EFI-X a scam?

[Richard Hammond]

To make your own you need someone with a Mac. I bought Snow Leopard upgrade and got a friend to "restore" the Snow Leopard disc to an 8Gb USB Memory key, i then downloaded the Chameleon bootloader which is similar to Boot 132 and then imaged that onto the boot of the USB key now i have my own "EFI-X" with built in Installation disc should i ever need to format, theres even a place on the stick where i can put all the kexts i need if i ever change my motherboard, just boot up with the USB and i have an option to boot the install, boot osx or boot windows, its great and it only cost me the price of a USB memory stick and Snow Leopard.

I followed this tutorial, though if you already have the Snow Leopard disc you could just install Chameleon onto a tiny USB stick you have lying around and boot from the DVD, i wanted to have it all on one stick though for convenience.

[Ji@nBing]

To make your own you need someone with a Mac. I bought Snow Leopard upgrade and got a friend to "restore" the Snow Leopard disc to an 8Gb USB Memory key, i then downloaded the Chameleon bootloader which is similar to Boot 132 and then imaged that onto the boot of the USB key now i have my own "EFI-X" with built in Installation disc should i ever need to format, theres even a place on the stick where i can put all the kexts i need if i ever change my motherboard, just boot up with the USB and i have an option to boot the install, boot osx or boot windows, its great and it only cost me the price of a USB memory stick and Snow Leopard.

I followed this tutorial, though if you already have the Snow Leopard disc you could just install Chameleon onto a tiny USB stick you have lying around and boot from the DVD, i wanted to have it all on one stick though for convenience.

Thanks. So there's no way at all to do it from within Windows?

[ThehAWKs]

Thanks. So there's no way at all to do it from within Windows?

No but it you have Linux installed you can use Linux to install the boot loader to your USB key and use that to boot the Snow leopard DVD that is cloned to a Hard drive or a 8GB USB key. or you could use Boot132 that uses a CD to hold the bootloader and kext to make your Snow Leopard DVD boot for installing.

[cattwood]

Wait, wait, wait...I'm not sure I understand this. I was actually going to buy one of these a few months ago but the price totally put me off. I was of the impression it made your PC behave such that you could install OSX as you would on a true Mac with no additional kexts needed or other hackintosh fixes, such that it was running natively. Is that not the case?

For example, a lot of people with hackintoshes can't run Snow Leopard at the moment because of the lack of 64-bit kexts available. The way they were marketing this device was that it shouldn't matter - your PC is now a genuine Mac.

Hmmm. I must offer a counterpoint to all this negativity around the EFI-X. I bought one about 10 months ago and have had almost no issues with it. It took me 30 minutes to install the retail mac os 10.5.6 that I bought for $129 from best buy. I did not need any kexts or tweaks other than a couple of bios settings which are documented clearly on their website. I made sure to follow their recommended hardware specs as follows:-

GA-EP45-UD3L

Intel QUAD Core CPU

Corsair DDR2 Memory 2x2GB

It all worked fine, time machine worked flawlessly and i was able to upgrade to next version of the os without stuffing around with kext modifications or finding a friend with a mac hd and bribing them alcohol etc.

Compare this with the 2 months I spent prior to my EFIX purchase fiddling around with kexts night after night. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this process but never quite managed to get anything working properly despite the best efforts of the OSX386 community (non sarcastic thanks by the way) I am now in the process of building a mac without EFI-X and am looking forward to the umpteen Kernel panics and KEXT discoveries that I will hopefully make and share along the way. In balance I would say if time is money then EFI-x is not a bad option, especially if you don't want to invest a lot of time in the process and you are comfortable using the latest version of leopard and waiting until they have an update for Snow leopard. Finally even if i were a "genuine mac user" I would not be installing Snow leopard until at least 2 or 3 rounds of updates have fixed all the bugs that haven't been discovered yet.

Hope this is helpful. please don't feel sorry for me as my family an I are all happily enjoying the mac and especially enjoying having violated the EULA after all what's the point of having a line if you don't cross it :)

[Mr. Gibs]

Lol...I read through the interview and found this:

The EFiX is not a pen-drive at all. Inside it, there is a very powerful CPU and several gigabytes of dedicated static RAM. The module has its own code, language and endless functions. So there is absolutely no way that we even thought about using the patch-a-boo approach of "hackintosh

Yes...a very powerful cpu, and several gigabytes of static ram in a case that small without any cooling or airflow...

How do people even fall for that?

Edited September 29, 2009 by /- Razorfold

[hdood]

Not to mention that actual static RAM (memory that holds data for as long as its powered. The RAM in your PC does not do this and has to be constantly refreshed) is expensive and is generally measured in kilobits. Maybe they meant to say flash and gigabits. 256MB is 2Gb! Also, the ARM they stuck in their is reasonably powerful as far as microcontrollers go and totally overkill.

[Vice]

Hmmm. I must offer a counterpoint to all this negativity around the EFI-X. I bought one about 10 months ago and have had almost no issues with it. It took me 30 minutes to install the retail mac os 10.5.6 that I bought for $129 from best buy. I did not need any kexts or tweaks other than a couple of bios settings which are documented clearly on their website. I made sure to follow their recommended hardware specs as follows:-

GA-EP45-UD3L

Intel QUAD Core CPU

Corsair DDR2 Memory 2x2GB

It all worked fine, time machine worked flawlessly and i was able to upgrade to next version of the os without stuffing around with kext modifications or finding a friend with a mac hd and bribing them alcohol etc.

Compare this with the 2 months I spent prior to my EFIX purchase fiddling around with kexts night after night. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this process but never quite managed to get anything working properly despite the best efforts of the OSX386 community (non sarcastic thanks by the way) I am now in the process of building a mac without EFI-X and am looking forward to the umpteen Kernel panics and KEXT discoveries that I will hopefully make and share along the way. In balance I would say if time is money then EFI-x is not a bad option, especially if you don't want to invest a lot of time in the process and you are comfortable using the latest version of leopard and waiting until they have an update for Snow leopard. Finally even if i were a "genuine mac user" I would not be installing Snow leopard until at least 2 or 3 rounds of updates have fixed all the bugs that haven't been discovered yet.

Hope this is helpful. please don't feel sorry for me as my family an I are all happily enjoying the mac and especially enjoying having violated the EULA after all what's the point of having a line if you don't cross it :)

I'm sure the first few people in on a pyramid scheme have nothing good to say as-well :laugh:

Lets just be clear this thing was a scam from start to finish. They took other peoples work and said it was there own, they made several versions of the hardware which was the same exact hardware with some new soldering and different software, they absolutely 100% lied about what the device actually is and does and also what is inside it and they charged over 100x more than it actually costs to make.

[svnO.o]

I'm sure the first few people in on a pyramid scheme have nothing good to say as-well :laugh:

Lets just be clear this thing was a scam from start to finish. They took other peoples work and said it was there own, they made several versions of the hardware which was the same exact hardware with some new soldering and different software, they absolutely 100% lied about what the device actually is and does and also what is inside it and they charged over 100x more than it actually costs to make.

+1. Even though I've never bought anything from them, I'd like to see them get sued out of oblivion and hopefully justice will be served one way or another. People who do things like this should get prison sentences.

[Intersect]

Hmmm. I must offer a counterpoint to all this negativity around the EFI-X. I bought one about 10 months ago and have had almost no issues with it. It took me 30 minutes to install the retail mac os 10.5.6 that I bought for $129 from best buy. I did not need any kexts or tweaks other than a couple of bios settings which are documented clearly on their website. I made sure to follow their recommended hardware specs as follows:-

GA-EP45-UD3L

Intel QUAD Core CPU

Corsair DDR2 Memory 2x2GB

It all worked fine, time machine worked flawlessly and i was able to upgrade to next version of the os without stuffing around with kext modifications or finding a friend with a mac hd and bribing them alcohol etc.

Compare this with the 2 months I spent prior to my EFIX purchase fiddling around with kexts night after night. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this process but never quite managed to get anything working properly despite the best efforts of the OSX386 community (non sarcastic thanks by the way) I am now in the process of building a mac without EFI-X and am looking forward to the umpteen Kernel panics and KEXT discoveries that I will hopefully make and share along the way. In balance I would say if time is money then EFI-x is not a bad option, especially if you don't want to invest a lot of time in the process and you are comfortable using the latest version of leopard and waiting until they have an update for Snow leopard. Finally even if i were a "genuine mac user" I would not be installing Snow leopard until at least 2 or 3 rounds of updates have fixed all the bugs that haven't been discovered yet.

Hope this is helpful. please don't feel sorry for me as my family an I are all happily enjoying the mac and especially enjoying having violated the EULA after all what's the point of having a line if you don't cross it :)

yeah and your a new member with 1 post do you realy think people will beleave you?

[Intersect]

How do I make my own?

hasnt it been done already? lol

[Richard Hammond]

Not really a scam, a scam implies you either never receive something or you do but it doesnt work, EFI-X does its job, you dont have to mess around with drivers, assuming you have hardware on the compatibility list you just plug it in, put the retail OSX in your drive and install, sure you can make your own EFI-X but for those that dont want to they can just buy a ready made device without hassle.

[Intersect]

id rather make my own than pay for an over priced pos