[Mike]

NOTICE: This guide is now somewhat obsolete. I highly recommend checking out my new guide for installing Snow Leopard!

http://www.efixusers.com/showthread.php?t=103

Introduction: This guide is designed for users who want to do a clean install of Mac OS X on most variants of GIGABYTE EP35 or EP45 boards (i.e. DS3, DS4P, DQ6, etc.) without using EFi-X to boot the system. This guide will walk you through the installation process, setting up your system, updating it to the latest version of Mac OS X, and installing additional drivers and support files to ensure all onboard hardware is working, with proper Bonjour and Time Machine support.

Before You Begin: Here's what you'll need:

• A hard drive to install Mac OS X on. It cannot be partitioned.
• A blank CD.
• A retail version of Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD (10.5.6 preferred)
• The Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update
• Chameleon Installer 2.0 RC2
• A boot-132 disc. Click here and choose the one that most closely matches your motherboard model. Even if you don't find an exact match, it should still work. If not, try a different one. You only need it for your first couple of boots.
• EFIStudio
• LS8v17 script
• A place to keep all these downloads if you don't have an additional hard drive to copy them from.

Getting Started:

• Burn your boot-132 image to a disc.
• Reboot and enter BIOS. Set your future Mac OS X drive as the primary boot disk.
• Save changes and reboot.
• After rebooting, press the F12 key during boot to enter the startup device selection screen. Choose CD-ROM and press Enter.
• You should arrive at the Darwin boot prompt. Press Enter and it should ask you which device you want to boot from.
• Remove your boot-132 disc and insert your Mac OS X install disc, then press Enter again.
• If everything works as it should, you should now be booting into the Mac OS X installer. When it finishes loading, go to the Utilities menu and select Disk Utility.
• Select the drive you will be installing Mac OS X on (not any partitions on the drive) and go to the Partition tab. Select "1 partition", name it as you like, and click the Options button near the bottom. Select GUID Partition and click OK, then click the Partition button. WARNING: This will erase any data on the drive!
• Quit Disk Utility and follow the prompts to install Mac OS X. The installation process can take close to an hour if you install all of the printer drivers and language translations -- you can choose not to install them by clicking the Customize button in the installer. Grab a soda or something while it installs.
• When the install completes, you may be presented with an error that states the install failed. This is usually because the installer couldn't change your startup device. Don't worry about it and just click Restart.
• When your computer reboots, REMOVE the Mac OS X install disc and re-insert your Boot-132 disc, and press the F12 key to boot from CD-ROM again.
• When you get to the Boot-132 boot selection screen, press Enter once, and type 80 (for internal hard drive) and Enter again.
• Mac OS X should boot and take you to the Setup Assistant.
• Complete the Setup Assistant, and you should be at the Mac OS X desktop!

Update Mac OS X:

• Chances are you're probably not running the latest version of Mac OS X (10.5.8). Run the Combo Updater and let it do its thing. When it finishes, it'll ask you to restart your computer. If your computer won't reboot on its own, and it probably won't, just manually shut it off after waiting a couple minutes.
• Start up again from the Boot-132 CD using the F12 key. Boot in verbose mode (-v at the boot prompt after selecting the drive to boot from) and watch text fly by. The 10.5.8 update requires a second reboot, so when you see "MACH Reboot", manually restart your computer again.
• Start up one last time from the Boot-132 CD, and you should be back at the Mac OS X desktop, now running Mac OS X 10.5.8.

Putting Everything Together:

• You now have an up-to-date OS X install, but some of the features of your computer may not be working. Let's fix that.
• First, install Chameleon to your hard drive. This way, you can avoid needing to use the Boot-132 disc every time you start up.
• Run the LS8v17 install script. To do this, open Terminal and navigate to where you extracted the LS8v17. Example:

• cd /path/to/LS8v17
  sh ./install-ls8v17.sh

• Before you reboot, open up EFIStudio.
• Select your video card from the list and click Add Device.
• Select Ethernet, and click Add Device.
• An Editor window should have popped up.
• Click the "write to com.apple.Boot.plist" button and enter your password.
• Navigate to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/, and copy com.apple.Boot.plist to /Extra/
• Reboot.

If everything was done properly, you should now be presented with the Chameleon bootloader, which should boot you into Mac OS X with working video, sound, ethernet, Bonjour, and Time Machine support!

[berlindude]

Hey Mike, which package did you use for your mainboard from boot 132 disc link you posted. My mobo is very close to yours and I want to give it a try with this method.

[Mike]

I actually used GRUB-DFE for my boot disc. Should work fine for your board too.

[10terabyte]

I have the DS4P as well.

I used the GRUB-DFE disc too. After I switch to retail DVD (10.5.5) i get the little circle with a slash through it. I think this means it can't see a drive or something?

EDIT:

It is definitely a disk issue. After a verbose startup, I get "Still waiting on Root Device".

I have the AHCI turned off, and the drive is formatted to MACOSX Journaled.

[Mike]

You'll need to turn AHCI on. Most of these setups won't work with it off.

[10terabyte]

Originally Posted by Mike

You'll need to turn AHCI on. Most of these setups won't work with it off.

That helped, and got me further, but now the video is hosed. After the twirly, the screen went into some type of mosiac pattern. Will keep trying.

Update***

Also tried another boot disk, and this time got new colors on my screwed up video

[Mike]

If your video card has two outputs, try connecting your monitor to the other one.

[10terabyte]

No dice. Still have the same screen.

[Mike]

Very peculiar. Do you have another video card to test with?

[10terabyte]

Unfortunately, no.

I am wondering if I have some bad RAM. I have been having reboot issues of late. I can reboot and during POST it gets to the memory test, will pause briefly, then reboot. Sometimes this can happen 5 or 6 times before a successful boot. I am cycling through sticks right now trying to find the culprit.

When it does boot, I never see any problem in the OS, but you know how that goes. When I find the problem, I will attempt the install again. Thanks for all the help so far.

/10TB.