Is an installation possible using a USB sled on a Mac then transferring to the build.

[oldkentroad]

I am building a system based on tonymac's Haswell, no gfx card, build. I have my HAFXB totally wired but await an RMA'd PSU that didn't work.


In the meantime, using a USB sled I have used my iMac to partition my 1TB Barracuda and, with tremendous problems installed Win 7 Ultimate on the first Partition but cannot test as USB forbidden booting in Win. The other Partition just for Mac non-OS files.


Using the sled I have Partitioned a Crucial SSD as 1 Partition, GUID.


Two questions:


1. Booting from a USB dongle I 'should' be able to install Mavericks using Multibeast etc. on this SSD. Is this possible?


2. If 1 is correct, I have a working 10.9.1 with all all my apps installed. As Mavs does what was once called an, 'Archive Install,' can I clone my working drive to the SSD using the USB sled and then boot from the USB dongle containing all Multibeast etc. lovely stuff and, effectively, Archive-Install a new OS configured to boot my build when the SSD is installed therein?


I may be mad but, just an inquisitive thought to do something while waiting.


Thanks, in anticipation.

 

[Going Bald]

I am building a system based on tonymac's Haswell, no gfx card, build. I have my HAFXB totally wired but await an RMA'd PSU that didn't work.


In the meantime, using a USB sled I have used my iMac to partition my 1TB Barracuda and, with tremendous problems installed Win 7 Ultimate on the first Partition but cannot test as USB forbidden booting in Win. The other Partition just for Mac non-OS files.


Using the sled I have Partitioned a Crucial SSD as 1 Partition, GUID.


Two questions:


1. Booting from a USB dongle I 'should' be able to install Mavericks using Multibeast etc. on this SSD. Is this possible?


2. If 1 is correct, I have a working 10.9.1 with all all my apps installed. As Mavs does what was once called an, 'Archive Install,' can I clone my working drive to the SSD using the USB sled and then boot from the USB dongle containing all Multibeast etc. lovely stuff and, effectively, Archive-Install a new OS configured to boot my build when the SSD is installed therein?


I may be mad but, just an inquisitive thought to do something while waiting.


Thanks, in anticipation.

Yes and yes. You lose nothing by trying it. Are you dual booting the Win on the same drive?
http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/96000-guide-dual-booting-mountain-lion-windows-8-a.html

win7/win8 works same, ML and Mav works same

 

[oldkentroad]

Yes and yes. You lose nothing by trying it. Are you dual booting the Win on the same drive?
http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/96000-guide-dual-booting-mountain-lion-windows-8-a.html

win7/win8 works same, ML and Mav works same

Thanks Going Bald. I intended using the Barracuda with Win 7 to make sure the build is stable then install Mavs on the 240 Gig SSD. The hot-swap of the HAFXB is quite useful. I use Parallels 8 mainly for render-check; SMA solar check and some design stuff. I used it to install Win 7 on the USB sled quite successfully having discovered howto, but in booting, Parallels tried to convert the VM into a BootCamp version and went to fairyland. I'll try the task and if it works it's a good way to transfer files/apps without losing prefs.

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks Going Bald. I intended using the Barracuda with Win 7 to make sure the build is stable then install Mavs on the 240 Gig SSD. The hot-swap of the HAFXB is quite useful. I use Parallels 8 mainly for render-check; SMA solar check and some design stuff. I used it to install Win 7 on the USB sled quite successfully having discovered howto, but in booting, Parallels tried to convert the VM into a BootCamp version and went to fairyland. I'll try the task and if it works it's a good way to transfer files/apps without losing prefs.

Yes, a case with built in hot swap tray is useful. Put your files on HDDs inside the case and your OS's on separate drives outside and use the hotswap tray to switch between drives/OS's. You get the best of all worlds without the pain of boot loader compatibility. Especially useful if you want to boot Win7/8 UEFI and still be able to use Chimera to boot OS X.

 

[oldkentroad]

Yes and yes. You lose nothing by trying it. Are you dual booting the Win on the same drive?
http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/96000-guide-dual-booting-mountain-lion-windows-8-a.html

win7/win8 works same, ML and Mav works same

So far all good.

I cloned my working 10.9.1 from my iMac to the SSD using the USB sled then transferred it to the HAF, removing the Barracuda.

Using the MAVS USB dongle as made with the Haswell Unibeast and a fresh 10.9.1 downloaded I booted the HAF for the first time, ignored the BIOS, just saved, and the USB came up and I selected the Mavs installer.

I let it auto-reboot and all my cloned stuff was there. I used the Haswell Multibeast and selected the stuff TonyMac did and installed, rebooted. No problems.

I had no PCI Ethernet/WiFI cards installed yet so I just explored the zippiness of the thing.

Upon reboot I got the dreaded 'boot0' thingo and tried all sorts of things. Eventually this got a reboot:

BIOS select USB install and run DU to unmount mac os partition, then the Terminal command:

dd if=Volumes/usr/standalone/i386/boot1h of=/dev/disk0s2 in terminal. (SSD in Sata 0)

Reboot successful and now to add the other stuff and explore more.

Thanks for the methodology. Very nice!

Forgot: When using Haswell Multibeast it was quite confusing as panes now different from what I've seen. Each pane seems to fall back to default if not saved?

 

[oldkentroad]

This may be the wrong method of posting but it maintains sequency for me.

On the Mac side using the USB sled went well. My Mavs cloned and re-installation as per TonyMacs Haswell info just slotted into my HAF and booted after I fixed the 'boot0' error.

The install of Win7 on the sled failed miserably and I spent a lot of time getting the Barracuda (with the Win7 on) to work. I wanted to ensure that the HAF was working well with the H80i and the Win side was the only way. Eventually I got it going, installed theGiga stuff from online Taiwan, and installed the Corsair H80i stuff to check.

This was even more difficult as Microsoft wouldn't download '.NET' S/W. This was fixed at 'cmd' level and I couldn't get the temp of the i54670K>50 degs with 100% processor load. It had a 'score' of 5.9 out of 7-something? My PIXMA 5300 connected to the Win side after installing the Canon S/W, so I turned to the Mac side, transferring the Barra to SATA 1, the Mac SSD to SATA0.

Mavs booted in @ 5 secs!! It connected to the Canon printer 5300 after repairing permissions for me. (I use an Alcatel 585 + Buffalo DDWRT configured AP's) Geekbenched at @10,000 64 bit standard clock? Ethernet just, 'worked.'

My Firewire PCIex card installed (StarTechcom - as per advised here) just worked OOB.

So far I have no audio (where does it come from - to? On the PC side it comes via the DP and out of the Acer speakers?) but I only use SPDIF, not yet tested.

I have no WiFi or Bluetooth.

BIOS is F2 and no freezing. RAM is 2400 but running 1600.

Much more to test but quite happy so far.

 

[Going Bald]

The install of Win7 on the sled failed miserably and I spent a lot of time getting the Barracuda (with the Win7 on) to work.

Installing Win7 on one machine and moving it to another machine directly will not work. Win7 installer takes a "snapshot" of your hardware as it installs to OS and saves it to a file. Subsequent boots it compares hardware to this file. If hardware is different it either will not boot or boots to a black screen with a piracy warning.

There is a way to move the drive if needed, but it requires the deletion of specific files and running a MS app before the move to prep the drive.