Installing OSX from USB Flash - HOWTO

Hi there!

First...let me thank all here. Been reading a while and not contributing that much. Here is a first attempt to contribute a little.

This is a small HOWTO-guide for how to use a USB Flash memory to install OS X onto the AA1. This is very useful if you do not have an external DVD player for use on the AA1.

There are several steps you need to execute, and keep extreme caution to the ordering of the steps to fully make this work.

All in all what you do is:
- Create a MBR on the USB drive
- Copy the ISO to the USB drive
- Change the "ID" of the USB drive-partition to "AF"


Step 1:
Make sure you have all that is needed..
- One Vista (or possibly XP) computer...but I have only tested on Vista.
- One ISO of OSX, in my case iAtkos v5i
- USB Flash drive LARGER than the intended OSX-ISO you are using. In my case a 4GB is enough for iAtkos v5i.
- Download the "Leopard hd install helper v0.3". Google is your friend here...
- Download "unetbootin-windows-282.exe"...google is your best pal yet again...

Step 2:
Format your USB Flash to FAT32 in Vista. I.e. right-click and format.

Step 3:
Start unetbootin and select "Distribution" to "FreeDOS", version "1.0". Make sure to select your newly formated flash drive, in my case "G:". Hit "OK" to have unetbootin do its thing.
This step is purely done to have a "Mater Boot Record" to be written on your USB drive...

Step 4:
Using Vista explorer, delete all files from your drive, in my case "G:". Doing this will remove the "FreeDOS", but keeping the MBR...which is what we want.

Step 5:
Use the "ddmac.exe" in the "Leopard hd install helper v0.3" tool to "copy all iso stuff" to the new drive. This tool is not in english an a little buggy...but keep "clicking & selecting" until you get the "Start" button to be enabled and you have the correct disk selected.

The following text is taken from an MSI Wind blog (http://blog.binaryfactory.ca/2008/1...nd-u90x-without-another-mac-from-a-usb-stick/):

Step 6:
When the ddmac.exe has done its thing...now start a command prompt from Vista and start the "diskpart.exe":
- Execute a "list disk" to find your USB drive, then select it with "select disk 2" where "2" was my USB drive...make sure this is correct for your case!
- Then do a "select partition 1" to select the first (and only!) partition on this disk.
- Then do the magic stuff: "set id=af" to make it have correct ID (else it will not work...)
Exit "diskpart" with an "exit".

Step 7:
No insert your USB into your AA1 and reboot it, make sure to hit "F12" at boot and have it boot from your USB...install OS X...but this is another story!

Have fun and hope it works for you as well!

/Gruffy

 

Thanks for the tips!

Would this be suitable for a 4gb iPod? Its the only drive I have suitable sadly...

But I have the bad feeling that due to the iPod's firmware and the way it autocreates files will mean its not going to work. I'll give it a try a bit later, but does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks

 

Hrm...might be tricky to do this on an iPod as you are messing with the drive in pretty low level things. My guess is that it will not work (only guess however...) and I would personally not dare the test... ;-)

/Gruffy

 

i figured out how to make it so that the greybox always show

first format the flash drive

second open ddmac do not run it

third run unetboot thing

fourth run ddmac a.k.a hit start

Code:

the reason i think this works is because the program is written in vb, i think,  and there is nothing checking the flash drive in real time aka a timer to check. BAD CODING, but works out good here :D 

 

I can't seem to make this work out. I'm trying with the kalyway disc with a 4gb usb memory. Space is not a problem i think, but the main issue is that de ddmac just won't transfer the image to the usb. I know this is a little vague, but have you got any ideas why this is not working? I do the unetbootin thing and it just says: disk not empty, try another!

 

Hi there! Have you executed "Step 4", the whole point with this is to remove all files from the disk after unetbootin has installed the MBR + some files. We just need (and want) the MBR to stay...the rest of the files should be removed before trying the ddmac tool. Please check this first.

Regards
Gruffy

 

Yes i have! That's the weird thing :s I saw something in a post that you have to disable something in the drive properties, but i can't remember where it was. I installed xp and was able to move the image into a partition, but every time i finish installing the os it doesn't boot. The first time i did it, it said something like: os cant load. now it prompts me with a realtek driver and something pxe :s i really can't remember what it said. I'll keep trying with the usb method untill i get it, to format the whole disk and only have the mac partition. if i can't do it with that, i'll shot myself... haha just kidding, i'll install xp again :s

 

Hi there! Keep trying m8! Never give up! ;-) Hrm...just a question for you here, are you actually getting things to work such that you can actually start an installation from the USB disk? From your last post it seems like you got it to install on the One, but then booting this failed? I saw you were testing with Kalyway, and I am not experienced with that at all...just tested iAktos v5i, maybe that will work better? (It should work with kalyway, but as I have not tested it I don't know.)

Another thing, maybe you should make sure that the "boot-ini" is un-checked when running ddmac.exe? Is this the property you are thinking of?

Regards
Gruffy

 

This is from an user from http://forums.msiwind.net/post60464.html#p60464 This worked for me.

Also, you don't need unetbootin. Just format it with FAT32 and follow the steps that I just quoted.

 

Great feedback! Thanks!

I will change/update the HOWTO soon with new stuff about no unetbootin! Am at work now...so some other time ;-)

/Gruffy

 

1st post, so hello everyone and nice tutorial gruffy.
I followed it exactly step by step, but seem to be having no luck with the Leopard hd install helper v0.3

Trying to copy onto a 4GB USB stick and on pressing the Start button in the program, nothing seems to copy and i stumble into the following log message:

"Dump image file to driver,please wait...
Change partition type to AF: not a HFS partition
Load boot1h: not a HFS partition
Load startupfile: not a HFS partition
All done, have fun!"

I'm wondering if anyone had this error before, Google proved a little unsuccessful.

Options selected:
- boot.ini unchecked
- everything else ticked. (was pretty tricky getting that Start button to show!)

Things I've tried:
- Format USB using unetbootin to FreeDOS
- Format USB to FAT32 using standard Vista full format
- using Vista diskpart to format FAT32 creating MBR on the USB
- tried using Leopard hd installer on Vista and XP comps

One thing i suspect it could be is the ISO I have (iAtkos v5i) - might be a bad image?
- chuckcalo, did you have iAtkos v5i?
The other thing I could try might be format USB to HFS+?? Not too sure...

Can't wait to actually see OSX working on this tiny machine.

 

Ok, for some reason the USB drive is not showing up in Diskpart.exe. I only see my main and secondary HD's. I tried a "RESCAN" to attempt to find the drive, but I had no luck with that, only two of the drives are showing, neither being the USB.

Any suggestions for an alternate way to change to AF?

 

I found only Vista's version of diskpart could show USB Removable sticks. XP just doesn't like them.
Not too sure about what Windows 7 would do. Hope that helps.

 

Hrm...strange. I have not seen that stuff I am afraid. I do find the HD Install helper a bit tricky and buggy. My guess would be just the same as you suspect, that the ISO is not working in some way. I did use the iAktos v5i so that stuff should work...

If the XP version of dispart does not show USB (removables) maybe one could use the Vista DVD and boot into "repair console" and used the diskpart from there? Or perhaps it will just work in XP if copied there as well?

Sorry that I don't have anything good to help you with here...
/Gruffy

 

That's no problem Gruffy, thank you for your help! I'll post back here if i do find a way around this HFS problem though.

 

@kwo : You should change your driver's ID (name) to AF.You can do that in 2 ways.Either right click -> properties or use the integrated XP diskmgmt.msc program that does whatever diskpart will do in Command Prompt and change the id of the drive to AF

 

Woohoo!! iATKOS OSX fully installed and functioning following the neat guide in these forums.

Thanks for your response GT1807. After hours spent trying unsuccessfully to get the USB key to work, i went and got an external dvd drive. Worked perfectly and would recommend doing the same to save time.

...So I kinda cheated on this problem

 

Crap you need vista to do the diskpart thing. Because xp doesnt recognize usb disk in diskparts.
Any alternative info on how to do it without diskpart would be usefull

EDIT:

It worked without changing everything.
Osx is now on my acer aspire one.

Thanks a bunch

 

Any of you guys got around installing iDeneb 1.4 using this method?

Or any other method using a flashdrive for that matter?