jimmyco2008 Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 Hey all!I got an old Compaq Presario desktop, it's a piece of {censored}, but it can definitely run Snow Leopard. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So far!- No need for ANY boot flags!- Working Radeon HD 6450 (I have a custom PCIe card installed for HDMI)- Hard Drive(s) and Disk Drive(s) detected! (SouthBridge)- It goes to install the damn thing (it's installing as I write this)- Full CPU support with specific AMD kernel (no need for cpus=1)- USB 2.0 (all ports are 2.0 on this POS)Expected to work- LANDoesn't work (yet)- PS/2 Keyboard + Mouse (get those USB peripherals if you got 'em!)- nVidia 6150SE Integrated Graphics- What more do you want? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part I: Preparing the myHack USB installer- You need a retail dmg of Snow Leopard, and if you're feeling Snow Leopard Server, that should work, too.- You also need a Mac or VM of OS X to use the myHack installer app.- Let's not forget that 8GB or higher flash drive- I won't go into how to make a myHack, I mean if you need help, post and I'll help, but it's pretty easy, especially if this isn't your first rodeo.- You need to use Kext Wizard to install some kexts to get the hard drive working, among other things. I'll try to get all the kexts needed for both installation and post-installation into one package in the next day or so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll be updating this thing for the next day or week or however long it takes to get everything working, so stay tuned, and feel free to ask questions! ------------------------------ Here's the Gatsby pack for this thing, as of April 13th, 12:33 EDT, it includes the kernel and kexts for ethernet, the SATA controller (also makes IDE-connected stuff work!), and I threw in the ATI Radeon kext pack from I forget who, but thanks to them, it has kexts for virtually all decently-modern Radeon cards. - via Dropbox -------------------------------- So you could try installing this now, I'm trying to, too, but this last install attempt (also the first), the screen went black and all HDD activity stopped 10 minutes out... May just be a random kernel panic, I gotta repeat the installation!Also, depending on what graphics card you are using, honestly idk about the nVidia 6150 SE, you should be fine, but don't do the verbose mode (-v) with the myHack install disk... If you do it normal boot, then you can see the screen turn blue, and that's ALRIGHT. It will stay blue for 5 - 10 minutes, then you'll be at the install screen. I tried unplugging HDMI, didn't do it... I dunno if it's just the kext loading for the HD 6000 series card or what... But give it time if you get that blue screen, this ain't Windows. EDIT: Yeah the second install completed successfully... If it fails the first time, try it again! Also, the nVidia 6150SE works just swell (I don't think I installed an nVidia graphics kext..) better than the Radeon HD 6450 in that instead of looking at a blue screen for 5 minutes, I get to look at the "Welcome" video for Snow Leopard. --------------------------------------------------- Post Installation So it turns out all the special kexts and possibly the kernel we used to install OS X weren't installed to the HDD of our wonderful Compaq desktop...You'll need some way of accessing the HDD on another Mac, I used a USB to 2.5" SATA adapter to plug it in to my Macbook Pro, and I just overwrote the kernel (just in case) and installed the kexts we installed on the flash drive, EXCEPT for the AppleAHCIPort.kext. DO NOT install that one. So far that's where I'm at...-----------April 13th, 2:13 EDTIght it booted, just took a damn long time. After applying the kexts and kernel as stated directly above, just reboot normally, and wait like 20 minutes.... I'm at the welcome screen! Alright so you may have issues with the PS2 keyboard and the mouse, I'm using a wireless USB mouse, Microsoft, ironically. It moves the cursor, but when you click on the continue button on the welcome screen, it doesn't do anything. YES IT DOES. Just give it 5 minutes or so... Yeah this is really slow going. Once I got to the next screen, things got smooth, so look forward to that! Post Installation (Theoretical) - I haven't made it here yet, but here's how it'll probably go down... Get yourself a USB keyboard, it's the easiest, really the only way to have a working keyboard with this (I'm using this as a server, so I'll be remoting in), since I'm having no luck with any of the 5 or so kext packs for PS2 I've tried thusfar... They're $20 at BestBuy, folks, go for it. Alternatively, you could try booting this on your Mac/Macbook natively (???????), which I'm going to try... of course you can't use the AMD kernel, stock mach_kernel is the way to go. So assuming you get through setup, you should end up at the desktop. ---------------------------- Final (?) Update (at least for a while) I got it to boot on my Macbook Pro (connected as external HDD via USB 3.0 to SATA adapter > hold option after pressing power to select your HDD to boot) after restoring the stock mach_kernel, and went through the keyboard-required Welcome menu there. And then it went to the desktop! I popped it back into my desktop, and it booted to the desktop. It hasn't really KPd, it's pretty stable but I think that's all I'll be doing for a while... If anyone actually uses this guide, post a reply and I'll help you out, maybe restart my work on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts