S10-3 Snow Leopard tutorial (alternate method)

[five12plus]

Also on a side note, since five12plus brought it up, if anyone is going to be installing multiple OSes always go with Windows first -- Vista and Windows 7 absolutely first as the boot manager doesn't get installed if you install XP first. Linux next and OSX at the end just so Chameleon gets control over the partitions properly and can boot up right.

Just a note on multibooting the three OS's. I had to use gptsync, because I'm running 32-bit Windows 7 (Starter, because it's licensed by default), and it won't run on a GPT disk. gptsync copies the gpt info to the mbr to keep Windows happy; you end up with a hybrid GPT/MBR config. I don't think this would be an issue if you're running 64-bit Windows, although I expect that performance for 64-bit Windows on the S10-3 would not be great. The gptsync command was run from within Ubuntu, and the actual command was

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gptsync /dev/sda

I installed using the instructions here: http://osx86sv.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/chameleon-triple-boot-hackintosh/, except that I installed grub directly to the ext4 partition during the install which meant that step 10 was not necessary. The command in step 11 is incomplete... gptsync requires a target as noted above. I didn't understand this when I was first installing, and so continued to Step 12 without having executed gptsync.

Step 12, executing NBI, hosed grub. After completing the three OS installs, without gptsync, OSX and Windows loaded, but Ubuntu did not; it booted to a grub-repair prompt. I then ran the Ubuntu liveCD and renamed the ext4 partition to get the partition table to rewrite, and then OSX would boot and Ubuntu would boot, but Windows would not, claiming it would not run on a GPT disk. I then booted into Ubuntu and ran gptsync as noted above and then all three would boot.

[lukolh]

Hi, I have been following the discussions and instructions in this forum for quite some time. I have this peculiar problem. The boot loader just wont detect the usb drive where i got the patched OSX (10.6.5) although it detects all the hard drives partitions (all NTFS). Pressing F8 doesnt work. Any ideas? ( I am using the fixed NBI given in the link). I am not too keen on installing Linux now. I am using s10-3 N450 with the latest bios running win 7 starter.

[five12plus]

@lukolh So you're saying that the bootloader on the fixed NBI USB doesn't find the USB containing your OSX install? The most likely culprit is that there's something wrong with your OSX install USB, since your fixed NBI USB seems to be fine if you are seeing the Chameleon menu showing your NTFS partitions. Also, if you hit F2 during boot and look at the Boot tab, make sure that none of the USB devices are disabled. When you hit F12 during POST, do you see both USB keys in the menu?

[lukolh]

Both the usb drives are showing on both F2 and F12. Still the same problem. Is there by any chance that an OSX dmg file can get "damaged" by expanding it too many times? Anyway, i'm formatting my usb drive again with the expanded OSX right now. Will try again and let you know. By the way, my expanded OSX 10.6.5 is 6.77GB without the patches. Hope it is the right size.

[lukolh]

Still no luck. Same problem as before. I copied the Netbook Installer 0.8.5pre directory inside Applications/Utilities and used the MenuAdditions.plist from the S10-3 SL Disc patch.zip to replace the existing file in System/Installation/CDIS/Mac OS X Installer.app/Contnts/Resources/InstallerMenuAdditionss.plist. Hope i'm doing it right. Is there any way i can check if my USB drive or my OSX image file is bootable? I dont have any access to mac computers.

[treyjazz]

Follow this tutorial on how to make your USB drive into a Win98 boot disk.

[lukolh]

I can boot linux mint using the same usb drive. So am i missing a step somewhere in the OSX usb disk creating process? I'm a total newbie here

[treyjazz]

Are you using a second USB drive to boot up from (the fixed NBI image)? I think this is the crucial point you missed.

[lukolh]

I am using a 4gb kingston usb drive for the fixed NBI and a 8gb kingston drive for the patched OSX. The NBI seems to be working fine as it shows up on the screen with all my hard drive partitions. The thing is, right after selecting the 4gb drive (fixed NBI), I pressed the F8 button. But the bootloader continues to show only the ntfs partitions on my hard drive. Please let me recap the process I followed:
For the 4gb usb drive:
1. In Transmac, I right-clicked on theusb drive and chose "format disc with image" option.
2. Then I used the "NBI_083F-fixed.img" in the unzipped NBI folder to format the usb drive. (.img size 50mb)
For the 8gb usb drive:
1. I expanded my OSX image file in Transmac and saved it as "OSXInstall.dmg". The OSX size now becomes 6.77gb.(OSX 10.6.5)
2. I right-clicked on the usb drive and chose "format with disc image" and then chose "OSXInstall.dmg".
3. Using Transmac, I navigated to Applications>Utilities folder in the usb drive and right-clicked here.
4. Using the "Copy here" option, I copied the NetbookInstaller 0.8.5pre.app folder(71mb) from the unzipped S10-3 SL Disc patch folder.
5. I followed the same process as above in the System folder and replaced the existing InstallerMenuAdditions.plist (1kb) with the one present in the unzipped patch folder (2kb).

Next, I checked in the BIOS to make sure that both the usb drives are showing in the boot device options.

Finally, right after choosing the 4gb usb drive to boot from, I pressed F8 before the bootloader shows up.

This is where the patched OSX fails to show up as a boot option.

P.S: If it will be of any help, after my hard drive partitions are shown on the bootloader (with Windows logos and all), and I choose my C drive, it fails to boot at least once or twice saying "can't find mach-kernel". Only in the third or fouth instance, I can boot into Windows 7.

[five12plus]

I think your fixed NBI USB is fine or you wouldn't be seeing the boot menu. F8 won't do anything... it's to display the menu if it's configured to autoboot without displaying the menu, but you're already at the menu.

The issue is definitely with the SL install USB. Are you sure of the integrity of your OS X SL install DVD that you're using to create the dmg? My install DVD has 10.6.0, so I guess your 10.6.5 DVD must be newer.