Samsung ATIV Book 8 Installation Progress

[BitgateMobile]

(IN PROGRESS) Samsung ATIV Book 8 Installation Progress

Hi all.

I just bought the new Samsung ATIV Book 8 from Best Buy, the model:
NP880Z5E-X01UB

Probably going to be very similar to the NP880Z5E-V01UB laptop, which is the Chronos 7 version, if I'm not mistaken.

Both laptops have the AMD Radeon 8770 GPU in them, which is currently (AFAIK) not supported. I am currently following this guide:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...guide-samsung-ativ-smart-pc-pro-xe700t1c.html

This guide is showing 95% completion, and I have been using it so far for installation. BIOS on these laptops is very finicky for settings, and such. Just getting into the BIOS screen is tricky by itself: when you power on, hold down F2. Once there, you can disable Secure Boot, and change boot order, and so on. I have been using the BIOS to override the boot order, which is at the "Save/Exit" screen.

To boot into the installer you must do the following:

PCIRootUID=0 -x

If you specify "1", the system will show the Apple logo with the spinning control, then will eventually crash and say "You need to hold down power to restart your computer" in the lovely grey screen.

Once you boot with PCIRootUID=0, you should be able to boot normally, just as before.

Also, note that you should use at least a 32GB USB stick for install. If you use a smaller one (8 or 16), you will most likely have a problem when trying to install the OS, and you will end up sitting at your desk scratching your head. Trust me - get a larger stick.

The trackpad - initially - does not work. I managed to plug in a USB mouse, and got that to work just fine. Interestingly enough, the keyboard works fine, so I'm not sure how the two are related - yet.

NOTE:
You MUST patch OSInstall.mpkg to install to MBR. If you do not, the BIOS will never see your boot drive. Furthermore, you must format your hard drive with MBR format before performing the install.

...

And a successful install, so far. No working audio, and not much else is working properly yet. I will have more updates soon, with updates on which Multibeast options should be selected for networking and such.

You MUST install the AppleACPI rollback to get the system to boot. I will post that link soon.

 

[BitgateMobile]

Booting into Linux, we get the following hardware listing:

Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset FAmily PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev c4)
USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM76 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset FAmily SMBus Controller (rev 04)
Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Mars [Radeon HD 8670A/8750M]
Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)

Should get you guys off and running ... at least, started.

 

[rwrobe]

Hey,

Sorry if I'm reposting to the thread, but I followed the instructions and the BIOS still doesn't see my boot partition for OSX. In fact, Chameleon seems not to see the Windows partition, which I understand it should.

I patched the installer with OSInstall.mpkg and OSIntall for MBR (correct version of ML), but I think the step I'm messing up comes in at formatting the OS X partition using Disk Utility. I go about it by Erasing and formatting and Extended (Journaled), but is there a way to ensure that it formats as an MBR partition?

What am I missing?

Thanks!

 

[rwrobe]

I'm back-- still haven't resolved this issue. I tried creating a partitioned USB drive to install OSX on the empty partition and then copy it over to my internal HD partition, to no avail. The Ativ Book won't start up in Chameleon with two USB drives in the two USB ports. Just won't do it.

All BIOS settings are as right as I imagine they can be.

For what it's worth I tried mucking around in fdisk in the Terminal and found that my partition table seems totally blank. I don't see lines for disk0 that indicate any meaningful partitions. I cannot, however, find any resources that would tell me how to rebuild the partition table so that I can mark the OS X ML install on my harddrive as active. It gives me the option to initialize the partition table, but I'm not eager to do that.

I must be missing something obvious and would appreciate any help OP could give.

 

[BitgateMobile]

Samsung ATIV Book 8 Installation Progress - Mavericks - FAIL so far...

Yup, I'm experiencing the exact same problems. The system boots just fine with the USB port and allows me to do the initial installation with Mavericks and Unibeast.

However, once I reboot, the BIOS fails to enumerate the drive - probably because it's a GPT partition table, or because it's not writing the first boot sector so the BIOS can enumerate the drive properly.

I'm assuming this is something that Samsung has deliberately done in BIOS to prevent hacking or installation of OSes other than Windows 8 on their systems.

Anyone else have a workaround?

 

[RehabMan]

Yup, I'm experiencing the exact same problems. The system boots just fine with the USB port and allows me to do the initial installation with Mavericks and Unibeast.

However, once I reboot, the BIOS fails to enumerate the drive - probably because it's a GPT partition table, or because it's not writing the first boot sector so the BIOS can enumerate the drive properly.

I'm assuming this is something that Samsung has deliberately done in BIOS to prevent hacking or installation of OSes other than Windows 8 on their systems.

Anyone else have a workaround?

Install the boot loader to the HDD by removing it and temporarily connecting it to another computer to complete the installation of the boot loader (and /Extra directory from Unibeast USB). You could also complete the boot loader install manually in Linux on the machine itself.

 

[Tuningszocske]

Anybody with success?

 

[BitgateMobile]

Install the boot loader to the HDD by removing it and temporarily connecting it to another computer to complete the installation of the boot loader (and /Extra directory from Unibeast USB). You could also complete the boot loader install manually in Linux on the machine itself.

Ugh, that's not an option. It would be nice to boot into Linux on a USB stick and somehow finish the installation there, but I've no idea how to accomplish that. It's as if the BIOS has specifically put some code into place that prevents the drive from enumeration at boot unless it has a non-GPT partition table.

 

[Tuningszocske]

Ugh, that's not an option. It would be nice to boot into Linux on a USB stick and somehow finish the installation there, but I've no idea how to accomplish that. It's as if the BIOS has specifically put some code into place that prevents the drive from enumeration at boot unless it has a non-GPT partition table.

That's not a problem. You have to boot from your USB until the intsaller, and where you found Disk Utility there is a Terminal also.

I installed Mavericks successfully with Unibeast onto a Samsung 840 Pro SSD with Windows 8 installed on it. The problem is that I created a partition for OSX on it, and the disk has MBR format, but the OSX formatted partition is GUID. Did somebedy try with formatting MBR?

I made every step from this method except the last one:

4. Flag the destination partition (disk0s2) as “Active”
pietra@unix$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0
fdisk$ f 2
fdisk$ write
fdisk$ y
fdisk$ exit

So, it seems the only problem is when we try to get OSX partition active it's impossible, because of the GUID partition table. When you are trying to make it active ('f 2' - or your partition number (for example mine is rdisk0s5, so it is 'f 5')) Terminal says 'it's not MBR activated' or something like that (or invalid partition).

If somebody get it's working, please post here! I'm working on it also...
(I also tried to make the partition table of OSX to MBR under Windows 8 and under command line with diskpart.exe without success.)

 

[BitgateMobile]

Here's an "ultimate" fix that I found for the latest Mavericks release:

http://www.osx86.net/files/file/3559-new-os-x-109-mavericks-mbr-patch-final-gm/

Use this patch to patch the installer. Then, format your hard drive as MBR, not GUID. Once you install with MBR, it will install properly, Multibeast will install properly, and all will be well.