Hackintosh 10.5.5 Retail Rig - Starting at $305

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leglez

Platinum Member
Nov 12, 2005
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I went ahead and got rid of the old install and am using the new one now. Now just the process of installing software. I also have Vista up and running on a separate drive. I think I might try out Chameleon tomorrow.
 

KeypoX

Diamond Member
Aug 31, 2003
3,655
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im running gtx 260 woot woot. Dual monitors, sleep, qe/ci res change. Restarts (sometimes :/)

should i switch the keys? The apple key to be control to be more windows like?
 

DWells55

Junior Member
Jan 3, 2008
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Kaido, any chance of updating the ES2L guide to use Chameleon 2.0 and EFI and install the custom kexts to the EFI partition? That seems to be the optimal way to run OS X from what I gather.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: DWells55
Kaido, any chance of updating the ES2L guide to use Chameleon 2.0 and EFI and install the custom kexts to the EFI partition? That seems to be the optimal way to run OS X from what I gather.

Nope. Chameleon 2.0 is still in beta, and I don't like installing to the EFI partition personally (you still have to install Audio & Networking kexts, and sometimes Video kexts, to SLE - might as well put the rest in /Extras so when you clone your drive you don't lose most of your drivers!). But you're free to give it a go yourself! :D
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: Zaap
Yeah, originally I had a 7300GT in this machine (P35-DS3L). I thought that might be the problem since that card had been setup using EFI strings, so I replaced the boot.plist with the backup. But it didn't make any difference. I finally got it working on two separate partitions, two installs, one with the altered boot.plist, and the other without. Both work. For me, it was just the simple port switch that seemed to do the magic.

Fully working!

DVI on the left, VGA on the right? I'll make a note of that...
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: leglez
Ok I got transfered from my DS3L to my UD3P, everything seems to be working right now. I installed the UD3P leopard on a new F1 hard drive, I still have my DS3L setup on my Raptor. Is there anyway I could install the kexts for the UD3P on the raptor and overright the DS3L kexts? That way I don't have to go about reinstalling all my software and everything?

FYI, any DS3L kexts that are different from the UD3P won't be overwritten.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: Zaap
Seems like a lot of hoop-jumping just to avoid a reinstall that takes what, 20-30 minutes? I know reinstalling apps can be a PITA, but at least you get the satisfaction of knowing for sure everything will work correctly. Also, I always recommend doing a backup install as well as a main install. Makes any kind of troubleshooting go 10x faster without any worry of borking the whole thing, as you always have a working backup to restore anything you screw up. (At one point trying to set up my XT2600 my screen went completely grey- I'd have been screwed if not for the second install. I just booted back into it, and undid the previous changes that borked the other install, and voila, back to pristine.*) It's more than worth a few GB of disk space.


*I should add, use one install to lable EVERY kext in the system folder of the other install. That way anything that gets added won't have a label- you know instantly what any installer has added and can undo any changes blindfolded.

Yeah, that's exactly the approach I recommend. I know it's a huge pain to re-install everything, but you KNOW that your system is 100% clean this way.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
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Originally posted by: Kaido
DVI on the left, VGA on the right? I'll make a note of that...

At work at the moment, but as I recall it was bottom of the card=VGA. Top=DVI.

I'll double-check when I get home.

Edit: Yup.
 

tbJohnson

Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
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Well, that was a waste of 3 days. Have a full retail off the shelf box of "Windows Vista Ultimate" I have a clean unformatted hard drive installed inside my tower and no other drives. I couldn't get either 32bit or 64bit vista to install properly. Waited 6 hours on the 64bit to install, then when it reboots it locks up at the cycdsk.sys. I will probably try windows 7, but that was a total joke and a total waste of time. My OSx86 took 30 min to install, and I can't even get a retail off the shelf $319.99 vista to work.. wow.
 

Zaap

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2008
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Eeesh. I'm no fan of Vista, but I never had problems like that with any version of it.

Definitely give Win7 a try. So far for me, it's been running smooth as glass on my systems- something I was never able to say about Vista. The changes are more than just cosmetic- there has to have been some serious code-bloat cleanup under the hood.
 

KeypoX

Diamond Member
Aug 31, 2003
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Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: DWells55
Kaido, any chance of updating the ES2L guide to use Chameleon 2.0 and EFI and install the custom kexts to the EFI partition? That seems to be the optimal way to run OS X from what I gather.

Nope. Chameleon 2.0 is still in beta, and I don't like installing to the EFI partition personally (you still have to install Audio & Networking kexts, and sometimes Video kexts, to SLE - might as well put the rest in /Extras so when you clone your drive you don't lose most of your drivers!). But you're free to give it a go yourself! :D

Ihave chemeleon installed, and i am also using the uinstaller for drivers. Im not able to follow kaidos guide right now because the retail disk wont install to the partitions i have setup for leopard. However ipc does, i install with no drivers (this is basically the same as retail?).

But i use the driver package from kaido. I do not know the implications of this, but do find that programs will become unresponsive pretty often. Once that happens the system basically becomes unresponsive. Not sure if this is due to my install method or not... seems to be mostly* vmware or crossover. Then spotlight goes, then system needs to be rebooted.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
50,949
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Originally posted by: KeypoX
Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: DWells55
Kaido, any chance of updating the ES2L guide to use Chameleon 2.0 and EFI and install the custom kexts to the EFI partition? That seems to be the optimal way to run OS X from what I gather.

Nope. Chameleon 2.0 is still in beta, and I don't like installing to the EFI partition personally (you still have to install Audio & Networking kexts, and sometimes Video kexts, to SLE - might as well put the rest in /Extras so when you clone your drive you don't lose most of your drivers!). But you're free to give it a go yourself! :D

Ihave chemeleon installed, and i am also using the uinstaller for drivers. Im not able to follow kaidos guide right now because the retail disk wont install to the partitions i have setup for leopard. However ipc does, i install with no drivers (this is basically the same as retail?).

But i use the driver package from kaido. I do not know the implications of this, but do find that programs will become unresponsive pretty often. Once that happens the system basically becomes unresponsive. Not sure if this is due to my install method or not... seems to be mostly* vmware or crossover. Then spotlight goes, then system needs to be rebooted.

It all boils down to having the right drivers for your motherboard and video card. It's just like Windows - if you install Nvidia drivers and have an ATI video card, your results won't be good! What problems were you having with my guide?

iPC simply hacks the retail disc by adding the bootloader to Leopard (instead of using a separate BootCD) and then bundles various drivers as options to install.
 

metzler555

Member
Apr 18, 2009
29
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0
I'm having another weird error here.. When I try to burn DVDs with my hackintosh, no matter what brand DVD I put in it says "files are too large for disk" and will not burn. Any help would be great. I'm using this DVD Drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136152

It reads perfectly fine. About this Mac says it can do all of the types of burning, but when I check info of the DISK it says "Burning Support: No" If anyone knows of any possible solutions I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks.
 

mosslack

Senior member
Nov 16, 2008
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Originally posted by: metzler555
I'm having another weird error here.. When I try to burn DVDs with my hackintosh, no matter what brand DVD I put in it says "files are too large for disk" and will not burn. Any help would be great. I'm using this DVD Drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136152

It reads perfectly fine. About this Mac says it can do all of the types of burning, but when I check info of the DISK it says "Burning Support: No" If anyone knows of any possible solutions I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks.

How are you trying to burn a disc, Finder, Toast, ??? If you aren't using a program like Toast, try downloading Burn, it's free, and see what it reports for burn support, etc. I have basically the same drive and mine works fine. If you have a version of Windows you can boot, does the burner work with it? That would be a clue as to whether the problem is with the drive or the OS. HTH

Burn website
 

tbJohnson

Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
16
0
0
So I have Windows 7 Installed now on another boot drive. So of course the PC_EFI v9 Chameleon Edition 1.0.12 boot loader doesn't see the Windows 7 drive. What do I need for the loader to see the Windows 7 Drive, if I install Chameleon 2, will my EFI String and my custom kext packages get erased or ruined? I am hoping I don't have to deal with that again.
 

metzler555

Member
Apr 18, 2009
29
0
0
Originally posted by: mosslack
Originally posted by: metzler555
I'm having another weird error here.. When I try to burn DVDs with my hackintosh, no matter what brand DVD I put in it says "files are too large for disk" and will not burn. Any help would be great. I'm using this DVD Drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136152

It reads perfectly fine. About this Mac says it can do all of the types of burning, but when I check info of the DISK it says "Burning Support: No" If anyone knows of any possible solutions I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks.

How are you trying to burn a disc, Finder, Toast, ??? If you aren't using a program like Toast, try downloading Burn, it's free, and see what it reports for burn support, etc. I have basically the same drive and mine works fine. If you have a version of Windows you can boot, does the burner work with it? That would be a clue as to whether the problem is with the drive or the OS. HTH

Burn website
t
I was using Disk Utility and Drop Burn. It works fine with my real Macbook Pro, but not at all with the hackintosh. I just did a fresh install and it still doesn't work. It tells me there is not enough space on the disk to burn the files, which is totally not true because I'm trying to burn a 5mb file onto both a single layer and dual layer dvd. Anyone else experience this with the drive I mentioned? Is it possibly my drive? Should I just buy another drive? I thought this one was compatible..
 

KeypoX

Diamond Member
Aug 31, 2003
3,655
0
71
Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: KeypoX
Originally posted by: Kaido
Originally posted by: DWells55
Kaido, any chance of updating the ES2L guide to use Chameleon 2.0 and EFI and install the custom kexts to the EFI partition? That seems to be the optimal way to run OS X from what I gather.

Nope. Chameleon 2.0 is still in beta, and I don't like installing to the EFI partition personally (you still have to install Audio & Networking kexts, and sometimes Video kexts, to SLE - might as well put the rest in /Extras so when you clone your drive you don't lose most of your drivers!). But you're free to give it a go yourself! :D

Ihave chemeleon installed, and i am also using the uinstaller for drivers. Im not able to follow kaidos guide right now because the retail disk wont install to the partitions i have setup for leopard. However ipc does, i install with no drivers (this is basically the same as retail?).

But i use the driver package from kaido. I do not know the implications of this, but do find that programs will become unresponsive pretty often. Once that happens the system basically becomes unresponsive. Not sure if this is due to my install method or not... seems to be mostly* vmware or crossover. Then spotlight goes, then system needs to be rebooted.

It all boils down to having the right drivers for your motherboard and video card. It's just like Windows - if you install Nvidia drivers and have an ATI video card, your results won't be good! What problems were you having with my guide?

iPC simply hacks the retail disc by adding the bootloader to Leopard (instead of using a separate BootCD) and then bundles various drivers as options to install.

The only issues im having with following your retail guide is that the retail disk, has a big red arrow on the partitions that are formatted for mac.
Now I could fix this by repartitioning the whole drive but right now that is not going to happen.

BTW: I create my partition via windows diskpart wit hte command create partition size=x id=af.
 

mosslack

Senior member
Nov 16, 2008
902
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hq-a.weebly.com
Originally posted by: tbJohnson
So I have Windows 7 Installed now on another boot drive. So of course the PC_EFI v9 Chameleon Edition 1.0.12 boot loader doesn't see the Windows 7 drive. What do I need for the loader to see the Windows 7 Drive, if I install Chameleon 2, will my EFI String and my custom kext packages get erased or ruined? I am hoping I don't have to deal with that again.

As Zaap said, Chameleon 2 won't boot Win 7 unless you use a Vista bootloader on the Win 7 drive. I think in your case you might be better off using the Gigabyte F12 boot option instead. HTH
 

metzler555

Member
Apr 18, 2009
29
0
0
Originally posted by: metzler555
Originally posted by: mosslack
Originally posted by: metzler555
I'm having another weird error here.. When I try to burn DVDs with my hackintosh, no matter what brand DVD I put in it says "files are too large for disk" and will not burn. Any help would be great. I'm using this DVD Drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16827136152

It reads perfectly fine. About this Mac says it can do all of the types of burning, but when I check info of the DISK it says "Burning Support: No" If anyone knows of any possible solutions I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks.

How are you trying to burn a disc, Finder, Toast, ??? If you aren't using a program like Toast, try downloading Burn, it's free, and see what it reports for burn support, etc. I have basically the same drive and mine works fine. If you have a version of Windows you can boot, does the burner work with it? That would be a clue as to whether the problem is with the drive or the OS. HTH

Burn website
t
I was using Disk Utility and Drop Burn. It works fine with my real Macbook Pro, but not at all with the hackintosh. I just did a fresh install and it still doesn't work. It tells me there is not enough space on the disk to burn the files, which is totally not true because I'm trying to burn a 5mb file onto both a single layer and dual layer dvd. Anyone else experience this with the drive I mentioned? Is it possibly my drive? Should I just buy another drive? I thought this one was compatible..

So I feel sort of dumb for not searching further, but I found from the Newegg reviews that this drive will not burn with disk utility, but burns fine with toast... I am still thinking I would like some better mac compatibility than this, does anyone have a suggestion?
 

tbJohnson

Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
16
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0
So I got the Vista Bootloader installed via EasyBCD. I was hoping EasyBCD would let me boot into OSx86 on my other drive, but it couldn't. I kept getting "chain booting error"

So can I get EasyBCD or the Vista Bootloader to boot into the other drive?
 

mosslack

Senior member
Nov 16, 2008
902
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Originally posted by: tbJohnson
So I got the Vista Bootloader installed via EasyBCD. I was hoping EasyBCD would let me boot into OSx86 on my other drive, but it couldn't. I kept getting "chain booting error"

So can I get EasyBCD or the Vista Bootloader to boot into the other drive?

I'm not sure, I've never tried that, but if you have Win 7 booting via the Vista bootloader you can now use Chameleon 2 to boot both operating systems. Install it on your Mac OS X drive, make sure the boot priority in BIOS is set to boot that drive first.

When it starts, you should see 2 Windows NTFS drives (one is the Vista bootloader, one is the Win 7 drive). The only one that will boot is the Vista bootloader, but it will boot Win 7 and all will be well with the world. I simply renamed my Win 7 HD a different name so I could tell it apart from the Vista bootloader at the Chameleon prompt.

One last thing, when Chameleon starts it will only show the OS X drive, you have to press a key to see the other drives. This can be changed in the Chameleon options if you want so that all drives will appear by default. HTH
 

tbJohnson

Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
16
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Hey Mosslack, so I if I screw something up I can still recover using my BOOT-123 disk? So, I can just install the .PKG of Cameleon2, the file I have is "Chameleon-2.0-r431.pkg" its about 1.4mb. I don't have to deal with any .kext or EFI because it doesn't screw up any of my Uinstaller, that is my hope. Sorry if I am being paranoid, I just have a working station right now and I don't want to screw it up..

Thanks!!
 

mosslack

Senior member
Nov 16, 2008
902
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hq-a.weebly.com
Originally posted by: tbJohnson
Hey Mosslack, so I if I screw something up I can still recover using my BOOT-123 disk? So, I can just install the .PKG of Cameleon2, the file I have is "Chameleon-2.0-r431.pkg" its about 1.4mb. I don't have to deal with any .kext or EFI because it doesn't screw up any of my Uinstaller, that is my hope. Sorry if I am being paranoid, I just have a working station right now and I don't want to screw it up..

Thanks!!

I understand, but installing the new Chameleon is really painless. As I said, it will just take the place of your current version of Chameleon and that's about it. Of course you can always do a backup of your current install just to be safe, but as you mentioned, you should always be able to boot with the Boot 132 CD should anything go wrong. HTH
 

tbJohnson

Junior Member
Jun 13, 2009
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mosslack, it worked. I was able to boot into Win7. Now I just need to get my station running properly. I was hoping to be able to use the Gigabyte EasyTune 6 to optimize my system, but it won't work in Win7 64bit. I have memory that is 1066 Mhz, but only showing up as 800Mhz in OSx. I was hoping I would be able to get this memory to 1066Hmz. Would you know the settings for UD3P and Q8300 to be able to get my mem faster? Did you use the EasyTune6 to optimize your EP45-UD3P?

Thanks Again!!
 

mosslack

Senior member
Nov 16, 2008
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hq-a.weebly.com
Originally posted by: tbJohnson
mosslack, it worked. I was able to boot into Win7. Now I just need to get my station running properly. I was hoping to be able to use the Gigabyte EasyTune 6 to optimize my system, but it won't work in Win7 64bit. I have memory that is 1066 Mhz, but only showing up as 800Mhz in OSx. I was hoping I would be able to get this memory to 1066Hmz. Would you know the settings for UD3P and Q8300 to be able to get my mem faster? Did you use the EasyTune6 to optimize your EP45-UD3P?

Thanks Again!!

No, I'm not much on tweaking, I just usually leave the defaults as they are. Kaido and Zaap are both good at such things. BTW, I just stuck my WIn 7 HD back into the HD dock on my UD3P and now it is not working at all. Not sure what the problem might be, but do be careful. My OS X drive is fine.

I just did some more testing on the drive and I think it is just dead. I used this drive to install Win 7 on and it worked fine for awhile, but something killed it. Of course it's a WD drive so it may have just died on it's own. :thumbsdown:

I now have it installed once again on a better HD and all seems to be working just fine. I have an OS X HD, Vista HD and Win 7 HD on my UD3P and Chameleon will boot into each system just fine.
 
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