Update 10.5.8 to snow leopard 10.6.+

[sjpapa]

Hello guys,

Has anyone tried to update 10.5.x to Snow Leopard? I mean without disk format, not according to the nice installation guides on clean-install I have found.

 

If such an update works, I would love to see any encouragement/comments.

many thanks!

[dissonanz]

Hello guys,

 

Has anyone tried to update 10.5.x to Snow Leopard? I mean without disk format according to the nice installation guides and posts I have found.

 

I such an update works I would love to see any comments.

 

many thanks!

 

As far as I know it is absolutely impossible.

[TheGreatDeceiver]

Hello guys,

 

Has anyone tried to update 10.5.x to Snow Leopard? I mean without disk format according to the nice installation guides and posts I have found.

 

I such an update works I would love to see any comments.

 

many thanks!

yep, if it was possible you'd see it all over the place here. I don't know of a single post that could verify that.

[sjpapa]

"bir soru sor, bin ah isit" ... Turkish proverb: "ask one question, hear thousand sighs"

 

oh oh, this means only a clean install, sighhhhh

[coconup]

well indeed I did it with no problems at all.. two ways you can do it. steps:

 

first way

1) make a boot cd for sl with the kexts you need and test if it boots the sl dvd

2) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

3) double click on the install icon

4) click continue

5) with an sl boot cd with the kexts you need boot into your usual leopard partition (be careful, NOT the dvd)

6) go on and reboot

7) boot with the boot cd once again and replace your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext or whatever with the new snow leopard ones

 

second way, probably nicer:

1) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

2) before clicking continue, open terminal and replace all your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext with the snow leopard ones (being sure you have chameleon rc3 or similar booting)

3) click continue and reboot into your usual partition

4) go on and you are updated

 

this just worked for me but my laptop is very similar to a macbook, same chipset, graphics and even same cpu.. but I guess it should just work for pretty much everyone who has a decently os x capable pc

 

btw should I have told this before?

 

PS: of course I had a clean retail leopard install with a guid partition and so on and I described this here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...60&start=60

[sjpapa]

Many thanks for the hint!

Have some questions on your post still, that I need cleared before crashing my 10.5.8machine...

well indeed I did it with no problems at all.. two ways you can do it. steps:

 

first way

1) make a boot cd for sl with the kexts you need and test if it boots the sl dvd: HOW do you make this one?

2) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

3) double click on the install icon: Im confused: Which install icon? Where do I boot first?

4) click continue

5) with an sl boot cd with the kexts you need boot into your usual leopard partition (be careful, NOT the dvd)

6) go on and reboot

7) boot with the boot cd once again and replace your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext or whatever with the new snow leopard ones

 

AGAIN: /Volumes/MacDisk/... not volumes/efi/.. is the path start? I have no /efi path on the old installation

 

second way, probably nicer:

0) Update Chameleon RC3 first: [Thats where my snow server crashed: sighh]

1) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

2) before clicking continue, open terminal and replace all your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext with the snow leopard ones (being sure you have chameleon rc3 or similar booting)

3) click continue and reboot into your usual partition

4) go on and you are updated

 

Q: Do I get the kexts from my old 10.5.8 or from a snow installation manual on this site?

 

Thanks for the great encouragement! will report when succesful

[coconup]

well...

 

1) I forgot to mention first of all you should know what a boot cd is and how to make one for your system configuration.. I guess you'll find a thousand tutorials here

 

2) when I wrote click on the install icon I meant the Snow Leopard install program from the dvd when you are into your leopard installation

 

3) you have an efi folder if you are booting from the efi partition with munky's method, again.. read.

[sjpapa]

Please help me make understand some basic stuff [that I couldnt learn any younger]? How are addtional kexts used in an installation process ?

 

I have bootable disks with 10.5.8: SATA640 and BakkLeo [sATA640 was original, BakkLeo a cloned copy]

 

I want to upgrade BakkLeo to Snow without touching SATA640:

$df shows the following

 

/dev/disk1s1 is root: / : original 10.5.8

/dev/disk0s2 is /Volumes/BakkLeo : this is where I want to upgrade the 10.5.8 to 10.6, has Chameleon 2 RC3.

/dev/disk2s3 is the DVD as /Volumes/Mac OSX Install DVD : Apple Retail Snow DVD

/dev/disk3s1 /Volumes/SnowUSB : a bootable USB with Snow used for a fresh installation

 

Now the kexts for the EP45 MB should be copied to /Volumes/BakkLeo/Extra? according to some higher insane-authority?

I still dont see the /Volumes/EFI folder. Can you please explain, [or send some links?] how the boot process works and how the kexts are used into the installation?

 

from what I see, the above configuration should be enough? I can click on /Volumes/SnowUSB/System/Library/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg or OSUpgarde.mpkg???

and I should get my BakkLeo working? BakkLeo boots on Chameleon 2 RC3. Did I understand anything wrong?

For the fresh Snow installation I used the first 6 steps of www.insanelymac/forum/index.php?showtopic=181903. There is no /EFI dir therein..

I plan to use the same steps for the upgrade? If I only could better understand the installation process???...

 

many thanks inA

[coconup]

well seriously this is such basic stuff anybody here wouldn't care about, just search over the forum... munky's method I mentioned is here and well highlighted where you would expect it to be, at the top of the genius bar. not so difficult to find:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=127330

 

then I guess if you don't have at least a guid partition table with a clean retail installation this process of updating from leopard to sl won't work, and I'm completely sure if something fails (and it will) you will have no idea of where to start to solve anything

[sjpapa]

Hello coconup,

Many thanks for the links, now it all makes sense!

The idea of the forum is to ask for threads. '...just search the forum..' is a no go strategy. Especially when the search displays all to often the red error banner.

 

If only the forum had a rating of usefulness... this way one could find '.. such basic stuff..' in affordable time.

 

many thanks

I am trying as you read...

[pxavierperez]

As far as I know it is absolutely impossible.

 

I don't know why you would say this is impossible. Snow Leopard was meant as an upgrade to existing Leopard system. Only the Hackintosh common tradition that suggest clean install every thing.

 

Sjpapa, if you have a GUID formatted Leopard install, I really don't see any reason why you can not upgrade.

 

Try the following before upgrading.

 

Boot to your Leopard drive. Prepare your DSDT then install Netkas newest EFI 10.5 along with Chameleon's boot. Install the needed kext onto your Extra folders.

 

then you can proceed to upgrade to Snow Leopard.

 

You can either do the following

 

1) Copy the Snow Leopard Install DMG file to your desktop then open it. go to /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages then launch OSInstall.mpkg

 

When you reboot go immediately to the single user mode.

 

Then type:

 

mount -uw /

chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -v -l -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext/System/Library/Extensions/

 

the bolded text should be all in one line. (This is important. If you forget to do this during your first boot, SL will not boot and you'll have a Kernel Panic.)

 

Then reboot again.

 

To add extensions in Snow Leopard use Kext Utility (you can search for it here), don't use Kext Helper. Snow Leopard uses a different method of updating their Kext cache.

 

2) or use USB Stick install method which instructions are readily available in this site.

 

Of course, before all else, make sure you clone your existing Leopard drive.

[sjpapa]

I don't know why you would say this is impossible. Snow Leopard was meant as an upgrade to existing Leopard system. Only the Hackintosh common tradition that suggest clean install every thing.

 

Sjpapa, if you have a GUID formatted Leopard install, I really don't see any reason why you can not upgrade. Try the following before upgrading.

 

Boot to your Leopard drive. Prepare your DSDT then install Netkas newest EFI 10.5 along with Chameleon's boot. Install the needed kext onto your Extra folders.

then you can proceed to upgrade to Snow Leopard. You can either do the following

 

1) Copy the Snow Leopard Install DMG file to your desktop then open it. go to /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages then launch OSInstall.mpkg

 

When you reboot go immediately to the single user mode.

 

Then type:

 

mount -uw /

chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -v -l -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext/System/Library/Extensions/

 

the bolded text should be all in one line. (This is important. If you forget to do this during your first boot, SL will not boot and you'll have a Kernel Panic.) Then reboot again. To add extensions in Snow Leopard use Kext Utility (you can search for it here), don't use Kext Helper. Snow Leopard uses a different method of updating their Kext cache.

 

2) or use USB Stick install method which instructions are readily available in this site.

Of course, before all else, make sure you clone your existing Leopard drive.

 

From what I understood there are 2 different hack-methods:

1) storing on the unused /EFI partition the new kexts for up-hacking, where a special boot CD is used to install everything in /EFI/.. to the proper place in teh new system.

2) The USB stick method with manual kext copy/install.

I succesfully made a Snow installation according to step 1-6 of http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181903 [no DSDT patching].

I will try this second method on my [cloned ] 10.5.8 disk. It seems easier, I still have the USB and the Retail Snow DVD.

Muchos gracias senior!

-------------------------------

Decided to go along with a variation of the Tutorial: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181903

where I booted from the parent 10.5.8 drive, have a USB stick with Snow on Chamamelon, and the retail DVD.

Installed SL on the child [=clone of 10.5.8 parent that I did with SuperDuper!, as Carbon Copy seems to work only for real macs]

but the reboot ith -v -x32 seems to stop at:

 

Kext org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv not found to unload request

dyld: shared cached file was build against a different libSystem.dylib, ignoring cache [[@@@ STOP !!!!!]

[sjpapa]

Then type:

 

mount -uw /

chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -v -l -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext/System/Library/Extensions/

 

the bolded text should be all in one line. (This is important. If you forget to do this during your first boot, SL will not boot and you'll have a Kernel Panic.)

 

The apple 10.6 manual says: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/DOC...extcache.8.html

 

DESCRIPTION

The kextcache program creates kext caches, which speed up kext loading operations. It is invoked auto-matically automatically

matically as needed to rebuild system caches.

 

Caution: Incorrect use of kextcache can render a volume incapable of startup. Installers and adminis-trators administrators

trators should not use this program to update system kext caches. Instead they should run touch(1) on

the /System/Library/Extensions/ directory of the installation target volume after they have finished,

which causes the system to update all necessary kext caches. See ``Apple Developer Technical Q&A

QA1319: Installing an I/O Kit Kext Without Rebooting'' for information on updating kext caches on prior

releases of Mac OS X.

I never got to this point...

I am afraid I have to start all over...

Re cloned 10.5.8 disk, but get an error:

 

kext org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv not found for unload request [+ other VBox.. kexts]

 

any ideas? how to get rid of this?

[sjpapa]

Hello coconup,

Many thanks for the links, now it all makes sense!

The idea of the forum is to ask for threads. '...just search the forum..' is a no go strategy. Especially when the search displays all to often the red error banner.

 

If only the forum had a rating of usefulness... this way one could find '.. such basic stuff..' in affordable time.

 

many thanks

I am trying as you read...

 

I got started but apparently my VBox refuses to upgrade, I get:

 

 

kext org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv not found for unload request [+ other VBox kexts..]

 

any ideas?

[sjpapa]

I got started but apparently my VBox refuses to upgrade, I get:

 

 

kext org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv not found for unload request [+ other VBox kexts..]

 

any ideas?

Disaster: panic

First I had some 'could not load VBoxUSB... kexts, I unisntalled VBox and recloned the HD, tried again,

put all kexts in the /Extra/Extensions folder.

rebooting -v -x (or -x32) yields panic:

Failed to load com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform...

[sjpapa]

I don't know why you would say this is impossible. Snow Leopard was meant as an upgrade to existing Leopard system. Only the Hackintosh common tradition that suggest clean install every thing.

 

Sjpapa, if you have a GUID formatted Leopard install, I really don't see any reason why you can not upgrade.

 

Try the following before upgrading.

 

Boot to your Leopard drive. Prepare your DSDT then install Netkas newest EFI 10.5 along with Chameleon's boot. Install the needed kext onto your Extra folders.

 

then you can proceed to upgrade to Snow Leopard.

 

You can either do the following

 

1) Copy the Snow Leopard Install DMG file to your desktop then open it. go to /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages then launch OSInstall.mpkg

 

When you reboot go immediately to the single user mode.

 

Then type:

 

mount -uw /

chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -v -l -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext/System/Library/Extensions/

 

the bolded text should be all in one line. (This is important. If you forget to do this during your first boot, SL will not boot and you'll have a Kernel Panic.)

 

Then reboot again.

 

To add extensions in Snow Leopard use Kext Utility (you can search for it here), don't use Kext Helper. Snow Leopard uses a different method of updating their Kext cache.

 

2) or use USB Stick install method which instructions are readily available in this site.

 

Of course, before all else, make sure you clone your existing Leopard drive.

 

Disaster with kexts: I had panic errors, soem kexts could not load, so I checked a working Snow Leopard and got the kexts with the same name form there I am stuck with a 'non-existent' kext AppleGenericPCATA,

here is a screen dump...

 

Any ideas how to continue with a proper set of kexts for the upgrade?

After innstaling Snow on the cloned disk, tried to reboot with -x -F, ... apparently the changed kexts of the retail DVD are not all too compatible with the hack kexts? or am I wrong?

 

I suspect that new kexts needed for the upgrade are not those in my Extra folder from the installation guides...

 

Can anybody shed some light into which kexts are needed for un upgrade 10.5.8 -> Snow?

[sjpapa]

well indeed I did it with no problems at all.. two ways you can do it. steps:

 

first way

1) make a boot cd for sl with the kexts you need and test if it boots the sl dvd

2) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

3) double click on the install icon

4) click continue

5) with an sl boot cd with the kexts you need boot into your usual leopard partition (be careful, NOT the dvd)

6) go on and reboot

7) boot with the boot cd once again and replace your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext or whatever with the new snow leopard ones

 

second way, probably nicer:

1) plug the sl dvd into your drive when into leopard

2) before clicking continue, open terminal and replace all your kexts in volumes/efi/extra/extensions.mkext with the snow leopard ones (being sure you have chameleon rc3 or similar booting)

3) click continue and reboot into your usual partition

4) go on and you are updated

 

this just worked for me but my laptop is very similar to a macbook, same chipset, graphics and even same cpu.. but I guess it should just work for pretty much everyone who has a decently os x capable pc

 

btw should I have told this before?

 

PS: of course I had a clean retail leopard install with a guid partition and so on and I described this here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...60&start=60

 

dear coconup,

 

Can you please explain one more thing? Where do I get the Snow Leopard kexts from that I should copy into my /EFI/Extra folder?

 

I trust all the new Snow kexts should heve been copied during the installation? I only need a few additional hack-kexts for Snow? like new Audio, IOAHCIBlokStorageInjectpr...?

[sjpapa]

Followed also the Guide:

 

but alas, no update was possible: log showed that many kexts couldnt load, and stopped at:

ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin:: start waitForService.. appleCPUPowerManagement.. timed out

 

any ideas what to do?

many Thnaks iA

[Beerkex'd]

I've upgraded from 10.5.8 to 10.6.0 earlier. Later I did a clean install but this is how I upgraded at the time.

 

My HDD is partitioned like this (GUID/HFS+J):

 

Main OSX system partition

8 GB partition (enough to hold an OS X install DVD)

Storage/backup partition

 

in 10.5.8, I used Disk Utility to 'restore' my 10.6.0 installation DVD to the 8GB partition.

 

Then I started looking for Snow Leopard compatible versions of all the kexts that I use in 10.5.8.

Made a Chameleon boot CD with those kexts on it and tried to boot into the partition that holds the install DVD.

It took a few tries (yay for CR-RWs) but as soon as I could boot into the install DVD I just ran the installer and installed Snow right on top of 10.5.8.

Then instead of booting from HDD (which wouldn't have worked, as the Chameleon bootloader on it was set up to boot 10.5.8) I booted from my Chameleon boot CD.

Then I replaced my old kexts on the EFI partition with the new Snow compatible ones that I used for the boot CD. Rebooted, booted from HDD and that was it.

 

Upgrading from 10.5.8 to 10.6.0 I recommend adding arch=x86 to Kernel Flags in /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist. At least until you're done upgrading and everything is working.

 

The only difference from booting 10.5.x and 10.6.x is that the extra kexts you depend on must be Snow Leopard compatible. That's really all there is to it.

 

Later I found out it's possible to set up Chameleon to boot both 10.5.x and 10.6.x by setting up an Extensions folder for each but I haven't looked into it further because I keep 10.5.8 on another machine for when I need to use it.

[sjpapa]

I've upgraded from 10.5.8 to 10.6.0 earlier. Later I did a clean install but this is how I upgraded at the time....

 

Then I started looking for Snow Leopard compatible versions of all the kexts that I use in 10.5.8.

Made a Chameleon boot CD with those kexts on it and tried to boot into the partition that holds the install DVD.

It took a few tries (yay for CR-RWs) but as soon as I could boot into the install DVD I just ran the installer and installed Snow right on top of 10.5.8.

Then instead of booting from HDD (which wouldn't have worked, as the Chameleon bootloader on it was set up to boot 10.5.8) I booted from my Chameleon boot CD.

Then I replaced my old kexts on the EFI partition with the new Snow compatible ones that I used for the boot CD. Rebooted, booted from HDD and that was it.

 

Upgrading from 10.5.8 to 10.6.0 I recommend adding arch=x86 to Kernel Flags in /Extra/com.apple.Boot.plist. At least until you're done upgrading and everything is working.

 

The only difference from booting 10.5.x and 10.6.x is that the extra kexts you depend on must be Snow Leopard compatible. That's really all there is to it.

 

Later I found out it's possible to set up Chameleon to boot both 10.5.x and 10.6.x by setting up an Extensions folder for each but I haven't looked into it further because I keep 10.5.8 on another machine for when I need to use it.

 

 

Thank you for the encouragement! Now I seem to get it why my upgrade did not work!

One question still: Where do you find the Snow compatible kexts?

I have the /System/Library/Extensions folder with about 150 and odd 10.5.8-kexts. Then I have the /Extra/Extensions folder of my 10.5.8 installation that holds the ~ten 10.5.8-hack-kexts.

 

Now you say you boot from the boot CD and have a Snow partition with the disk image. Your 'trick' is to find an set for kexts for the /Extra/Extensions folder? or the /System/Library/Extensions folder?

 

I have on a different machine a working 10.6.1 installation [from scratch]. Is this of any help to the upgrade? Where do I find these kexts?

 

GA-EP45-DS3L, and NVIDIA 8600GTS.

[Beerkex'd]

You should avoid modifying /System/Library/Extensions. Always use /Extra and /Extra/Extensions as far as possible.

 

Visit the VoodooProjects forum and read the FAQ and the documentation for the Chameleon bootloader to learn more.

 

Use the kernel extension name + Snow or 10.6 as a search term to google/forum search the extensions you need.

 

Of course you must first find out exactly which modified or community-made kexts you need on your system.

[sjpapa]

A new issue: While installing from the Retail DVD, installation stops with the message:

Installer cannot copy some file is /System/.. Contact your Software manufacturer.

 

A clean install of 10.6.x [up to 10.6.4] works fine though [using cartri BIOS, no DSDT, no kexts].