S10-3 Snow Leopard tutorial (alternate method)

[treyjazz]

This is a tutorial for getting Snow Leopard 10.6.x installed on the S10-3. Many thanks to rubensszm for his tutorial (and the previous work done by all the others who got him started on his tutorial) that got me pointed in the right direction. There were various problems (errors, kernel panics, etc.) that arose when I was trying to follow all the steps in his tutorial so I had to deviate from his method and in doing so I learned a better method that I want to pass along to help others in the same situation. Please note that this is still a work in progress and I am hopeful to get the rest of the hardware working.

What is needed:

64MB+ USB flash drive that is bootable
A Snow Leopard 10.6.x DVD with a USB DVD drive
Or a Snow Leopard 10.6.x DVD/disc image (legally obtained) with an 8GB+ USB flash drive
TransMac or access to a Mac in order to make the boot drive
NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 bootable image with Voodoo PS2 support* mirror
S10-3 SL Disc patch mirror

*This is not an official image. It is an image I put together so let me know if there is a problem booting with it. It includes the fixed PS2 kexts so you shouldn't need a USB keyboard/mouse.

Preparation


Install the latest BIOS firmware from Lenovo's site

Creating your bootable USB drive...

Using Windows with TransMac:


Plug in the 64MB+ flash drive then run TransMac
Right click on the flash drive (make sure it is the right drive!) and choose Format Disk - Format with disk image
Select NBI_03F-fixed.img

Using a Mac:


Open up Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities)
Images - Scan Image for Restore
Select NBI_03F-fixed.img
When it has been verified click on Restore
Drag the flash drive partition onto the Destination
Drag NBI_03F-fixed.img onto the Source
If Erase Destination isn't checked then check it
Click Restore

Creating a Snow Leopard install USB drive...

Using Windows with TransMac:


Create a disc image if you have the DVD (Right click the DVD drive - Save Image of Disk)
Open the Snow Leopard install image
Right click the image and select Properties
If the Disk Type shows compressed then right click the image, click Expand Disk Image, and save it to a new name
Restore the expanded SL image to the USB drive with the same steps used for the boot drive
After it is done restoring go to the HFS+ Volume shown on the drive
Open S10-3 SL Disc patch.zip
Place the NetbookInstaller 0.8.5pre.app directory inside /Applications/Utilities
Overwrite /System/Installation/CDIS/Mac OS X Installer.app/Contents/Resources/InstallerMenuAdditions.plist


Using a Mac:


Open up Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities)
If using an image...

Images - Scan Image for Restore
Select the Snow Leopard image
Click on Restore
Drag the flash drive partition onto the Destination
Drag the Snow Leopard image or Snow Leopard install disc onto the Source
If Erase Destination isn't checked then check it
Click Restore

Will add info on copying the patch files over to the USB drive if anyone needs it




Installation


Remove your battery or you will get a kernel panic during the installation process
Plug in the USB boot drive and the DVD drive/USB install drive
Boot up and press F12 (Fn+F11)
Select the boot drive (USB drive with NBI installed)
At the boot loader screen select Snow Leopard OSX Install
Type in arch=i386 -v and hit enter
It will take a while to get booted up but eventually you should be greeted by the OSX install screen
From the menu select Utilities - Disk Utility
Click on the hard drive and then on Partition
Select how many partitions you want to create - make at least two partitions with at least 20GB for the first partition
Click Options
If you are installing an unpatched copy of Snow Leopard then you must use GUID
If you are using the MBR patch method (usage show in rubensszm's tutorial) then you can use MBR

*Note that when I tried using the patch with 10.6.3 it appeared to get stuck indefinitely at the "Preparing Installation" screen but it installs fine with 10.6.0. However, upon the first boot there are problems with the kexts used to interface the drive and I am unable to get around them. Therefore, I recommend using GUID and installing a bootloader like GRUB that is capable of booting from a Windows, Linux partition if you are planning on multi-booting*

Select HFS+ (Journaled) for the first partition
Change the type of partition formatting for the rest of the partitions (use HFS+ if you are only going to use the S10-3 as a Mac)
Click Apply
After the partitioning/formatting is complete close Disk Utility
Select your language and click the button to go to the next setup screen
Double click the HFS+ partition you created
Remove any unncecessary install packages that you don't want (languages, printer drivers)
Continue on with the install and after half an hour or so setup should have finished

*If you get a screen saying that installation has failed it probably has installed fine anyway*

Boot up with the USB boot drive and select the SL installation again
Type in arch=i386 -v and hit enter
Once you get to the setup screen go into Utilities - NetBookInstaller
Ignore the message about an unsupported device if it pops up
Select the partition you just installed SL onto and when it is done
If options are shown...
Uncheck Fix bluetooth (unless you have added a BT card) and Enable Remote CD (if you aren't going to be accessing CD/DVD drives across a networked computer) and Enable hibernation if it is checked then click Install and enter your password
When it is done close the window
Quit the OSX Installer and Restart
When you get to the BIOS screen you can remove both USB drives and let it boot up by itself
You should be booted up into OSX
Fill in the information you want (nothing is required but a username and password -- DON'T USE A BLANK PASSWORD) and finish the setup

After you have everything set up I highly recommend that you boot up with the OSX installer so you can copy the completed installation with Disk Utiity for an easier restore if something goes wrong in the future. You can't back up the drive while it is active/mounted so this is why you need to use the OSX installer to run Disk Utility.


Note: In order to install system updates and other Apple Software (at least Xcode) you will need to unplug the battery or else you will get a kernel panic.

If you ever have any trouble with the mach_kernel not being found or the bootloader not working then you can repeat the step to reinstall NetBookInstaller and it should resurrect your installation of OSX

Hardware compatibility with this setup


Working:

Keyboard
Trackpad
Audio
Video
Ethernet
USB
SD card slot
Somewhat working:

webcam (works in Photobooth but not in Image Capture)

Not working:

microphone (internal)
wifi (HAL status 3 error/bug)

Not tested:

headphone jack
microphone jack

[rubensszm]

This is great, thank you so much!

ASAP I'll try this!

[mjack]

Do you think we'll have to switch to a Dell 1390 wireless card (as I had to when installing on the S10e a while back) or is there still hope for the built-in card?

Mine (Scandinavian model) uses an Atheros AR9285 card, and it did come with bluetooth.

What about Quartz Extreme?

Kind regards,
Michael

[treyjazz]

@rubensszm:
I hope it proves to be useful to you and others. I am actually repeating the process many times over to try to figure out why exactly the results seem to vary each time and in the process hope to refine the guide so there aren't any varying results. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean as you no doubt spent a lot of time doing trial and error with this. I will keep updating the tutorial as I learn more about what to do (and perhaps more importantly what not to do). But it appears that some things just want to work 1 times out of 10 when you do them exactly the same.

@mjack:
That card is confirmed to work almost OOTB but with a tweak. I just ordered that card myself and will share my experience with it as soon as I get it installed. As for video acceleration I'm not sure if GMA3150 will ever be able to be patched to work properly by Meklort. :/

[treyjazz]

I worked a while today on getting an even easier install done and it works very well. No more USB keyboard and mouse required and all the hardware that is currently known to work is installed before you even boot OSX up the first time.

Now if I can figure out how to easily make a single USB bootable image (legally so it can be shared)...

Will update more once I get my new wifi card and if I can get the other hardware working.

[treyjazz]

Have been trying to get the Dell 1390 to work since I got it yesterday afternoon and it isn't even being detected by OSX. It turns out that in order to activate the card you must first boot into Windows or Linux and then reboot into OSX. I will test to see if a LiveCD/USB will work for this purpose but it will be a PITA to do every boot up. Note also that you have to use the WWAN antenna instead of the WLAN because the wires won't reach so hopefully the reception won't be much less.

[goldenchan]

treyjazz or other dear,

Do you know whether this method works for my new IdeaPad S10-3c (Atom N455)? As I seem to have a error of "unknown cpu model" during the early stage of installation of SL 10.6.

Please kindly confirm, thanks.

Regards,
Golden

[treyjazz]

I wish I had an answer for you but I can't find any N455 Hackintosh support online. At what specific point does this error occur?

[goldenchan]

at the very early initial stage after I type arch=i386 -v

[treyjazz]

It's a no go with the Dell 1390. The PCI-e slot isn't powered at all even when pin 20 is cut. So I hope noone else wasted money on it. :/ There is a USB chipset that is said to work well without the need to boot into another OS to activate it. It is the Realtek RTL8191SU. Luckily it is in many budget wifi adapters including this one. I hope to get one soon so I can be online in OSX as I really need to be able to view online documentation, etc for programming.