OS X in a ThinkCentre M55 (Hackintosh-noob)

[Vahtera]

Ello!

 

A complete part-newbie here. Complete, because this is/will be my first foray into the "Hackintosh Scene", but partly because I'm not a newbie concerning computers in general. I know my way around linux distros, Windowses and Macs. I used to run a mac (exclusively) for years, but that was a long time ago. I still have that Dual-1GHz G4 PowerMac, but let's face it, it IS old. Latest it can do is a 10.5 and being a PPC.. yeah, well, it's not fast But the point is, any instructions of info you have does not need to be in a any-fool-can-do-it -format. I do not fear the command line

 

Anyway. My main computers is x64 Win7 machine, but Windows is... well, Windows. I play games on it.  

 

But! I have a secondary machine, a Lenovo/IBM ThinkCentre M55 (C2D E6600 @2.4GHz, 4Gb RAM) with a slew of additional hardware: nVidia GT240 (currently installed),and others that I can swap if it is better: nVidia 8400GS, Radeon 3600Pro and a Radeon 4200 (but installing that would require modifying the cooler) and a couple of HDDs. A few USB sticks, couple of different WiFi USB sticks and a handful of USB audio dongles. The machine currently runs a multiboot selection of ElementaryOS Luna, Haiku R4 and Ubuntu 0414 (on a shared 80Gb disk, with an unused spare 160Gb available).

 

The "dream" (so to speak) is to have that machine running newest-that-it-can-run Mac OS X as a primary and the possibility to boot into Haiku and some flavor of (Debian-based) linux. 

 

So you think that would be possible?

 

I read a couple of "getting started" guides, but I can't follow any of them to the letter. Mostly because most of them are either dead links, or private/removed YouTube videos or some such. The ones that are available rely on the availability of a recent Mac computer.

 

I do have a Mac mini (2006), but as that is only capable of running 10.6.8 (which it is), I cannot download the Mavericks installer on it (at least that I know of I can't). Note here: I'm not adverse of buying any required pieces of software, no. I don't just want a "free mac". I'm perfectly willing to pay for the OS or possibly any small hardware additions, I just can't afford a full-blown Mac right now. (Also I really would like to get to use this "spare" computer and multiboot it with those systems). But with only the Mac mini, I can't even buy the OS from the Apple Store, because it is not supported.

 

So, could someone (please) direct me to somewhere that has more info, or tell me a bit more of what I need to do.

 

What I THINK I need to do is:

 

a) A way to download (and buy) the Mavericks Installer. (I believe the best bet is to download it to the Mac mini?)

some way to make a bootable media (USB preferred, I do have 16Gb stick, but DVD is a possibility).

c) transfer needed kexts/other "tweaks" to allow it to run on the M55.

d) configure the M55 with optimum hardware (I'd hope the GT240 would be OK, as it is the most powerful of those that I can easily install).

e) way to boot and install the system to the M55

f) post-install configuration and installing required drivers.

 

 

of which c) and f) I have absolutely no idea of what I need to do.

 

But mostly, I need to know if this is indeed even possible. I can settle for single-booting Mac OS X on the M55 if multiboot is out of the question, but can the M55 even run Mac OS X without modification and if so, which version?

[mendietinha]

download the yosemite retail from here:

 

http://olarila.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4578

 

you can create the install usb right from windows. dont give up on readings. with the usb ready to boot on hands, thats were your job starts.

[Vahtera]

Thanks, man!

 

But, can you (or anyone really) help here, or should I go to that forum for further questions?

 

As in: I made the bootable disk (no difficulty there, really) and booted from it. Clover (or Chameleon, tried both) comes up but when I continue with the booting, it hangs right after initing PCI devices (no error there, that I can see). I'm using a Kingston DataTraveller SE9, that should work, right? (someone mentioned not using Sandisk ones for this, so is there any difference between brands in this regard?)

 

SOMETIMES it just hangs right there, usually it displays a "USBMSC identifier (non-unique)" line and hangs after that. I tried selecting "Fix USB" in the Clover options, but that did nothing. Someone mentioned graphics, so I tried deselecting that from the option also (inject graphics kexts, nVidia).

[mendietinha]

i use both and never had a problem. i can help you no problem, just be aware that you need to read and google it about your problem because it´s gonna took forever if you ask here for everything, including things that are really common and are all over the forum and in the main install guides or troubleshooting.

[Vahtera]

Thanks.

 

Yeah, I've been reading and downloading and testing and downloading and making usb sticks and downloading, oh and a little bit of downloading on top

(Thank heavens I do have an unlimited plan, I've downloaded over 50Gb of installers and stuff )

 

Aaanyways. I've tried at least three different "releases" with different bootloaders and configs and such. And two versions of Mac OS X, 10.8 and 10.9. Unfortunately nothing works. The initial boot to the installer always hangs a few tens of seconds into the boot process, (The "loader" works fine, but as soon as Mac OS X itself starts to load, it's hang time pretty soon. 

I've tried a fair amount of different ways of combining flags: -x -v GraphicsEnabler=Yes/No IGPEnabler=Yes/No dart=0 PCIRootUID=0/1, USB fixes, with and without injecting any graphics kexts and with integrated GPU and with external (GT240) GPU. Nothing changes really much. It always hangs, there's just a small difference in the texts at the hang screen. (Look here: https://www.dropbox.com/sc/xfwgqwxzoysgxoi/AAC3YgTQwHq9kUnro4Hlzmyca But beware, taken in VERY bad lighting with a mobile phone. So as the saying goes, "Warning: Photographed with a Potato.")

 

The only thing I can't do exactly as multiple guides point, are some BIOS settings, namely Graphics Memory (guides say set it to max 32Mb, I can only select between 256/128Mb.) and SATA Mode (guides say set it to AHCI, I can only select "Serial ATA" and "Automatic", bios describes "Serial ATA" as "native mode".) Will that have such an effect on the boot procedure, that I can't use that computer at all?

 

I've tried pretty much everything that the general guides and main articles say to try, that I CAN try. Some things I cannot do, because they require a working Mac that runs a 64bit OS and my mini only has a single-core 32bit CPU. 

 

The only different thing I've managed to do, that has any real pointers to anything that I can understand was one time when I booted I got an error:

"kext com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController - library kext com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily not found"

 

But that was with a version of the installer that apparently shall not be discussed on this website, so let's leave it at that. 

 

but that does amount to something, I'm sure. Too bad I can't do anything about it.

 

I'll probably keep trying (and downloading) more, but as it stands now, things don't look too good for my project. I'd at least have thought to have gotten to the installer itself, not got stuck on the first boot procedure :/

[Vahtera]

I give up. After about 40 hours of non-stop tinkering and nothing, NOTHING that I do works, I give up. I though I knew computers, but I don't. I have no clue why anything doesn't do anything and nothing works.

 

I did try my hand with another computer, but I think I'll make another thread for that.

 

For other people who come here thinking of trying to install Mac OS X on a ThinkCentre M55, DO NOT DO IT. It is NOT worth the headaches and trouble.