s-anarchy Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Hello forum hackintosh users, I come seeking help (but then again so does most everyone). I've googled a lot, searched the forums a lot, and reinstalled / modified boot partitions, and reinstalled a _lot_. Here's the specs of my system that are most relevant I think: AMD 64 X2 3800+ 80 GB IDE HDD (I also used a SATA drive at one point, but decided to install that in my Mac Pro as it didn't seem to matter which HDD I was using) 2GB RAM Built-in nVidia graphics The install image I am using is the 10.5.1 Zephyroth image from the typical torrent sites. As an extra bonus, I actually have a Leopard family pack with a spare license that I'm not using. I have installed Tiger on an older system before (it was also an AMD system) but that was a good year and a half to two years ago so I haven't played with hackintosh systems in quite some time. Now to the fun part, I am able to boot to the installer, partition my hard drive (entirely) as either GUID or MBR (I've tried both) and the install completes all the way. If I let the installer finish and then reboot the system I get the blinking underscore. If I leave the DVD in and reboot the system it freezes on a networking line or a little bit later than that. If I try to use fdisk to boot to certain partitions I get varying mileage depending upon if I'm using GUID or MBR for my HDD. So, since I've got no data on this system and I really would like to get the most _simple_ install working, I'm open to suggestions. What is the best way to install OS X 10.5.1 from zephyroth (or another image if it can be found but I've seen lots of kudos to the zephyroth image) on an AMD system. Should I be using MBR / GUID to partition my primary drive? Do I need anything in addition to the zephyroth install (an EFI install of some kind on a thumb drive, etc?) Once I've installed using either your recommendation of MBR / GUID which partition should I be setting as active to boot from and should I leave the DVD in or not to get the boot to actually work? Open to any suggestions or walkthrough pointers because I'm out of ideas after several days of non-stop playing with this and I have no clue where else to look / what else to do. Sorry to be such a leech, S-Anarchy Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85974-i-know-this-is-out-there-somewhere-but-i-cant-find-it-for-the-life-of-me-pointers-appreciated/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgsheen Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 If I let the installer finish and then reboot the system I get the blinking underscore. Yup, not bootloader gets installed. You have to do it manually. Doesn't matter MBR or GUID - you still have to do it manually. As to which? I have 2 MBR installs & 1 GUID install ("2nd Zephyroth") - all 3 work well. You know which drive number AND partiton number your Leo install is on? (the instructions below assume d0s1 (drive zero, partition one) Boot from the Install DVD, Press F8 at the prompt type -s and hit Enter - this boots into "single user" mode. some stuff will happen ending at a command prompt type the lines below ending each by hitting Enter: fdisk - e /dev/rdisk0 (if your drive ISN'T 0, put the proper number after "rdisk") update f 1 (if your partition ISN'T 1, us the correct number (ya, SPACE between f and the number)) w q reboot That should make the HD bootable. Now we need to know what kind of an ethernet adapter you have (wired) AND if it's a laptop, what the wireless chipset is. Why? The first time you boot into OS X, it does an Initial setup and account creation. It REALLY wants an Internet connection (it EXPECTS an Internet connection since all REAL Macs have a working LAN adapter and/or "Airport" card...). If your LAN adapters aren't fully supported by OS X, you'll likely have problems with account creation. (That = bad = hang and/or loop = complete erase and/or re-partition and re-install) If you're not sure, disable ALL your networking devices in the BIOS or however else you need to. Reboot, press any key at the "countdown" type -x at the prompt to boot into "safe Mode" that'll get you past the GeForce related "kernel panic" Unless you've got an actual Mac keyboard, the first thing you'll see is "we need to identify your keyboard". (did I mention yet that you need a USB keyboard and mouse? Nope, a PS2 keyboard or mouse won't work after the initial boot screen (not without extraordinary steps anyway - trust me, USB keyboard and mouse, at least until you get into the OS X Desktop without problem) After you go through the "keyboard recognition", it'll ask where you are, if you have an Apple ID (like for .Mac or the iTunes Store), and then whether you are able to transfer an existing User Account from another computer, backup, or etc... If you have an actual working LAN Adapter and connection to the Internet, this is smooth sailing. It will get all your user information from your Apple ID or let you enter your name, address, and etc. and create a user account on your new install. It'll try to sell you .Mac for a couple of screens, tell you all the cool stuff you can do with your new Hackintosh, THEN it'll let you actually see the desktop. If you don't have a supported LAN Adapter, I warned you... Check out possible solutions at the Zephyroth Wiki (lots of good stuff there!): http://osx86.wikidot.com/known-issues#toc9 You can try them all, something may work for you. When (or if) you make it past account creation and into the OS X Desktop: Use Finder - navigate through / System / Library / Extensions. In the Extensions Folder, you need to delete all the nvidia geforce related .kext files to get rid of the nasty "kernel panic" issue. Find the 6-8 files that start with "GeForce" and move them all to the Trash. Do the same with the 5-7 files that start with "NVD" (or maybe just "NV". EMPTY the Trash Bin to delete all those files. You can now restart the computer and have it boot normally. Once it's back up, you can go about finding out if there's any other hardware that need drivers (.kext) or special help. Then you can search here and find out how someone else got that piece of hardware running on their machine... Good Luck! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85974-i-know-this-is-out-there-somewhere-but-i-cant-find-it-for-the-life-of-me-pointers-appreciated/#findComment-610283 Share on other sites More sharing options...
s-anarchy Posted February 6, 2008 Author Share Posted February 6, 2008 cgsheen: Thanks for your reply. Here's what I hae so far as far as an update / progress goes: Alright so I took a picture of my: $ diskutils list command results quickly for convenience sake and have attached it: I then tried the following commands and got the following results: fdisk -e /dev/rdisk 0 update f 2 w q Result: b0 error fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 update f 1 w q result: _ (the blinking cursor we all know too well) Both results above are with the DVD out obviously, with either of the above if I left the DVD in and pressed nothing I get '/com.Apple.boot.plist' not found (not sure on case sensitivity but you all probably know the error I'm referencing). Anyway, I'm kind of at a loss where to go from here since I thought it was intially a partition error but now I'm thinking I may just have some kind of compatibility issue since I'm pretty sure I've used fdisk properly to set the correct partition as active (I've done this a lot with my Linux days as well as when I used to dual-boot Linux and Windows... I try not to remember those times). As to your other items, I haven't gotten far enough to have to worry about any of them yet but here's the hardware details related to your comments: I actually do have an Apple keyboard and mouse (yeah, I upgraded to the new skinny aluminum one so now I've got an extra for this system). I have wireless in this desktop tower right now; however, I bought a $35 D-Link ethernet card that was on the HCL for the osX86 wiki iirc for Tiger a year or so ago and I'm assuming I can dig that up and use it to connect into my router with a CAT5 cable if needed. I'm open to any other ideas you guys may have currently. I'm thinking I may be better off playing with Tiger 10.4.8 for now if I can get that to work. I just think this stupid HP desktop (a1600n) hates me and my Apple love right now Thanks again for all your help / pointers, S-Anarchy Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85974-i-know-this-is-out-there-somewhere-but-i-cant-find-it-for-the-life-of-me-pointers-appreciated/#findComment-610791 Share on other sites More sharing options...
s-anarchy Posted February 6, 2008 Author Share Posted February 6, 2008 Just as an update, I'm getting 10.4.8 (JAS AMD/Intel SSE2/SSE3 PPF1&PPF2) to install beautifully onto this system (minus basic driver issues). I also tried another approach I read about of using Tiger to format the partition to HFS+ Extended Journaling and then install Leopard onto the clean partition from Tiger which makes that partition bootable while Leopard's installer doesn't. After formatting with 10.4.8 and installing with 10.5.1 (Zephyroth) I get the b0 error which still saved a lot of time and work over all the attempts I've done before but makes me think this Leopard install just isn't liking my hardware. Let me know if you guys have any clues on "b0 error" fixes / debugging. Thanks, S-Anarchy Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/85974-i-know-this-is-out-there-somewhere-but-i-cant-find-it-for-the-life-of-me-pointers-appreciated/#findComment-611329 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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