I have had this question asked to me numerous times and some have suggested that a simple guide would be helpful to them. So here it is, a simple guide to creating a dual boot with OS X 10.6.x & Windows 7 on a single hard drive using the Chameleon bootloader. This is not the only way to achieve this goal but I am going to outline the methods I personally use which are among the simplest and easiest to duplicate.

This is a very thorough and intuitive post so check it out.

You might ask yourself, “Well what are the advantages to dualbooting?”. Dual booting not only offers Windows and Mac at your fingertips, but you can do it on one computer. Saves you time and money. Also I personally believe that Windows 7 clearly knocks out the problems Vista was having. Many people have complained about the loading time it takes Vista to boot up and open programs. They have heard that cry and tweaked it. So not only do you get faster performance they have also changed the peripheral integration and the UAC (user accout control).

A BIG Thank You!

First off, we want to thank all of the wonderful people who have stopped
by buildahackintosh.com over the past 6 month and have commented on the
site, used the guides, asked questions, and purchased the software we have
made available.  We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest and enthusiasm of
many of our visitors and want to reward you for your efforts (keep
reading)!

NEW Membership Site

How to Sign Up!  Additional Newsletter Option

We’re going to be changing the site in a pretty radical way over the
next month. Rather than only offering the digital download with
instructions for purchase.  We’d like to offer everyone the opportunity to
join the hackintosh community on our site and get access to the huge
resources available today.

This allow us to get the most current information out to everyone much
more quickly.  We will provide video demonstrations of the software in
action as well as quick fixes for updating Snow Leopard, custom Kext files
for specifric hardware and much more.  With many hackintoshes, as Apple
updates the OS, so must the bootloading software be re-tooled and updated
to match.  With a membership, you’ll get access to it the moment it is
released!  No need to repurchase or hunt the web for a new download to fix
your broken install.

Finally, we’re going to begin offering a monthly newsletter with a brief
summary of the new content available on [http://buildahackintosh.com]
BuildAHackintosh.com, as well as best practices for building and
maintaining your hackintosh system and other news of interest such as
compatible hardware and web sales for upgrades or new
builds.[http://buildahackintosh.com]

But what’s in it for you, oh valued customer???  Well, as a thank you for
your support, we are going to offer everyone who has previously purchased
an individual download or DVD a FREE 2 month “trial” membership (normally
$7.95/month) which will give you access to EVERYTHING.  It’s just our way
of saying “thanks” and we’re hoping that you’ll enjoy the easy access to
information and one-stop shop for all your hackintosh needs that you’ll
decide to stick around.

So please come by frequently over the next few weeks.  We hope you’ll like
what you see!  You can very easily unsubscribe from this newsletter by
clicking the link below, but we hope you’ll give the membership option a
try!

Herein is a synopsis of the issues encountered building a Hackintosh PC from scratch.

All the information was gathered from 2 web sites.

The first is:  www.buildahackintosh.com where James Mason is selling a starter kit for running the MacOS X 10.5 on a PC.

The second is www.insanelymac.com where there are forums dedicated to using different motherboards as a base for running MacOS X 10.5 on a home built PC.

I started by searching the Internet for information about building a PC for running MacOS X. There is plenty of information but little support available. I finally came across www.buildahackintosh.com web site where for $19.99 they sell a package with a Boot -132 disk as well as an instructional DVD of the entire process.

After receiving the package, I decided to use the very latest Intel Core i7 Quad processor.

There are three different versions available starting at 2.66 GHz and moving up to 3.33 GHz. The difference is the cost of each incremental step upward in speed. After researching the process to “build” a CPU, I discovered that all processor cores are built from the same fabrication, but are tested for maximum native speeds and hand separated for sale. The 920 (2.66) is built the same as the 975 (3.33) but hand selected for sale under a different model number. The 920 sells for around $280 while the 975 sells for over $1000. The interesting thing is that the 920 can be easily overclocked to the 4.0 GHz mark while the 975 can be overclocked to around 4.5 GHz. The cost savings vs. speed potential were very revealing.

I chose the latest Intel X58 chipset Gigabyte motherboard because it seemed to have the best capabilities for a motherboard under $300. While there were no dual CPU i7 Core motherboards available at this time, there most certainly will be within a year. This system is a Quad Core i7 920 CPU (1336 socket) on a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard, mounted in a Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 case with a Cooler Master 900 watt power supply.

The main issues to getting MacOS X running on a PC are setting the BIOS settings properly and building a bootable disk with 10.5.7 pre-installed. James Mason supplied the proper BIOS settings in a whitepaper but what eluded me was the proper build of the boot disk. Digital Dreamer has supplied a script to build the disk in a sequential fashion. The script is titled X58_Mobo_Patch_Installer and runs on an Intel Macintosh already running 10.5.7 or higher.

The part I did not understand is that the boot disk or any other mounted volume, for that matter, must be formatted as GUID. This is the native format for Intel Mac disks.

I tried many times to build and rebuild that boot disk with a Power PC (PPC) Macintosh before realizing the difference of an Apple Partition Map formatted disk drive and the Intel GUID formatted disk.

It is also important to understand that step 7 of the script must be executed on the PC, after the disk has been built on the Intel Mac. The DSDT patcher gathers information about the hardware that the boot disk will run on for further fine-tuning operations.

Once I had the BIOS settings correct and built the Chameleon 2.0 RC2 scripted disk drive, the system loaded MacOS X and provided a beautiful platform for that operating system. Keeping the latest BIOS version is also important. While my motherboard came with BIOS version F7, the newest F8f was available and I chose to use a flash drive to load the latest BIOS version. The UD5 motherboard has dual bios chips to insure that a good copy of the BIOS is always available.

Within the original system components I also included 12 GB of DDR3 1600 RAM as the motherboard has six RAM slots as well as not only a SATA connected Pioneer CD/DVD burner but a SATA Pioneer BluRay burner. I originally used the Intel supplied CPU cooling fan but with intentions of over-clocking the 2.66 GHz 920 chip to something higher, I later, installed a water cooling system.

I chose the latest Corsair Hydro H50 water cooler, as it is self contained and very easy to install. I removed the motherboard, de-installed the stock Intel cooling fan and added the motherboard support bracket for the H50 and proceeded to install a new 120 CM rear fan and the cooling radiator along with the cooling head that pushes against the CPU chip through conductive paste. The new rear fan is temp/speed controlled by connecting through a 4-pin plug to the CPU fan connector at the top of the motherboard.

I finally connected the BluRay 203 burner to the next available SATA port and installed all 6  – 2 GB RAM sticks for a total of 12 GB.

At this time there are a couple of boot up initialization errors concerning the sound structure. Digital Dreamer (MAJ) says that they experience many sound assertion errors, not to be too concerned. Be sure to run Repair Permissions using Disk Utility after booting into MacOS X on your Mac clone.

Now I must discover the right way to over clock the 2.66 GHz Core i7 Intel CPU to 4.0 GHz to complete the setup of this project. I have been very pleased by the helpful attitudes of James Mason and Digital Dreamer in answering questions while trying to discover the proper steps to a successful “build” of running Leopard 10.5.7 running on a hand built PC platform.

While I spent just about $1700 to build this system, you can also build a similar system using a different motherboard and RAM and the same Core i7 920 CPU for just barely $1000. My thoughts were to build a HUGE system up front, and later on upgrading to newer technologies would be of minimum cost. I used the 900-watt power supply as a “future proof” platform for just about any configuration including an 8 core, dual CPU motherboard with two video cards and up to six on board disk drives. The future benefit should eliminate the need to hand over $4000+ ever time Apple comes out with a new-faster hardware platform. The ability to over-clock the CPU to 4.0 GHz definitely overshadows the typical Apple speed bump offerings where the currently fastest processor is 2.93 GHz.

While you could choose to spend $1000 for the i7 Quad Core 975 CPU (3.3 GHz), that cost vs. speed seems to be made up rather quickly by planning on a simple water cooling investment and saving the $600.00 difference to get to 4.0 GHz over clocked i7 Quad Core 920. As an Intel based platform, the future CPU developments should prove very stable and useful for Apple OS users.

It took me several days to amass this information that allowed me to complete installing MacOS X onto a hand-built PC platform.

Next: The Parts List

Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 ATX case                                              $ 179.99

Cooler Master UCP 900 Watt power supply                                      $ 199.98

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 ATX mother board                                   $ 288.99

Intel Core i7 Quad 920 CPU and Intel Cooler Fan                            $ 279.99

EVGA Nvidia 9800 GTX+ 512 MB Video Card                              $ 129.99

OCZ 6 GB DDR3 1600 XMP Ready RAM Kits (2)                         $ 201.98

Seagate 7200.12- 1TB 7200 rpm SATA II Disk Drive                      $   89.99

Pioneer 216-D SATA CD/DVD burner                                             $   34.99

Pioneer 302 BKS SATA BluRay burner                                            $ 208.99

Corsair Hydro H50 water cooler                                                        $   74.99

Apple Mac Box Set  (Leopard 10.5.6- iLife 09- iWork 09                $ 169.00

Apple MacOS X Snow Leopard                                                        $   24.99

Call of Duty – Computer Game                                                         $   49.99

Discount for Combo Cooler Master Case and Power Supply                        $  -50.00

Discount for Auto Add “ Call of Duty” Game                                  $  -49.99

All the parts were purchased from www.newegg.com except for the Apple software and the Corsair Hydro H50. These are the prices I paid on the day I ordered and may vary from vendor to vendor. This is illustrated to give you an idea of the cost for building a similarly equipped system. The next phase of “building” a computer from a box of parts is based entirely on your abilities to turn a screwdriver and install slot based components (RAM – video cards, etc).

Please consider having a person who is comfortable with mounting and wiring up a motherboard if that person is not you. Please BE AWARE that these components are static sensitive and if not handled properly can fail immediately or even somewhere down the road but prematurely if not handled correctly.

Here is a picture of what my system case looked like initially with the required parts to build it.

Here is what it looks like when assembled.

This picture was taken upon initially installing all the primary but necessary components for a working PC.

My goal in choosing these parts was to build a MacPro like computer with current technologies such as the Quad Core i7 Intel CPU and the EX58 chipset motherboard.

Doing this actually allows me to build a newer, better and faster system than what I can buy from Apple today! I also wanted to choose a case with ample room for future additions so that I would not need to change cases if I wanted multiple video cards or a RAID system of disks mounted internally.

The Cooler Master Cosmos is well designed and very sturdy. It is a very LARGE case at approximately 24” by 24” in height and depth and the empty case weights in at 37 lbs as shipped. The quality of construction is far better the typical PC case. The first attribute was a power supply that has an airflow that does not enter the PC case in any way.  The Cooler Master UCP 900 watt was installed so that the air enters from the back of the system and exits out the bottom. There is a sealed chamber upon which the power supply mounts. This feature will help keep the interior of the case much cooler when it comes to keeping the CPU temperatures in check.

This close-up of the motherboard illustrates the roominess of this case for working inside.

Note that this was initially built with 2 sticks of DDR3 1600 RAM and utilized the original Intel cooling fan.

Booting MacOS X on this Intel box

The next task was learning how to load MacOS X and all the needed Kexts onto a GUID formatted disk drive. To do this successfully, you must use an Intel Macintosh running 10.5.7 or higher. (As mentioned before, I tried using a PPC G5 Macintosh for this but it only caused much frustration and would not successfully build a bootable volume for the Hackintosh computer).

One of the first tasks is to set up the BIOS on the motherboard to allow MacOS X to boot. The following are the BIOS settings that were recommended by a whitepaper.

BIOS Settings for the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard with F7-F8f BIOS

MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T) (this is where all overclocking happens)

CPU Clock Ratio: [20x]

Standard CMOS Features

Date: [set]

Time: [set]

Drive A: [None]

Floppy 3 Mode Support: [Disabled]

Halt On: [No Errors]

Initially, you will see the SATA devices listed here, as attached, but after setting the Integrated Peripherals SATA RAID/AHCI Mode to [AHCI] you will no longer find them listed here.

Advanced BIOS Features:

Hard Disk Boot Priority: [set your boot drive as #1]

First Boot Device: [CDROM]

Second Boot Device: [Hard Disk]-boot disk

Third Boot Device: [Disabled]

Boot Up Floppy Seek: [Disabled]

Boot Up Num Lock: [On]

Password Check: [setup if desired]

HDD S.M.A.R.T Capability: [Enabled]

Limit CPUID Max. to 3: [Disabled]

No-Execute Memory protect: [Enabled]

Delay for HDD (Secs): [0]

Full Screen LOGO Show: [Disabled]

Init Display First: [PEG]

Integrated Peripherals:

SATA RAID/AHCI Mode: [AHCI]

SATA Port 0-3 Native Mode: [Enabled]

USB Controller: [Enabled]

USB 2.0 Controller: [Enabled]

USB Keyboard Function: [Enabled]

USB Mouse Function: [Enabled]

USB Storage Function: [Enabled]

Azalia Codec: [Enabled] —disable if you are using a separate sound card

Onboard H/W 1394: [Enabled]

Onboard H/W LAN1: [enabled] —-disable if you are using a separate network card

Onboard H/W LAN2: [Disabled} ---enable if you want to use both NICs

>SMART LAN1: [Press Enter]

>SMART LAN2: [Press Enter]

Onboard LAN1 Boot ROM: [Disabled]

Onboard LAN2 Boot ROM: [Disabled]

Onboard SATA/IDE Device: [Enabled]

Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode: [AHCI]

>SMART Backup: [Disabled]

Power Management Setup:

ACPI Suspend Type: [S39STR)]

USB Device Wake-Up From S3: [Enabled]

Soft-Off by PWR-BTTN: [Instant Off]

PME Event Wakeup: [Disabled]

Power On by Ring: [Disabled]

Resume by Alarm: [Disabled]

HPET Support: [Enabled]

HPET Mode: [64-bit mode]

Power On by Mouse: [Disabled]

Power On by Keyboard: [Disabled]

AC Back Function: [Soft-Off]

Now we are ready to build the Hackintosh Boot disk with MacOS X

There are a few ways to complete building a PC bootable MacOS X disk drive.

The easiest way, in my opinion was created by Digital Dreamer utilizing an Apple Script. The scripting package comes complete with appropriate Kexts.

WARNING: This method requires you to be using an Intel Macintosh running 10.5.7 or later. DO NOT Try this on a Power PC G5 or G4 Macintosh!

I post this warning as I spent many hours trying to determine why I could not build a bootable SATA disk with my G5. The term GUID was thrown around many times but it never occurred to me until one day I looked at the disk formatting on a G5. It was Apple Partition Map format. When I looked at the boot drive on my MacBook Pro – it was GUID! One last attempt at building the boot drive on the Intel Mac was successful.

This is referenced from www.insanelymac.com in the forums where Digital Dreamer is a moderator for the GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard.

Make sure, also, that the SATA cable to the boot drive is in SATA2_0 and the SATA cable to the CDROM drive is in SATA2_1 connectors on the motherboard

Here is the text supplied by Digital Dreamer for using the script.

Please keep in mind that the script warns you to run Step 7 on the hardware that this disk drive will be booting on.

STOP! Do not run Step 7 until you have booted up the disk on the Hackintosh computer, that has been built on the Intel Macintosh.

Once you see that beautiful MacOS X 10.5.7 (or) 10.5.8 come to life, there are still things to be done. Finish using the Script and run Steps 7, 9,10,11 12 and 13 to set up correct visuals of the “About This Mac” dialog, making sure that the correct memory statistics and version number are present.

Finally, do not forget to run Utilities/Disk Utility/Repair Permissions

There are a couple of other fine tools for MacOS86 tuning.

OSX86Tools and UInstaller can help fine tune for video cards and other unique Mac’ish visuals.

Final Steps to Success

After getting the PC Hackintosh computer (which I call MacHack) solidly booting, I finished the complete build-out for my very own customized PC Macintosh. I removed the motherboard, de-installed the stock Intel cooling fan and installed the Corsair Hydro H50 water cooler on the 920 CPU.

Faster – Faster

So now you have a homebuilt Intel powered PC with MacOS X running on it. While you can buy the same computer for around $2400 base price what is the next advantage of building your own? Faster CPU speeds than Apple Inc offers.

Even with a 2.66 i7 920 Quad processor, it seems possible to make it run much faster than what anyone else is selling today. Known as “OverClocking your processor”, I was able to overclock my 920 to 4.0 Ghz..

Suppose 4 cores at 4.0 Ghz are faster than 8 cores at 2.93 Ghz ! (fastest advertized speeds available). What does that mean to you?

We folks that love Apple computers and have doled out hundreds of dollars ever few years for a “much improved speed” computer are jolted into reality when Apple Inc. ships the next speed bumped computer.

Overclocking the 920 is no easy job. Selecting the proper parts in advance is one task to make this very easy at execution time. Proper memory selection and Power supply selection allow for expanded usage of internal resources to supply proper voltages to the CPU and memory modules to be able to successfully overclock to something greater than 2.66 Ghz.

It takes much planning and coordinating to realize the full advantage of being able to run your programs at overclocked speeds for the very first time! This cannot be done with lower cost or substandard performing parts. Since we are now in the PC component world, this advantage gives us latitude in making cost decisions. Video cards are one third the cost of an Apple Inc. Macintosh supported product. Memory costs are much less and since PCs use newer memory types sooner than Apple Inc. can offer, so we have another advantage when selecting our own components.

Now comes the water cooling! Air cooling is the defacto standard for CPU cores as Intel ships it’s boxed processors with a nice but basic fan for conductive cooling. Many manufacturers are claiming their air coolers are just as good as water cooling, and water cooling is just plain expensive. Then there are a couple of new self-contained water cooling devices in the same price range as the top air coolers. So I choose the Corsair Hydro H50 self contained water cooling system.

When I first looked at the Corsair Hydro H50, I was skeptical of the design but after learning the very same design was being used in custom PC gaming systems, I investigated more thoroughly to discover that there are advantages to self-contained water coolers. Originally marketed under the name Asetek LCLC, the Hydro H50 has a history behind it.

Once I installed the Hydro H50, I ran the system at 2.66 Ghz for nearly a week to make sure things were running as planned. I then utilized information I had gleaned off numerous web sites concerning overclocking the Intel i7 920 processor. One interesting fact I learned is that while all these processors are made in Costa Rica there are improvements being made while in process. One such improvement is the C0 to D0 stepping feature. While this subject is too technical for this article, the point to be made is that the D0 stepper 920 is superior for overclocking. Your clue to the D0 stepper processor is on the packaging. Printed on the label of origin is the term S-spec. When SLBEJ is printed on the box, that indicates you have the D0 stepper processor.

Shown below is one of the documents I used to learn proper overclocking the 920 Quad Core processor in my computer to 4.0 Ghz.

Because I choose the OCZ XMP Ready DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) memory kits of 3 x 2GB, I could have used one kit in a 3 way memory system but as I did, I used 2 kits of the same for 12 GB of Ram in a 3 way memory system. The XMP Ready Ram also has available profiles built in so that the motherboard can select the proper voltage and states automatically when that is chosen in the BIOS settings.

Setting the proper voltages in the Intelligent Tweaker BIOS window insure proper voltage to the CPU core without raising the operating temperatures significantly. I utilized a free tool – Temperature Monitor (for Mac) to watch the CPU core temps.

The link below will take you to his post over at insanelymac.com.  There’s already 8 pages of comments in the forums there and that’s sure to grow (the last guide post weighs in at 147 pages!) So grab this up before it get’s too “muddy”.

We’ll be following these developments closely.  Looks like many (including readers hear at Get Hackintoshed!) are having success.  Check it out and let us know how it goes!  X58 Snow Leopard Patch Installer

Also, check back later in the week as we’ll be talking about the upgrading process for hackintoshes running Leopard!

We will NOT be releasing a Snow Leopard Boot CD for awhile, for 5 main reasons:

1. There isn’t a good BootCD for Snow yet (there are scripts that work, but require another Mac to install)
2. The bootloader is buggy (Chameleon 2.0 is currently in beta and has some quirks)
3. There isn’t a complete driverset yet (Snow requires 64-bit drivers for use with the 64-bit kernel; Audio & Network are the main culprits)
4. Snow Leopard is still a bit buggy.  Even with the quick releaese of 10.6.1, it would seems more intelligent to wait for a more stable release.
5. Not all apps work – some programs aren’t Snow-compatible yet

So, where does that leave everyone?

Well, I’m glad you asked.

1. We will continue to offer the Leopard discs and improve upon the installation method, and systems we can support.
2. In the very near future we will be offering a free, monthly e-newsletter with the hotest, most up-to-date releases, news, information, and deals available on the web.  Stay tuned, this is gonna be awesome.
3. We’re beginning to allow users and readers to post guides and updates on the site as well.  More on this to come, but the idea is that the more info we have available the easier it will be to get good info.
4. We’re not going to add forums at this time.  There are many other places for this and the pain of wading through all of that information is what prompted us to start this site in the first place.

Have comments or suggestions?  Leave ‘em below.

How to Install Snow Leopard on a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P System

-by Thunderclap82

Introduction

The vast majority of install guides I’ve found online for Core i7 systems have been systems built with the Gigabyte GA-EX5-UD5 motherboard.  While these guides are helpful to me, they aren’t 100% accurate as I have the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard.  With every install guide I’ve tried I’ve had some success.

Then I discovered Digital Dreamers X58 Mobo Patch Installer.  This worked beautifully for me when I originally set up my OS X 10.5.8 Leopard system.  Since Snow Leopard’s release the creative genius behind this application has fixed it to be Snow Leopard ready.  As of this writing the X58 Mobo Patch Installer is a Release Candidate and while I had hoped I would experience the same simple install process as the Leopard version I didn’t.  That’s not to say the program isn’t helpful and very useful.  It is.  We just need to make a couple of modifications during the install process.

I’m going to assume you have a basic understanding of OS X.  Because of this I will not give you step-by-step instructions of how to format your drive with Disk Utility and other basic tasks.

Requirements

- a clean HFS formatted hard drive
- X58 Mobo Patch Installer RC
- a working version of OS X 10.5.8 Leopard (preferably on your current Hackintosh)
- a retail copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (While Apple is bullish in demanding that OS X only be installed on their hardware, it’s no excuse not to support them and their work.  Don’t pirate a copy.  Maybe if we support them they’ll realize an official release of OS X for PC’s might not be such a bad idea.  This would also make our lives a hell of a lot easier.)
- a USB stick (not required)

Installation/Upgrade Guide

If you have a USB stick I strongly recommend copying X58 Mobo Patch Installer to it.  It will make using the above application easier to use when going between the two OS’s.

It is also recommended that you have the drive Snow Leopard will be installed to connected to the first SATA port on your motherboard.  This will only work if you have a currently built Hackintosh.  If you don’t connect the drive via Firewire.

1. Format the Snow Leopard drive in Disk Utility.  Make sure it is one partition and is GUID formatted.  Name it something that will differentiate it from your other drives.  I went with Snow Leopard.

2. Run X58 Mobo Patch Installer and enter your password when asked.

3. Select your Snow Leopard target volume when asked and choose Main system partition.

4. Install the bootloader (#2) and choose PC-EFI_v10.2.  This is Snow Leopard compatible.

5. Set the partition as active (#3).

6. Run the Retail DVD installer (#4).  This will start an install program off your copy of Snow Leopard.  When prompted, choose to install the OS to your Snow Leopard drive.  Choose Customize and UNCHECK “Printer Support”, “Additional Fonts” and “Language Translations”.  Optional: if you want Rosetta compatibility and Quicktime 7 go ahead and check those.  Click Install.

7. After the install is complete go back to the X58 Mobo Patch Installer and run kext/kernel installer (#5).  For now leave this all alone.

8. Run Update boot caches (#6).

9. Reboot (#18).

10.  Now, if you’re currently running a Hackintosh system on reboot hold down the Delete key and enter your BIOS.  In here change your drive boot order so that Snow Leopard is first.  You can now move onto Step 12.

If you are on an Apple Mac now is time to move the drive to your Hackintosh.  Remember, connect it to the first SATA port on the motherboard.  Once done, boot up your system and enter the BIOS.

11. We need to make some changes in your BIOS so Snow Leopard runs properly.  Navigate to:

- Advanced BIOS —> Hard Disk Boot Priority:  Change your Snow Leopard drive.
- Integrated Peripherals: Change SATA RAID/AHCI Mode to AHCI, Change USB Keyboard Function to Enabled, and Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode to AHCI

Press F10 to Save the BIOS and Reboot.  (You will have to do this a couple of more times when you reboot.  It’s an annoying bug in Snow Leopard, but we’ll fix it so that these settings stay saved soon.)
12. Let Snow Leopard start and follow the onscreen instructions.  (If you want to migrate your Leopard install create a temporary account for now.  I went with temp.  You can try the Migration Assistant, but I prefer to make sure the OS installed and is working properly before wasting time migrating my old settings and applications.)
Once the account is created and the Snow Leopard desktop appears your system will probably crash with a kernel panic.  This is normal.  Simply reboot your system.  Go into your BIOS and make the changes listed in Step 11 if necessary.
13. You should now see the bootloader screen.  Snow Leopard should be defaulted, so press the down arrow key and Scroll to Single User Mode and press enter.  Once the OS is done loading you’ll be at a prompt.  Type:

/sbin/mount -uw /
chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions
kextcache -v -l -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions/
reboot

(Enter the blue command on one line.)

This SHOULD prevent future crashes during boot.  Basically, we’re rebuilding the caches.  If Snow Leopard crashes on boot again you probably need to disable Spotlight.  To do this follow Step 13 and type instead:
sudo mdutil –a –I off
reboot
14. Check your BIOS again.  If the settings have changed go back to Step 11.  Once you’ve checked your BIOS reboot and let Snow Leopard start.

15. Once Snow Leopard starts (hopefully without any kernel panics) run the EX58_Mobo_Patch_Installer.

16. Run the kext/kernel installer (#5) again.  Now we have to make a few changes.  We need to change the audio and graphic kext files to /System.  To do this simply enter its number and then press Enter.  Then we need to move the Misc Patches to /Extra.  It works the same way.  Type the number and press Enter.  When you’re done the two audio kext files and one graphic kext file should be installed to /System while the four Misc Patches are installed to /Extra.  Run the kext installer and update boot cache.

17. Run the DSDT patcher (#7).

18.  Reboot (#18).

19.  Enter your BIOS one final time and make the necessary changes.  Now that the DSDT patch has been applied you shouldn’t have to do this anymore.  If you’re thinking of running this option earlier DON’T, especially if you’re not on your Hackintosh.  This option creates a file with your systems specs.  If you do this on any system other than your Hackintosh you won’t be able to boot into Snow Leopard.

You should now have a fully functioning copy of Snow Leopard working.  If you want to migrate your Leopard users and applications over simply run Migration Assistant in Utilities.

Option #1: If you don’t want to see all the code while Snow Leopard loads navigate to /Extra and open com.apple.boot.plist.  Find:

<string>-v -x32</string> and change it it <string>-x32</string>

Option #2: If your system supports 64-bit and you want to boot in 64-bit then remove the -x32 and add arch=x86_64

There is a lot of confusion over 32-bit and 64-bit in Snow Leopard.  Unless you have an Apple Xserve the system automatically boots in 32-bit mode.  This is not to say the OS doesn’t support 64-bit applications, it just means the kernel is 32-bit.  What does this mean?  Basically, it allows for support of more than 32GB RAM.  If your computer can’t take more than 32GB RAM then I suggest leaning your system in 32-bit mode.  This will not hinder 64-bit applications as the OS will happily run these at their full potential.  If you decide you want the 64-bit kernel running anyway be aware you may suffer kernel panics, application errors and other system errors.  This is because if certain kext files or applications can’t run in a full 64-bit environment then they won’t work.
Option #3: If you are trying to use expansion cards that Apple generally doesn’t support you will need to install special kext files to get Snow Leopard to see them.  Download it here.

Quartz: Quartz is still a mystery to me in Snow Leopard.  Some applications required Quartz GL enabled to be installed or run such as Apple’s Final Cut Studio.  In Leopard there was a program called OSX86Tools that easily enabled this.  In Snow Leopard this results in an error and Final Cut Studio won’t even load, so do not attempt to run this.  There was also a way to enable Quartz GL in Terminal but I think this is the command OSX86Tools ran as the same thing happens.

In my testing as long as the graphic kext is in the /System folder (see step 15) Snow Leopard seems to support Quartz properly.

Special Thanks

It goes without saying that this guide would not be possible without Digital Dreamers program.  He deserves a lot of credit for making our lives a little easier.  Also, special thanks to BlackOSX.  He wrote a terrific guide that is similar to Digital Dreamers installer but without the automation.  Some of what I learned came from his guide.

We’ve talked about 64-bit support in Snow Leopard, and 9to5mac has a great article here with tips on how to see if your system will support 64 bit and how to force your system to use it if possible.

Note:  The following reference links will take you to pages where you can download said programs, but know that you are attempting them AT YOUR OWN RISK.  YMMV.  You’ve been warned people!

1. Netkas has come out with a new bootloader for Snow Leopard PC-EFI 10.2, but it’s still in beta and not meant to be used in full production.  You’ll need a new bootloader like PC-EFI v10.2 and updated kexts to get Snow Leopard running.
2. The same can be said of DigitalDreamer’s Script for Core i7 machines.  His latest script is at RC2, but again, not meant to be used as a final version.  Also, there’s more updated and useful information out there about how to upgrade and install using this script on the insanelymac forums.  Check them out, if you dare.  It’s a lot to read through, but you can learn a ton as well.
3. Another method that has been released allows you to boot from a (minimum) 8 gig USB Drive.  There’s a full set of instructions here, but again, YMMV.
4. And finally, and perhaps, most interesting to readers who have built systems with specs recommended on this site, there is a new installer script based on DigitalDreamer’s that many are finding success with.  BlackOSX’s script comes with a guide that is rather lengthy and the details of each step are important, but has been met with success.  It installs the modified kexts differently from DigitalDreamer’s script and uses a patched DSDT.ami file (if that means something to you) but I’m not sure about what they other differences are.  At any rate, it appears to be a viable alternative at this point and provides support for more hardware configurations than the others.

All of these methods are still in development and more progress is still to come.  For that matter, Snow Leopard while the next step for Apple, has a ways to go.  Even on my macbook pro I have had a few restarts, crashes, and program incompatibility (come on Quicksilver and Nambu!) so it’s wise to think about whether or not you really NEED the upgrade (I mean if you’re thinking about actually using this machine in any form of productivity) I know you’re like me and you NEED to have the latest and the greatest to play around with, just remember to have patience when you run into hiccups with your new toys.

As for us hear at Get Hackintoshed, we’re still looking at the idea of some new BootCDs that will make for an easier install and, of course, allow for Snow Leopard, but there are quite a few hang ups at the moment holding us back.  We’ll have a post on that topic soon.

If the online chatter is to be believed, Apple’s very soon to be released Snow Leopard has in its code new protection for fighting malware. According to the picture above corroborated by other online reports, a DMG downloaded by Safari was checked by the OS and found to contain the “RSPlug.A” Trojan. The system promptly suggests you eject the disk image to avoid damage. Should Apple really be treading down this path, it begs the question of how often and how comprehensive / aggressive the company will be updating its antivirus logs. If nothing else, it’s a certainly a notable symbolic gesture that the one-time underdog might be gaining enough market share to catch the attention of the darker side of the internet — and all of a sudden, David Puddy isn’t looking nearly as bad.

Our take on this is that antivirus is always a good thing.  Will this encourage malicious hackers to exploit vulnerabilities in the Mac OS?  Possibly, but Apple’s making the right move here and we whole-heartedly endorse it!

Oh, you mean you haven’t heard?  Well, it is.  You can pre-order now and it is shipping on Friday.  I know I’ve got mine ordered, along with a fresh copy of the Final Cut Pro upgrade.  Friday is the new Christmas!

Anyway, with the new operating system we’re getting tons of questions about what it’ll mean for all the hackintoshers out there.  Actually, it means a couple things:

1. Snow Leopard is known for it’s full 64 Bit implementation in Mac OS X. There are still lots of unknowns about 64 Bit and with the new 64-bit kernel on certain machines, including the Xserve, Mac Pro, and MacBook Pro. Snow Leopard does not support PowerPC-based Macs (e.g., Power Macs, PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs (G3-G5), all eMacs, and the G4 Mac Mini) at all. 10.6 System boots by default to 32-bit kernel on all Macs, except Xserve. But that doesn’t means you can’t boot with 64 Bit kernel, by holding down the ‘6′ and ‘4′ keys during boot, you can to boot into full 64bit mode but only if, your Mac has 64-bit EFI
2. Twitter user @stroughtonsmith, an Irish iPhone developer described as an “all-around Apple geek,” has leaked what is likely one of the first Snow Leopard hackintosh photos available on the Internet, a TUAW piece informs. The hack was achieved on an Eee PC 901 netbook. The About This Mac window shows “Build 10A432″ (the Golden Master of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard), although Softpedia cannot confirm the picture is real.
3. Some folks managed to run Snow Leopard Build 10A261 on their Vanilla Machines with PC EFI. Uphuck (OSX86 Turk Team) announced their upcoming project iKaros. iKaros is the codename of Snow Leopard OSX86 project . Netkas (no need to introduction) already working on Snow Leopard OSX86 project under the hood.
4. Speaking of Netkas, he’s done some really amazing work (based on the awesome efforts of the Chameleon team) to produce a bootloader that will work with Snow Leopard.  Currently, the Chameleon bootloader is in “release candidate 2″ phase.  We’re keeping a close eye on these developments and there is a ton of progress being made.  Some users are having more success than others.
5. So besides a new bootloader that will support Snow Leopard, if you’re going to attempt a 64-bit version, you’ll also need kexts to go with it.  While this has already been accomplished, work is still in progress to bring all of this to the “masses” of people who are going to be running all sorts of different hardware configurations.
6. Our hackintosh BFF, DigitalDreamer, is working on a script for all you core i7-ers out there that should once gain allow for a sweetly easy and customizable install process.  We’ll be working to produce versions of this script to match other hardware configurations (such as the ones promoted on this site) and getting those out as well.
7. Finally, a 2.0 version of our How-To Video is in the planning stages as the install process will be changing (for the better) with Snow Leopard.  Check back here often for updates and sound off in the comments if you have any questions, comments or additions.  Thanks for stopping by!

-Get Hackintoshed!

We’ll be posting several new articles here in the upcoming weeks and taking a special look at what changes are in store for the hackintosh community with the release of Snow Leopard.