Tiny tiny question(s)

[KroeT]

Hi there,

 

I have some big plans, but I'll give you my situation first:

 

System:

- Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R

- Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)

- 4 GB RAM

- Seagate ST3320620AS (SATA 320 GB)

- Soon to arrive: Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H (Radeon HD 2600 XT PCI-E)

- Two DVD player/writers. IDE (which is important, so I've heard)

 

I'm running Windows XP (32 bit version), and the world is nice to me. However, I imagine the world will like me even more when I have installed Leopard. Which is why I've been wandering around on this forum for a few days now. I've read just about all my tiny brain can handle, and I've devised the following steps.

 

The Leopard Perfect Install thread

 

Well, that's only one step. But I do have some questions, and since the questions are not just about the above mentioned thread, here goes:

 

- The thread mentions the EFI-patch, but I've read in another thread that XP32 does not support EFI. How does this change my approach to the problem? (This nice EFI-patch mentions my HD 2600 XT as being natively supported though, so it would be nice)

- I have two versions of Leopard, a Kalyway 9a527 and something called a Nextract version. I also have, of course , the original Leo cd and the Brazilmac patch, but my original Mac just broke down. This is why I can't patch it, and therefore I have to temporarily rely on an iso that's been patched by someone else.

- I do not want to lose any files. I will make backups, of course, but I want to create a new partition on my main drive to install Leo on. This being said, I want to create a dual-boot situation. I'm not sure if I can use Guide+Support; to installing EFI v8+ dual booting, because of the whole EFI/XP 32bits version thing.

- I think I need [Official] P35 / ICH9 / ICH9R, Support for the latest Intel chipset. Looks very handy, because of my IDE dvd drives, but it talks about the Leopard ToH DVD. I have a large amount of Leopard DVDs, as mentioned above, but ToH? Please do not consider this a question of where to find it, what I mean is: does it matter? Can I use the Kalyway version as well?

- I've read in this thread that the Kalyway version does contain SATA drivers for a motherboard, but I'm not sure if it contains the ones for me. Are they?

- What's the Vanilla kernel?

- What is ToH?

 

 

 

What I've done so far: I've installed 10.4.8 (JaS version) on VMWare, following instructions on this forum, and it's very nice. And slow, but that's just the way it's supposed to be in VMWare. I've created a folder containing the files mentioned in the Perfect Install thread, excluding the Brazilmac image.

I've read all threads in the first 5 pages on every subforum, but there's so much information and my brain can only contain half of it.

 

What I'll do:

- I'll use Partition Magic or something like that to split my HD into two partitions, 50GB for OSX and 270 for XP.

- I'll follow the Leopard Perfect Install thread's steps, adding the hopefully arriving answers to the questions above into the process.

 

If someone could take a look at my questions, I'd be very happy. I might even start jumping in circles, eating copious amounts of chocolate, but no guarantees.

[smorf]

hi there,

 

here are the answers i can provide:

 

"that XP32 does not support EFI." indeed, but there are ways to get it running anyway. i for myself (and i really recommend that) installed osx with pc_efi an a seperate drive. e.g.: my system boots the mbr of my linux & windoze partition, i have grub installed in the mbr and as an option in grub i can boot the second drive with pc-efi. i also read that the newer versions ob pc efi natively support dualbooting... so maybe someone has already solved that in another way and may give hints....

 

"and therefore I have to temporarily rely on an iso that's been patched by someone else." this points to one of your next questions: "What is ToH?" toh is the first leopard release with a lot of modifications that may make your life easier. you may want to give it a try, i did it that way: i used the kalyway boot prepare cd mentioned in the "leopard perfect install" thread to make my drive bootable, installed ToH and restored the original kernel etc. like in that thread, and installed pc efi. however, the brazilmac patched dvd did not work for me.

 

this points me to the next question: "What's the Vanilla kernel?" it´s the original apple kernel. with pc efi you emulate more or less a real mac environment, this makes it possible to run osx without a modified kernel. you can even use the apple software update, which worked good for me. if you run on intel platforms this might work for you too.

 

good luck with your try!

[stationapollo]

my patch (ich9) is supported by any version of leopard and tiger.

[KroeT]

@smorf:

 

Thanks, great answers there. Relating to your first answer: I have two harddrives, one containing XP and one empty SATA drive. If I disconnect the first one and mess about with installing OSX on the second, is it possible to move the entire OSX install to a new partition on the first drive later on? That way I could mess with OSX without destroying anything on my XP installation, and when everything works I can just move everything. The second drive is breaking down, so I can't use it forever.

 

I think I'll follow the steps you've followed, I'll give it a try this sunday.

 

@stationapollo: thanks, I'll use it

 

I've found the ToH dvd, so weeee