Bad Ethernet Ports plus Lion equals NO App Store

[elvisizer]

If I buy this copy it will not work on a 2011 mac mini server or a 2011 mac mini.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A

That will work with a 2011 mini- any installESD.dmg file that contains 10.7.2 or higher will work on all macs. A co-worker of mine bought one of those a couple of weeks ago, and I verified that it has the 10.7.2 installESD.dmg file on it and tested it by installing lion onto a 2011 mini server successfully. If you have a USB key that doesn't work with the 2011's, it is from before the 10.7.2 release and has 10.7.1 on it.

 

[elvisizer]

No, it's a matter of not being able to sign into the app store at all, because the 3rd party nic he is using is not recognized as built in.... A new logic board would most certainly solve his problem...

Edit: So after digging around a bit I came up with this post
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3385255?start=0&tstart=0

(read start to finish)

where a guy with a dead ethernet port on a Mac Mini uses the hackintosh bootloader Chameleon with the smbios of a macbook air to sign into the app store... if you could get Chameleon up and running I would instead use something akin to DSDTSE to extract and compile your DSDT, ioregistryexplorer to find out where your PCI-E Nic is, and lastly edit your DSDT.aml and compile w/ proper edits to make it think your PCI-E Nic is built in and use Chameleon to boot.... heh, obviously no walk in the park, but it's possible at any rate.

Sounds plausible to me. OP- willing to give this a try?

 

[derbothaus]

Apple has updated the App Store Lion version to 10.7.3. So DL and create a new bootable and all should work fine.

 

[philtraill]

I have the same problem - Ethernet port hasn't worked on my MacBook Pro for 3 years, but everything else is fine - but now I can't get on the App Store to download Lion so that i can use the Cloud! I'm not going to pay 310+tax to fix a port I don't use, just so I can get on the cloud. And unfortunately i'm not tech confident enough to do all the Hackintosh steps. But does anyone know if Apple would ever fix a problem like this with their Lion download?

 

[codymac]

Just this morning, I had to go through this with one of my hackintoshes.

I already had an EFI string for my dual graphics cards so I just needed to find the PCI address for my NIC (Netgear GA311 PCI as I don't use the onboard) and generate a new string combining the graphics cards and the NICs.

Now the system sees my PCI NIC as the built-in and the App Store works appropriately. None of the prefs deleting methods I tried first worked.

I don't know that it would work on a real Mac, but I believe it might modifying the Boot.plist in a similar fashion. At least, that's where I'd start.

Here's a little info for anyone having trouble:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=114349