[Guide] Boot Retail Snow Leopard DVD + USB PC_EFI 10.2
 

UPDATE: (9/4/09) Video added on Youtube or direct download for better resolution.

my snow leopard retail DVD just came in and upon unboxing it i thought why cant i install it using BOOT 132 instead of restoring it to an 8gb flashdrive? so ive search for ways to create one but failed until i saw netkas PC EFI 10.2 blog.

this method saves time in restoring the DVD and really handy if you dont have an 8GB or larger flashdrive, also saves you a blank CDR in creating a Boot 132 CD.

What's Needed:

• Snow Leopard Retail DVD - BUY IT! $29 is a money well spent ;)
• USB flashdrive - we only need 40MB of free space
• Leopard Partition 10.5.8 or lower to install Chameleon and other files
• Chameleon RC1, PC_EFI 10.2 and a few kext which i uploaded below

Here's How To:

• plug in your USB Flashdrive and erase it using Disk Utility (GPT)
• Install Chameleon v2.0 r431 (RC1), this might work too on hidden EFI HFS but haven't try
• show all hidden files using 'ShowAllFiles.app' and delete boot
• copy PC_EFI 10.2 to root
• in Extra Folder customize the kext that you think you'll be needing, DSDT.aml (use or create your own) and also boot.plist adding your own EFI strings..

here's how mine looks, just needed 2 kext for my ES2L which is fakesmc and openhalt. Your motherboard may vary so add kext if necessary.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5679/...90831at921.png
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6462/...90831at915.png
That's it! when done shutdown your machine and be sure your Snow Leopard DVD is in your optical drive before turning it off.

to boot just press Boot Menu F12 and choose your flash drive as the first boot, chameleon will load and you'll see the DVD drive in the chameleon screen. Boot using -v -x32 or -x64 or any flags that you wish and wait until you see Snow installer screen, you know what to do after that :)

note: Tested this on my machine running C2Q and Gigabyte G31M-ES2L but im sure it will work with other boards too so try it but YMMV so post your success/problems here. Also a quote from netkas " so far it was tested only with some intel controllers, wasnt tested with ite/jmicron/nvidia/amd controllers ".

-

sk1nhd33t

I have snow running here on same motherboard as yourself all seems 100% working, except for sound, can you tell me which files I need to get the onboard sound to work.
Cheers

OT this is a guide in booting retail DVD but to answer your question check my outdated ES2L guide a few threads below this one, youll see a dsdt patch and legacy kext for your 883. VoodooHDA will work too but install it in s/l/e, also post problems there too not here.

Using this guide i can place my efi sting to make things better for me:)

sorry yes i can thanks for the post

Using the very method, can we actually "upgrade" the current copy of Leopard to Snow Leopard instead of install a fresh copy in a spare hard drive?

@ tessa

you need too use your own, what's pictured above is my 9600GT efi strings.

edited the attached folder and included a blank boot.plist and added showallfiles.app

in a sense yes since upgrade using snow dvd will not erase anything but i havent tried it yet so i could be wrong. Also the problem is even after the upgrade is successful will it boot? snow and leo use different kext so that's also another problem.

save yourself the trouble and install the new OS on a new or separate partition and just use Migration Assistant if you badly need your home files ;)

actually that is the video card i have but i will still create my own. i did not see the part about boot plist before i posted. Sorry:).

Then again i going to steal yours ;) I am lazzzzzzzy:)


Thanks for the posting this is what i needed!!!!!

I have thought about the boot issue. one of the possible way maybe using the USB to boot into the snow leo installer or even the old leo distro and startup the Terminal to install Chameleon and PC_EFI 10.2. Would that work?

where is this installing into? another hardrive or to the USB? im assuming to a hardrive since the installation files is way over 40 mb.

i followed your guide and did what you said but for some reason it would not boot the cd. Not sure if i did something wrong but it keeps asking to boot from cd and then it goes straight into windows. i have even tried unhooking all my drives but no luck.

worse thing that can happen is the DVD will not boot and stall but for you it's booting windows? hhhmm im sure something is wrong there, watch this Youtube video.

anyone else can confirm that this works aside from me or this guide is a total failure and should be locked and deleted

Thank i will do. I have i have windows installed on a separte hard drive and since it could not boot to DVD then it went to my second boot device which is my windows hdd

hi
would have been great if you could tell me why my dvd player aint showing up in chamelon,just my usbflash and hd

rab

I made a boot USB but in one stage it says no cd found on druve 1, on other stage after chameleon is loaded there is no DVD icon only HD

I am with Gigabyte EP43-DS3, curently use 10.5.8 retail with Boot 132,
I have DVD retail 10.6 but I can't make from BIOS to see DVD drive in Chameleon boot screen.

Can any one give me advise how to set up the BIOS so I can use DVD drive

my ES2l has 4 sata ports (sataII 0-3), the first time i tried this guide my DVD drive is on the 2nd port (port #1 master) and it's also not showing so i tried it on the 3rd (port #2) and 4th (#3) which is slave and it work. So for all who has a dvd drive not showing try changing the sata ports.

im looking for one soul who has made this guide to work haha :)

a quote again from netkas blog, im using Enhanced SATA in my Bios and On chip PCI IDE is disabled

" PC EFI is a bootloader based on chameleon2 source code, v 10.3 brings one new feature, a cd/dvd-rom reading driver for ide mode(compatibe/legacy and enchanced/native).
The driver based on mindrvr from ata-atapi.com.
it doesn’t work with ahci(it will not detect dvd drives in ahci mode, hard drives still work fine).
it’s beta, so its only for testing, driver may not work for you.
known issues: sata ports 5-6 doesnt work, so I disabled scanning of those. "

hi
setting bios to ide mode doesnt solve any problem, nothing shows up :)

rab

Installed successful via this method,
Right now I'm using USB boot to Snow Leopard, could anyone tell me how can i change boot from harddisk? Thanks all

finally! 124 download attachment and counting and only 2 souls can confirm it works? please dont tell me you also have the same board as mine which is G31M-ES2L? ^_^

F12? boot.plist default HD partition? can you elaborate? didnt quite get what you wanna do.

ep45 ud3r
 

I believe i may have done something wrong and have not tried since because of school. I plan on trying it out this weekend so l will let you know how it turns out. In my case i may my drives in my system so i am going to have really play around.:)

Edit

How should i format my drive hsf guide what.
Here is what i did that may have effiected my install process.
1.pluged in my usb drive
2. erased it but in dos fat
3formated the drive

I guess my question should be how should i formated the drives hfs guid, jounaled etc

hello there,

interesting method, i have tried booting snow leopard retail but it says it cant find mach_kernel :( pls help.

cheers

got bored so made a video... watch it on Youtube or for better quality download link via mediafire ;)

sorry for the crappy iPhone video

Nice little tutorial but unfortunately I couldn't get it working. Once the Chameleon Bootloader initally loads it just hangs once you press any key. It seems that the new PC EFI is at fault since if you use 10.1 then it works fine but you can't see the Retail Install DVD

FYI, Here are my Specs
Gigabyte P35-DS3P Mobo and Intel C2D E6550 Processor
Pioneer SATA DVD Drive
2 x 500GB WD HDD's

I would try the Image Restore method but my Second Harddrive has some large files and is nearly filled so can't restore anything on to it and I don't have any other drives capable of handling 6+ GB :'(

Lets hope this gets working soon :)

Thanks for the guide anyways

Followed this guide exactly and got snow leopard installed. Once installed, I installed Chamelon to the EFI HFS and rebooted without the USB stick.

Got a kernel panic saying "CPU1 has no HPET assigned to it" relating to AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext

Anyways, rebooted again using the USB stick, deleted AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext and it boots up fine now. Not sure what issues I might run into, but if anyone has a better solution than just deleting AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext let me know.

Also, how do you get the 883 onboard audio and GMA3100 video card working with QE?

thanks!

-chronus

Put the vanilla AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext back and use NullCPUPowerManagament.kext.

Been a while since I've checked the first page but I'm sure the kext is listed in Skinheads guide.

Thanks I'll give it a shot, any ideas about the 883 onboard audio and Intel GMA3100 video card with QE?

How do i find the EFI strings?

First, thanks for the guide. Has anyone gotten the SL dvd to show up in chameleon with a IDE dvd-rom? I tried using PC EFI 10.3 but can't get my dvd to show up in the boot screen.

Hmmm. I have this exact mobo, and followed your steps exactly except for updating to Chameleon RC3 and EFI 10.3, but when I get to the disk selection screen, I don't see the SL retail DVD. (I see my USB drive, but I can't boot from that since it doesn't have an OS on it.)

Kernal Panic While Installation
 

Im unable to install snow leopard. When I select the "Install Mac OS X" in Chameleon Bootloader I get the attached screen. I have tried to install in 32bit and 64bit. Both I get the same error. Please Help me out with this.

Im using G31M-ES2L V1.x mobo.
iAtkos Leopard 10.5.7.

http://i36.tinypic.com/2mepsnk.jpg

CD detection fails
 

Hi to all that could not boot from the CD in the frist place!

Same thing here (swapping ports did NOT work), but a strange resolution did the trick.

- booted first into my old 10.5.6 installation
- NOW inserted the 10.6 Retail CD
- CD-Rom started, mounting the CD
- THEN reboot
- F12 selecting the USB-Stick
- CD showed up -> install works fine

What is happening here, since the system is powercycled?! What is different too inserting the CD and then powercycling the computer?

it is so GREAT!

what kexts that i need for my mobo EP45-DS5? honestly i can't find the correct kexts for my mobo, it's always fail to shutdown