Saturday, September 19, 2009

method for using USB Flash Drive or USB hard drive to install Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF 100% working

EDIT: I've finally been able to find a boot cd that works for installing Snow Leopard on my D945GCLF the new article can be found here

OK I’ve gotten Snow Leopard to install successfully on my D945GCLF Intel Atom hackintosh.
This method requires the following things.
1. A working Leopard install that you can use to prepare the USB device
2. a Retail Snow Leopard DVD
(yes you should actually buy Snow Leopard, dude it’s only $29 dollars unless you buy the family pack or the version that comes bundled with all the other software), and yes the $29 dollar disk is a honest to god full version install, not a upgrade or cpu drop-in disk)
3. a USB Flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size, or a USB Hard drive that you can dedicate to using as a installer
4. You’ll need the SL Macloader 0.4 software from here and the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file from here
follow the instructions found in this insanelymac forum post by MACinized
replace the kexts in the SL macboot kext folder with the ones from the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file from the first link.
use the DSDT.AML file that I have a link to in this post to get full video resolution and ability to have system go into full sleep mode.

using these instructions and files I was able to get snow leopard installed on my D945GCLF.
you will need these kexts to get the network card and sound working in Snow Leopard on the D945GCLF motherboard

The psystar Realtek R1000 kext file,The voodoohda sound driver kexts are in the kext_4_D945GCLF_USB_install.zip file these need to be installed using the included kext utility

you’ll need to copy any kexts that I have referenced to use after you have installed into /system/library/extensions then run kext utility which can be downloaded from here
After you have updated your kext files follow the instructions in the SL macboot folder for installing the boot loader but before you reboot replace the com.apple.boot.plist file in the /extras folder on your hard drive with the one from the /extras folder that is on your usb boot device that you used to install snow leopard. the file that the sl_macboot software creates is missing the kernel flag arch=i386 and this will cause a kernel panic for you when you reboot if you haven't done this.

You'll need to edit the com.apple.boot.plist file to set your screen resolution, as it will be stuck at 1024x768 otherwise.

You can fix the graphics issue by editing the com.apple.boot.plist file and adding the following into the file

key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>widthxheightxdepth</string>
replace width, and height, and depth with your preferred settings, just make sure your screen supports these settings.
for my system I’m running 1280x1024x32
I added these setting just before the timeout settings.
You’ll probably need to copy the file out of the extras folder to another location like your desktop, edit it with textedit then save the file then copy it back into the extras folder, the system will prompt you for your password as it needs root authentication to replace the file.
UPDATE:
using the DSDT.aml file that ugokind had uploaded in the file found in this post that is for a D945GCLF2 (has same bios as a D945GCLF board) I am now able to change my resolution under display settings in Snow Leopard. I didn’t need any of the other files so I am uploading just the DSDT.aml file here
just replace the DSDT.aml file in your Extras folder with this file after you have installed your boot loader from the SL macboot software before you reboot. After you reboot you should no longer be stuck at 1024x768 resolution and you should be able to change your resolution to higher settings. I am currently running my system at 1920x1080 which is the native resolution for my 24” LCD monitor
Thanks for the comments and feedback Tester, you helped steer me towards the missing pieces for the puzzle and I appreciate your feedback.
Sorry it took me so long to finally get these instructions up. I am finally finished up with my College Algebra Class (and I am proud of myself for passing and making a 83 in this class as I suck at math) so now I should have more time to devote to my hackintosh and getting Snow Leopard working 100 percent.
I hope these instructions help you with your quest to get Snow Leopard up and running. Good luck and most importantly have fun.
until my next post,
I remain your obedient servant,
Dr. Evil

25 comments:

tester said...

Hi, been following your progress the last few days. Thanks so much for the guide and info. I think I am now in the same position as you, I have sound using the AzaliaAudio kext found in other insanelymac forums for this board, by the way I have the Intel D945GCLF2D board. Basically the same I think. I have tried and done some searching but still no luck with the default screen size of 1024x768. What I tried resulted in kernal panics. DAMN. So I really hope you figure this out as my time has run out and work week ahead so wont be able to spend much time on this.

Once thing Snowleopard on the board does feel snappier, which is my whole reason for updating.

What is the Psystar RealtekR1000 kext driver for and where did you find it? Never saw this in your guide where to download. Is it needed, is it to do with TimeMachine maybe.

Thanks again for your help.

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

for the D945GCLF you need the Realtek R1000 kext file to get the network card working, for the D945GCLF2 I believe it has a different model that is natively supported. My original guide for installing Leopard used the D945GCLF2 driver package that someone put together, but it didn't include a network card driver so this is why I think the D945GCLF2 doesn't require extra kext files for it's network card

If your network card worked without any kext files needing to be added your card is probably natively supported. I'm not familiar with the D945CFLF2D board.

I wound up going with the voodooHDA kext to get my audio up and running, it works beautifully so far. I never could get more than the rear speaker jack working for the leopard kext file for audio in the d945gclf2 driver pack I linked to for my leopard install guide.

tester said...

Thank you for the feedback, your guide has been great, I am sure you spent many many hours, you are right I do not need the network driver.

I have been having some problems with my graphics which basically made the system unusable for me. Can you tell me if when you watch a movie with VLC you get the screen of death (Hold down restart button for 10 seconds). I also got it when testing screen savers, select a screen saver and then click test. System would freeze. I also changed the screen resolution like you said but my screen maxes out at 1680x1050 and even hard coding this in like you suggested resulted in better resolution but still a stretched out screen. So back to insanely mac I went and found this post:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=183637&view=findpost&p=1273154

I added this guys DSDT.aml to my snowleopard disk root and restarted and it works, you can now set all resolutions for the monitor I have and also no more system freezes when watching movie, playing with screen saver or anything else graphics related.

Also this DSDT seems to fix sleep problem I was having, as pc would not sleep, now it seems to be working.

Just wanted to let you know. I really want this to be a success as I can already see speed improvements most notably when scrolling through large PDF's, with Leopard my system used to be slow and laggy now there is no lag at all. I read lots of pdf's so this is great.

Another thing is youtube videos can now be watched in HQ, not as jumppy as in leopard. What surprised me was watching videos on CCN.com/video site was not possible in Leopard and now they work fine, amazing.

Anyway that's my 2cents. Cheers

Aaron said...

Thank you for the great post! I'm gonna swing by the Apple Store on my way home and snag SL. I've been waiting because I like to keep my Machine (2008 iMac) and my Wife's (D945GCLF Hackintosh) in sync. She's been having a few problems recently due to upgrade parity.

This post is seriously a life-saver (well, at least a life-make-easier)

Aaron said...

As this is where I found initial information about installing on this board, I thought I'd post some additional info here:

I did not generate a DSDT.aml on the machine that I was preparing the install-drive for, and it would not boot. (I was trying to use my iMac, which was building a DSDT from that.)

I got a DSDT from this post: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=183637&view=findpost&p=1259891

Which is for the D945GCLF2, but works fine for the single-core version.

I had troubles booting, which came down to the AppleIntelPIIXPATA extension. As I'm using a SATA drive, I disabled the IDE drives entirely. Not my first choice, but it's what allowed it to boot.

I hope that helps anyone having trouble as I was.

Pismo said...

awesome post. tried a couple of things which always ended up in kernelpanics. this guide helped me getting my d945gclf to work with SL. the only thing which just won't work is QE and CI with my geforce 6200 pci card. it works with 10.5.4 and natit dual kext. if i could get that card working with SL, it'd be the coolest multimedia system.
cheers for your effort

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

I never was able to get my PCI 8400 GS card to work with Leopard either. Good luck with your 6200. If you are able to get it working 100% and have a stable system let me know what you came up with. I might decide to give my 8400 GS pci card a try again.

Unknown said...

Thank You so much!! After one year on Leopard I was able to "Upgrade" to SL. I really love this little board.

One question, though: does sleep mode work for you? My machine insrantly wakes up. What Bios settings are you using?

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

Aaron,

I ran into that problem too, which is why I had to get a different AppleIntelPIIXPATA kext file that had been patched to fix the kernel panic that would happen when it saw the disabled secondary ide controller (the one that the bios has that doesn't have an actual port for on the motherboard). with that kext file it works with no problem and no need to disable the ide controllers. I upgraded my system and now I'm only using a SATA hard drive and a SATA DVD Burner but I wanted to be able to hook up IDE devices later on if I wanted to use them.

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

Frank,

I left the bios settings for power management at the default settings. with the DSDT.aml file I found I not only get full resolution settings for video, the system also has the ability to sleep. I wound up turning the power saving functions off in snow leopard though because when the system goes into a sleep mode I have to physically press the power button to get it to power back on and it takes it about a minute or so to fully come back up. I didn't want to have to wait that long so I just disabled sleep by setting it to never in the power management settings in snow leopard.

Harry McLaughlin said...

Cool! I'm gonna have to give this a shot on my D945GCLF2 system.

Thanks for making this guide- looks like a lot of time and effort.

Unknown said...

Thanks for your how to.
KEXTs.zip seems not to be avaliable anymore onto Mediafire.
Could someone upload it somewhare else.
Thanks everybody.
y.

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

Norda, I just checked it's still at http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=946d61084fc806611bee9a6e9edd9c76e04e75f6e8ebb871

Unknown said...

Yes, but, please try to download the KEXTs.zip,

it doesn't work.
Thanks

Unknown said...

Dear Doctor,

have you tried to fully download the KEXTs file?
Thanks

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

NORDA,

it looks like mediafire is having some issues. I am at work and don't have access to my files but I will try to find an alternate file sharing site I can upload this to. If you are a member over on the insanelymac.com forum use this link to download the kexts zip file. I uploaded it to the forum here
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=183751&view=findpost&p=1272456

the sl macboot software can be downloaded on the first post on the first page of that topic.

Unknown said...

Thank you,

you're my God!
y.

Unknown said...

hi doctor,
thanks for the post as i have been able to install snow leopard!! but i have a problem with booting. i get a kernel panic everytime i boot unless i boot with arch=i386..i cant get macloader to create the boot file for some reason. i also cant get my usb bluetooth dongle to work?? any ideas??? thank you

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

Hi Matthew,

If macloader isn't working for you, you may want to try using chameleon RC2 installer found at http://chameleon.osx86.hu/file_download/36/Chameleon-2.0-RC2-r640.pkg.zip

you'll need to replace the extensions in the /extra folder with the ones I provided in the kext.zip file and you'll need to manually edit the com.apple.boot file in this same folder and add the kernel option arch=i386

I don't have an answer for the bluetooth device question, you may need to ask about this over on the insanelymac.com forum. I don't have anything to use bluetooth for for my hackintosh system so I have not done anything to get it working for me.

Dids said...

Any ideas on what to do after updating SL and now getting constant reboots after the chameleon finishes booting?

Dids said...

My bad, had to use the russian kernel patch. Also noticed that hyperthreading works now. :)

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

Dids,

I'm sorry I hadn't published your prior comment until now. I've had a lot going on recently, lost my job, had a death in the family, etc. I'm glad to hear you were able to resolve your issue.

I'm currently working on a guide for installing Snow Leopard on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 using only PATA (ide) optical and hard drive, keep an eye out for this guide coming soon as I get all the kinks worked out.

Julie and Kirk said...

DR you are the man! I was killing myself trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot after following that guide. Found yours and it works, almost perfectly lol. I don't know if I misunderstood when you said replace your kexts with the ones in the guide on insanely mac. I deleted all of theirs and just installed yours.

The only thing I can't get working is sleep. Any ideas or bios settings that may need changed? Also have you gone to 10.6.2 yet?

Thanks in advance.

Zaiden said...

I have the exact same hardware configuration, but every time I use the DSDT found on InsanelyMac I end up with a completly white screen, with no mouse or anything... Everything else is working, but the video (btw, I couldn't get to download the KEXTs you uploaded because the mediafire link isn't working any more). Do yo know if there is any KEXT i'm missing or something like that?

Thanks a lot!

Doctor Evil 30564 said...

@Julie and Kirk

you might be able to get sleep to work by using a sleep enabler kext but I don't recommend it, I had that kext installed and it caused me to have problems after I installed the nawcom 10.2.0 patched kernel. once I removed sleepenabler.kext I was was able to boot into Snow Leopard again, and was able to update to 10.6.2 with no problems.

@Zaiden

I've just finished a guide for using the Empire EFI version 1.085 Boot CD to install Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF system. check this guide out. I just uploaded the needed DSDT.aml and kext files for this guide to my account so these shouldn't disappear like the others. here is the link http://doctorevil30564.blogspot.com/2010/02/guide-to-installing-osx-snow-leopard.html