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myHack Installer Guide rev.9

Last Updated: 2010/03/04

Preface:

The myHack installation package aids in the installation of a retail OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” operating system on PC’s. It is designed to save time by simplifying most of the installation process. However, It is NOT a replacement for the human brain and is not intended as a 1-click solution to install OS X 10.6 on PC. Such “1-click install solutions” ultimately fail (just like “OSx86 Distros”) because they do not educate the end users as to why something is done, how something is done and where something is done. They create more problems than they solve. Even if they appear to ‘work’ for a time they are not optimized for your individual system. When you run into a problem in the future, which you will, it will be difficult or impossible to correct the problem without knowing exactly what has been modified on your system (which you won’t know since you used some auto-patching fail-ware). I encounter people suffering from these problems each and every day who are guided back into the light by the myHack installer.

This guide is not intended as an all-inclusive how-to for running snow leopard on your PC. It is intended as a simplified method which focuses on how to get up and running with Snow Leopard quickly and easily utilizing the myHack Installer and will cover basic concepts including but not limited to hardware selection, kexts, permissions, etc in simplest terms. I will continue to update this guide and my ultimate goal is to provide more detailed and complete information to help you turn your working myHack foundation into a flawless hackint0sh.

This guide is by no means finished, consider this an active work in progress.

Basic Requirements:

myHack Installer 1.0
OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” Retail DVD
USB External Hard Drive or Flash Drive w/ at least 8GB of space.

A system capable of running a “vanilla” OS X kernel… Including but not limited to the following:

Recommended systems known to work very well : Budget Build | Enthusiast Build | Professional Build

You will also need access to a system that is currently running OS X 10.4 or above (Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard) to prepare your USB installation device.

Note: There is a “chocolate kernel” option which is capable of running OS X 10.6 (with some limitations) on legacy Intel, AMD & Intel i5 processors. I added this feature to extend limited support to these non-vanilla installs but I do not suggest or support these kinds of systems! In other words it is there if you need it but please don’t ask me for help with any system other than the recommended “vanilla” hardware I have listed above! I do not have the experience necessary to adequately assist people with legacy Intel, AMD or i5 processors, ATI graphics, non-intel chipsets, etc. However, there are many other individuals in the community that are willing and capable of assisting you with any questions you may have.

Section 1 : Basic Installation Instructions

Step 1 – Prepare USB Drive

Partition and format USB device using either MBR or GUID partition scheme in disk utility. I personally recommend MBR – I prefer MBR for legacy OS compatibility on dual/tri/quad boots & because I am more familiar with the functionality of MBR partition schemes and how to work with them.

Restore OS X Install DVD to USB using disk utility.

Run myHack installer and install it to the USB drive you just prepared (Make sure you are selecting the USB drive by pressing the “Change Install Location..” when prompted).

At this point you should make any additional alterations that you may require to the USB drive (add additional kexts, dsdt, etc). Note: Ensure that you have repaired permissions and generated a fresh Extensions.mkext if you have modified any kexts manually.

Thats about it, you should now be ready to test your installer on your target system.

Important Information:

1) EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!! IF YOU ARE RUNNING THIS INSTALLER ON A REAL APPLE COMPUTER TO PREPARE A USB INSTALLER READ THIS!!! I can not possibly stress how important it is that you ensure you are installing to the USB drive and NOT the root partition of the computer you have run the installer  on. The root partition is selected by default. If you install the Chameleon Bootloader (one of the core components of the myHack Installer) to the root partition of a REAL Apple Computer you will BREAK the system and it will fail to boot!!!*

*In the unfortunate event that you make this mistake despite this warning, instructions on how to repair your real MAC can be found [HERE].

2) The GraphicsEnabler option will enable graphics acceleration on most Nvidia 8xxx/9xxx/2xx graphics cards & a few ATI graphics cards**. If the GraphicsEnabler option fails to work for you at first try changing the PciRoot value in the com.apple.Boot.plist manually. If your system still fails to have functional graphics use the GraphicsDisabler option instead until you find a solution.

**ATI Graphics may require additional kexts to function correctly. (Note: I do not support ATI cards, I suggest you visit netkas’ site for information on ATI graphics hardware).

3) The GraphicsDisabler option is selected by default in the myHack installer when installing to a USB installation device to ensure installer functionality on as many systems as possible. I strongly advise you to not use GraphicsEnabler on USB Installers since there is no way to reliably determine if your target system will have supported graphics, what the PciRoot of the target systems graphics is, or if a future OS X software update will break the GraphicsEnabler’s functionality. The USB Installer serves two purposes, one is installation (obviously) the other is for recovery/repair of broken installations, therefore the goal should be to make it as universally compatible as possible.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are using GraphicsEnabler or gfx strings do not use the GrahpicsDisabler option! One or the other can be used but not both.

Step 2 – BIOS Setup

Some information will be posted here soon…

Step 3 – Installation

Assuming everything is configured properly for your system you should be able to boot to your USB device and be greeted by the OS X installer.

Go ahead and run a normal install however you like. NOTE: If you can not select your drives or you see nothing but the USB drive, go into your bios and ensure that your SATA device is running in AHCI mode. Alternatively you can try to install the IOATAFamily.kext as it will allow many systems to access SATA (and even some PATA) devices without the need for AHCI.

After installation completes go ahead and reboot the system. Note: If you get an installation failed message after install it is safe to ignore it, this is a common but inconsistent error. It happens when the installer can not “bless” the targeted partition and it believes your system will not be bootable.

Step 4 – First Boot

When you reboot again boot to the USB (you are going to use the chameleon bootloader and kexts on your USB device that worked to load the installer, to load your freshly installed Snow Leopard system). At the boot prompt select the internal hard drive partition that you installed Snow Leopard on and boot it.

Go ahead and go through the initial configuration, I tend to advise against using migration assistant – especially if you are migrating from a hacked leopard installation, unless you are absolutely certain it was a clean retail install. There are a number of reasons for this that I may write about later.

Step 5 – Post Install

After you make it to your desktop open up finder, browse to the USB device and locate the myHack installer (as of v1.0 RC4 it will be copied automatically to the root of the usb device during the initial preparation described in “Step 1″). Run the myHack installer, this time installing to the snow leopard partition on your internal hard drive instead of the USB device. Generally speaking you should use select the same options as you did before when you prepared your USB installer since you know that it boots correctly. Make sure you copy over any additional changes you made to the USB installer (additional kexts, dsdt, etc) to your internal hard drive’s snow leopard partition. Note: Ensure that you have repaired permissions and generated a fresh Extensions.mkext if you have modified any kexts manually.

You should now be ready to reboot your system without the USB installer attached.

Unmount the USB drive and reboot the system with the internal drive.

Congratulations! If all went well you now have a functional Snow Leopard installation running on your system.

If you haven’t done so already you should now get to work on generating a patched dsdt, and further fine tuning your system so that it runs like a well oiled machine. I intend to post some information on these subjects and more in Section 2 of this guide eventually but for now I suggest you visit the #snowleopard IRC channel I referenced on the Home page for links to additional information and help from others in the community.

Section 2: Software Updates

Generally speaking with vanilla OS X installs you can use software update without much concern. The updates you should avoid to install through software update are the “10.6.x Updates” which will contain a full revision # (10.6.1, 10.6.2, etc). I will update this page with what we know about each software update as it becomes available and what benefits/potential problems will result from installing it. It is important that you do not install these updates until you have researched and ensured your system will not be negatively impacted by them.

OS X 10.6.1 Update

This is  a safe update for everyone. No new kernel. No known issues for OSx86 users.

It contains a few minor bugfixes and improvements.

Click here for full information and link to download the 10.6.1 update.

OS X 10.6.2 Update

This update brings with it a new kernel. The good news is the new kernel adds vanilla support for i5+p55 systems so if you are running the chocolate kernel on an i5+p55 system you should be able to switch over to the vanilla kernel after installing this update. The bad news is this new kernel removes support for intel atom processors so if you are running the vanilla kernel on an intel atom system you will have to back up the kernel from 10.6.0 and continue using that, or switch over to using the chocolate kernel (or another patched kernel).

Aside from what I’ve just mentioned this update contains a large number of bugfixes and improvements that will benefit most users.

Note: The only other potential problem worth mentioning is if you are using an older version of myHack installer (RC4.1 or earlier) you must update to the latest available myHack installer prior to running this update. The Sleepenabler.kext used in older versions of the myHack installer will cause a kernel panic on 10.6.2. The SleepEnabler.kext included with myHack installer v1.0 RC5 and later works flawlessly with all versions of OS X released so far.

Click here for full information and link to download the 10.6.2 combo update.

Section 3: Advanced Installation Instructions

This section will eventually focus on dsdt generation & patching, additional kexts, general troubleshooting, etc…

For now look elsewhere.

Section 4: Credits

I’d like to personally thank the following people for making this all possible and for all the help they have personally given to myself and others:

(in alphabetical order)

apocolipse, aschar, chrome, fassl, Galaxy, Kabyl, Krazubu, lastExile, modbin, Mushishi, nawcom, netkas, p|astikman, prasys, XyZ

Additionally thanks go out to the Voodoo Team, everyone who has worked on the Chameleon bootloader, and everyone else who has contributed to the osx86 scene!

Section 5: Changelog

2010/03/04 – Revision 9 – Changed myHack Installer link to 1.0 FINAL. Minor revisions to improve clarity of instructions and avoid common mistakes. Revised preface to include an explanation of why auto-patching scripts and many of the installers and utilities found elsewhere (I won’t point any fingers) are problematic and should not be used.

2010/02/06 – Revision 8 – Changed myHack Installer link to 1.0 RC5.2. Revised “Important Information” section. Revised GraphicsEnabler & GraphicsDisabler instructions. Minor revisions throughout to improve clarity.

2010/02/06 – Revision 7 – Changed myHack Installer link to 1.0 RC5.1. Added “Software Updates” Section. Added information on the OS X 10.6.1 & 10.6.2 updates to the software updates section.

2010/01/26 – Revision 6 – Major revision. Simplified preface. Updated basic requirements and linked to specific items and example system builds known to be well supported. Updated basic installation instructions for myHack RC5.

2009/10/29 – Revision 5 – Changed note in important information regarding graphics enabler from -pci0 to -pci1. PC EFI 10.5 defaults to -pci0 instead of -pci1 (PC EFI 10.3/10.4/10.4.1 defaulted to -pci1)

2009/10/28 – Revision 4 – Minor update. Changed myHack Installer link to 1.0 RC4.1. Slightly altered “known issues” section and renamed to “Important information” for more clarity.

2009/10/17 -  Revision 3 – Guide updated to include relevant myHack Installer 1.0 RC4 information. Edited basic requirements, added graphics card recommendations and some information about non-vanilla installs. Expanded and improved Basic Installation Instructions.

2009/09/28 – Revision 2 – Guide updated to include relevant myHack Installer 1.0 RC3 information. Corrected some typos. Restructured and expanded Basic Installation Instructions. Some place holders added for planned additions.

2009/09/22 – Revision 1 – Initial Post