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Extract bootcamp drivers from Snow Leopard disk or image

lavrishevo

lavrishevo

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 9, 2007
1,864
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NJ
This could be very useful for those who made a backup of their disk and it was damaged and / or or had a problem with a the cd / dvd drive. This saved me a tone of headache as my Snow Leopard disk was damaged but I had an image backup on a hard drive.



You don’t have to download the drivers from anywhere, you can extract them and copy/paste them from OS X! Here’s a step-by-step guide on making it easy.

Part 1

Do not mount the Leopard DMG. If it is mounted, unmount it and then restart (you must restart or it will not work, there’s no way to get around it, sorry guys.)

Part 2

Open a new Terminal window. If you don’t know where to find terminal it’s in Applications/Utilities.

Type in:

sudo hdid -nomount

[Add a space to the end] and drag the Leopard DMG file from your hard drive to the terminal window. The path will appear, and you can hit enter on the command. This forces the HFS+ partition of the Leopard DMG to not load, allowing the ISO part of the DMG to be booted, which is what we need.

If you’re not using sudo already, it’ll ask you for your password, type it in, hit enter, and you’ll be rewarded with the following:

/dev/disk? Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk?s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk?s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk?s3 Apple_HFS

Take note of the “?” because you’ll need to remember it in a little bit.

Part 3

We need to make a way for the volume to mount on your Mac, so type in:

mkdir /Volumes/drivers

You’ll recieve no response but this is normal.

Part 4

You’re almost there! We now need to force the DMG to load with the ISO volume instead of the HFS+ volume. To do so, simply type:

sudo mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/disk? /Volumes/drivers

Where the "?" is insert the number we mentioned earlier. Without the s.

Example from above:
/dev/disk? Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk?s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk?s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk?s3 Apple_HFS

You would type:

sudo mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/disk2 /Volumes/drivers

Now you simply have to restart Finder, which is easy to do from terminal:

killall Finder

Now you just have to copy the drivers onto a USB drive [or burn them to a disc], boot into Windows and install.
 
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THANK YOU SIR!!!! :-D

Brilliant! I tried making a perfect copy of the dmg using 'dd' to an external drive, and even though it copied all the partitions perfectly, it didn't work. I tried extracting the individual "Apple_Driver_ATAPI" partition, and that didn't work.

This *did* work! And it's a completely different approach. Thank you so much for sharing this. :)
 
Thank a lot for the tip :)

A little note:
Your example is slightly misleading:
lavrishevo said:
sudo mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/disk? /Volumes/drivers

Where the "?" is insert the number we mentioned earlier. Without the s.

Example from above:
/dev/disk? Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk?s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk?s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk?s3 Apple_HFS

You would type:

sudo mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/disk2 /Volumes/drivers
Click to expand...
In your example, what has got to be typed in the command is: "disk?" (not "disk2" as you state)

Say hdid returns this:
/dev/disk4 Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk4s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk4s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk4s3 Apple_HFS

the mount command for 9660 partition ought to read "disk4", not "disk2"
_____________________
In other words: a reader has to follow your instructions but ignore your example.

I did so and it worked like a charm

Thanks again
 
If you want to save yourself some terminal time, try mounting the .dmg with Toast, worked for me. The ISO partition popped up in the Finder, I copied the files to a thumbdrive and did the install under windows.
 
Would anyone be kind enough to email/upload me the drivers please?

As per my thread here I left my original discs on the other side of the world and need to install the network driver onto Windows after installing XP using Bootcamps. I have a MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009).


Or if there is any way to get the files from the CD using a windows machine, please advise me as to how?

Thanks and any help is appreciated!
 
hennnerz said:
Or if there is any way to get the files from the CD using a windows machine, please advise me as to how?
Click to expand...
Extracting from Windows is easier since that's all they will see.

In fact, since you are running XP (i.e. 32 bit) all they need to do is browse the CD and send you the BootCamp.msi file, then on your end, install that manually.

B
 
Thanks a lot, it worked great!

However after doing so I tried to restore the Snow Leopard image on a flash drive but Disk Utility failed when it had worked perfectly before.

Could it be something from the process I've done to extract the drivers? Is there a way to revert it?
 
I tried following the steps but all I see when I type sudo hdid -nomount command is

/dev/disk2

and after that when i type the sudo mount -t cd9660 command I get an error which says

mount_cd9660: Invalid argument

Please someone help me.

I have a Macbook Pro 15'' i7 with snow leo 10.6.3 dmg.

Thank you
 
lazyshah85 said:
I tried following the steps but all I see when I type sudo hdid -nomount command is

/dev/disk2

and after that when i type the sudo mount -t cd9660 command I get an error which says

mount_cd9660: Invalid argument

Please someone help me.

I have a Macbook Pro 15'' i7 with snow leo 10.6.3 dmg.

Thank you
Click to expand...

I'm getting the same error when trying to extract Boot Camp drivers from a MBP 2011 13" Snow Leopard 10.6.6 image.
 
ssn637 said:
I'm getting the same error when trying to extract Boot Camp drivers from a MBP 2011 13" Snow Leopard 10.6.6 image.
Click to expand...

Apple has apparently shifted (back) to a model where they download the drivers on demand, so they may not actually be on the disc anymore. Have you tried inserting the disc in a Windows PC to see what it sees?

B
 
Well, I have the 2010 MacBook Pro 13" model so don't have access to the newest installation DVD (just a copy that someone uploaded).

But I was able to find the newest Boot Camp drivers here:

http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog

Just search for "BootCampESD.pkg" and there should be two entries, one dated October 2010 (probably for the MacBook Air), the other 24.02.2011 (which includes the Intel HD3000 driver in the early 2011 models). I had to modify the BootCamp64.msi installation file with the SuperOrcaMSI Editor to remove any validation tables, but was then able to update many of my current Windows drivers, including the Apple keyboard, trackpad, and, most important, the Broadcom wireless and ethernet drivers.
 
ssn637 said:
I was able to find the newest Boot Camp drivers here
Click to expand...
Great find!

I still don't know why Apple delivers the drivers as a monolithic block instead of just having you download Apple Software Update when in Windows and use that to download only the required drivers.

B
 
lavrishevo said:
[Add a space to the end] and drag the Leopard DMG file from your hard drive to the terminal window. The path will appear, and you can hit enter on the command. This forces the HFS+ partition of the Leopard DMG to not load, allowing the ISO part of the DMG to be booted, which is what we need.

If you’re not using sudo already, it’ll ask you for your password, type it in, hit enter, and you’ll be rewarded with the following:

/dev/disk? Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk?s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk?s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk?s3 Apple_HFS
Click to expand...

How would you go about doing this if you have an Snow Leopard on a USB stick (ready to install) - Windows doesn't recognize the USB stick...
 
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Is it an Apple provided USB stick or one you made yourself?

B
 
I managed to follow the instructions and get the Bootcamp driver. My issue now is that the Ethernet card is not working, so I am unable to go online to update my drivers from the XP partition.

I am running Lion on a Mac Mini Server 2010 with XP in Bootcamp.

Any ideas how to fix the Ethernet problem? I have seen alot of posts around in forums, but none of them have fixed my problem yet...
 
thank you! absolutely amazing post !!!

*very* useful since I have Lion now, but kept the Snow Leopard DMG, and I was trying to install Windows XP for which I needed the bootcamp drivers (Lion only provides bootcamp drivers for Windows 7)
 
I'm also bumping this up unnecessarily just to thank you. Most informative!

Thanks,

George
 
works on leopard

this method works on leopard, but not on snow leopard or beyond for me.

*begin rant* It's stupid that apple makes you download drivers in bootcamp, but doesn't make old XP drivers available...at least post it online in support or somewhere so people can download it. The only thing available are updates, which won't install unless you already have the old drivers. It's like a big circle-jerk. Not everyone upgrades with every new iteration of macbooks. *rant over*
 
BootCamp drivers standalone download links - all versions

I've done a table of links and instructions for all supported Mac models at http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p682/download-bootcamp-drivers-inc-mountain-lion- inc-2012-retina-display

The catalog file changes with new releases of OS X and can also change with new Mac models. I will probably make the effort to keep the table up to date but for those keen to do it themselves or understand how I made the table, that's described at http://www.cafe-encounter.net/p824/bootcamp-drivers-direct-download-of-bootcampesd-pkg

As at time of posting, this covered Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion & Mountain Lion. Actually I can't see what difference it makes what version of OS X you're running -- when you're running Windows you're not running any version of OS X at all. But it does matter that you get the right download link for your Mac hardware

Hope that helps, Chris
 
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