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An easy way to install Mountain Lion [GUIDE]


This method was created for the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 motherboard but it should be relatively easy to modify for any other motherboard.


You will be creating a Boot USB that can be used to install OS X Mountain Lion on a Hackintosh or a genuine mac.





Clean install



Prerequisites
  1. A USB drive (8 GB) or a spare partition. We'll assume you'll use a USB device here
  2. An install partition for OS X Mountain Lion. Let's call it MountainLion
  3. A DSDT.aml (optional)
  4. v2.1: install.zip
Directions

  • Buy and download Mac OS X Mountain Lion from the App Store.

  • In Disk Utility, format the USB as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and give it some name: We'll use Boot here but it can be anything. Make sure that "GUID Partition Table" is selected under "Options..."

  • If you already have a custom DSDT.aml you wish to use, add it to install/Extra/. Note that if you add a custom DSDT, it must be named DSDT.aml. If you don't add a DSDT, one will be created for you when you run finalize (See below). Although the included patcher was made to support GA-P35-DS4 it has also been confirmed to work well with a number of other Gigabyte boards similar to GA-P35-DS4. The method used by default is for ALC889A sound and requires a specific ID (layout ID 12) in your DSDT to work. There are more details in 'ALC885HDA_Lion_MLion_V1.00/Readme First.txt' included in install.zip


  • In Terminal:
    sudo install/mkboot /Volumes/Boot/

  • Boot your USB device and install Mountain Lion on /Volumes/MountainLion as you normally would.

  • Wait for the installation to finish. When your machine reboots in the end, boot onto the USB device again

  • Open up a terminal via the Utilities menu:
    ./finalize /Volumes/MountainLion
    reboot

  • The USB device can now be ejected and OS X can be booted from the hard drive.

  • Once you've gone through creating or migrating accounts, open System Preferences -> Energy Saver and check the box by "Start up automatically after a power failure"

  • All done.

Sleep, network, and sound works on GA-P35-DS4. For a substantially different motherboard you'll need to modify mkboot and finalize appropriately.



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How does it work?



mkboot is a bash script that installs Chameleon, the things needed from the Mountain Lion install app, and other tidbits to the target volume.


finalize is a bash script as well. It is copied over to the boot USB by mkboot and installs Chameleon etc. on the target volume.


Both scripts are commented and include links to the sources of the included software.


I'm a Terminal newbie. What to do?


Welcome to the wonderful world of the Unix terminal  Here are some extra instructions:

  • Once you've downloaded install.zip it should reside in the Downloads folder. Safari either unpacked it for you or you can do it yourself by double clicking the file.

  • Open a terminal. Write cd Downloads and press enter.

  • Copy and paste the command from step 4 in Directions and press enter.


Known Issues


A shutdown can in some situations cause OS X to warn that it has recovered from an error on the next boot. Apart from the warning this doesn't seem to causing any problems.


Troubleshooting


Make sure you are actually booting from the USB device. On Gigabyte, you can press F12 on POST to get a boot menu.



Error reporting

  • If you have problems please follow these guidelines when posting in this thread and Forum:
  • Report your hardware including motherboard and graphics card. Check whether the graphics card is reported as working in Mountain Lion by others.
  • Report whether you have made any modifications to the install package.
  • Report exactly when the error happens. On running the script? If so, which one? On booting the USB device? On booting the hard drive?
  • Report what you've already tried that didn't work.
  • Screenshots of the error are always helpful.

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