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[Guide] Success! Install 10.8 on old unsupported Mac
- Thread starter hackerwayne
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Does anyone know how to undo this? I tried setting the duration to 1, but it's still slower than it previously was, and I would like it to get back to the original speed.
PRAM and NVRAM are one and the same. SMC info is here.
I'm still thinking about the DVD issue.......
First let me say that I greatly value your work, you have done a wonderful service here and have helped a great many people.
It is in that spirit that I would like to correct some inaccuracies in this statement. It is 100% impossible for a card to contain an EFI32 and an EFI64 ROM. If it was possible, Nvidia would not have ALL of their cards be an either/or choice. ATI/AMD gets around this by using EBC firmware, it can load in either environment. I have no idea why Nvidia doesn't use this but they don't.
All of these cards also contain a PC BIOS from which most card functions are run. The EFI introduces the card and hands it off to the system, which loads drivers and then uses the PC BIOS to run the card.
Any ATI card from 2600XT to 5870 uses an EBC firmware that can boot and run on either platform. (32 bit or 64 bit) The X1900 was unique in that it ONLY contains an EFI, there is no PC BIOS included. Early X1900s will only boot on 32bit system, later updates included 64 bit support. However, only early Mac Pros can use X1900 in Bootcamp. In order to do this, they used a hack, the PC BIOS is actually included in main EFI for the machine. Thus, an X1900 for Apple won't work in an EFI64 machine in Bootcamp.
The flashed 6870s won't work well in 32 bit machines because the EFI is 64 bit. (Netkas derived it from iMac) For use in a Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 ATI/AMD 2600XT or 3870 or 4870 or 5770 or 5870 are all good choices. With Nvidia cards you have much more limited choices, if you want boot screens. For this level of fiddling, you really need the boot screens. 7300GT will show boot screens but has no drivers in ML. The 8800GT is a good choice, but must be EFI32 to work in 1,1 or 2,1. An EFI64 card can be flashed into an EFI32 card. Any EVGA 8800GT can be flashed into an EFI32 card because they always have the 128K chip. They must be reference card with a single slot fan with blue & white sticker.
We have sold more than 2,000 Mac GPUs in last 10 years, we know these cards and machines well. I would be willing to help out with further advice.
The problem is ML requires EFI64. So if you flash EFI32 it won't show boot screen on ML. Btw, if this isn't the case, how does Apple AMD HD 5770 works? It has a boot screen and it has EFI64 thats required by ML
Question
I have followed all of the steps, but I'm having a problem booting into the USB stick. If I go to system preferences --> startup disk, it says that it is bootable, but when I actually boot up and press the option key, it doesn't show up as being bootable. I have tried boot the USB with other macs, and it works just fine. Any Ideas?
FYI I have a
Late 2006 Polycarbonate IMac
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
2.5 GB RAM
Mac OS X Lion
I have followed all of the steps, but I'm having a problem booting into the USB stick. If I go to system preferences --> startup disk, it says that it is bootable, but when I actually boot up and press the option key, it doesn't show up as being bootable. I have tried boot the USB with other macs, and it works just fine. Any Ideas?
FYI I have a
Late 2006 Polycarbonate IMac
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz
2.5 GB RAM
Mac OS X Lion
You are missing a fundamental reality, the EFI is loaded from chips on the machine. The Main EFI is the one in the Logicboard EEPROM. It is and will forever be EFI32. So you need GPUs with EFI32 or EBC. An EFI64 GPU will never EVER have boot screens. You can load Chameleon and get EFI64 cards to work but this is not the same as a true EFI boot. And the type of ML support you are trying to acheieve is the transparent type, as if machine was supported by Apple and intended to boot that way.
The machine does all hardware handshakes and THEN loads OS from hard drive. What OS is on hard drive has no effect whatsoever on boot.
I have a 2006 with the original DP of ML. Works great, and needs EFI32 or EBC GPUs.
You can take all 4 HDs out of a Mac Pro and still have GPU boot screens, that is best way to realize that it is OS independent.
binary editing an EFI update file...
Hackerwayne or MacVid,
As per the wiki page about Apple's booting process
would it be possible to alter a FD file, so that it would parse 64bit parameters to the kernel at boot time? (instead of the current 32bit parameters)
No doubt this would be an unbelievable feat as I'd imagine some serious knowledge is needed to edit a binary file etc etc.
Hackerwayne or MacVid,
As per the wiki page about Apple's booting process
would it be possible to alter a FD file, so that it would parse 64bit parameters to the kernel at boot time? (instead of the current 32bit parameters)
No doubt this would be an unbelievable feat as I'd imagine some serious knowledge is needed to edit a binary file etc etc.
I never said EFIs are on HDDs. As far as i know, in the final version of ML, you need EFI64 to run ML.
You seem to be best at hacking these drivers, but I don't think you understand exactly what EFI64 means or how it is implemented.
The EFI on these machines is the primary firmware that runs it. There is no way to alter it unless you run a firmware update.
The ultimate dream for MOST 1,1 and 2,1 owners would be for someone to write an EFI64 bootrom for them. I tried to help a guy doing that but he eventually decided it was beyond his capabilities.
When you hit the power button, the machine loads the main bootrom file from an internal EEPROM. All of the 1,1 and 2,1 Mac Pros have an EFI32 file, the 3,1 and later use EFI64. The GPU and other things with Option ROMs get set up as part of the system then, BEFORE the OS and drivers load. When the OS and drivers load the GPU is already id'd to the system via it's EFI driver that was loaded from it's EEPROM.
It would solve many problems if someone could write an EFI64 bootrom for the 1,1 and 2,1 machines. Until someone does, they require EFI32 GPUs or EBC GPUs. An EFI64 GPU will remain dark until desktop loads. (At this point drivers are using the legacy PC BIOS on the card, same exact behavior if you use a standard PC card with no EFI on it whatsoever)
To properly use an EFI64 GPU on a 1,1 or 2,1 you would need an EFI64 bootrom. There is not one in existence for these machines. It would be a dream come true for many people if one were written.
You need EFI64 ON the graphics card! But flashing EFI64 ROM on the graphics card will result in a BLACK screen on start up. EFI64 ROM on the graphics card is required to boot ML. If you flash EFI32 ROM on the card, you will get a boot screen, works in Lion but NOT in ML.
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kernel panic when turn on usb external disks
I followed the instructions and everything works fine. The only problem I have is when I turn on any external usb disk, I get a kernel panic. Restarting my mac works well and the usb disk drive appears mounted.
This doesn't happens when I attach my iPad or iPhone.
Any Help to avoid that ?
P.D: Sorry about my english
I followed the instructions and everything works fine. The only problem I have is when I turn on any external usb disk, I get a kernel panic. Restarting my mac works well and the usb disk drive appears mounted.
This doesn't happens when I attach my iPad or iPhone.
Any Help to avoid that ?
P.D: Sorry about my english
Just an FYI:
If you downloaded Mountain Lion after the 10.8.0 release and are now stuck with the 10.8.2 full installer, this guide will NOT work for some reason.
I followed it to the letter and it refuses to work, giving me the No Entry sign when I try to start up from the ML installer drive that was created using the instructions in the guide. Nothing I do seems to make a difference, even blessing the system folder in the proper place manually.
In step #7, the guide's pictures show the boot.efi file in the /System/Library/CoreServices directory to be unlocked, but for me it's locked and I can't remove it without either being on my root account or via superuser (su) in Terminal using rm and entering "y" to the override message.
Talk about frustrating.
Anybody have any ideas?
If you downloaded Mountain Lion after the 10.8.0 release and are now stuck with the 10.8.2 full installer, this guide will NOT work for some reason.
I followed it to the letter and it refuses to work, giving me the No Entry sign when I try to start up from the ML installer drive that was created using the instructions in the guide. Nothing I do seems to make a difference, even blessing the system folder in the proper place manually.
In step #7, the guide's pictures show the boot.efi file in the /System/Library/CoreServices directory to be unlocked, but for me it's locked and I can't remove it without either being on my root account or via superuser (su) in Terminal using rm and entering "y" to the override message.
Talk about frustrating.
Anybody have any ideas?
Hmm.. Didn't have this problem before. Can you post the KP message?
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Will look into it, currently have no device to test on.
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That depends on whether or not you are using a newly introduced Mac, a regular Mac that's been out prior to 2012, or one of the 2012 Macs that got a supplemental update to 10.8.2.
The build number in my installer is 12C60.
Also, regarding my issue getting the "restored" drive to boot up and only getting a No Entry sign - I've tried restoring both the InstallESD.dmg and the BaseSystem.dmg with the same results at first.
I did manage to boot into the installer a few times after doing this several times with no luck, but the installer boots into the OS X Utilities program and says that the installer is damaged and cannot be used to install Mountain Lion.
It looks like Apple may be taking hidden steps to prevent us from doing what we're attempting to do starting with the full 10.8.2 installer.
OK, I got 10.8.2 to install via Pacifist. In order to boot it, I copied over the boot.efi to the /CoreServices folder (it somehow did not have one!) from the MLHack folder found in the OP's guide, and put the PlatformSupport.plist from the same MLHack folder into its proper place and the system boots. I need to reinstall USB Overdrive and SwitchResX, but once done, it looks like I'm OK.
First thing I do once those are done is make a disk image clone of this setup and go on my merry way.
Oh, and I have working audio out of the box, including the ability to use my digital audio output at 24/96. No need for hacked AppleHDA.kext!
One word of warning though with regard to the Pacifist install method: You will have to sit there holding the Enter key down quite often. I strongly suggest that the moment the first dialogue pops up asking you to cancel/continue, you click continue and tape down the Enter key and walk away. It'll take about three hours for Pacifist to move all of the files in place, and this is on a Samsung 830 128 GB SSD (which I got for $79 at Fry's, yay!).
I'm off to get my utilities installed, and QuickTime 7 Pro if I can find its installer package again...
First thing I do once those are done is make a disk image clone of this setup and go on my merry way.
Oh, and I have working audio out of the box, including the ability to use my digital audio output at 24/96. No need for hacked AppleHDA.kext!
One word of warning though with regard to the Pacifist install method: You will have to sit there holding the Enter key down quite often. I strongly suggest that the moment the first dialogue pops up asking you to cancel/continue, you click continue and tape down the Enter key and walk away. It'll take about three hours for Pacifist to move all of the files in place, and this is on a Samsung 830 128 GB SSD (which I got for $79 at Fry's, yay!).
I'm off to get my utilities installed, and QuickTime 7 Pro if I can find its installer package again...
Hi guys I can confirm dictation working on my hacked ML install on my 3,1 White Macbook.
The X3100 is very laggy but i found a nice way to get around it taking 30sec-1min to load launchpad.
Just go to Terminal and type :
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -int 0
killall Dock
That will totally remove launchpad animations.
For Mission control type these commands:
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock
Your Welcome.. I hope we can get a working kext soon though
Thank you sir!! The ones for LaunchPad work just great! Also because they fix the issue with the Safari Omnibar as well!!!
Just one thing: how are we supposed to go back, in case we need to? With "defaults delete"?
Is this still in the works or has it been determined that this isn't going to happen?
I got 10.8.2 to install on MacBook4,1 in target disk mode. I'm having the same problems as others have reported - no brightness control and cannot wake after sleeping. I haven't tested anything else yet.
I use "NoSleep" to keep my Mac from sleeping, I don't have to worry about the No Wake problem.
Does your DVDPlayer work?
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It's just an app that came with Macinhack. You control it via Preference Pane and it lets you close the lid without sleep.
This is incorrect.
I look forward to a time when you have a better understanding of how GPUs work. You will have an easier time getting various machines working with ML when you do.
Mac Pros only need the EFI when in the EFI environment, ie during boot.
All card functions once booted are determined by the PC BIOS on the card. If you could get your hands on a Mac Pro 1,1 and an 8800GT I could prove this to you in under 30 minutes and you would have a better shot at solving some of these problems.
Good luck in your endeavors !!!
Thanks for the NoSleep hint!
My DVD player hasn't worked since an unfortunate incident about a year ago. I opted to not replace it when I got my MacBook repaired after a drop because I never use it anyway. Sorry that's not very helpful.
Also, I thought I had Flash working but now I don't. No youtube, haven't tried VLC yet. Any idea what I might have missed?
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