problem installing Snow Leopard Server on 10.9.2 Mavericks

[erikbojerik]

So I have an early 2011 MBP running 10.9.2 Mavericks, VB 4.3.10 r93012 installed, and have created a SLS 64-bit VM. I have brand spankin' new 10.6.3 Snow Leopard Server install disc from Apple, but the installation chokes with the attached "guru meditation" critical error message.

MBP is early 2011 and was shipped with Snow Leopard, so I know the hardware is compatible. Based on what I can see on the black screen (too quick to capture), it seems to hang when loading start-up extensions (?).

Why won't this install?

[rpmurray]

MBP is early 2011 and was shipped with Snow Leopard, so I know the hardware is compatible

Nope. Early 2011 MacBook Pros shipped with OS X 10.6.6, your "brand spankin' new" Snow Leopard Server install disc is 10.6.3.

[erikbojerik]

Just to be clear - are you saying that the SLS will not run on my hardware, and cannot be used with VB on this particular machine?

If so, is there a SLS upgrade that would run?

[socratis]

OK, first of all, it's not wise to post about the same topic on two threads. The same people that read the other thread, read this thread too. I'm going to be replying to this one, since it's yours.

Start with VBox 4.3.0 and work your way all the way to 4.3.10. I've had various degrees of success depending on the VBox version. My 10.5 server would install fine in the first 4.3.0b but not in (for example) 4.3.10. So if I want to install 10.5 (although it's not officially supported), I have to downgrade VBox to 4.3.6, do the install and then upgrade to 4.3.10.

Your kilometers may vary .

[erikbojerik]

Yeah I started this one partly because the topic title of the other thread was "Snow Leopard" (without the Server).

Dang I kinda hate to downgrade now since I just got a Windows XP VM working on the most recent version....

[socratis]

It's a recommendation, I'm not sure if it's going to work or not. It simply worked in one of my cases. You don't have to touch your XP machine while you're doing this experiment. Just let it be (shutdown, I mean, not saved nor paused).

[erikbojerik]

I am running VB 4.3.10, how would I downgrade to 4.3.0 without touching my XP VM? Wouldn't I have to uninstall VB entirely before installing 4.3.0.

[socratis]

Uninstalling and installing a different VBox version does not affect your data. Your VMs are data. Just like installing different versions of Office does not affect your documents.

[erikbojerik]

OK so I am on VB 4.2.18 right now and trying various things (with no joy thus far).

@rpmurray, are you saying that the mismatch between my hardware (early 2011 MBP) and Snow Leopard Server 10.6.3 is fatal?

I have the Snow Leopard Server 10.6.3 install discs, and the SLS 10.6.8 update DMG - now wondering if there is a way I can use these together somehow to make a SLS 10.6.8 ISO file that would work...???

[rpmurray]

No, it's not fatal, but it is a bit difficult. The installer checks your CPU ID and Model ID when installing and tends to trip up when it finds that the hardware is newer than what the OS version was originally designed to support. In a VM those things are not as critical as running it on bare metal but the installer wasn't written with virtual machines in mind, and VirtualBox passes the host information through to the VM, so what host you're running it on matters.

I have a few ideas that worked when I was testing 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6 server as VMs but that was in earlier 4.0.x versions of VB on older Mac hardware running Snow Leopard on the host. I started work on seeing if it still worked in the latest VB running on Mavericks but in the middle of that VB 4.3.10 came out (with a fix for a problem with MSRs) and Mavericks 10.9.2 dropped and my real job got in the way and so I haven't finished yet. I know that copying over my existing VMs worked, but trying to re-create them from scratch gave me a variety of errors that I was working through.

In the past I did some research on if it was possible to create a 10.6.8 installer using the 10.6.3 disc and 10.6.8 update but solutions like InstaDMG or using the System Image Utility seem to require you to be running the version of OS X you plan on making an install disc from.

[erikbojerik]

Well - I used my wife's late 2009 iMac to install Snow Leopard Server onto a partition on an external USB drive. Did all the required software updates to SLS 10.6.8. Plugged the USB drive into my MBP and confirmed it will boot and run SLS 10.6.8 no problem.

So now I've used Disk Utility to make a DMG out of this - but it is not quite the same as a 10.6.8 installer. Any ideas on how I could use this 10.6.8 DMG to make a VM in VB?

[rpmurray]

I've tried using a DMG to install and it doesn't work, at least for me.

Do you still have the 10.6.6 disk that came with your MacBook Pro? Have you tried using it to install?

[ChipMcK]

Any ideas on how I could use this 10.6.8 DMG to make a VM in VB?

You could try the physical-to-virtual ( p2v ) route.

I created a vm for OSX with large-enough virtual drive, being careful of 32bit/64bit.
Mounted same virtual drive on host (OS X Mavericks) using vdfuse package
In CCC (my cloner of choice) set the destination to the mounted virtual drive and cloned Snow Leopard
After cloning, unmounted the virtual drive.

For a Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion vm, I used iESD gem/ruby package, How to install OS X on VirtualBox.


Edited: to correct name of virtual drive mount package: vdfuse <<--- vbfuse

[erikbojerik]

It is vdfuse, right? Am I correct that there's no "vbfuse"?

I am trying to wrap my brain around it - but not sure when I should use the -r readonly flag. When I download fuse, or when I unpack it, or.....???

Also trying to lay hands on the 10.6.6 install discs.

[erikbojerik]

OK so after downloading the vdfuse stuff from Thorsten Sick's GitHub, I am having a syntax problem building vdfuse - bear with this very infrequence unix user - I am using this line of code in a bash shell:

EHH-MacBookPro:vdfuse-master hauri$ sh vdbuild_new /mydir/vbox/include vdfuse.c

and the error I am getting is

INSTALL_DIR not defined

I guess its the middle section where I'm goofing up....???