steve_wozniak Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Hi all, I'd like to share my experience on installing Mac OS X on a DELL Optiplex 760, more precisely on a external Hard drive plugged into USB. At the office I have a Dell Optiplex 760 with the following components : Core 2 Duo 2,8 GHz 3 Go RAM ATI Radeon HD3450 replaced later with old ASUS EN6600 (GeForce) LAN Intel 82567 First, I have to say that I also used VMWare Workstation on the PC with Mac OS X 10.5.5 to help me with various things (disk utility for example). 1 - My external hard drive has two partitions, one HFS journalised and one NTFS. table scheme : GUID 2 - I downloaded Empire EFI Iso and burned it to a CD 3 - F12 to boot from Empire EFI CD, boot was OK. I ejected Empire EFI and inserted Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD (bought it 9,9$ because I purchased another MacBook this summer). I had to hit F5 to update so that my Snow Leopard DVD was detected. Select SL DVD. 4 - installation : customize (removed printers drivers and languages). I have to say that you can let this stuff if you want it, it works too (I know because I installed SL on two HDs, first with the stuff, second without) 5 - back to windows->vmware workstation and Launch 10.5.5. When launched, mount the external hard drive with the freshly incomplete installation in vmware. also mount the empire EFI disc in the wmware. 6 - in vmware, launch Extra > Hack installer from the Empire EFI disc and select the external hard drive to "patch" the files 7 - now the external hard drive should be bootable. Boot from it. ATTENTION, in my case, sometimes the option to select "USB DEVICE" in the boot menu doesn't appear. A quick workaround to this to go to the BIOS setup, when in, just get out without modifying the BIOS. Maybe the controller of my USB<-> doesn't have the time to initialize before the boot menu. 8 - complete installation with the forms to fill, the password and everything. 9 - reboot (and maybe apply the same trick as in '7'). Once SL has booted, you can see that you're stuck with 1024x768 and no LAN It appears that you don't necessarely need VMWare workstation, you can also boot from the empire EFI disc then select the external Hard drive, then install the stuff. To fix the Lan, you can use the Intel82566.kext. For all my kexts, I used kext utility, simply drop the kext onto kext utility, reboot, cross your fingers and that should be OK. The video part was a little bit annoying. I tried Natit.kext and also the ATILegacyX2000.kext but it didn't work. SL could boot but was very slow. I modifyed the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and tried 1680x1050x32 ; 1280x1024x32 ... All of them worked but it was too slow (Slow Leopard in fact ), plus the LAN didn't work anymore. I removed the previously installed kexts and did some tests again and again. I noticed that everytime I set a resolution > 1024x768, then the LAN was out of order. Fortunately, I add a ASUS EN6600 GeForce. I plugged it, installed the Natit.kext. reboot and surprise : monitor is detected, resolution switching is functionnal. I don't know about Quartz Extreme because in the About this Mac > More Info > Display, there is nothing about QE, weird ! I still don't know if the sound works. I still have many things that are not recognized but I don't care, it's just for fun that I wanted to see if it works, I already have my genuine Mac Pro at home and a lot of other Apple stuff. Anyway, thanks to netkas and everyone in the scene. I hope my experience could help some of you. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/199520-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard-on-dell-optiplex-760-on-a-external-hard-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdave54 Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 re Video hardware acceleration, if the dvd player will open & you can move pieces in chess, you have it if not If find the gfxutil strings method the best option to fix famous name you have there Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/199520-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard-on-dell-optiplex-760-on-a-external-hard-drive/#findComment-1342320 Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_wozniak Posted November 25, 2009 Author Share Posted November 25, 2009 OK, I'll try this tomorrow and upload the post famous name you have there I do, everybody always thinks about Steve Jobs only, but the other steve also have an important role in the Apple story ! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/199520-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard-on-dell-optiplex-760-on-a-external-hard-drive/#findComment-1342427 Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_wozniak Posted November 26, 2009 Author Share Posted November 26, 2009 chess works smoothly Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/199520-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard-on-dell-optiplex-760-on-a-external-hard-drive/#findComment-1343194 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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