Bootable OSX86 Raid Walkthrough

[aquamac]

Hi xenophex and welcome to aquamac forums. Did you try a vanilla kernel. You only need to use the Raid identifier. Did you get the hidden "Boot" disks appearing on your desktop during the process? This should happen so that TERMINAL can write the two boot partitions - one to each disk.

[xenophex]

On my old machine the only Kernel that responds is mach_kernel. Even though there are a few others in there.
During the process when I ran the terminal commands to mount the drives and run the 'cp boot /Volumes/Boot\ OSX' portions I saw them.

I switched over to my XPS 420 w/ (2) Raptor Drives. I started the process over fresh. Result is similar to a prior post where I see the boot0 HFS+ then, done and nothing happens. I've attempted to change from the Raid Identifier to the Universal Unique Identifier with no difference. I've also attempted to install the PC_EFIv9/Chameleon 1.0.12 post Carbon Copy Clone to the OSXRAID drive (in hopes to see Darwin startup...). So far I suck

On my last system one of the drives does the above, and the other drive crashes after I have to specify the 'mach_kernel'. I used the iPC 10.5.6 DVD to install OSX so it comes I believe with the 9.6 Kernel, and I specified 9.5 for my older Pentium D machine.

I've ran thru the Terminal portions of the Chameleon Files a few times now and followed that stuff pretty close. The only part I feel slightly uncertain about is if I set the boot-uuid in the com.apple.Boot.plist, then run the Terminal Commands for fdisk etc ... is if I can keep retrying after I already set it in prior sessions.

[xenophex]

Solution: For anyone having problems like I listed here's what I did -
1) Pop your case open
2) Reverse your SATA cables to both drives
3) Power up

I saw Darwin give me the boot options countdown ... then magic

Now when I did all this my Drives were Disk0 and Disk1. Nothing changed throughout. So I'm puzzled at why I had to do that. But to reach this conclusion after I responded to aquamac I realized one of my drives wanted to show me Darwin, and the other left me hanging at Boot0, etc .. HFS+, Done. So by process of elimination I reversed my SATA cables.

If anyone knows what I did and managed to duplicate on both systems let me know .

Thanks -

[thesportsgeek]

I have an external HD that I have cloned my existing bootable 10.5.6 install to and I want to set up a RAID w/ my 250 GB HD's one of which is my main drive. On my initial install, which was a retail install, I placed the Chameleon boot-loader on it. I was wondering will the following work:

1) if I booted my Hack using my external HD
2) used disk util to erase the main drive
3) bond it with my other HD as a RAID 0
4) then cloned the existing 10.5.6 backup from the external HD to the RAID 0.

If the above process would work my next question.Would I haft to still add the Chameleon boot-loader to the RAID if the cloned copy already had it?

Thanx in advance for the help.

[ginz111]

Is there a way to create a raid array during a new / fresh install? I created the array using disk utility during the install of ideneb and everything went smooth but after completion it would not boot off the raid. I also tried the hardware raid on the the mobo but no luck either. So is the only way to do this is to have the os already installed on a single drive?
Thanks in advance.

[aquamac]

You are going to need to "fix" the Raid partition from another disk as there is no chameleon installer for raid afaik!

[ginz111]

Thats what I figured. I was just hoping to skip a step. ;D
Thanks! I'll get her going tonight.

[chrisgnv]

Hi guys,

Nice guide aquamac--worked great for my friend with a Gigabyte X38 board. However, I'm having some issues...

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P which has run flawlessly for me using a single drive install. I ran hardware RAID with Vista not too long ago (2x Raptor 74gb) which worked fine, and wanted to run RAID 0 (Stripe) for OS X. I followed your guide by copying by install to my 750GB drive, then creating the RAID array with the Raptors and going from there. I followed the guide to a T. When I boot up with the RAID Array though, I get a kernel panic for AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext and HPET errors. I removed that kext, cleared the extensions cache, and then it just hangs at boot. Safe mode will hang as well. I have AHCI enabled and HPET 32-bit enabled, and even made a dsdt.aml file and put it in the root of the RAID drive and in the bootable partitions (s3). I can read/write from the RAID array just fine while running on my installation on my 750GB drive, but if I boot from the RAID disks, it will hang. Any idea or experience with an issue like this?

[chrisgnv]

Figured it out! I needed to put my Extra folder in my Boot OS X volume (for me, disk0s3). I used the pause button on my keyboard during the initial boot to see if it was loading my Extensions, and it was not. This is why I had the AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement kernel panic, and if I deleted that, it would just not load the login window. Additionally, I had to use DSDT Patcher GUI to place a dsdt.aml file in my Boot OS X volume. For anyone having trouble like mine, at least for me, the /Extra/Extensions/ folder would not be loaded when placed in the main RAID volume, only in the Boot OS X volume.

[klos]

hey im trying to change the bootloader for a few days now, could you give a little explaination on how to update the bootloader to chameleon 2 rc1? Unfortunately the installer isnt working. I found a few tutorials, but none seems to getting it right.
Thanks Daniel

[dradis]

First of all, GREAT WALKTROUGH!!! thanks!

One thing that seemed unclear to me -- I wasn't sure if i should edit the com.apple.boot.plist file on the original drive or the new raid, so i did both. It worked great! even when i chose the original drive in bios as the boot drive, it booted the new raid since the plist file directed it there. I'm guessing that only the plist on the new raid needed to be modified. Someone please verify this.

Mine worked when choosing the second of the two raid drives to boot from, so it seems like it's not always the first drive. try both when you reboot.

;D Chameleon 2 works!!! after doing this walkthough i installed chameleon 2 to get the cool graphical boot loader. I used version 2.0 r431. Just running the installer will not work, here's what you gotta do (or at least what i did):

1. Use the "diskutil list" command in terminal to determine your raid drives (just like in this bootable raid walkthrough).
2. mount diskXr3 (where x is your 1st raid drive's number) in terminal
3. Run chameleon 2 installer and choose "BOOT OSX" as the installation directory.
4. unmount diskXr3 in terminal
5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 for diskYs3 (where Y is your 2nd raid drives number)
6. Reboot and enjoy

Again, this is the way i did it. I'm guessing that you only need to do steps 2 - 4 for the actual drive that your bios calls the boot drive, and that if you only do it for the correct one the extra drive probably will not show up in the bootloader. I did both just to be safe. Also, you may be able to do this from your original single drive and skip the last 2 sections of terminal commands in the walkthrough. I have not verified these theories, but if you do please share.

[aquamac]

Dradis,

Thanks for sharing, This method worked for me too on Leo, but it only worked if I did the walkthrough first as that sets up the Boot OSX partitions on both drives.

[gindosx86]

Hi
Great walkthrough, it worked awesome but it has created one other situation I was wondering if you could help with.

I have 10.5.7 on two drives just like the instructions say to do, I have on a seperate and non raided drive Windows 7.

I have installed EasyBCD and no matter what I put I cannot get it to boot into the Mac OS, I have to change bios boot drive in order to get into it.

Is it possible to configure EasyBCD to boot the raided Mac drives?

Thank you.

[jaev]

Tested on snow aqua?

[aquamac]

Hi, Yes works with Snow fine.