Tuesday 27 January 2015

How to Prepare USB stick with OSX install

Requirements:

- working Windows
- two USB sticks
- Mountain Lion (or Lion) OSX installation file InstallESD.dmg, which is present in Install OS X Mountain Lion.app/Contents/SharedSupport folder
- FakeSMC.kext and NullCPUPowerManagement.kext (search the web)
- TransMac application: http://www.acutesystems.com/
- cvad's BDUtility.exe: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/283...h-macosx-distr/
- Clover boot manager
- enough compatible system to be able to boot unmodified InstallESD.dmg


Prepare USB stick with OSX install


1. Preparation

- download and install TransMac

- create OSXInstallStick folder somwhere on the local disk

- copy InstallESD.dmg to OSXInstallStick folder




2. Extract needed files from InstallESD.dmg


- start TransMac

- select File/Open Disk Image ... select OSXInstallStick\InstallESD.dmg

- click on listed image in TransMac window and open it's content and "HFS+ Volume"

- in the right pane select Library, System and kernelcache

- right-click on selection and choose "Copy to", then select OSXInstallStick folder on the local disk




3. Modify extracted files


- open OSXInstallStick\Library\Preferences\SystemConfiguration\com.apple.Boot.plist with text editor modify Kernel Flags to look like this:


CODE
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>container-dmg=file:///InstallESD.dmg root-dmg=file:///BaseSystem.dmg</string>

<key>Kernel Cache</key>

<string>\kernelcache</string>

</dict>

</plist>

- save the file

4. Prepare HFS+ USB stick with the content of OSXInstallStick



- plug in the USB stick

- start TransMac - it should list that stick

- right-click on the stick and choose "Format Disk for Mac"

- enter Volume label (OSXInstall, for example) and choose "Mac OSX Extended HFS+"

- TransMac will ask for Admin password - enter it and continue

- TransMac will restart and you will have to repeat:

--- right-click on the stick and choose "Format Disk for Mac"

--- enter Volume label (OSXInstall, for example) and choose "Mac OSX Extended HFS+"

- when done, click on the USB stick in TransMac and then click on "HFS+ Volume"

- in the right pane: right-click and select "Copy here", then open OSXInstallStick folder in the popup, select all files from there (Library, System, InstallESD.dmg, kernelcache) and click Copy

- when TransMac finishes, the install disk is ready



B. Prepare Clover USB stick


1. Install Clover to another USB stick

- download cvad's BDUtility.exe

- plug in another USB stick for Clover

- run BDUtility.exe, select USB stick and click "Format Disk"

- this should format the disk and install Clover and Chameleon on it


2. Configure Clover


- open prepared Clover USB stick in Windows Explorer

- delete /efi/oem/SystemProductName folder and it's content

- delete all folders from /efi/kexts/ except folder called Other

- put FakeSMC.kext and NullCPUPowerManagement.kext to/efi/kexts/Other folder - those kexts will be needed for installation

- you'll have to modify /efi/config.plist and maybe delete some drivers from drivers* folders, but this is out of the scope of this tutorial - better ask for help in Clover threads on various forums

- the easier root it to do standard Clover BIOS boot and do install from there, and UEFI boot can be configured later

- if doing UEFI boot, make sure that drivers64UEFI folder contains PartitionDxe-64.efi driver, since the stick prepared with TransMac does not use MBR or GPT partition scheme but uses Apple partition scheme, and Clover's PartitionDxe driver is needed to handle this



C. Install OSX


- plug in both Clover and Install USB sticks

- restart and select to boot from Clover USB stick

- you should get Clover GUI and one of the items in main menu should be prepared OSX installation

- select it and start it

0 comments: