James Drake Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 hi, initial testing shows that my backup system does not work for hackintosh! what i normally do is create disk images of a boot drive at various stages of installation. then i can restore this image back to the boot drive whenever i want to 'turn back time'. however, first time i tried this it didn't work, maybe because chameleon doesn't survive this process? any suggestions to keep my workflow on hackintosh? thanks, james. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Run chameleon from a USB flash drive, CD or a different hard drive than the one you're working with. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1769893 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 11, 2011 Author Share Posted November 11, 2011 what, you mean i should have a separate drive just to run chameleon, and just keep my system drives as per normal? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1769931 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 Yes, why not? Use one of your motherboard's internal USB headers, leave a USB flash drive with Chameleon on it permanently plugged in inside your PC case. Tape or glue it to the side and forget about it. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1769953 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 ok, not a bad idea. and then the extra things for the installation, like the boot settings and kexts etc, can they go on this usb stick as well? this would be a cool thing for this: http://www.atpinc.com/p2-4a.php?sn=00000533 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770022 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 i have just tried this and it works 100%. Format a fresh USB stick, 1 partition, GUID, HFS+. Run the chameleon installer and choose this USB stick with default options. Then copy the extra folder from my already working 10.6.8 install to the root of this USB stick. then take a fresh sata drive and restore to it a dmg of a 10.6.8 installation i made simply by running the 10.6.3 dvd and the 10.6.8 v1.1 combo updater on a macbook pro. so the drive is 100% vanilla from a mac install and i have the usb stick to boot the machine and to hold the fakesmc and nullcpu kexts! i think i just may get one of these 'nano' usb sticks: http://www.delock.com/produkte/index.html?...=Speichermodule then this can just sit in one of the usb holes on the back and i'll never notice! my sata drives now fit with my existing workflow for backups and system images etc.. 1 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770115 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 Nice this would be a cool thing for this:http://www.atpinc.com/p2-4a.php?sn=00000533 That will work (I love it) but it's a bit overspecced and probably expensive as hell! If you'd like it to be tucked away inside your PC case just use any old USB thumb drive and something like this: http://www.frontx.com/pro/c532_012.html Those nano sticks are great for this too. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770116 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 yeah, there are a bunch of solutions for the USB thing, all cool. one thing, is there a way to 'hide' this usb bootloader from mac os? like ejecting the drive once you get to the desktop? or does it need to stay mounted? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770118 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 ok, i've seen this: http://onefallinghope.com/2009/12/27/hidin...nd-snow-leopard but you still see the usb stick in disk utility. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770136 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I don't think there's an easy way to hide a connected drive from Disk Utility. Maybe you can cook up a script that loads on startup (login items) and unmounts the flash drive. It should unmount by drive GUID or drive label if possible, as you probably know disk numbers are terribly inconsistent on hackintoshes. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770144 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 what happens if you unmount the bootloader after you reach the desktop? i guess it has done it's work and no longer needed? or there still may be references to the kexts? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770146 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 That's right, nothing happens. People have been using Chameleon installed to the EFI partition on GUID drives for years, since before Chameleon existed. The EFI partition is not mounted. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770147 Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Drake Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 is it possible to make the usb drive have only an EFI partition? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770151 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 That's a backwards way to get what you want and it would not be any different than having Chameleon installed to any other type of partition. If you format the flash drive as GUID you will not see its EFI partition in Disk Utility but you will still see the volume itself as with any other attached drive. So that doesn't change anything. I guess the ideal solution for you would be a script that ejects the flash drive once you're done booting. This will eliminate all traces of it until you either reboot or unplug and plug it back in. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/271996-maintaining-backups-with-chameleon/#findComment-1770217 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts