I’ve been intrigued by Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6) ever since it came out. Sure, many people hail it as the king of bugfixes (just like what Windows 7 is to Vista), but it does sport some pretty nifty features beneath that facade which are unseen.
Anyhow, in keeping with the times, we needed a new Mac-based machine in the office and I decided to get grimy and build one with Snow Leopard AND Windows. Yup, dual-booting it’s called. Over the weekend, I encountered numerous grey screens of death, hung computers and problems of every kind – I just could not believe how others said this motherboard was the easiest to install on. After awhile, I decided to return it to the store and get another unit, JUST IN CASE the motherboard had problems (which HARDLY ever happens, right?). Whaddya know… the install was flawless after I swapped it!
I haven’t got oodles of tips and tricks to share, but here are some of the things I did to get it going.
- If you haven’t heard of the all-time-awesome-kickass-Lifehacker-Snow-Leopard-install, then you simply must. It’s a prerequisite to building a hackintosh. Read here.
- Do as Lifehacker tells you – go prepare your thumbdrive with the install files, then come back here.
- Also, go procure your hardware – for BEST-est results, do get the Gigabyte EP45-UD3L, EP45-UD3R or EP45-UD3P motherboards. They allow you to pretty much get the retail Snow Leopard working out of the box. Any current NVIDIA graphics card will do. I got the 9400GT which has HDMI, DVI and VGA ports. As for the processor, any Core2Duo/Core2Quad ones are fine. I used a Q9400 Intel Quad Core CPU.
- Set your BIOS settings – this is important for the system to run optimally. The only settings you really need to modify are in “Integrated Peripherals” – set the ICH SATA Control Mode to AHCI [default is IDE] and Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode to AHCI [default is IDE].
- Now, proceed to boot with the thumbdrive – you have to configure your BIOS boot options to select the thumbdrive.
- Everything else is pretty dead easy (from going to Tools-Disk Utility and partitioning the hard drive), to installing the OS.
- Complete the installation process and when the machine reboots, let the thumbdrive boot again. On the OS selection screen, select the internal hard drive you installed it to. (The reason you do this is because the bootloader isn’t installed on the internal drive yet – don’t worry if you don’t understand this gibberish!).
- Now, download the file mentioned in Lifehacker (EP45UD3P Snow Leopard.pkg zip) and run it, but install it on the internal drive.
- That’s it really! If you’d like to run Software Update to upgrade to 10.6.1, you may do so (that’s the latest version as of today) – nothing adverse will happen.
If you’d like to dual boot between the Mac OS and Windows, here’s a spanner that gets thrown in.
- After booting into the installation (Step 5 above), go to Tools-Disk Utility and create 2 partitions. (Practical tip: make them slightly different sizes so you can identify them easily later in your Windows install). On one partition, set it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and on the second, set it to FAT32. Do click on Options and set the Partition Map scheme to GUID.
- After the partitioning and formatting is done, close the window and return to the installer. You can resume with Step 7 above.
- After you’re done with the Mac OS installation, pop in your Windows DVD and change the boot sequence in BIOS. I’m using Vista (*puke*) as I’ve got a legit licence for it. Let the DVD boot up.
- Click on Repair your computer link, then click Next and select Command Prompt.
- At the black screen, type diskpart [enter].
- Then type select disk 0 [enter].
- Type list partition [enter].
- You will see a list of your partitions with numbers on the side. You need to select the one you intend to install Windows on.
- Type select partition xx [enter] (where xx is the number you identified in Step 8).
- Type active [enter].
- Return to the Windows installer and continue to install Windows on the designated partition.
- When you’re done, Windows will boot by default (hey, where’s my Mac installation?).
- Don’t worry, you just need to download a program called EasyBCD that will easily tweak the Windows boot manager. Download it here.
- Run it and go to Add/Remove Entries. Select the Mac tab.
- Select Generic x86 PC and give it a name you like – Mac OS works well. Click Save.
There you have it… A Mac and a PC cohabitating on the same hard drive. How sweet is that…? Here’s the bootloader screen that gives you the option to select your OS.
Here’s my setup before I put it into a “nicer” casing. 2 friends commented that a hackintosh is function without form – I totally agree, and think that Hackintoshes are like Frankenstein – an ugly brute with force. Macs are the princess with elegance but less power.
Now, write a comment and let me know if you’ve had success. Please don’t ask questions such as, “will this XYZ motherboard work?” – this short tutorial is solely for the EP45-UD3R and similar variants. If you want it to work, get this motherboard. I’ll try to put a video together when I work on the next installation of this setup, but it may take awhile…
Here lie my thoughts: that of an entrepreneur, media-junkie, gadget-junkie, photographer, videographer, once-PC-user-but-now-Mac-user and husband.
Excellent!
I have installe Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I’m apple developer so I really need mac os.
hi, it was easy to install snow leopard and xp on my machine but easybcd is not working for me don’t know whats its problem…… can u help me out with some other software??
Great article, Noah. I built my first Hackintosh this past weekend and will be building another soon. I used a Gigabyte PA-55a-UD3 motherboard and all went well except that it can’t recover from sleep. For the next build, I’m considering using the same board that you used. Now that you’ve had it running for almost a year, how has the stability been and does sleep mode work for you?
Thanks!
hi Bro i cant install windows 7 without changing my Bios Settings from AHCI to SATA/IDE any help please please,
If you follow this procedure, which is really good by the way – thanks for the diskpart info- you have to be sure to format the partition to NTFS in step 11. Windows installer can’t proceed until this is done.
Wow! Awesome! Thank you
Wow! Awesome! Thank you
Success! Running off Gigabyte X58A UD3R and core i950 3.1 ghz
Here’s what I had to do to get windows installed on a fresh install of 10.6.5 through MultiBeast and Chameleon.
1. Boot directly from Windows 7 CD. Cakewalk not needed to boot.
2. Install latest version of Easy BCD 2.0.2
3. Add Entry. Mac Tab. EFI didn’t work but tried MRB. That did it. And was able to get to a boot screen that I can choose.
The only odd thing is that on my mackintosh Geekbench posts separate numbers though, my Mac
partition performs better overall at 9458 while Windows performs at 8320. Interestingly enough my Mac gets dominated in every category except for Floating Integer. I was hoping that I would get better performance while running Windows, but I’m only half right. Hmmmm
Success! Running off Gigabyte X58A UD3R and core i950 3.1 ghz
Here’s what I had to do to get windows installed on a fresh install of 10.6.5 through MultiBeast and Chameleon.
1. Boot directly from Windows 7 CD. Cakewalk not needed to boot.
2. Install latest version of Easy BCD 2.0.2
3. Add Entry. Mac Tab. EFI didn’t work but tried MRB. That did it. And was able to get to a boot screen that I can choose.
The only odd thing is that on my mackintosh Geekbench posts separate numbers though, my Mac
partition performs better overall at 9458 while Windows performs at 8320. Interestingly enough my Mac gets dominated in every category except for Floating Integer. I was hoping that I would get better performance while running Windows, but I’m only half right. Hmmmm
I came across your page and found the blog really engaging. It not only got me reading but was also very informative. I am hoping to get more such worthwhile content to read. I will subscribe to your site right away. Please keep posting more.
I came across your page and found the blog really engaging. It not only got me reading but was also very informative. I am hoping to get more such worthwhile content to read. I will subscribe to your site right away. Please keep posting more.
A note for anyone trying this with the new version of EasyBCD… The options for adding the mac boot entry are now different. You need to select MBR! The default of EFI does NOT work. I had problems but then re-did everything and selected MBR and it works!
A note for anyone trying this with the new version of EasyBCD… The options for adding the mac boot entry are now different. You need to select MBR! The default of EFI does NOT work. I had problems but then re-did everything and selected MBR and it works!
Is it possible to install mac after windows has already been installed? I had partitioned a HD in windows where I wished to install Mac, however Mac does not seem to like my partition and prompts me to set up partitioning as explained above.
Is it possible to install mac after windows has already been installed? I had partitioned a HD in windows where I wished to install Mac, however Mac does not seem to like my partition and prompts me to set up partitioning as explained above.
Windows by default does not use GUID partitioning tables, it uses MBR, unless you specified in the install of windows (done over the command line) that you wanted to reformat the drive as a GPT (GUID Partition Table) – which i find highly unlikely as windows doesnt have real support for this type – then you will be using the wrong partitioning type
Is it possible to install mac after windows has already been installed? I had partitioned a HD in windows where I wished to install Mac, however Mac does not seem to like my partition and prompts me to set up partitioning as explained above.
Ha Ha – discovered the same method by trial and error
can i install it to my hp mini 311?
Combinding your guide with with the iBoot + Multibeast guide from tonymacx86, worked like a charm. thank you very much
!
Just as a(n) (late and maybe unnecessary) aside, I would have to whole-heartedly disagree with your friends in regards to the “function without form” comment. Maybe this wasn’t true at the time of writing this article, but there are absolutely stunning PC enclosures that would certainly match Apple for simple, elegant beauty. Some examples:
Silverstone Fortress FT02/FT03
Silverstone Temjin TJ07
Corsair 650D
There are others, also. Hope this helps someone, as you article was a big help to me!
Is it possible to install mac after windows has already been installed? I had partitioned a HD in windows where I wished to install Mac, however Mac does not seem to like my partition and prompts me to set up partitioning as explained above.
You can, but the best way would involve formatting your whole hard drive. First, put in the OS X install disc, and use it to partition your entire hard drive (choose GUID partition). DO NOT PROCEED WITH THE INSTALL. Restart, and then install Windows (you will have to reformat the Windows partition, but the OS X side should be untouched.
Then you can reinsert the OS X disc and install it to the previously set up GUID partition. Install the bootloader of your choice (Kakewalk, iBoot, etc.) and restart. If you enjoy cool boot screens you can even use some of the Chameleon skins (Google “chameleon theme park”) for maximum style points.