[Guide] Success! Install 10.8 on old unsupported Mac

[porg]

General booting help

If you want to boot an Intel Mac from a USB medium (i.e. pendrive!), make sure its has a GUID partition table, and the volume to boot from is HFS+.

Booting from a MBR or ClassicApple partition table, regardless of the filesystem of the volume(s) on that medium, will not work!

 

[snapshotmops]

Finally works!!

1) I ran 10.7.5 from an external disk, as my internal yet only contains 10.6.8.
But I think that shouldn't matter.

I rather think it's related to "OS X Mountain Lion Installation.app". I had it on a FAT32 disk inbetween, probably its App Store metadata (xattributes stored in ._* files on a FAT32 volume) was lost, and MLPF did not work properly? (Would expect an abortion while installation attempt, but who knows...) Will try re-downloading it from a friend's laptop.

2) And, how is the performance compared to 10.6.8 and 10.7.5 ? On my MBP A1211 with not high-end HDD and 2GB RAM, 10.7.5 is so much slower than 10.6.8, in-acceptable as a live OS. Only if 10.8.x is as speedy or a little slower than 10.6.8, I'd take it. If it's closer to 10.7's slowness, than I rather refrain from it. Thanks for feedback!

Hey porg,

I think I might have a solution for your problem. I was stuck at the exact same point where I was trying to install from 10.6.8 and the the external installer drive (which I created using MLPostfactor v0.3 on another Mac that is running Mountain Lion) just wouldn't boot up. What I did was use CarbonCopyCloner to clone the installer onto a partition on my hard drive and, like magic, it booted up fine and I could install and apply MLPostfactor after. Mountain Lion is running fine. Screenshot is attached. Please let me know if it works for you. Also note that I used the 10.8.4 option in MLPostfactor with a 10.8.5 Installer. Let's hope that won't come back to haunt me...

 

[porg]

@snapshotmops & @hackerwayne

@snapshotmops: First, thanks for your help.

Sadly, I have had cloned the patched "Install" volume from my external SATA disk to my internal SATA disk (with diskutil, which copied on block but not file layer), and booting nevertheless failed both internally and externally. (First "not supported", after manipulating PlatformSupport.plist, mach-kernel error 0x80000001)

  Internal SATA disk:
#:                  TYPE NAME      SIZE       ID        USE
0: GUID_partition_scheme          *500.1 GB   disk0     
1:                   EFI           209.7 MB   disk0s1   
2:             Apple_HFS sno       467.9 GB   disk0s2   10.6.8, my production system
3:             Apple_HFS ML        22.0 GB    disk0s3   empty
4:             Apple_HFS Install   9.6 GB     disk0s4   clone of external "Install" (disk1s4)

  External SATA disk:
#:                  TYPE NAME      SIZE       ID        USE
0: GUID_partition_scheme          *500.1 GB   disk1       
1:                   EFI           209.7 MB   disk1s1     
2:             Apple_HFS sno7      459.8 GB   disk1s2   10.7.5 test system, an upgraded sno, no fresh 10.7 install
                                                        booted into it & ran MLPF to create patched "Install" (disk1s4)
3:             Apple_HFS ML        30.0 GB    disk1s3   empty
4:             Apple_HFS Install   9.7 GB     disk1s4   10.8.4 recovery, patched with MLPF 0.3

Observation:

• Both the external and the internal disk DO NOT HAVE an original 10.7 recovery!
• As "Install" is a recovery. May that be the reason for failure?

Remaining ideas:

1. I could boot into the external sno7 and create the internal Install afresh.
2. I could create a fresh 10.7 installation to internal ML, acting as a temporary solution for booting 10.7 internally (if that makes the difference?), then run MLPF from there to create the internal patched Install.
3. I could try copying "OS X Mountain Lion Installation.app" again from the computer it was purchased. Maybe some corruption has had happened. For absolute certainty I could run a diff of it to the copy landing on my MBP, this time in target disk mode, to directly copy (without an intermediate copy on a USB disk).

@hackerwayne: How could it be that MBP2,2 is on the MLPF support list, but the patched "Install" had a PlatformSupport.plist not containing it?

 

[paronga]

sorry if i'm asking questions that have already been answered, but this is a MEGA thread. I just heard about this utility, and am just curious about a few things:

for a macpro 1,1 or 1,2 are there any advantages fto this over the chameleon method?

other than GFX card drivers, what's preventing this from working on macpro 1,1 and 1,2? especially if there is a tock mac gfx card in there with 64-bit drivers?

 

[FlashBurney]

Install OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4.app

Hi !

I have used MLPF 0.3 on a MacBook Air 1.1 and ML 10.8 with success.

I then purchased ML 10.8.5 on my other Mac and, again used MLPF 0.3 to install it. It showed 10.8.4 on About My Mac, but worked until I installed the first application - then it crashed with a Kernel Panic.

I cannot find the 10.8.4.app anywhere, but I have paid for 10.8.5 - any suggestions as to fixing the problem or where I might obtain 10.8.4 would be much appreciated !

THX, in advance.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I would also like to know..

 

[kjricso]

Can you upgrade to Mac OS Mavericks with this method

Before I start to install 10.8 is there a method for installing 10.9 on unsupported systems. I have a Macbook Early 2008 Black with Lion on it. I would like to do a direct upgrade to 10.9. Any ideas or help on this would be great.

 

[SWD]

Before I start to install 10.8 is there a method for installing 10.9 on unsupported systems. I have a Macbook Early 2008 Black with Lion on it. I would like to do a direct upgrade to 10.9. Any ideas or help on this would be great.

I believe Mavericks will run on 2008 MacBooks, so no need install this way. Sadly I have a late 2007 MacBook.

 

[luizot]

OS X Mavericks

I have a Macbook final 2007 working with a Mountain Lion and MLPostFactor 0.3. Can I update to Mavericks?

Thanks

 

[Eweie]

you cant upgrade guys.
wait till hackerwayne announces compatibility. I believe he's already gotten it to work to some degree a weeks ago so it's a matter of time.

 

[iParis]

Okay, I really need some help, guys.

I have the Mac mini shown in my signature and the screenshot. I used 10.8.5 and chose 10.8.4 with MLPF installer. After the Mountain Lion install I didn't get a successful or unsuccessful message, I just got a indefinite gray screen with a cursor. The screen wouldn't change so I did a force shutdown and booted it to the MLPF Installer ran it again with pointing it to the drive I wanted it installed on. Oh, and I did this from 10.7.5 instead of doing a fresh install. I thought the lack of a fresh install and/or it being 10.8.5 might have been the cause of getting the indefinite gray screen and a black dock, as seen in the attached image, instead of the correct one. >.< Obviously it's labeled as 10.8.4 and I could do some upgrades, including today's iTunes upgrade, but the latest AirPort and some other one didn't. For the heck of it I also manually downloaded the 10.8.5 combo update to see if I could get it to work, but the installer ran into issues.

So just to see if I'd get better results I made another partition and did a clean 10.8.5 install on it. This was kind of going to be a guess and check and I'll just delete it if it doesn't work out better and if it does I'll just delete the old Lion-upgraded once. I got the same indefinite gray screen, but was again able to boot up the OS once doing a force shutdown and applying MLPF to the new partition. Aaaand to my dismay, I had the black dock. On the new one I'm unable to even see any updates whatsoever. I'm also not able to make any preference changes or install anything because for some reason my account isn't an admin account and it keeps asking me for the credentials for an admin account, but there isn't one. >.<

I have no idea why this is. Maybe the two major issues are related. For now I'm just going to delete the new partition and see how working with the old one goes. Anyone have any ideas? Any input is greatly appreciated!


EDIT: So I dunno what I did, but I restarted into my original partition and the dock is there as it should be! I did some dock terminal code I saw mentioned somewhere, but I didn't think it fixed it and assumed it was for a different issue I wasn't having. Maybe it's what fixed it, maybe it wasn't. I'll never know. I'm not having any flash, Safari, Chrome, YouTube, or Launchpad issues. Installing applications, network file sharing / transfer, and iMessage are all also working flawlessly! Honestly, I think it's running better than with Lion! It has iTunes 11.1.2, but no updates came up when I tried doing a fresh install with 11.0.4 so I think it only has this because iTunes 11.1 was already there with 10.7.5. Hopefully I can do little updates in the future like AirPort and stuff like that.

Issues:
- Even though I'm not having any issues that are too serious, I still wonder why it gave me that indefinite gray screen.
- App Store can't find any updates after the restart that fixed the dock.
- I have Safari 6.0.4 and it refuses to see the 6.1 update. I'm so lucky I updated iTunes before doing this.
- Labeled as 10.8.4 even though the .app version was 10.8.5.
- I think I can install the 10.8.5 supplemental Update, but it refuses to since it thinks I have 10.8.4.
- I tried installing the 10.8.5 update and the combo, but it said "OS X Update can't be installed on this disk. An error occurred while evaluating the JavaScript for the package."

I obviously didn't think using the updates would have worked, but I do know some people have got it working while through mounting it with Disk Utility while booted in the MLPF EFI Installer then doing something with Terminal and it's at this point I got lost. I think this person was also able to make it actually say 10.8.5.

 

[grizzlayleslay]

I have a Macbook final 2007 working with a Mountain Lion and MLPostFactor 0.3. Can I update to Mavericks?

Thanks

Not yet. You'll have to be patient for now

hackerwayne is likely testing out a few configurations to see how compatibility works with the kexts replaced in 10.9. He's probably been working on it since the GM of Mavericks came out a few weeks ago. That and PostFactor is done on the side to whatever he does in normal day-to-day life.

Like you, I'm hoping he can make it happen. However, I'm not fully optimistic as 64-bit kexts for the Intel GMA graphics card in your laptop (and my Mini) were never finished beyond beta. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[iParis]

why not show the model of my macbook?

How did you get it to show 10.8.5 and not 10.8.4? If you notice in my previous post, that's one of my few issues. As well as the actual build instead of "OS X 10.8.4 (MLPostFactor V0.3)"?

 

[fabioroberto]

How did you get it to show 10.8.5 and not 10.8.4? If you notice in my previous post, that's one of my few issues. As well as the actual build instead of "OS X 10.8.4 (MLPostFactor V0.3)"?

10.8.5 App Store + MLPF 10.8.4. After, i restored the systemversion.plist original file

 

[Needleroozer]

How did you get it to show 10.8.5 and not 10.8.4? If you notice in my previous post, that's one of my few issues. As well as the actual build instead of "OS X 10.8.4 (MLPostFactor V0.3)"?

I don't know how that was done, but you can change two strings (ProductBuildVersion and ProductVersion) in
/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
to have it display whatever you want (you'll need root access, though)...

 

[iParis]

10.8.5 App Store + MLPF 10.8.4. After, i restored the systemversion.plist original file

That's the install I did, as well! I guess all I have left to do is the latter! Sorry if this is usaully known, but where is the systemversion.plist file located?

I really hope I didn't misunderstand what you said and we installed 10.8.5 the same way. One way of verifying that would be by my reallllly long post a few up.

I don't know how that was done, but you can change two strings (ProductBuildVersion and ProductVersion) in
/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
to have it display whatever you want (you'll need root access, though)...

Thank you! I'll try that if the above method doesn't work. I doubt either of these will help me with being able to receive updates. Hmmph.

 

[iParis]

So with my same Lion-ML upgraded partition I mentioned in the first one I was able to find a Safari6.1MountainLion.pkg floating around and got it installed just fine!

 

[Carlanga]

...
- I have Safari 6.0.4 and it refuses to see the 6.1 update. I'm so lucky I updated iTunes before doing this.
...

Here is the stashed away official link from apple since safari it's not separate like the other updates you are seeing in the App Store anymore:
Safari 6.1 for ML


---------------

As for me, I have been running this mod ML w. 10.8.4 on my macbook 2007 w/ GMA 950 card and is way faster than when I was running it w/ Lion. Thank you VERY MUCH TS!!!

I do have one issue that someone might help me with?
I tried to download JDownloader and Vuze from their internet sites and when I open the DMG I get the prompt:
"The following disk images couldn't be opened
APPNAME
Reason: no mountable file systems"

I have already gone to setting and the security tab and enable apps from anywhere, I have tried to open them w/ the option key, also tried to re-download the apps countless of times. Don't know why they are failing?
The only way I can know if someone has tried to install them here? TIA

EDIT: I opened both DMGs in Lion took the packages and install them like that into ML.

 

[iParis]

Here is the stashed away official link from apple since safari it's not separate like the other updates you are seeing in the App Store anymore:
Safari 6.1 for ML

Thank you! If you see my post before yours' I coincidentally discovered that right before your post!

 

[Carlanga]

Thank you! If you see my post before yours' I coincidentally discovered that right before your post!

Ha! Perfect, at least anyone else that needs it has the official file for it!


---------


I have found something strange though, Twice Skype has crashed the machine in a half an hour conversation that I had to force power off the computer. Anyone else experiencing this?
I'm using a external webcam and monitor so iSight was not on.

 

[gpatpandp]

Could potentially be a cause for concern...

This guide (if you want to call it one) has been completely tested to work perfectly. Both the latest versions of Chameleon and/or Chimera can now dually be used to BOOT both OS X 10.8.4 AND OS X 10.9 Mavericks.. While these variations are necesary, basically all one needs to do to successfully install OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" is to follow jabbawok's guide for installing OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on an unsupported Mac Pro. You will be using the exact same “Extra” folder you use/have used, as well as blessing the "BOOT" partition and editing the OSinstall.mpkg with flat package editor exactly as explained/described in jabbawok’s guide. The ONLY needed adjustments deal with creating/building your OS X 10.9 installer in conjunction with this (jabbawoks’s) guide. Firstly you will need to install the latest Chameleon version (a new version that includes the File: NVRAM.dylib to /Extra/modules/ which enables/fixes iMessages & FaceTime) and the alternative method of copying over the “mach_kernel” which as a refresher is:

It is necessary to copy a OS X 10.9 Mavericks “mach_kernel” into the root of the Installer disk image you created. To acquire your own “mach_kernel” from the original OS X 10.9 Mavericks .app here is how:

You will need to launch/open the Pacifist .app. Once you have done this, you will need to Locate your 10.9 installer. Right-click and chose ‘show package contents’. Locate InstallESD.DMG in the SharedSupport folder. Double ckick on InstallESD.DMG to mount it. Once mounted, you will see a folder entitled “Packages”. Open that folder and locate the OSinstall.mpkg file. Take that file and “drag and drop” it into your Pacifist .app. Continue clicking through the following content folders: “Contents of EssentialSystemSoftware”, then “Contents of EssentialSystemSoftwareGroup”, then finally “Contents of BaseSystemBinaries.pkg”. About half way down the list you will come across the “mach_kernel”. Before clicking on the “mach_kernel” file, find the “Not Authorized” lock icon located in the top upper right hand corner of your Pacifist .app and click it. Enter in your admin password when prompted. Then click on the “mach_kernel” and select the “Extract To…” icon in the upper left of the Pacifist menu list and extract the “mach_kernel” to the root of the OS X 10.9 “Installer” boot image that you created.”

The only other necessary step new in building the/your OS X 10.9 Mavericks installer is a simple edit you will need to make to the file "InstallableMachines.plist" located in OS X Install ESD/Packages folder. Here you will perform the identical edit as performed when using "Flat Package Editor" and editing the "Distribution List" in the OSInstall.mpkg while adding the same logic board ID (Mac-F4208DC8) exactly as described in jabbawoks guide. The only difference being that you will perform this edit in"InstallableMachines.plist" in TextEdit.app and not Flat Package editor.

So in short, you will be following jabbawoks guide verbatim though when applicable replacing and/or adding these additional steps in installing the latest Chameleon version, extracting the mach_kernel as I have described, and editing "InstallableMachines.plist".

And that is it.

PS. Oh and just to make you aware, the OS X 10.9 Mavericks Gold Master is the Final Release. It simply precludes the "retail" release and is identical to the version that will be made available to the general public.

Upon downloading and attempting to install the very latest, "free", Mavericks OS X 10.9 version 13A603 on my Mac Pro 2,1, I encountered a disconcerting (and might I add quite unusual) amount of difficulty doing anything (i.e. building an installer, installing in general) independently of my "supported" MacBook Pro. Eventually I was able to install over my 10.9 Mavericks GM version 1 13A598 system but it all had to be done with my Mac Pro in target mode onto my supported MacBook Pro both in installing the new OS X system version as well as in creating/building a new Mavericks installer. Anyone else having a problem moving the "free" Mavericks 13A603 .app off the system it was originally downloaded to and once copied and/or moved basically rendering it useless ?

 

[gpatpandp]

By the way...

I place the word "supported" in quotes when describing my MacBook Pro 15" 2.2 GHz MA895LL/A A1226 due to the fact that Apple has appeared to arbitrarily drop support of this great laptop literally at random. It installs/runs up to OS X 10.8.4 natively/flawlessly and furthermore the Apple Service Diagnostic DVD reports a perfectly running laptop hardware wise. That however stopped with OS X 10.8.5 as every configuration possible (software update, combo update, full .app install) makes a completely unusable system. I was able to dissect the issues to not quite a dozen or so kexts files and I have since replaced them with the same from my previous OS X 10.8.4 system and it now runs OS X 10.8.5 as well as it did 10.8.4. While also fully "supported" to run Mavericks, OS X 10.9 does the same as 10.8.5 did before being manipulated.

Point being albeit an older machine, THIS IS AN OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED MACHINE none the less having this kind of significant trouble with the latest OS releases. Wayne and company certainly have there work cut out for them considering that this laptop HAS graphics that are supposedly supported by the current drivers.

 

[RV-ABZ]

Upon downloading and attempting to install the very latest, "free", Mavericks OS X 10.9 version 13A603 on my Mac Pro 2,1, I encountered a disconcerting (and might I add quite unusual) amount of difficulty doing anything (i.e. building an installer, installing in general) independently of my "supported" MacBook Pro. Eventually I was able to install over my 10.9 Mavericks GM version 1 13A598 system but it all had to be done with my Mac Pro in target mode onto my supported MacBook Pro both in installing the new OS X system version as well as in creating/building a new Mavericks installer. Anyone else having a problem moving the "free" Mavericks 13A603 .app off the system it was originally downloaded to and once copied and/or moved basically rendering it useless ?

This thread is about ML on unsupported Mac systems, not about Mavericks which has its own dedicated section and that's where you should post about it.

 

[rudeboy2]

sorry I cant be arsed to read the whole thread:

has the graphics on the GMA950 been fixed in the mean time? My understanding was that with this hack you have slow and bad graphics. Still?

Is there any way at all to boot a 64-bit kernel on a mac with 32Bit EFI (MacBook 2,1 in my case)?

 

[RV-ABZ]

You may manage to boot a MB2,1 in 64bit mode with the Chameleon method, but there's no 64bit supports for Intel GMA graphics. That has not changed and probably never will.