I can verify that you definitely can use a Mac to flash the drive. In my case, the SATA PCI card I ordered off eBay never arrived (it's been over 30 days now-coming from Hong Kong), so i got tired of waiting and decided to see if I could use one of my Macs.
There are 2 ways that I know of at this time, for flashing on a Mac.
Easiest (and most expensive):
Buy the Xecuter USB Pro from Team Xecuter ($60) and use it under Bootcamp
Least Expensive: Use rEFIt to boot from a bootable DOS flash drive
All the information needed it already out there, but it's a pain gathering it all together and working out the kinks. Hopefully, this saves someone else some time.
The hardest part for me was finding a Mac that could boot from DOS on a flash drive. It seems a hit and miss type of thing, but I suspect most recent Macs will work just fine.
I tried 2 models. A late 2007 MacBook (2,1) did NOT work. A 2009 Mac Mini did work. However, anyone who's taken a Mac Mini apart will know what a complete pain in the @ss it can be to swap the hard drive (although it's a whole lot easier than the older iBooks). I recommend finding a more recent Mac Laptop instead, or even a Mac Pro, which would obviously be the ideal option.
Steps:
1) Download rEFIt from:
rEFIt - An EFI Boot Menu and Toolkit
2) Burn it to a CD-RW
3) Create a bootable DOS flash drive, using the instructions in the tutorial
4) Replace the Mac's hard drive with the drive you'll flash (in my case, it was a WD3200BEVT). DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER HARD DRIVE ATTACHED!!!
5) Plug the flash drive in the Mac's USB port
6) Turn on the Mac
7) Immediately insert the CD
8) Immediately hold down the option key
9) You'll see the rEFIt icon pop up. Select that.
10) You'll then see a icon for the flash drive (I think the label says something about "legacy OS"). Select that.
11) Run hddhackr and follow the rest of the tutorial to flash the drive.
12) After turning off the computer, put the flashed drive in a USB or Firewire enclosure, replace the Mac's hard drive, and boot into Bootcamp.
13) Follow the rest of the tutorial for transferring files.
A few things to note:
a) Based on all the problems people have reported with hddhackr 1.30, I used 1.25. Worked like a charm.
b) After flashing the drive, I put it in my Xbox and reformatted before restoring partition 2, just in case.
c) I used Hoffman's partition 2, since I didn't have an existing Xbox drive.
d) rEFIt does not seem to work properly if you have a Bootcamp partition on the Mac. No matter what other legacy OS partition you select, the Mac will always boot up from the Bootcamp partition, if it's attached. Yet another reason to make sure no other hard drive is attached, other than the one you're going to flash.
e) It's also possible to partition the flash drive so that rEFIt is on the 2nd partition, eliminating the need for a CD. However, the software for creating the bootable flash drive that's linked in this tutorial does not allow for a partitioned flash drive. You'll have to find some other way to created the flash drive. I used the CD because it was the easiest.
f) Some anti-malware software may complain that Xplorer 360 Extreme is malware. That's because so many copies of this on the various file share sites ARE infected. Make sure you only get it from the link in the tutorial, and scan it before using. You may have to turn off you anti-malware software to use it.
g) My Win XP setup complained that a .dll file was missing, whenever I tried to run Xplorer 360 Extreme. A quick search of the .dll (can't recall the name) gave me a link to a downloadable copy from a reputable site. I put the file in the same folder as the application, and it worked just fine.
Key words: Boot Intel Mac DOS Flash Drive
