g31-esl2 Leopard to snow leopard upgrade

[CeleronPopsicle]

As of now my Hackintosh is running 10.5.8 PERFECTLY :)

I was thinking about jumping to Snow Leopard but the boot 123 and Chameleon method I used before to install Leopard isn't working. I have heard a lot of people say that only SATA optical drives will work in snow leopard. I know that many real Macs that support SL have IDE optical drives, so what gives? Also, since I have two internal Hard Drives, both of my SATA power connectors are taken up. Will I be able to upgrade to SL without buying new hardware? It's ok if I have to wipe everything out, just don't want to spend more. All help is appreciated!

My setup:
MotherBoard: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
CPU: Intel Celeron e1500 Dual Core
GPU: Sparkle 8400 GS 256 MB
2 GB 800 MHz PC6400 RAM
Samsung IDE DVDRW
2 Western Digital 500 GB Hard Drives (10.5.8 & Win 7)

[Imkantus]

I have heard a lot of people say that only SATA optical drives will work in snow leopard.Those guys know nothing.
You have ICH7 southbridge like I have, any IDE or SATA drive should work using patched AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext (http://netkas.org/?p=125). :)

Take a look into EmpireEFI CD on prasys blog if you are looking for Retail install method.

[CeleronPopsicle]

I wonder what gives then? Obviously there is a hardware setup that Leopard likes and Snow Leopard dislikes. Could it be the Celeron (Conroe based) Processor? That's the only other hardware factor I could think of.

[Imkantus]

The CPU is just fine. But as I said you cannot use the same bootloader cd, you have been using to boot the 10.5.x retail disk - give one of the PC_EFI or Chameleon based boot cds a try, like the one I mentioned (EmpireEFI).
If you still have a problem using it, try to descripe it...

[CeleronPopsicle]

I downloaded Empire EFI (there were a few different versions) but I had no luck with any of them. They just won't mount my Snow Leopard Disk. I have verified that the disk works. I tried using the Disk Utility to partition the second hard drive and restored the install disk to a partition and tried booting to that, but still no luck.

Here is my setup:

Gigabyte ga-g31-es2l (rev2)
NVidia 8400 GS 256 MB
Dual Core Celeron e1500
2GB DDR2 800
IDE DVDRW
2 WD SATA Hard Drives 500 GB ea

[CeleronPopsicle]

The Legacy Empire EFI did the trick! Snow Leopard is installed and working nicely. It does, however, boot native to 64-bit mode which seems problematic for my sound drivers. Not a big deal, as my recording interface can double as a playback device for now. Thanks for all the help!