Thursday, December 6, 2012

Hackintosh

Monday and Tuesday the PC parts from newegg.com arrived for the build to replace the 9 year old Dell 8300 Win XP computer--you can imagine how slow that computer was.  Based on recommendations on www.tonymacx86.com I got:
1 x ($289.99) Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770 
1 x ($179.99) GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard 
1 x ($99.99) PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III 600W Modular 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom 
1 x ($84.99) Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OEM 
1 x ($79.99) Thermaltake Level 10 Series Level 10 GTS Snow Edition White SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 
1 x ($52.99) CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 
1 x ($18.99) Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner, Bulk Package 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model AD-7280S-0B - OEM 
1 x ($0.00) Newegg Promotional Gift Card(The total amount of Gift Cards: $20.00)
Total cost: $821.37 with shipping.
I have a copy of Snow Leopard and Windows XP already.
Yesterday I spent all a.m. putting the parts together, figuring out where each wire went.  Then I filled out the rebate forms that eventually will net me $40.00.  I tried to install Windows XP, thinking I'd upgrade to Win 8 for $40.00 but the computer wouldn't finish--hardware is probably way too advanced and a web forum wizard said it's probably a 32 bit operating system OS.  I ordered Windows 8 for $99.99 from Newegg.

Then I tried to install Mac OSX, but the iboot disc I burned from tonymacx86.com didn't work b/c I didn't burn it properly.  I fit the definition of insanity according to Einstein--I tried many times to boot OSX without changing much at all.  I learned how to properly burn the image of a file to disk as required by the install procedure and can install Snow Leopard soon.

My call for help on the tonymac forum:
Flail me, I was thinking that I'd install my old copy of Windows XP first in my new GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H before installing OSX on another Hard drive. Little did I know that the computer would hang up in the install process. 

The computer doesn't recognize an iBoot disk. I am entirely unsure what settings in the bios (accessed with del key) gets the whole process to a virgin state. I think I need to call newegg or Gigabyte? Or does someone here know what to do? 

Yeah, I know I should have conducted a search to see if Windows xp would install. and Yeah, who'd want use the equivalent of an East German Trabant car when at least two operating systems are so much silkier?


Answered:
For BIOS, once in, hit function key for "Set Optimized Defaults, then make sure that the SATA ports are set to AHCI, High Precision Event Timer (HPET) is enabled is all you need to do for OS X.Why install WinXP? Planning to upgrade to Win8 cheap? Then do this before you even bother to install OS X. There are some problems involved with XP + OS X
1. WinXP and OS X will not share a drive anymore since OS X has to go on a GUID, HFS+ formatted drive and WinXP is strictly MBR formatting
2. XP will only install if the SATA ports are set to IDE, so you will need to slipstream AHCI the drivers during install (remember where it asks you to hit F6 to install third party drivers during the install process for XP?)
3. WinXP insists its drive must be first in boot order or it will not boot., so you have to put your /Extra folder in a small partition on the XP drive and also install the Chimera/Chameleon bootloader to the Xp drive.

Also, you probably have the 32bit version of XP. Therefore, due to Microsoft stupidity, you can only "upgrade" to Win8 32bit. If you want 64bit you have to get the Win8 builders edition for 99.99 

Me again:
Going Bald,
Yes, I was t
hinking cheap upgrade to Win 8, though the $60 premium over the upgrade cost doesn't pay for the frustration. 
Now back to mounting OSX. Using the GIGABYTE-UEFI DualBIOS:
Under the Save & Exit menu I highlighted and selected Yes for Load Optimized Defaults.
Under Power Management, High Precision Event Timing is/was Enabled
Under Peripherals, SATA Mode Selection is/was set at AHCI
Under BIOS Features, Boot option #1 was to PO: ST31000524AS which I assume is the hard drive settings. I changed that to P2: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7280S 
I then put my iboot disc in the cd writer.
I highlighted Save & Exit Setup under the Save and Exit menu, responded Yes to "Save configuration and reset?"

Result: The LED on the cd drive lights up, then: black screen with: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device and press a key"
then I tried with the Boot option #1 as the HDD and Boot Option 2 as the CD. No go.
my iboot disc details:
iboot.iso 24.3 mb
I downloaded iBoot-Ivy-Bridge-1.0.0.zip, opened it and burned iBoot-Ivy-Bridge.iso to a disc & again. no go. disc details essentially the same as iboot.disc.
Returning to the installation instructions http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/...c-os-x-on.html: I removed 4GB of RAM leaving only a 4GB module in memory slot 1. still no go.
Wondering if that black screen was the boot prompt in step "5 At boot prompt, eject iBoot" I went on to 6. "Insert your Mac OS X Snow Leopard Retail DVD and press F5" no go.
Other details: led monitor plugged into D-Sub; USB keyboard & mouse, no video card. My Snow Leopard disc patiently waiting. The computer loves the win XP disc; the disc drive starts spinning and claims it's installing, and the hard drive light blinks a lot, but I know it'll just crash again & since win 8 isn't prohibitively expensive, I stop xp.
I am certain I am screwing up in some small way. I cannot find ACPI suspend Type, nor eXtreme Hard Drive anywhere in the BIOS. It cannot be possible that this pc will only recognize a windows disc, could it? Or am I just too stupid to do this? How can I help you help me?

Me again:
Just what is supposed to be on the iboot discs? all I have is iboot.iso or iboot-ivy-bridge.iso with a size of 24.3 mb.

Going Bald:
When you open the iBoot cd in finder (or win explorer), what do you see? If you see a .iso file the disc is improperly burned for a boot disc.
What you should see is a file called iBoot-Ivy-Bridge-1.0.0-tonymacx86.com.txt
a folder called usr and a folder called Extra.
(this is assuming you are looking at the original version of iBoot-Ivy-Bridge)
Regardless of the name you should see a .txt file and the 2 folders.
If you don't see these folders the iBoot disk is improperly burned


Me again:
Hi Going Bald,
No matter how much I thank you, it's not enough. your explanation hit the nail where it counts: 

When you open the iBoot cd in finder (or win explorer), what do you see? If you see a .iso file the disc is improperly burned for a boot disc.What you should see is a file called iBoot-Ivy-Bridge-1.0.0-tonymacx86.com.txt
a folder called usr and a folder called Extra.
(this is assuming you are looking at the original version of iBoot-Ivy-Bridge)
Regardless of the name you should see a .txt file and the 2 folders.
If you don't see these folders the iBoot disk is improperly burned
I have only one file on my burned disks, iboot.iso on one and iboot-ivy-bridge.iso on the other; no folders. I have somehow missed disk image burning from K-12. I searched "how do I burn iboot to cd?" on the tonymac site & found a youtube link to a demo of imgburn--went to imgburn.com where I found a number of download "links" (to other software). After downloading something I didn't want, I carefully scrutinized the download links, & downloaded SetupImgBurn_2.5.7.0. I installed & ran imgburn then burned an image of the iso file to disk which contains the folders and files you outlined above.
Now, before I actually try this again, what method do you favor for a dual booting computer? Bootcamp/Parallels or second hard drive for 2nd os? Which os first? does it make a difference? 


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