Using 10.5 kext for 10.6?

[chiefsalami]

Folks, I have only ONE working kext for my SATA controller in my machine, and it happens to be part of the ideneb 10.5 installation. Is there a way for me to modify my 10.6 installation disc to include this kext and have it work as it does for 10.5? The setup utility will not even recognize my hard drive in 10.6, whereas in the ideneb 10.5 it will. Simply copying the kext into the correct location and rebuilding Extensions.mkext does not help. The hard drive is still not seen during the installation setup.

 

Does this make sense what I'm asking?

[inimicus]

Yes, you'll need to inject the kext into the disc img or add it to the flash drive (if you use that method).

 

You'll be able to install, but will mostly likely get the magical "still waiting for root device" at initial boot. In which case, you'll need to go back to the installer and cp the kext to your installed system via Terminal.

 

Make sense?

[chiefsalami]

I have done both of these - adding the kext to the install image and rebuilding the Extensions.mkext file, as well as trying to install to the hard drive over USB and then copying the kext to my install image. The hard drive is seen by almost any install image while it's plugged in via USB, but once I remove it and install it on the internal SATA controller, it is no longer seen (including by the install image). Only the ideneb 10.5 installer sees it, and can generate a working installation.

 

Copying the kext over to a 10.6 install doesn't work, because the kext that makes the SATA controller work is a 10.5 kext. I cannot get 10.6 to recognize the controller by trying to use this kext.

 

So my question is how can I get 10.6 to use the 10.5 kext? Is there something about the format of the kexts, the Extensions.mkext, or something else that is different between the two operating systems? What do I need to do?

[chiefsalami]

I GOT IT!!!!

 

I had to use kexthelper b7. It was the only way the drivers were successfully installed. I went through the installation of 10.6 over a USB drive (put the stock hard drive in a SATA-USB enclosure) and then booted from that installation while still plugged into the USB port. Then I installed the 10.5 kext using kexthelper onto the 10.6 installation. Pulled the hard drive out of the USB enclosure, installed it back onto the internal SATA connector, and rebooted.

 

Voila! It worked! Just thought some others might benefit from my experience.

 

Now I'm working on getting the system updated to 10.3.... fingers crossed