My PCTOMAC

[pctomacJR]

My PCTOMAC

A Retail to Dual Boot Macintosh (External Drive) in Layman’s

Language

 

Materials:

 

A Windows O86 computer, Windows already installed. Mine is a Dual Core laptop, 2 GB.

 

Hardware Additions: WD Passport Essential or similar USB 2.0/3.0 external hard drive, powered usb hub, spare USB PS2 keyboard & mouse, USB sticks as needed, Apple USB Ethernet Adaptor.

 

Software Additions: Snow Leopard disk, 10.6.3, available from the Apple Store, Burn an Empire EFI disk downloadable from the internet, Darwin Bootloader- I used EP45UD3P Snow Leopard (.pkg), also downloadable from the internet.

 

1. Download Empire EFI for install and burn to a DVD. Hit F2 at Bios. Change the start up disk order to CD/ROM in the first location. After Empire EFI loads, change disk to Snow Leopard and hit F5 (to refresh the DVD).

2. Go to the Utilities button, or pull down menu and partition/erase the disk into 2 or more partitions. If the external USB hard drive is set up for Windows, make sure you back up any data. Very Important: The drive must be partitioned using the GUID file system, and formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) The conditions of this install are NOT for your internal drive. Do not use MBR partitioning for a Mac. If you want to maintain a readable/writable volume on your internal drive for passing information back and forth with windows, you may create a partition in FAT32 that can be formatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I also use USB memory sticks formatted in FAT32 on Windows to pass data back and forth between windows/downloads and the Mac.

READ #4 Below before proceeding.

3. Start the OS X (Snow Leopard) installer. Install to the USB hard drive. I discovered that the installer wouldn’t always complete if I left it unattended. The sleep feature seems to come into play- some times when it appeared to be hanging, I would plug or unplug a usb memory stick just to keep the system active. Because I experimented and installed more than one time to make this instruction set, it would sometimes load to completion on it’s own. Time to install is generally longer than the installer says- it could be up to 4 to 8 hours depending on your usb hard drive.

4. In order to install the Darwin Bootloader on the USB Hard Drive, I made a complete Install of Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on a USB memory stick (16GB) partitioned in FAT32, with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Using Empire EFI, or [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] to load Snow Leopard from the USB stick I could place and unpack the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard (.pkg) Darwin Loader onto the USB Hard Disk. The USB memory stick would always load from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], or Empire EFI. With the SL 10.6.3 stick I even had a working Ethernet for Safari. The problem was, running Snow Leopard from the memory stick for regular use was extremely slow. RETURN TO #3.

5. After booting from the USB memory stick Snow Leopard mentioned above, you must unpack and install the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard (.pkg) on your USB hard drive. While still booted to the USB memory stick go to Utilities under the GO menu pull down and find the Terminal application. Open the Terminal. On another computer, google/access Setting an ACTIVE PARTITION information.

A concise set of instructions can be best found at this Insanely Mac link:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22844

6. Once you’ve installed the boot loader and changed the active partion setting, here are the instructions for booting your PCTOMAC: Open bios and change the boot loading order to USB Hard Drive in the first load position. Make sure you have your POWERED USB HUB plugged in and turned ON. Plug the USB Hard Drive into the powered USB hub, and connect to your computer. For some reason, SL would not be recognized on the USB Hard Drive unless it was powered. This may have just been peculiar to my choice of external HD, or my computer, but this helped solve connection problems since I was using a laptop. If you had a dedicated powered USB slot, you might not need this step.

7. Turn on the computer. Make sure all USB cords/sticks are unplugged, except for the USB HD. When the BIOS screen comes up, hit the F10 key or whatever it is on your computer to display the boot order. NEXT STEP!!!- EXTREMELY IMPORTANT- Replug the USB external HD cord. Hit your enter key, and Snow Leopard will load from your external HD by the Darwin Bootloader. PLUG your PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse into your powered HUB. Because of my particular laptop, or computer, the PCTOMAC would not work without external keyboard and mouse support. But, you will get quick disk access from your external HD, and the PCTOMAC will compute at good speed.

In my case, the external HD would not boot without re-plugging after the F10 Bios screen was brought up. Something to do with a slow revolution of the startup on the external HD which would not be read during the startup procedure. You can try it without the re-plugging, it might work with your machine or HD.

8. Go to System Preferences and change the power setting to NEVER SLEEP for screen and hard drive.

9. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT#2- DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT BOOT to Windows WITHOUT unplugging the external USB Snow Leopard Drive. Windows7, or probably other OS will corrupt the Drive, and the only solution is to reformat the drive and start from scratch. I had no luck using EasyBCD to boot Snow Leopard. It seems to be set up for the previous MBR installs with 10.4 and 10.5. Avoid this method unless you have more knowledge than I do.

10. Ethernet would work on my laptop with SL 10.6.3 and the RealTek 8101E Ethernet adaptor. But after updating software, and rebooting the PCTOMAC, the Ethernet stopped working. I updated by purchasing the Apple USB Ethernet adaptor, because in reading I discovered this device’s software is on every Mac, and would immediately connect, or through Network set-up in System Preferences. I downloaded Firefox 5, and it functioned better than Safari for some items.

11. I have yet to tinker with using the touchpad from the laptop, without the external USB keyboard and mouse. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT #3- Don’t forget to disconnect any USB devices other than the external USB HD when rebooting. I have yet to work out wireless options, and probably some task remain untried. My goal was to be able to run the iOS and Xcode SDK programs for mobile devices. Other than the Darwin boot loader, my PCTOMAC has been installed without post-installation procedures and Kexts. It acts like a nearly functional Mac with reasonable speed and appears to accept software updates freely.

 

I Googled a lot of work-arounds when experimenting with this installation plan. It was a month of work. This procedure loads and works for me every time. Hope it works for you.