to be for laptops with Core 2 Duos and AMD processors. There is nothing about using it for the i7. My motherboard appears to already support TSC synchronization. I saw a kext for this somewhere on the board. Not sure the name though. Hm. Okay, I'll try to find it…in the mean time, I've gotten very good at setting my BIOS in just a few seconds… If you open the system profiler and click on "Software", you'll see an entry for "64-bit Kernel and Extensions" Yes/No. Thanks. I realized this, too, when I saw everything was 64-bit in the Activity monitor Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1328908 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sveetly Posted November 12, 2009 Author Share Posted November 12, 2009 Okay, so I finished installing Final Cut, and tested around. Rendering in LiveType and Final Cut Pro, and the GPU-intensive Color was fast. Very fast. Most noticeable in the GPU-intensive renders, my i7 Hackintosh is significantly faster than my Quad-Core Mac Pro. QuickView for video files runs perfectly. For text files and folders, it's choppy and delayed. This makes me pretty certain that something isn't supported properly. Anyone know of any tests that can determine what it is and how to fix it? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/196454-no-hard-drives-recognized/#findComment-1328949 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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