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Well I went out and bought a PCI to SATA card, thinking that it would be handled primarily by the hardware. I was wrong... it needs drivers. I searched and searched, and since it's a Japanese card purchased in Japan, I searched through Google in Japanese and all of them seemed to be saying that it was impossible, there are no drivers for Mac. I was a bit discouraged.

 

I then found a solution that ended up working and still works now. Here's how I did it:

 

Step #1: Plug the card into the machine, set the jumper for expansion drive (not boot drive)

 

Step #2: Find and download AppleVIAATA.kext

 

Step #3: Dig into the KEXT folder and find the Info.plist file

 

Step #4: Find the part that looks like this:

 

<key>VIA SATA Controller</key>

<dict>

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>

<string>com.apple.driver.AppleVIAATA</string>

<key>Hardware Name</key>

<string>8237 SATA</string>

<key>IOClass</key>

<string>AppleVIAATARoot</string>

<key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>

<string>0x528810B9 0x528910B9 0x528710B9 0x31491106 0x00e310de 0x00ee10de 0x55131039 0x09631039 0x10B95229 0x522910B9</string>

<key>IOProbeScore</key>

<string>1000</string>

<key>IOProviderClass</key>

<string>IOPCIDevice</string>

<key>Serial ATA</key>

<true/>

</dict>

 

Edit the <string> .... </string> portion like so, with my changes being shown in bold for emphasis:

 

<key>VIA SATA Controller</key>

<dict>

<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>

<string>com.apple.driver.AppleVIAATA</string>

<key>Hardware Name</key>

<string>8237 SATA</string>

<key>IOClass</key>

<string>AppleVIAATARoot</string>

<key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>

<string>0x528810B9 0x528910B9 0x528710B9 0x31491106 0x35121095 0x00e310de 0x00ee10de 0x55131039 0x09631039 0x10B95229 0x522910B9</string>

<key>IOProbeScore</key>

<string>1000</string>

<key>IOProviderClass</key>

<string>IOPCIDevice</string>

<key>Serial ATA</key>

<true/>

</dict>

 

Step #5: Repair permissions/touch extensions folder (easiest to use OSx86 Tools for this. Check the boxes marked "Repair Extensions Permissions" and "Touch Extensions folder."

 

Step #6: Enjoy your expansion PCI-to-SATA card :). It recognized it immediately for me, and I could start using the extra HDD. You may need to reboot, but that should do it.

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