Allan Kelly : MacOSX Installation to USB

3. MacOSX Installation to USB

Software Summary

As described below, I'm using:

• Apple Snow Leopard Retail DVD copied to USB
• NBI_083F.img - BUT: Don't use the NetBookInstaller that's included.
• NetBookInstaller 0.8.4-RC1 - The latest at time of writing, you probably want the latest available to you from the site.

Copy OSX DVD

I'm indebted to MechDrew for the guide which got me started on this section. I happen to have an old Mac Mini G4 running MacOSX Tiger, so I used the Tiger guide. However there's Linux and Windows guides there too - see OS X | mechdrew - Guides. What we want from that is to have the Snow Leopard DVD available on USB to install from. Also we use the NetBookInstaller (NBI_083F) disk image to boot to the install.

Where this guide differs from the MechDrew guide is that I'm going for a USB installation at first, and I'm going to use the latest NBI program after installation to avoid incompatibilities with the latest MacOSX kernel (10.6.3).

So, get yourself a copy of the SL Install DVD onto the 8GB USB stick. And get the NBI_083F.img file written to the small USB stick. MechDrew's guides tell you how. Then stop, and come back here.

USB to USB via USB...

OK, got those? Turn the Mini off. Plug the 3 USBs into the Mini's 3 USB slots (handy, eh?). Boot and go into the BIOS. Goto the Boot page. Raise USB to the top of the boot list. Expand the USB group and raise the small NBI USB stick to the top. (This may take some trial and error as it's often not obvious which is which!). F10 saves and exits.

When you get it right: At boot, you should see a choice - Windows on the HDD or Mac on the Snow Leopard Install USB copy. So, boot from the USB. This is a nice moment, as OSX comes up on your Mini for the first time. You remember why you're doing all this...

At the Install screen, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Select the 16GB USB where we're going to install OSX to, and partition it GUID as one big HSFPLUS drive. (You specify GUID in the "Options..." screen). Partition and return to the install.

Begin the install. You'll see the newly-partitioned USB as a valid installation target. Select it. Install MacOSX. At the end, it'll say "Installation Failed" or similar. That's OK, just shutdown and then remove the install DVD USB.

Now, boot from the NBI small USB again. This time select your new USB install and bring that up. You'll have no sound but everything else should work. The camera working is particularly nice. Take a picture, make an account, log in.

Make it bootable, and add the Hackintosh Kernel Extensions

Now, download the latest NetBookInstaller. At time of writing this was 0.8.4-RC1, which worked for me so I recommend it. The version on the NBI_083F.img USB does NOT work due to an incompatibility with the latest kernel, which we'll upgrade to in a bit. So, use the new one. Download, unpack, execute.

You now have a bootable USB installation of MacOSX Snow Leopard. Prove it - shutdown, remove the little USB, and boot from USB again. The big USB will boot and bring up MacOSX. Excellent! Even sound works. Enjoy using this for a bit...

Now upgrade. From the Apple menu, select Software Update. That takes a while, over an hour for me. After install, reboot. You have a nice Mac system on USB. Let's copy it to the HDD.