"Pirate EFI-X" cd boots my Snow Leo installation, Chameleon on HD not.

[YvanSoftware]

Hi,

 

I'm having this weird issue with my OSX86 installation. I know my hardware is compatible, since I can complete the installation and run the OS with the above mentioned boot CD. But I want to boot the OS without a boot CD, so I can (try to) fix my nVidia card.

 

First off all, I don't have Terminal-illnes, I have a decent UNIX background, and I'm a iOS developer for 2 years, and a Mac developer for the first year. I also have a MBPro, so I know how to use the stuff ;-).

 

First I'm going to describe the issue I have: if I try to boot Chameleon 2.0 RC4, I get the Apple/Windows logo. If I select the Windows logo, it runs Windows, as it should. If I try to run OS X, it immediately reboots. After several tries, with the -v option, I think the kernel doesn't load off the harddrive, since I don't get a kernel panic, but a reboot.

 

I tried the following:

 

- Installing the standard Post-Install fixes delivered with the above disc.

- Removing the kexts and kextcache in the /Extra folder, since they don't appear to be on the Pirate EFI-X CD.

- Overwriting the com.apple.boot.plist in the extra folder with the one from the /Library/Preferences/... folder.

 

Could you please help me resolving this issue?

 

Thank you!

Yvan

[Noiprox]

Hello,

 

 

 

Did you finmd a solution to this problem? I have the same issue, EFI-X boot cd was the only working solution for me to install Snow on my Intel DG965 chipset motherboard and after the install and post install steps I can still boot from the EFI-X boot cd and select and boot my Snow install on the internal hard drive but when I boot from the Chameleon boot loader on the hard drive and select the os to boot it reboots after a quick few line of text. I managed to stop it with the pause button on the last line of text, here is the last few lines before the reboot:

 

 

 

efi_inject_get_devprop_string NULL trying stringdata

 

Loaded HFS+ file: [Extra/smbios.plist] 1077 bytes from 4255560.

 

Patched DMI Table.

 

No DSDT replacement found. Leaving ACPI data as is

 

Starting Darwin x86

 

 

 

I've looked for solutions and the only thing I can think of is a custom plist file but I'm new to this and I have no idea how to use a custome plist file or how to find the kext files for my motherboard. I have to think there is a way to use the files from the Pirate EFI-X boot cd as it is still able to boot the OS just fine.

 

 

Maybe someone else has an idea with this new information if you didn't get it working?

 

 

 

Thank you,

[Gringo Vermelho]

Chameleon on a boot CD works the same way as Chameleon on a hard drive (except Chameleon installed to a hard drive cannot boot optical media).

You should be able to replicate whatever it is on the boot CD that makes it work with your hardware to the Chameleon installation on your hard drive.

 

Take the boot CD apart and find out what's on it.

 

You'll find kernel extensions on Preboot.dmg or initrd.img, also look at smbios.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist.

[Noiprox]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll have to take a look at the boot cd. The boot cd is the pirate efi-x, any hints on how to take it apart? I'm still just getting used to the process of installing osx on a pc and have limited experience with boot loaders. I am familiar with linux but use windows primarily so some of this stuff is new to me.

 

 

 

Thanks again!

[tdtran1025]

It sounds like an incomplete installation of Chameleon, as some package releases of RC4 do. In such installation, it fails to mark the HFS+ active. You can mark it active manually of try to install the latest RC rev750. It's nice.

[mulcyber]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll have to take a look at the boot cd. The boot cd is the pirate efi-x, any hints on how to take it apart? I'm still just getting used to the process of installing osx on a pc and have limited experience with boot loaders. I am familiar with linux but use windows primarily so some of this stuff is new to me.

Thanks again!

 

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php?topic=649.0

This is a post by Gringo, so you can see he is an authority. At the bottom, there are links to Chameleon RC5 r750 which you can download and do a manual install. I think you should delay installing Chameleon to the hidden 200mb EFI partition and use your Snow Leopard partition for now because you'll be experimenting/editing, so this way may be expeditious: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2009/11/how...ually-from.html

Don't use Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640-bin in the example, use the d/l RC5.

 

That will take care of Chameleon in case you don't have it installed properly. The boot from the cd does not use the driver/kext for your graphics card, it used a generic driver. Booting from the hard drive, the system will try to use the correct driver/kext that you've installed for graphics card, not the generic driver. And if you haven't installed that driver it will reboot or kernel panic or do something dreadful

 

Booting Cham from the hard drive, you can use -x for safe mode which will let you work on installing the correct driver for your video card. I think that F8 gives access to all your choices, and then you can enter -x from the keyboard.

 

All of the kexts installed in /Extra are specially designed to enable Hack to work in the Apple environment, and have precedence over the ones in .../library/Extensions.

 

"Overwriting the com.apple.boot.plist in the extra folder with the one from the /Library/Preferences/... folder."

 

Did you examine the contexts of that file to see if it contained anything of value?!

You have to learn what kexts are valuable to you to have in /Extra. For instance I have an older 9600 GT which works with Nvenabler.kext. I suggest looking up your video card and seeing how others installed the same kind. If they could install it, not all graphics cards will work. Because you were able to install SL, doesn't tell you your graphics card works because the install uses a generic driver. "Search" at the top of this thread is useful.

 

A very important thing to do is find a DSDT.aml which was generated for exactly your Bios, revision etc. This will solve some problems. tonymac has a dsdt database and MaLd0n has an automated dsdt auto-patcher.

 

I used [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and a retail 10.6.3 os x dvd to install. [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] gives you choices about what kexts to use, audio, video, ethernet etc. Of course you have to know what works for your system to make the right choice. It is a good idea to provide a detailed list of your hardware. Because Hackintosh only works "naturally" on hardware Apple has used in building its own systems. Much hardware requires a fair amount of effort to install and make work, or you will have only limited capability for using your devices.

[Noiprox]

Thank you all for the answers, I have a lot to go on now!

 

I'm away for the weekend and the pc I'm working on is my workstation at work so I'll

have to try some of these suggestions when I get back to work on monday. I don't have the exact hardware list I'm using with me but I think it's an Intel DQ965GF motherboard with a Dual Core 830 cpu. The video card is an ATI PCI-E card but I don't have any info on the card chipset but I do have an NVidia PCI card I can try as well.

 

I work as a network administrator and service technician at a computer store and Apple repair center so I have access to a variety of used Intel motherboards and a small variety of ATI and NVidia video cards as well as original Apple os dvds. I worked to this point on finding a combination of motherboards and boot cd methods to find a working install. I could try some more compatible hardware as well if I can find any at the shop.

 

It looks like the boot cd uses chameleon RC5 r643 at the moment so I'll try the manual install of RC5 r750 as you have suggested in case it's not installed correctly as a first step. I did try the -x option but it still just rebooted at the same point. I do think the video card could be the problem but I couldn't find much on the internet about this immediate reboot problem to know if it was even looking at the kext files yet at that point. I'll have to look at the plist file as well.

 

Is there a way to force it to use a generic driver for the video card like on the boot cd just to see if that will let me boot off the hard drive directly?

 

I may try to re-install with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] + [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] as I don't think I had a chance to try [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] on this hardware combination, I stopped when I got this hardware working with the Pirate EFI-X boot and finally got a working install.

 

I'll report back on Monday with my results

 

Thanks again to all for the help!

[mulcyber]

The video card is an ATI PCI-E card but I don't have any info on the card chipset but I do have an NVidia PCI card I can try as well.

 

I could try some more compatible hardware as well if I can find any at the shop.

 

It looks like the boot cd uses chameleon RC5 r643 at the moment so I'll try the manual install of RC5 r750 as you have suggested in case it's not installed correctly as a first step. I did try the -x option but it still just rebooted at the same point. I do think the video card could be the problem but I couldn't find much on the internet about this immediate reboot problem to know if it was even looking at the kext files yet at that point. I'll have to look at the plist file as well.

 

Is there a way to force it to use a generic driver for the video card like on the boot cd just to see if that will let me boot off the hard drive directly?

 

You previously wrote, "But I want to boot the OS without a boot CD, so I can (try to) fix my nVidia card."

I didn't think about something. Some of these install methods are designed to work or favor ATI cards.

http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/04/ibo...ac-os-x-on.html

You can start [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] just to see what options are available, then you can cancel out.

The section under drivers and bootloaders (expands out) gives some ideas.

 

Why can't you make choices/changes after booting from the Cham boot cd? You can.

Hackintosh installs that work and how to do them can be found by Google searching,

Hacktintosh Hardware Compatibiliy List

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=67274

He has the ati 1900gt (qe and ci not working yet.) and used the ati 1X00 kext

Have you turned on the settings in Bios that tonymacx86 screenshots show?

 

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.6.0

Search for DQ965GF and read the result.

 

If this mainboard comes with onboard video, you may have to disable it and use a standalone card.

Here is a screenshot from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url],