Hackintosh - How to ???

[Seymour Butts]

I have an old Dell Latitude 630.
It has served me well for many years, but as the office now provides me with 2 x HP i7 units (one for on the road and one remains in the office)
the need for this unit is now well passed.
Basic Specs are;

4GB RAM - 250GB SSD HDD - 8x DVD R/RW
Currently running Windows 8.1 and with the SSD current boot time is under 45 seconds.
Processing speed is pretty good as well, I run some fairly complex Excel financial sheets through it for work and there is never a problem.

I want to give the unit to my Grandson but his school are Apple users.
I would like to turn this unit into a hackintosh - but as usual don't believe in reinventing the wheel.
I don't mind learning new things but as this will be a once off application I really don't see the point and further see the easy option as getting someone who has already done it to create an image for me and I'll just use that.
However, If I have to go through the learning curve, does anyone have a how to??
Thanks in anticipation,
Cheers

[weirdo]

Check out post 11 in this thread mate

[Seymour Butts]

Thanks Weirdo,
I thought I had seen something on the subject recently and that really contains a wealth of information.
But I would really prefer not to go through the learning curve (I know, I'm lazy )
So if anyone has an image - It really would be appreciated

Thanks again, Weirdo - I've bookmarked everything and have started reading - I have a sneaky suspicion I'm going to have to do this the hard way

[tristen]

... I would really prefer not to go through the learning curve (I know, I'm lazy )
So if anyone has an image - It really would be appreciated

I don't like your chances of getting a "ready-to-install image" of the operating system to install on your Dell Latitude D630, as installation of Mac OS X on non-Mac hardware, while not necessarily greatly difficult, usually requires a little (sometimes considerable ) research in order to discover what works and what doesn't.

Manufacturers usually make at least several different configurations of a particular model available and the D630 is no exception, with for example, a choice of several different variations of graphics hardware.

Hardware drivers (Apple refer to them as "kexts") will not necessarily be provided in a particular image, necessitating further work in searching for appropriate kexts for your machine.

Successful installation of OS X can also rely heavily on using a particular version of BIOS.

A brief Google search indicates that others have successfully installed OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and OS X 10.7, (Lion) on a D630, e.g. .

See also the iAtkos forums, where the subject is discussed at length. A search of iAtkos, , leads to many threads, but , might prove to be be more helpful.

You might decide that it is all too hard, but if others can do it, so can you .

If I had a D630 I'd try it myself. (I've recently acquired a Dell Latitude E6500, on which I shall attempt to install OS X as soon as I receive a replacement AC adaptor).

[Seymour Butts]

Thanks Tristen,
Very much appreciated

[WhiteOx]

I have OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks running on an AMD Phenom II X4 965 with Radeon HD 7770

Tristen's correct about a ready to run image - A lot depends on your hardware compatability, my biggest issue was trying to get the graphics card working with the correct bootflags.
It works perfectly on a HD Tv using the HDMI port but it's a bit flakey using the DVI port or HDMI port with the monitor.

[fred121]

Try this site I think you'll find it very helpful

[WhiteOx]

Another thing to consider is updating the OS - a new update will overwrite your patched kexts (drivers) and
possibly the kernel, at least on AMD systems, I'm not sure about Intel.
Don't update through the Mac Store the best way to update is download the ComboUpdates from Apple, backup
your kexts and kernel, do the update, replace kexts and kernel, repair permissions and reboot.
If it doesn't boot you need to figure out why.

It might be too much mucking around if your grandson is not computer savvy, while there's a ton of support
out there for Hackintoshes sometimes you need to figure some problems out for yourself.

[Seymour Butts]

Please guys don't take this the wrong way, I've spent hours if not days researching all the information and threads you've made available to me and while it doesn't seem that difficult it really does feel a convoluted and (in my case) not really a viable proposition, especially when considering the ongoing procedures. As can be seen from the included photo, my office desk is a little cluttered but I've been thinking of upgrading the little Mac book air (Pictured third right screen) to a larger screened (and faster) unit.
So the easy fix for me is to just give the pictured Mac Book air to my Grandson and give me a new one

[WhiteOx]

Your right, it's not that difficult but does require some ongoing maintenance - I only built mine because I wanted to have a look at Xcode.
Giving him the Mac Book Air is probably your best bet.

[fred121]

The MacBook Air is the go a real mac sure beats a hackintosh in terms of ongoing upkeep. In regard to updating hacks if you have an Intel based system ther are very few problems when updating usually only loss of audio and these are easily remedied particularly if you are using tony macs software. In desktop machines once you get your head around what you are doing hacks are a very good alternative to the cost of high end mac hardware.

[mickc]

can a boot usb be made without a mac
have a d830 and lion but all seem to say usb needs to be made from lion source

[tristen]

Transmac will allow you to read and write mac files and also create bootable usb sticks using Windows.

Features:

Open Mac format disk drives, flash drives, CD/DVD/Blu-ray media, dmg, dmgpart, sparsebundle and sparseimage files
Copy files to Mac disks and dmg images.
Format for Mac and restore disks and flash drives.
Create, compress and expand (convert to iso) dmg files.
Built in burner functionality to burn ISO and dmg files directly to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
Read Mac multisession and hybrid CDs.

The tutorial at should be useful.

There are also others .

It can also be done under Linux but I have forgotten how.

[WhiteOx]

can a boot usb be made without a mac
have a d830 and lion but all seem to say usb needs to be made from lion source

If you have the lion dmg file you can make an install usb with Win32 Disk Imager.
Follow the steps in 1b and just use the Lion dmg instead of the Mavericks one.


Or if you want to make a Mac boot usb on Windows:

[ol' boy]

Sell PC, Buy Mac

110% the better solution.

[mickc]

buy a mac?
its looking that way. tried Chameleon keep getting errors, tried transmac copy's all ok but wont boot
will try a niresh dmg if I can find 1

[Seymour Butts]

See post #1
Any one want to buy an old Dell

Picked up my new Air today and Grandson claims he's now king of the school yard
but he's an appreciative kid and well worth the effort.

Thanks for all the input guys - very much appreciated.

[jamisiah]

buy a mac?
its looking that way. tried Chameleon keep getting errors, tried transmac copy's all ok but wont boot
will try a niresh dmg if I can find 1

What do you mean by chameleon errors? kernel panic ?

[mickc]

The last 2 steps in batch file
Formats OK then writes mbr then 2 errors "can't write to own disk" or something like that

[WhiteOx]

Are you trying to make a Chameleon boot disk?
Why not just download an iso image?