Need assistance to use Os X on a PC

[Dafen]

Hi

First, I'd like to say that I have apreciated the different guides available on this site but unfortunately, haven't been able to solve my problems with just those.

 

So long story short: I have a network of 15 or so old Mac (Power PC8200, 8600 under OS8 and OS9). This network is being replaced by a new PC based system but before I can actually recycle the old network, there is about 50Go of information I need to take from it.

 

As these old machines have 2 or 4Go hard drives, the documents are spread on all the network so I figured it would be easyest just to connect a new machine but I can't connect a PC under Linux or Windows, the appletalk doesn't seem to recognise the new machine.

Therefore, I started thinking about installing OS X on a PC since I have no budget for a new Mac, and I have quite a few PCs available.

 

Know I have tried Kalyway 10.5.1 on 4 different machines and haven't been able to get anything working:

- first on a P5W DH Dlx/E6600/GForce 8600 GTS/2Go PC6400 => installation is said successful but when it reboots, it just doesn't work, I can't even access the boot terminal

- second was a similar machine but with a X1950 Pro instead, same result

- third was my personnal machine: P5Q Pro with latest BIOS, E8500, HD4850, 3Go PC8500. The DVD simply doesn't boot.

- last is a machine a bit older but still usefull: P4 2.0GHz Williamette (so no SSE3), Geforce 4, 3X 128Mo PC133, Asus P4B motherboard => same situation as the first two

 

 

So I'm stuck with 4 different machines and can't get anything to work so obviously I'm not doing something right.

I have tried changing the drivers, patches, optional component available in the "customized" menu of the installer, not much success.

 

 

Heres a list of what's available to me:

- the 4 machines described before

- AGP 6600 that can go with the P4 based machine

- a Xeon based system

- iATKOS 2.0 (hasn't worked either and same results)

- Kalyway 10.5.1

- Leopard GM 9a581 Patched for Intel PCs (SSE3 ONLY) and Patch

- this guide wich I used for the P5W based machines

 

 

If anyone had any solution for an easy and simple way to install OS X, even if not the most complete and stable version as long as it can go on a Ethernet network, I' be really grateful.

 

Please help me find the good combination

Thank you

[Beerkex'd]

So there's no way to hook up a Windows PC to your Mac network? I find that hard to believe, surely that must be possible. I would put some more work into finding out how to do it that way - as you can see after trying on 4 different PCs it's not always easy to install OS X on a PC.

 

Anyway;

 

The only OSx86 distro that will boot on P5Q series boards with a PATA DVD drive is iPC 10.5.6 final. Try a SATA DVD drive and boot with cpus=1

 

If you flash it with a patched BIOS (search for juzzi P5Q) and use a SATA DVD drive you should be able to boot any 10.5.6 OSX86 DVD on it (no promises). Don't worry about the video card, just install with no video drivers, you don't need them to move files over a network. OS X runs in un-accelerated VESA mode if you don't install video drivers.

 

If you get tired of playing with this, go to the mac with the largest hard drive and get as much of the data as you can copied to it.

 

Or install a secondary hard drive in it (or use an external USB drive, surely one of those old macs have USB?) and copy everything there.

 

Then pull out the drive and plug it into a PC with MacDrive installed on it and make your backups.

 

Of course that's not much of a solution if they all have SCSI drives and no USB.

[Dafen]

Thanks for the suggestions but as you said, these units don't have USB otherwise I'd slap a external disk drive on one the units and share it on the network.

And I have already added hard drives to a few units wich makes me the happy owner of 2 8600 PowerPCs with a tremendous 14Go total hard drives (3X4Go and 2Go for the system). But even then, the problem is not so much the storing itself but rather the retrieving of the information as they are SCSI disks and even Apple now uses PATA or SATA.

 

As for the "putting a Windows PC on the network", it can be set up but it is not recognized in the "chooser" and when it is, MacOS just freezes(old machines, no internet available, no updates... ) and the Windows network browser just doesn't see the Apple machines.

 

As for the iPC 10.5.6 final use:

- is the use of a modified BIOS necessary ?

Is this BIOS stable ?

I don't mind updating BIOS but not to keen on using a "patched" BIOS.

 

- I do know how to limit the number of active cores under Windows/Linux system but how do I in this case ? Is it in the BIOS settings ?

 

Tnaks again

[Beerkex'd]

Judging by the number of downloads, juzzis patched BIOS are well tested by the community and I haven't seen any complaints yet in the thread.

 

I've finally given in and I'm using one myself now on my P5Q-E, it makes things a little bit easier.

 

The only difference between juzzi's and vanilla ASUS BIOS is that the CPU aliases in the DSDT table have been removed.

 

About your other question and doubts, just read my previous post one more time.