VirtualBox Mac OS X 10.7.1 EFI

Like booting Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard using VirtualBox, I found a way to boot Mac OS X 10.7.1 Lion using "Enable EFI (for special OSes only)". Websites discussing such things suggest using the Mac App Store to buy Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Get the Mac OS X Install ESD.dmg disk image from Mac OS X 10.7 Lion the Mac App Store. Then, the general steps are to create disk images for the LionInstaller and one as a Lion Starter. Restore the BaseImage.dmg image to the LionInstaller, copy Mac OS X Install ESD files over, altering some files, download some preparation files. Sutdown and uncheck Enable EFI. Start using a Mac EFI emulating booter (like Empire EFI, iBoot, nawCom, or HackBook). Create your Lion Starter image using MultiBeast and copy over utilities. Shutdown, remove the Snow Leopard disk image, add a Lion disk image, Enable EFI, and boot to the LionInstaller. Install Lion to the Lion disk image and shutdown when the installation is complete. Uncheck Enable EFI and boot into the Lion Starter to boot into Lion. Erase PlatformSupport.plist, install PlatformUUID.kext using a kext installer, Shutdown, "Enable EFI", and boot into Lion (you can remove the LionInstaller and Starter disks). Download and install the 10.7.1 update from www.apple.com. Install the rest of the updates. The instructions require an existing VirtualBox Snow Leopard VirtualBox VM (Virtual Machine) and a processor supporting VT-x (Intel) or AMD-V (AMD). Here are instructions:

1) Boot into Snow Leopard and purchase Mac OS X 10.7 Lion from the Mac App Store. Shut down the Snow Leopard VM.
2) Click the Snow Leopard VM and click Settings, click Storage, click Add Hard Disk, click Create new disk, select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Next, click dynamically allocated and click Next, type LionInstaller for Location and leave 5 GB for size and click Next, and click Create.
3) Click Add Hard Disk, click Create new disk, select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Next, click dynamically allocated and click Next, type Starter for Location and type 100 MB for size and click Next, and click Create.
4) Start Snow Leopard. You are prompted that the disk is not readable (twice), click Initialize (twice).
5) In Disk Utility, select the Select 5.0 GB VBOX HARDDISK Media, Click Partition, Select 1 Partition under Volume Scheme, Name: LionInstaller, click Apply, and click Partition.
6) In Disk Utility, select the Select 100 MB VBOX HARDDISK Media, Click Partition, Select 1 Partition under Volume Scheme, Name: Starter, click Apply, and click Partition.
7) Open the Mac OS X Install ESD.dmg
8) From the dock (or from Finder), click Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
9) In Terminal, type cd "/Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD", press enter, type open BaseSystem.dmg, and press enter.
10) In Disk Utility, click the LionInstaller partition and click Restore, drag Mac OS X Base System to the Source field, drag LionInstaller to the Destination field, click Restore, and click Erase, and Enter password and click OK. Close Disk Utility
11) Rename new Mac OS X Base System volume as LionInstaller and switch back to Terminal
12) Into Terminal, type cp kernelcache /Volumes/LionInstaller/kernelcache and press enter, type cp mach_kernel /Volumes/LionInstaller/ and press enter, and type sudo vi /Volumes/LionInstaller/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and press enter and type your password and press enter.
13) In vi (a Terminal text-based text editor), press the down arrow then the right arrow until you reach the end of the line . Press a (to append or add text).
14) Press enter, press tab, type Kernel Cache and press enter, type \kernelcache and press enter. Press ESC, type :wq, and press enter (to exit vi)
15) In Terminal, type sudo rm /Volumes/LionInstaller/System/Installation/Packages and press enter. If required, type your password and press enter. Type sudo cp -R Packages /Volumes/LionInstaller/System/Installation/Packages and press enter. If required, type your password and press enter.Type cd /Volumes/LionInstaller/System/Library/CoreServices and press enter. Type sudo touch ServerVersion.plist and press enter. Type cd ~ and press enter. Type cp /Volumes/LionInstaller/System/Installation/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg . and press enter. Type pkgutil --expand OSInstall.mpkg OSInstall and press enter. Type vi OSInstall/Distribution and press enter. In vi (Terminal text-based text editor), press down arrow to the line function isVirtualMachine(){.
16) Use down arrow and type dd and delete lines between function isVirtualMachine(){ and return false;. Type dd and delete lines between return false; and the enclosing }. (so you should see three lines, isVirtualMachine(){ then return false; then })
17) Use down arrow and type dd and delete lines between function isSupportedPlatform(){ and return true;. Type dd and delete lines between return true; and the enclosing }. (so you should see three lines, isSupportedPlatform(){ then return true; then })
18) Press ESC, type :wq, and press enter.
19) Download KextBeast and MultiBeast from tonymacx86.com (to Snow Leopard and Empire EFI (or download iBoot, nawCom, or HackBoot on your host system) from prasys.info (find PlatformUUID.kext and download it to Snow Leopard if you did not use Empire EFI).
20) Shutdown. In VirtualBox, click Devices -> Choose a virtual CD/DVD file..., pick Empire EFI (or iBoot, nawCom, or HackBoot), and click Open. Click the Virtual Machine and click Settings. Click System and uncheck Enable EFI. Click OK. Start Snow Leopard and boot to the Snow Leopard disk.
21) Run MultiBeast.Click Continue, Continue, Continue, Agree, select EasyBeast Install and click Continue, click Change Install Location..., click Starter, and click Starter, select EasyBeast Install and click Continue, click Install, type password, and click Close.
22) Copy PlatformUUID.kext from Empire EFI from the within Preboot.dmg \Extra\Extensions
folder to Starter. Copy KextBeast to Starter. Shut down Snow Leopard.
23) In VirtualBox, select the VM and click Settings. Click System and check Enable EFI (for special OSes only) Remove the disks, click Add Hard Disk on the SATA Controller, click Create new disk..., click VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Next, click Dyamically allocated and click Next, OSX86-64Lion click Next and click Create. Add LionInstaller disk to IDE Controller (click Add Hard Disk, click Use existing disk, select LionInstaller and click Open). Click System, Change memory to 2048 MB. Click OK. Click Start.
24) It will boot to the LionInstaller and start the Lion installation process. Click Next. Click Utilities -> Disk Utility, select 21.47 GB VBOX HARDDISK Media, select Partition, select 1 Partition under Partition Layout and Name Macintosh HD and click Apply, click Partition, click Close. Click Continute, click Agree, select Macintosh HD and click Install. After the install, Shutdown.
25) Click the VM and click Settings. Click Storage, remove LionInstaller.vdi and replace it with Starter.vdi. Click System and uncheck Enable EFI (special OSes only). Click OK. Start the VM. It will boot to the Starter then to Lion, which will start the first boot Lion process.
26) Click Continue, click Continue, click Continue, click Continue, click Continue, click Continue, create your computer account and click Continue, select time zone and click Continue, click Start Using Lion.
27) Delete /System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist. Copy PlatformUUID.kext to the Desktop and run KextBeast. Shutdown.
28) Click the VM and click Settings. Click System and uncheck Enable EFI (special OSes only), click Storage and remove Starter. Click OK. Start VM
29) Download and install the 10.7.1 update from www.apple.com. The install will require a restart. Download and install the other updates from www.apple.com.

VirtualBox Mac OS X 10.6.8 EFI

I come to find a better way to virtualize Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on VirtualBox. Apparently, you don't need a boot CD (Empire EFI on the last VirtualBox Mac OS X post) to run before the installer and as a booter to boot into. I found elsewhere that Snow Leopard can be installed onto VirtualBox directly with Enable EFI checked and a change to the vbox settings file. Again, this source's instructions said to buy Snow Leopard on retail. AMD or Intel virtualization needs to be enabled on the host (VT-x or AMD-V).

1) Download and install VirtualBox from http://www.virtualbox.org. Open VirtualBox.
2) Click New, give it a name like OSX86-64, choose Maco OS X for Operating System and Mac OS X Server (64 bit) and click Next

3) Give it memory. 1 GB is sufficient for Snow Leopard but 2 GB is needed for Lion by default. Click Next.

4) With Startup Disk checked and Create new hard disk selected, click Next

5) With VDI (Virtual Box Image) selected, click Next.

6) Dynamically allocated may save space (only takes space as needed but doesn't automatically give it back). Fixed size may run faster but takes up all the space you specify. Dynamically allocated is sufficient.

7) Give it a name for location, like OSX86-64, default size 20 GB is ok, and click Next. Click Create, click Create.

8) Close VirtualBox

9) Edit the VirtualBox settings file, by default in %userprofile%\VirtualBox VMs\OSX86-64\OSX86-64.vbox. In the ExtraData section (in between and ), add . Save and close the file. Open VirtualBox. (If you want to see the Apple logo boot screen, add

10) Start the Virtual Machine. It starts to a first run wizard. Click OK, Next, pick the OS X Snow Leopard media, click Next, and click Start.

11) Run through the setup process:

(English, Continue. From the Utilities menu, click Disk Utility, click the 21.47 GB VBOX HARDDISK Media, and click Partition. From Volume scheme, select 1 Partition, name: Macintosh HD, click Apply and click Partition. When done, click Quit Disk Utility from the Disk Utility Menu. Click Continue, click Agree, select Macintosh HD and click Install. Restart when done.)
12) Run through the first setup steps.

13) Download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo from Apple.com. Restart. Download and install the other updates.

I find it interesting that the Apple switch to Intel processors combined with the popularity of virtualization technology has opened this door. This would be more difficult to do were Apple still using only Power processors. It makes me wonder if Apple plans to port their ARM processor (Apple A4/5) "back to the Mac." I'm most familiar with Windows operating systems, and I'm interested in learning more about other operating systems. However, I am more interested in BSD (FreeBSD), which is used in Mac OS X. I'd also interested in Linux. It is said that Apple's iOS is a walled garden, and I kind of view Mac OS X in the same light.

No Repair Install in Windows Vista, Windows 7?

Is there a way to perform a repair installation on Windows Vista or Windows 7? In Windows XP, you could boot from the installation media, press enter to install, accept the license agreement, and press R to repair your installation (some would call this a dirty install or an upgrade install). This option does not appear to exist in Windows Vista and Windows 7. From what I've read, the reason the repair installation option doesn't exist is that Windows Vista and Windows 7 deploy from a Windows Image (install.wim), so now you don't really install Windows, you image Windows down to your computer.

Watching the Windows XP repair process, I notice it deletes files then recopies them. Could you in effect perform a repair install by copying certain files (like the registry files) to another directory, have the Windows install write over them, then copy them back or merge the difference? Has someone created a repair installation tool?

There are some repair tools that can be run in Windows Vista and Windows 7, but they don't appear to be analogous to the repair install. You can boot to the installation media, choose Repair My Computer, pull up a command prompt and type the following commands, but neither the Offline System File Checker nor Startup Repair have fixed the issues I have tried to fix:
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d: /offwindir=d:\windows
x:\sources\recovery\startrep.exe

Directory Services Restore from Physical to Hyper-V Virtual Windows Server 2003

I ran across a strange issue when trying to recover a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory system state backup from a physical server to a Hyper-V Virtual Server. I had to install the Hyper-V Integration Services, uninstall Hyper-V Integration Services before I restored, then reinstall Integration Services. I don't think this would occur in Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2.

I did the following:
1) Backup the system state of a physical server using ntbackup (replaced by Windows Server Backup or wbadmin in Windows Server 2008 and above).
2) Install Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 on the destination virtual machine.
3) Install Hyper-V Integration Services on the virtual machine.
4) Make sure the Virtual Machine is NOT on the production network (Internal/Private Virtual Network).
5) Click add role, choose Directory Services (Active Directory) as the first server using the same domain name being restored (also same computer name and static IP address).
6) Add other used roles (we had installed WINS).
7) Remove Integration Services .
8) Restart in Directory Services Recovery Mode (Press F8 between the boot screen and before the Windows boot screen and select DSRM).
9) Restore the system state using ntbackup
10) Restart into Safe Mode (to allow Windows to detect the hardware changes).
11) Insert the Windows Server 2003 install CD and repair Windows.
12) Reinstall Hyper-V Integration Services.

These steps reflect my own experiences. I'm just experimenting. Do not use or rely upon it. Instead, refer to Microsoft's documentation (knowledge base, MSDN, or TechNet artiles) and professionals for the correct policies and procedures. There are better ways to go from a physical server to a virtual server (like Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2).

Active Directory Transfer, Demote, and Disjoin

To continue from yesterday, I wasn't comfortable with a domain controller that had been restored from system state from different hardware (that was then repaired), so I brought up another virtual Windows Server 2003 machine to replicate Active Directory and transfer operations masters roles to. Then I wanted to demote the original virtual server and disjoin the domain. When transferring roles, you have to connect the tools to the domain controller you want to transfer the operations masters to and click Change:

1) Open Active Directory Domains and Trusts and connect to destination DC (Right-click Active Directory Domains and Trusts icon in the top of the tree, click Connect to Domain Controller, choose the destination domain controller and click OK). Right-click Active Directory Domains and Trusts and click Operations Master. Click Change, click Yes, and click OK

2) Open Active Directory Sites and Services. Expand Active Directory Sites and Services - Sites - - Servers - - NTDS Settings and make sure the DC is a Global Catalog server (GC is checked).

3) Open Active Directory Users and Computers and connect to destination DC. Expand Active Directory Users and Computers, right-click domain.local, and click Operations Master. In the RID tab, Click Change, click Yes, click OK. In the PDC tab, Click Change, click Yes, click OK
In the Infrastructure tab, Click Change, click Yes, click OK

4) Click Start - Run, type regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll and click OK. Click Start - Run, type mmc and click OK. Click File - Add/Remove Snap-in. Click Add, select Active Directory Schema, click Add and click OK. Click OK. Right-click Active Directory Schema, click Change Domain Controller and change to the destination DC. Right-click Active Directory Schema, click Operations Master
Click Change, click Yes, click OK.

5) Demote DC. Run DCPROMO. Click Next (welcome), click OK to the warning (gc), click Next, type in the new local administrator password and click Next, click Next,

6) Disjoin the Domain (Right-click My Computer and click Properties, click the Computer Name tab, click Change, change domain to workgroup, pick a workgroup name and click OK, OK. Restart.

Directory Services Restore to Virtual from Physical

I've restored Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Directory Services from a physical to a virtual server lately probably more times than is reasonable, four successful, one unsuccessful (see note about cavalier deletion of network registry keys below). I've been playing with Domain Rename operations in Windows Server 2008 (R2 in this case) and the hiccups. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like my company will be changing our .local domain to .com any time soon as Microsoft does not support domain name changes in Microsoft Exchange 2007 or 2010 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc816848%28WS.10%29.aspx). I found that three of our more important server applications can handle it, it seems. Earlier, I elucidated steps to backup physical/restore virtual Active Directory involving 3 virtual machines and a bunch of tools. I think now I'm doing it more streamlined:

1) Backup the system state of the Domain Controller (or Active Directory Server or Directory Services server) using NTBackup (in Advanced Mode to select only the System State) on Windows Server 2003 (we're moving to 2008 soon though).
2) Create the Windows Server 2003 virtual server (up to date, with the virtual machine additions) and copy over the backed up system state.
3) Move the virtual server off the production network to prevent interfering with the production environment.

4) Give the network adapter of the virtual server a static address. I matched the address of the physical server and also added the Domain Controller (Active Directory) role to match the configuration I was restoring. As I was restoring the system state, this step might be unnecessary.
5) Restart in Directory Services Restore Mode by pressing F8 after the BIOS screen before the Windows screen, selecting the option and pressing enter.
6) Log in to Windows, run NTBackup in Wizard Mode, select the backup file, and restore the system state. After completing the restoration, clicking Close prompts a restart. Restart.
7) Pressing F8 after the BIOS but before the Windows splash screen, selecting Safe Mode, and pressing enter allowed Windows to detect the new hardware (trying to boot into Windows in normal mode would hang in my case), but because I was restoring an OEM copy, I had to repair Windows.

8) After restoring the system state, I was left with (not strictly necessary) services that no longer started that I could delete. I used sc delete to delete them. I also changed the mfevtp and mfehidk services to manual start. Not necessary if you don't mind seeing "One or more services failed to start..." on startup.
9) Give the presumably new network adapter a static IP address. Again, I matched the restored configuration.
10) Open DNS from Start -> Administrative Tools. Expand to the forward lookup zone(s), right-click the zone and click Properties. Click the Name Servers tab, select, and remove the Name Servers not being restored. Do the same for the reverse lookup zone(s), if applicable.
11) Open Active Directory Sites and Services from Start -> Administrative Tools. Make sure for the server(s) that remains, that GC is checked by right-clicking its NTDS Settings and clicking Properties. Delete the servers that won't be restored from under its NTDS Settings. For each server not restored under Sites - - Servers, expand NTDS Settings and remove the other servers. Delete NTDS Settings, choose "This domain controller is permanently offline and can no longer be demoted using Active Directory Installation Wizard (DCPROMO)", and click Delete. Delete the Server as well.
12) Open Active Directory Domains and Trusts from Start -> Administrative Tools. Right-click Active Directory Domains and Trusts and click operations Master. A restored server should be Domain Naming Operations master. If not, change the role by seizing it.
13) Open Active Directory Users and Computers from Start -> Administrative Tools. Right-click Active Directory Users and Computers, click All Tasks - Operations Masters...
Make sure a restored server is Operations master for RID, PDC, and Infrastructure roles. If not, change the roles by seizing them.
14) If not installed, install the Windows Server Support Tools from the installation media ( \SUPPORT\TOOLS\SUPTOOLS.MSI). Click Start->Run, type regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll and click OK, OK. Click Start -> Run MMC and click OK. Click Console Root and click Add/Remove Snap-In..., click Add, select Active Directory Schema, click Add, Close, and OK. Right-click Active Directory Schema and click Operations Master
Make sure a restored server is Operations master.
15) Open Active Directory Users and Computers from Start -> Administrative Tools. Expand the Domain and click Domain Controllers. Press delete for the domain controllers not being restored, select "This domain controller is permanently offline and can no longer be demoted using Active Directory Installation Wizard (DCPROMO)" and click Delete and Yes.
16) Open DNS from Start -> Administrative Tools. Delete (Same as parent folder) entries for other DCs in domain.local forward lookup zones for domain controllers not being restored. Double-click DomainDnsZones and delete (Same as parent folder) entries for other DCs
Expand DomainDnsZones - _sites - Default-First-Site-Name - _tcp and delete entries for domain controllers not being restored. Expand DomainDnsZones - _tcp and delete entries for domain controllers not being restored. Double-click ForestDnsZones and delete (Same as parent folder) entries for domain controllers not being restored. Expand ForestDnsZones - _sites - Default-First-Site-Name - _tcp and delete entries for domain controllers not being restored. Expand ForestDnsZones - _tcp and delete entries for domain controllers not being restored. Expand _msdcs - gc and delete entries for domain controllers not being restored.
17) Make sure SYSVOL and NETLOGON are being shared (browse \\HOSTNAME or \\localhost). The most recent time I did this, I saw a folder called NtFrs_Preexisting___See_EventLog under c:\Windows\Sysvol\Sysvol\Domain.local\, so I made a copy, moved the scripts and policies out of the folder and under the domain.local folder and deleted the NtFrs_... folder. Then I opened regedit (Start -> Run -> regedit OK), changed BurFlags to d4 under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Processes and restarted the NtFrs service to get Sysvol (c:\Windows\Sysvol\Sysvol) and Netlogon (c:\Windows\Sysvol\Sysvol\Domain.local\scripts) shared.
18) At this point, I have a domain controller that can be joined to. Unfortunately, in my cases, this domain controller now has Registry entries, Add\Remove Program entries, and files that may be suspect, so at this point, I preferred to join to it a clean virtual server, promote that server to a domain controller with DNS, and transfer operations master roles to it then demote and disjoin the "dirty" server from that domain.

...Or don't. Network Adapters in Windows Registry

Let's say you learned where Windows stores network card/adapter information in the registry, and you were playing with recovering a backup of Windows Server 2003 Active Directory to different, virtual hardware. Don't decide it a good idea to clean out the network adapters in the registry by uninstalling the virtual adapter and deleting all adapters in the registry. It's a bad idea.

I have been playing around with a few things: recovering Active Directory to different hardware (to a virtual PC/server), seizing FSMO (Flexible Single Master of Operations or operations master) roles, transferring operations master roles, a Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller and adprep, and Domain Rename. I've done this three times successfully and once unsuccessfully.

During the unsuccessful attempt, I backed up the system state of our first production domain controller running Windows Server 2003 R2. I created a virtual machine running Windows Server 2003, placed it on a virtual switch not paired to a physical network card, and promoted it to a domain controller. I restarted in Active Directory Recovery Mode, restored the backup, and rebooted to Safe Mode. I had to repair Windows because I had restored an OEM copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 onto a volume license copy of Windows Server 2003. I uninstalled the network adapter from Device Manager and went into the registry and removed the network adapters. All I can say for certain is after restarting, Windows could not start the virtual network adapter. It said one or more files could not be found. I tried using the installation media and the local drive as the source for updated drivers and tried reinstalling the virtual machine additions, but it didn't help. My thought is that Active Directory is bound to network adapters. I notice domain controllers take longer to start up than other Windows Servers at the Preparing network connections phase of startup.

In some cases, this sort of difficulty would have me digging into the situation. In this case, my reaction was I'm not doing that again.