new guide for installing mountain lion gm on unsupported macs

[dead.xx]

first of all, you still need to make sure your cpu supports 64bit extension. since mountain lion does not contain 32bit kernel now.

Preparation
1, a working OSX, any version could be fine
2, mountain lion gm InstallationESD.dmg, the file name could be different.
3, a partition or a flash disk that has at least 5GB space. it will be used as your installation source.
4, the board id and name of your mac
5, this patch

Installation
1, open Terminal, and enter defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
2, then enter killall Finder
3, double click InstallationESD.dmg to mount
4, double click the hidden BaseSystem.dmg in the new Finder window to mount.
5, open Disk Utility and format installation source partition as HFS+
6, restore Mac OS X BaseSystem to your installation source
7, copy mach_kernel from the root dir of Mac OS X Install ESD to the root dir of your installation source.
8, copy Packages from the root dir of Mac OS X Install ESD to /System/Installation of your installation source and replace the original one
9, copy OSInstall.mpkg of from the patch to /System/Installation/Packages of your installation source and replace the original one
10, copy boot.efi from the patch to /System/Library/CoreService and /usr/standalone/i386 of your installation source and replace the original one
11, edit /System/Library/CoreService/PlatformSupport.plist of your installation source to add the board id and name of your mac
12, copy the modified PlatformSupport.plist to /System/Library/CoreService/com.apple.recovery.boot of your installation source and replace the original one
13, reboot and hold option key until boot menu is shown
14, choose your installation source to boot
15, install
16, copy the modified PlatformSupport.plist to /System/Library/CoreService of your installation target and replace the original one. you may do it in Terminal before system reboot while the installation progress is completed

known issues
1, find my mac of iCloud does not work.
this installation method does not create the Recovery Partition for you. so you need to create it by yourself to fix the issue.

2, sound driver does not work.
you may fix the issue by installing the old AppleHDA.kext from Lion.

3, graphics driver does not work.
there is no complete solution for the issue at this time. and you may help us by porting Linux Graphics Drivers from Intel to OSX.

4, 32bit efi will probably case a kernel panic when you have more then 4GB ram installed.
there is no solution for the issue at this time.

for detailed changes between the original and the patched boot.efi, see this post

 

[unrealdtc]

Great job dead.xx!

I have another technique, using a compatible Mac :

- Before doing anything, boot the old Mac and get its board id (something like Mac-F4208EC8)

# ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep board-id

- If the Mac is running Lion, save /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

- Install normally using compatible Mac and old Mac as a remote disk in target mode (boot by pressing "t" until the firewire symbol appears)

- After install, with the system still booted from the compatible Mac, edit /System/Library/CoreService/PlatformSupport.plist and add the board-id

- Copy boot.efi from dead.xx's patch to /System/Library/CoreService and /usr/standalone/i386 and replace the original ones

- Copy back the saved /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

- You should be good to go!

 

[coolio2004]

Thanx for your tutorial. I did it a quit easy way with my MacMini mid 2011. I installed ML GM on a external fw drive and after that I replaced boot.efi and platform... and voila ML started on my Macbook late 2007. With kexthelper I installed the 64 bit 3100 kext and hda.kext and now I am on ML GM. 3100 kext help a little but its not perfect- no QE/CI.

 

[g9icy]

Thanks for the help with this, it works really well on my MacPro1,1, I'm posting from it now. Sound is working without any issues and I didn't have to copy the kext over from Lion.

However if you try and boot with an nVidia 7300GT (the one that came with the original 1,1's) ML will not boot, even if it's part of a dual card setup.

I have a stock pc (un flashed) ATI 6870 in slot 1, which works, but having the 7300GT in too got around 2 problems with Lion: lack of dual DVI monitor support on the 6870 alone (monitor 1 in 6870, monitor 2 in 7300), and games/dvd player crashing (Diablo 3 worked without issue!)

Taking the 7300 out got the system to boot, but now I'm back to single monitor and DVD Player/Steam games crashing. I'm thinking the hdmi/miniDP's will work for the second monitor, but I'd appreciate any help on the other issue, as any google searches always return results for hackintosh setups. I'm doubtful copying the nVidia kexts over from Lion will work as they're 32bit...

I checked activity monitor and kernel_task shows up as 64bit (not sure if this is a good way to tell if the kernel is running 64bit though).

Thanks.

 

[rezzo]

Great work, thx dead.xx!

 

[Guru101011]

Hi,

Thanks for the guide.

Is it possible i can put Mountain lion as an upgrade? or do i have to do a fresh restore?

Thanks in advance

 

[JBasco20]

first of all, you still need to make sure your cpu support 64bit extension. since mountain lion does not contain 32bit kernel now.
Image
Preparation
1, a working OSX, any version could be fine
2, mountain lion gm InstallationESD.dmg, the file name could be different.
3, a partition or a flash disk that has at least 5GB space. it will be used as your installation source.
4, the board id and name of your mac
5, the attached patch from this post

Installation
1, open Terminal, and enter defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
2, then enter killall Finder
3, double click InstallationESD.dmg to mount
4, double click the hidden BaseSystem.dmg in the new Finder window to mount.
5, open Disk Utility and format installation source partition as HFS+
6, restore Mac OS X BaseSystem to your installation source
7, copy mach_kernel from the root dir of Mac OS X Install ESD to the root dir of your installation source.
8, copy Packages from the root dir of Mac OS X Install ESD to /System/Installation of your installation source and replace the original one
9, copy OSInstall.mpkg of from the patch to /System/Installation/Packages of your installation source and replace the original one
10, copy boot.efi from the patch to /System/Library/CoreService and /usr/standalone/i386 and replace the original one
11, edit /System/Library/CoreService/PlatformSupport.plist of your installation source to add the board id and name of your mac
12, copy the modified PlatformSupport.plist to /System/Library/CoreService/com.apple.recovery.boot of your installation source and replace the original one
13, reboot and hold option key until boot menu is shown
14, choose your installation source to boot
15, install
16, copy the modified PlatformSupport.plist to /System/Library/CoreService of your installation target and replace the original one. you may do it in Terminal before system reboot while the installation progress is completed

known issues
1, find my mac of iCloud does not work.
this installation method does not create the Recovery Partition for you. so you need to create it by yourself to fix the issue.

2, sound driver does not work.
you may fix the issue by installing the old AppleHDA.kext from Lion.

3, graphics driver does not work.
there is no complete solution for the issue at this time. and you may help us by porting Linux Graphics Drivers from Intel to OSX.

i just tried this on my mac pro 1.1 and it got all the way to the end and said an error has occured couldnt restart..... im trying the install again right now also how do i copy the plist file in terminal???

 

[JBasco20]

same error again.... the exact error is
The Installer could not start up the computer from the disk Macintosh HD try selecting your disk using the startup utility.... i did that and it says it can't bless it...

 

[dead.xx]

Hi,

Thanks for the guide.

Is it possible i can put Mountain lion as an upgrade? or do i have to do a fresh restore?

Thanks in advance

i didn't try but i guess you can.

i just tried this on my mac pro 1.1 and it got all the way to the end and said an error has occured couldnt restart..... im trying the install again right now also how do i copy the plist file in terminal???

open Terminal in Utilities Menu, then enter

cp /System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist /Volumes/[Installation target]/System/Library/CoreServices

you may restart your computer manually if everything is fine except restarting.

 

[JBasco20]

i didn't try but i guess you can.



open Terminal in Utilities Menu, then enter

cp /System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist /Volumes/[Installation target]/System/Library/CoreServices

you may restart your computer manually if everything is fine except restarting.

when i try to restart manually it does not allow it.... it flashes O with a slash through it...

 

[JBasco20]

ok i got it working and now the only problem i have is the back to my mac keeps telling me incorrect password but it took the password for everything else..... any idea's? Also facetime says it encounters an error during registration

 

[martynscott]

Hi, I followed the guide to get me to the desktop, installed the audio kext, now i'm struggling to get the graphics to work (i know it doesn't work properly, i just want system profiler to acknowledge it's more than 64mb). Any help with this?

 

[dgarratt]

MacPro2,1

Hi Friends,

I followed the guide to a T on my MacPro2,1 and when I attempted to boot from my installation source (flash drive) it started to boot and then...kernel panic :-(

Any ideas anyone?


UPDATE: Found the problem...I have 16GB of ram in 4GB sticks in my system. After I removed all but 1 stick leaving me with 4GB of ram it worked! However after the install finished I tried putting all of my ram back in but ran into the same problem (kernel panic). Seems the solution above works however it limits the amount of ram you can have. Would this have something to do with the patched boot.efi file?

I hope this problem can be solved.

Interested to hear others opinions....cheers-

 

[lukeca]

Thanx for your tutorial. I did it a quit easy way with my MacMini mid 2011. I installed ML GM on a external fw drive and after that I replaced boot.efi and platform... and voila ML started on my Macbook late 2007. With kexthelper I installed the 64 bit 3100 kext and hda.kext and now I am on ML GM. 3100 kext help a little but its not perfect- no QE/CI.

Would be able to post where you found the 64bit 3100 driver and the hda.kext? I can't seem to find the correct files. Thanks!

 

[coolio2004]

I found this link here in an older post:
http://swegen.blogspot.de/2011/07/bootefi-x64-patch-for-mac-os-x-lion-and.html
I took the audio kext from ML Dp1
Good luck!

 

[andyyau]

Hi Friends,

I followed the guide to a T on my MacPro2,1 and when I attempted to boot from my installation source (flash drive) it started to boot and then...kernel panic :-(

Same kernel panic as my MacPro 2,1 (Modified from 1,1) with 16GB ram.
I tried more than 5 times with the same result.

 

[Pendora]

With the help of this post I've tried to install ML on a Macbook2,1 and it works except for iWork. Pages/Keynote and Number give the same error in Console and won't show any text.

Console error:
invalid pixel format

I've searched the internet and it looks like it's a problem if you don't have accelerated graphics. Too bad because the rest of ML works "without problems" only slow.

 

[lukeca]

I found this link here in an older post:
http://swegen.blogspot.de/2011/07/bootefi-x64-patch-for-mac-os-x-lion-and.html
I took the audio kext from ML Dp1
Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the reply, that was exactly what I needed, those worked!

 

[dgarratt]

Same kernel panic as my MacPro 2,1 (Modified from 1,1) with 16GB ram.
I tried more than 5 times with the same result.

Please let me know if you come across a solution, I feel it would be a reasonably easy fix for someone technically minded in this area.

 

[dead.xx]

Hi Friends,

I followed the guide to a T on my MacPro2,1 and when I attempted to boot from my installation source (flash drive) it started to boot and then...kernel panic :-(

Any ideas anyone?


UPDATE: Found the problem...I have 16GB of ram in 4GB sticks in my system. After I removed all but 1 stick leaving me with 4GB of ram it worked! However after the install finished I tried putting all of my ram back in but ran into the same problem (kernel panic). Seems the solution above works however it limits the amount of ram you can have. Would this have something to do with the patched boot.efi file?

I hope this problem can be solved.

Interested to hear others opinions....cheers-

it might has something to do with the patch. so i made 3 new patches for this case. but i can't test them myself. please test them and report the result.
thanks in advance.

Update: the new patches has been tested and none of them work

 

[dgarratt]

it might has something to do with the patch. so i made 3 new patches for this case. but i can't test them myself. please test them and report the result.
thanks in advance.

Thanks heaps, I'll be in a position to give this a try this time tomorrow.

Will post the results.

 

[andyyau]

I am trying now. Please wait...


update: 0c and 04 will display a prohibition sign at system boot up. 01 will cause the same kernal panic.
So none of them work....

 

[dgarratt]

I am trying now. Please wait...


update: 0c and 04 will display a prohibition sign at system boot up. 01 will cause the same kernal panic.
So none of them work....

My tests came to the same conclusion..all of my tests suggest it must have something to do with the configuration in the boot.efi file.

Hope this helps...I feel we're close.

 

[Seth Mac Fan]

Only if they had a way to run it on a G5 lol , I do think it is not fair of apple to discontinue support for older intel macs .I mean those ones from 2006 should be completely capable of running mountain lion and future versions YEARS ahead from now . They where and are very good machines it does not make since . ohh well . I plan on getting a mini early next year so it will have mountain lion from the start . Still I wish I could at least run lion or snow leopard on a G5 . If you have a intel mac from 2006 and you want to run a current operating system you could always put the very good ubuntu on it is really a good alternative for those older machines and if your a mac user it is a very easy to get used to . If you do not like ubuntu there are many alternatives such as linux mint , kubuntu , or the mac look a like pear os . Pear OS is probably the most similar to mac as you can get when using linux give it a try you might like it , best of all these operating systems are free .

 

[Senseotech]

Only if they had a way to run it on a G5 lol , I do think it is not fair of apple to discontinue support for older intel macs .I mean those ones from 2006 should be completely capable of running mountain lion and future versions YEARS ahead from now . They where and are very good machines it does not make since . ohh well . I plan on getting a mini early next year so it will have mountain lion from the start . Still I wish I could at least run lion or snow leopard on a G5 . If you have a intel mac from 2006 and you want to run a current operating system you could always put the very good ubuntu on it is really a good alternative for those older machines and if your a mac user it is a very easy to get used to . If you do not like ubuntu there are many alternatives such as linux mint , kubuntu , or the mac look a like pear os . Pear OS is probably the most similar to mac as you can get when using linux give it a try you might like it , best of all these operating systems are free .

As the owner of two dropped macs, I can safely say it makes perfect sense to drop these machines. The dropped machines either lack a 64-bit EFI or have no GPU drivers that are 64-bit. Rather than maintaining two kernels, two sets of kexts, two disparate OSs, one 32 and one 64, Apple would rather focus on a single code base and improving it. Would it be nice if my two older macs could run it? Of course! Do I understand that in order to move forward, some things may need to be left behind? You bet. At the end of the day, my machines STILL do more now than they did when I bought them, so in my opinion, that's a win.