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[Guide] Installing 10.9 Mavericks on older Macs. -HackerWayne

Mavericks Downloader Enabler

I could not get Rastafabi's version of MDE v2 to work on my 2006 MacPro 1,1. It boots into the USB with some version of clover. There are commands you can perform but no instructions on how to enable the system id into a MacPro 3,1. After a restart I tried the app store download of Mavericks 10.9.5 and it gives me the message "OS X Mavericks cannot be installed on this computer." I have no other way of downloading the OS so I'll hopefully find some other method. Maybe I'll have to buy a DVD somewhere. Who knows.
 
Hi guys
Just a quick update.
I had Mavericks 10.9.0 running great - for a while..
Then I was prompted to install the automatic update for QickTime..
Well, it totally crashed my system and there was absolutely no way back. I had to change the gpu back to the old mac card to get the boot screen. There was just a file on the screen with a big question mark in it. No way to get inside it, delete it, nothing. I couldn't reboot to any OS with the Alt key held at start-up, nada.
So, I've spent 2 days and nights finally getting it back up.
Now, there are plenty of old OS's available on certain torrent sites. The versions of Snow Leopard that I found all booted nicely. I make a boot USB of one on my PC. Luckily Transmac:
http://www.acutesystems.com/scrtm.htm
did the job perfectly.
I think it was 10.6.3 that I installed. Searching for updates via the apple logo -> search for updates went nicely and I was upgraded to 10.6.8.
The problem then was finding a version of Mavericks that really works with SFOTT. I'd forgotten which one I used originally. After try 3 -THREE - I finally remembered which one it was. It's this one:
http://kickass.to/apple-mavericks-10-9-0-gold-master-macosx-money-t7967809.html#main
Believe me - it works perfectly. You can drag the Mav. Installer Logo onto the desktop and it really does - not just a copy of the bloody icon, which happened with every other version I tried.

Following Benjamin's tutorial on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF05shc-e2E
I was able to make the SFOTT key (actually, by now, I know it inside out!). Rebooting holding the ALT - sorry, option - key, and there was SFOTT all nice and ready to boot to. Install took about 30mins.

It booted nicely into 10.9 and all fine. I switched off and changed the graphics card to a GF210 and was in business.

So the moral of the story. TURN OFF all automatic updates
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-os-x-mavericks-biggest-annoyances-1450220339
if you plan to stay on 10.9.0. I'm quite happy with it and I won't be upgrading to later versions of Mavericks or anything else.

Good luck to all and once again, just amazing work by Tiamo. Apple should make him Head of Somethingorother. And of course OEM at oemden. I'm totally in awe of such people. Thanks too to all the friendly helpful people on here who are polite and kind enough to help noobies like this 52-yr-old.

Finally, I'll be selling this machine soon and upgrading my PC (puts on helmet and runs for cover!). It's been an education working on this thing and they say no knowledge is wasted knowledge. Well, I could probably have learnt Mandarin in the same time, but what the heck ;-)

Be good!
Louis
 
Last edited:
LouHela said:
Hi guys
Just a quick update.
I had Mavericks 10.9.0 running great - for a while..
Then I was prompted to install the automatic update for QickTime..
Well, it totally crashed my system and there was absolutely no way back. I had to change the gpu back to the old mac card to get the boot screen. There was just a file on the screen with a big question mark in it. No way to get inside it, delete it, nothing. I couldn't reboot to any OS with the Alt key held at start-up, nada.
So, I've spent 2 days and nights finally getting it back up.
Now, there are plenty of old OS's available on certain torrent sites. The versions of Snow Leopard that I found all booted nicely. I make a boot USB of one on my PC. Luckily Transmac:
http://www.acutesystems.com/scrtm.htm
did the job perfectly.
I think it was 10.6.3 that I installed. Searching for updates via the apple logo -> search for updates went nicely and I was upgraded to 10.6.8.
The problem then was finding a version of Mavericks that really works with SFOTT. I'd forgotten which one I used originally. After try 3 -THREE - I finally remembered which one it was. It's this one:
http://kickass.to/apple-mavericks-10-9-0-gold-master-macosx-money-t7967809.html#main
Believe me - it works perfectly. You can drag the Mav. Installer Logo onto the desktop and it really does - not just a copy of the bloody icon, which happened with every other version I tried.

Following Benjamin's tutorial on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF05shc-e2E
I was able to make the SFOTT key (actually, by now, I know it inside out!). Rebooting holding the ALT - sorry, option - key, and there was SFOTT all nice and ready to boot to. Install took about 30mins.

It booted nicely into 10.9 and all fine. I switched off and changed the graphics card to a GF210 and was in business.

So the moral of the story. TURN OFF all automatic updates
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-os-x-mavericks-biggest-annoyances-1450220339
if you plan to stay on 10.9.0. I'm quite happy with it and I won't be upgrading to later versions of Mavericks or anything else.

Good luck to all and once again, just amazing work by Tiamo. Apple should make him Head of Somethingorother. And of course OEM at oemden. I'm totally in awe of such people. Thanks too to all the friendly helpful people on here who are polite and kind enough to help noobies like this 52-yr-old.

Finally, I'll be selling this machine soon and upgrading my PC (puts on helmet and runs for cover!). It's been an education working on this thing and they say no knowledge is wasted knowledge. Well, I could probably have learnt Mandarin in the same time, but what the heck ;-)

Be good!
Louis
Click to expand...


Any suggestions how to use Migration Assistant to bring back the old setting and Applications to Mavericks drive?
I also tried running Migration Assistant using Target Drive Mode but couldn't boot back to the Mavericks after finishing it. Thanks.
 
LouHela said:
So the moral of the story. TURN OFF all automatic updates
Click to expand...
...meanwhile FWIW my Early 2006 Mac mini updated to 10.9.5 perfectly.

Have all available updates installed through Software Update (albeit not automatically) Quicktime version is at 10.3. (have a foggy memory of one early update to 10.9.2? or was it 10.9.3? maybe - not going well and had to re-install w/SFOTT but updating to 10.9.4 and 10.9.5 have been perfectly trouble free so-far *knocks wood* )

Thanks again: Tiamo, Rastafabi, Hackerwayne, MLforAll, Snowshiro, ATVuser, others!!!

Video using adobe flash is compromised - of course. GIFs work fine, HTML video seems to be about the same as with Snow Leopard. DIVX - it depends, low-rez is better (as expected) Quicktime works fine (except will freeze everything after about 20 minutes if I let it attempt a conversion etc)

So for me the moral is Mavericks 10.9.5 on this old machine = definitely more than worth it.
 
Ok my first post ever , bare with me . I just updated my MacBook Air 2009 2GB ram 120 ssd ... from snow leopard to mavericks, it's been freezing last two days , this morning turned it on a black screen 3 beeps , 5 seconds , 3 beeps .... I'm wondering if lack of space on my HD ( 70 GB ) free space and running mavericks that takes 2GB min to run would make it not boot up ? I've tried all boots ect ... I took it in and am waiting now but just for GP if that can happen ... Thanks D.
 
andycarver said:
Do you know of a decent install guide.
Click to expand...

Have a look at my Post regarding a Guide for installing Mavericks.

----------
Bulldog237 said:
I just updated my MacBook Air 2009 2GB ram 120 ssd ... from snow leopard to mavericks, it's been freezing last two days , this morning turned it on a black screen 3 beeps , 5 seconds , 3 beeps .... I'm wondering if lack of space on my HD ( 70 GB ) free space and running mavericks that takes 2GB min to run would make it not boot up ?
Click to expand...

Check your Memory Modules: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1547 and run a Hardware Test: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509 .
 
Hey guys, can anybody help, I installed Mavericks 10.9.1 on an imac 2006 using the SFOTT method, it worked other than graphics being a bit dodgy, then I tried to update it to 10.9.5 through the App Store, but now it won't boot up from that disk :(
So I'm guessing that's not the way to do it on an unsupported mac?
 
Budge85 said:
So I'm guessing that's not the way to do it on an unsupported mac?
Click to expand...

You can update via App-Store, but you have to replace the Boot.efi again in /System/Library/CoreServices/ as well as in /usr/standalone/i386 with the Tiamo version. SFOTT has already a built-in function to re-patch a existing System, see 3) Settings -> 9) Choose Target System to re-Patch as well as 6) Re-Patch Existing System.
 
Last edited:
Ok, so I have successfully installed (few weeks ago actually) Mavericks 10.9.5 in my unsupported MacBook. These are my specifications:

  • MacBook 2,1 Late 2006 with Intel GMA 950
  • Mavericks installed in a second partiton. ML installed with MLPostFactor occupies the third partition
  • Installed manually modifying the OSInstall.mpkg where I replaced the PlatformSuport.plist and similar with the OS X 10.7.5 files following Sfott script
  • Verbose Tiamo boot.efi (I tried a bunch, both from the forum and downloaded from Sfott)
  • Added Integrated framebuffer and GMA 950 kexts from SL 10.6.2
  • Replace the HDA kext with the working one
  • Parallels 10 installed
  • Xcode 6.1 GM installed

It installs fine, it boots even better and it run gorgeously. The Dock is fine, Mission Control and launchpad do launch, even the videos play fine! Still I have obviously some issues:

  • System Informations as video memory reports just a "10". Not 10 MB, 10B, only a 10. While I am pretty sure I have seen screenshots with the GMA 950 reporting 64MB
  • The screen thumbnails in Mission Control are corrupted
  • I get this WindowServer error spamming the syslog:
    _CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice: No matching context for device (0x7fe898d18f00) - disabling OpenGL
  • WindowsServer sometime crashes, sending me back to the login screen - I have seen that this has been an issue even on supported Macs, though
  • The Launchpad is slow to start, but not that slow (just a couple of secs)
  • The brighteness is stuck at full
  • It sleeps closing the lid but it doesn't wake up
  • Obviously no QE/CI
  • Safari 7.1 sometime behaves funny, but nothing major

Is it the normal running behavior for my specifications? Or there is anything that can be fixed? I care the most about the possibility to turn the brightness off, sleep (I know, fat chances) and obviously to fix WindowServer.

I managed to remove the WindowServer message adding the device id (I suppose) for the GMA 950 in the HD3000 kext as an user suggested, removed the GMA 950 kext, the HD3000 kext seems to load but the graphics gets very slow. Any other suggestion?

BTW This is equivalent to the Mac Mini with GMA 950. So if you have it working please explain what you did. :)
 
Last edited:
Michelasso said:
Ok, so I have successfully installed (few weeks ago actually) Mavericks 10.9.5 in my unsupported MacBook. These are my specifications:

  • MacBook 2,1 Late 2006 with Intel GMA 950
  • Mavericks installed in a second partiton. ML installed with MLPostFactor occupies the third partition
  • Installed manually modifying the OSInstall.mpkg where I replaced the PlatformSuport.plist and similar with the OS X 10.7.5 files following Sfott script
  • Verbose Tiamo boot.efi (I tried a bunch, both from the forum and downloaded from Sfott)
  • Added Integrated framebuffer and GMA 950 kexts from SL 10.6.2
  • Replace the HDA kext with the working one
  • Parallels 10 installed
  • Xcode 6.1 GM installed

It installs fine, it boots even better and it run gorgeously. The Dock is fine, Mission Control and launchpad do launch, even the videos play fine! Still I have obviously some issues:

  • System Informations as video memory reports just a "10". Not 10 MB, 10B, only a 10. While I am pretty sure I have seen screenshots with the GMA 950 reporting 64MB
  • The screen thumbnails in Mission Control are corrupted
  • I get this WindowServer error spamming the syslog:
    _CGXGLDisplayContextForDisplayDevice: No matching context for device (0x7fe898d18f00) - disabling OpenGL
  • WindowsServer sometime crashes, sending me back to the login screen - I have seen that this has been an issue even on supported Macs, though
  • The Launchpad is slow to start, but not that slow (just a couple of secs)
  • The brighteness is stuck at full
  • It sleeps closing the lid but it doesn't wake up
  • Obviously no QE/CI
  • Safari 7.1 sometime behaves funny, but nothing major

Is it the normal running behavior for my specifications? Or there is anything that can be fixed? I care the most about the possibility to turn the brightness off, sleep (I know, fat chances) and obviously to fix WindowServer.

I managed to remove the WindowServer message adding the device id (I suppose) for the GMA 950 in the HD3000 kext as an user suggested, removed the GMA 950 kext, the HD3000 kext seems to load but the graphics gets very slow. Any other suggestion?

BTW This is equivalent to the Mac Mini with GMA 950. So if you have it working please explain what you did. :)
Click to expand...

come here and help us [ https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20067829#post20067829 ]

interesting your solution to load hd3000 kexts instead of gma950 :D
 
jonobin said:
come here and help us [ https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20067829#post20067829 ]

interesting your solution to load hd3000 kexts instead of gma950 :D
Click to expand...

yeah, I will. As soon as I will manage to download the Yosemite GM 2 (hopefully the last one). I have a network cap limit of 15GB/month... :(

Anyway, is that the normal behavior in Mavericks? Oh, and is the Dock supposed to be of that stupid glacial look? o.0

atvusr said:
Take a look at this Post here, maybe the Kexts work also with Mavericks ....
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure these are the standard 10.6.2 kext. I think I downloaded 10 copies of them all over the internet, always the same. but thanks. :)
 
Last edited:
atvusr said:
You can update via App-Store, but you have to replace the Boot.efi again in /System/Library/CoreServices/ as well as in /usr/standalone/i386 with the Tiamo version. SFOTT has already a built-in function to re-patch a existing System, see 3) Settings -> 9) Choose Target System to re-Patch as well as 6) Re-Patch Existing System.
Click to expand...

Thanks dude, not quite sure I understand, will I need to re install Mavericks to do this?
 
atvusr said:
What iMac (Model x,x) do you have exactly?
Click to expand...

5,1 (Intel core duo)

what I mean by graphics is for example the animation of opening a safari page etc is very slow and stuttery. I also installed mountain lion previously but didn't have this issue
 
Budge85 said:
5,1 (Intel core duo)
Click to expand...

The iMac 5,1 has a ATI X1600 GPU. Unfortunately there are at the moment no graphics Kexts available for this GPU and Mavericks/Yosemite.

The very slow and stuttery animation of opening a Safari page, no Video device for DVD-Player, etc is due to the missing graphics Kexts. For 10.8.5 there were graphics Kexts for ATI X1600 available, but they don't work with Mavericks/Yosemite.

Better stay with 10.8.5 ML - see here for a 64bit non-MLPF solution.
 
atvusr said:
The iMac 5,1 has a ATI X1600 GPU. Unfortunately there are at the moment no graphics Kexts available for this GPU and Mavericks/Yosemite.

The very slow and stuttery animation of opening a Safari page, no Video device for DVD-Player, etc is due to the missing graphics Kexts. For 10.8.5 there were graphics Kexts for ATI X1600 available, but they don't work with Mavericks/Yosemite.

Better stay with 10.8.5 ML - see here for a 64bit non-MLPF solution.
Click to expand...

Ok cheers, I need Mavericks for xcode 6 so luckily that seems to work, and I still have mountain lion one the other partition.
 
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