- Download Mac Os Mavericks Installer
- How To Install Mavericks On Unsupported Macs
- How To Install Mavericks On Unsupported Mac
- Download Os X Mavericks Installer
Update 2019-05-02: For those of you who want to install macOS 10.14 on an unsupported Mac,check this post.
How to Install OS X Mavericks on an Unsupported Mac. Install Mac OS X Mavericks Zone Hackintosh with AMD & Intel Version 10.9 on Vmware Worksta. I installed mavericks on my 2007 mac mini via SFOTT. I am having audio & video issues. After googling a bit I was directed to download drivers from this link in order to solve my problems.
I have a MacBook Mid 2007 (more technically named MacBook2,1) that officially can not be upgraded beyond Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). It is however possible to install Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) on it with quite good success and not too much effort.
Install Mac OS X 10.9 on unsupported MacBook. The MacBook2,1 has Intel GMA950 Video, and there are no supported 64-bit-drivers for Mavericks. The drivers I suggest you to install are supposed to be drivers from a public beta of 10.6 (Snow Leopard) that Apple once. Guide to installing OS X Mavericks on your Unsupported Mac. When the operation completes, boot your target unsupported Mac off the USB drive you just created by holding down the Option key while turning on the machine, and selecting the drive. Note: Only perform steps 5 and 6 if you intend to do a clean install.
Download Mac Os Mavericks Installer
I want to first write what does not work:
- Sleep mode – not working at all – leave on or shut down
- The build-in web camera – “works” but not as it did in 10.7, I think
- YouTube-video (etc), works occationally (now worse than in 10.7, my experience)
I suggest you read the user comments to this post. A few helpful readers have shared their experiences.
What you need:
- A USB Memory, 8GB or larger
- Mac OS X Mavericks (i had the install/upgrade Application that I had myself
downloaded on another Mac, from App Store, when I upgraded it from 10.8 to
10.9. I always keep these for possible future use.) - SFOTT: I used version 1.4.4 which is currently the latest stable
- Audio/Video-drivers from (not here anymore, se comments below).
Warning, this is one of these horrible download pages where you don’t know
where to click to get the right thing, and what gives you spyware. You
should get the file mac-mini-mavericks.7z. Discard anything else without
opening. The 7z-file can be opened with StuffitExpander, that already
comes with Maverick
Making a bootable USB-drive
You first need to use SFOTT to create your bootable USB-drive (it is called “key” in SFOTT). You simply double-click on SFOTT on a Mac where you both have your Mavericks Install App and your USB-drive. SFOTT is a self guiding menu-driven application. It will take some time to make all the settings in SFOTT (it took me perhaps 15 minutes), but it was self-explanatory and not very difficult. Use the autorun mode to create the drive.
Recovery Scenario
When you install a Mac OS upgrade there is a risk your Mavericks system will not boot. When upgrading from 10.9.0 to 10.9.5 like I did, it will not boot. My impression (after reading different sources) is that this recovery is needed when upgrading from 10.9.0 (or 10.9.1 / 10.9.2) but not later. Nobody knows about 10.9.6 of course, because it is not out. Minor upgrades to applications or security upgrades should not cause need to recovery.
When Mavericks fails to start you need to “re-Patch” using SFOTT. I installed Mavericks on a separate partition, side-by-side with Lion, so when Mavericks failed to start my computer automatically started Lion instead and I could run SFOTT in Lion to re-Patch my Mavericks system.
If you can not do side-by-side you can start from your SFOTT-key (which you still have) and instead of installing Maverick you start the Terminal application. Find the SFOTT.app on the key, and find SFOTT.sh inside SFOTT.app. Run SFOTT.sh and you can re-Patch your broken Mavericks system. I did the entire procedure on my working Mavericks just to test it, and it seems fine.
There is if course no true guarantee that a future Apple upgrade will not break everything completely.
Installing Mavericks
Installation of Mavericks from the USB-drive is very standard. To start the computer from the USB-drive, hold down the “alt”-key (not Apple-key, not ctrl-key) while starting the computer. Choose SFOTT and proceed normally. After about an hour you should have a clean 10.9.0 Mavericks with network/wifi working. Video will work, but with problems (try Safari, and you will see), and Audio will not work.
Upgrade Mavericks
I used App Store to upgrade Mavericks to 10.9.5. That works just fine, until Mavericks fails to start (I ended up in my old Lion system on a reboot, if you have no other system installed your computer with probably just not start). This is where you need to recover your system using SFOTT.
Fixing Audio and Video
The 7z-file I referred to above contains Audio and Video drivers. You run the application “Kext Utility” and the you drag the contents of the folder Extensions into the Kext Utility, and it will install the drivers. There is a folder with “optional wifi drivers”, I have not installed those because wifi has been fine all the time for me.
The MacBook2,1 has Intel GMA950 Video, and there are no supported 64-bit-drivers for Mavericks. The drivers I suggest you to install are supposed to be drivers from a public beta of 10.6 (Snow Leopard) that Apple once released. They seem to work quite fine for me though. And not installing them is worse.
I suggest you upgrade to 10.9.5 before fixing Audio and Video. I guess a later Apple-upgrade could break Audio and Video and require you to reinstall drivers.
Problems booting the SFOTT key
I first created the SFOTT key using the SFOTT beta (that is also supposed to work with Yosemite), and I used System Preferences/Startup Disk (in Lion) to start the installion. This failed and my computer just started up in Lion.
I then created the SFOTT key using 1.4.4, AND i restarted the computer holding down the alt-key. This worked. This key also later worked when I used System Preferences/Startup Disk (in Mavericks) to choose startup drive.
Driver Problems
There are open source Audio drivers called VoodooHDA. I installed those ones with success, but audio volume was low. I tried to fix with no success. Later I found the drivers I referred to above and that I recommend.
Install Osx On Unsupported Mac
I found another download for what was supposed to be the same Video Drivers. But the Kext-utility did not work, and I installed the drivers by copying them directly into /System/Library/Extensions and this gave me a broken unbootable system. I don’t know what went wrong, but I recommend the drivers I linked to.
Video/YouTube Performance
Some videos seem to play perfectly, others dont. I had problems with 10.7 too.
Background and about SFOTT
There are several Apple computers that can run 10.7, that have a 64-bit processor, but that can not officially run 10.8 or later. There are a few issues:
- Video Drivers – and in the case of my MacBook2,1 the unofficial ones mentioned
above may be good enough - 32 bit EFI. Even though the computer has a 64 bit processor, the EFI, the
software that runs before the Installer/Operating system, is 32 bit, and not
capable of starting a 64-bit system. - Mavericks does not believe it can run on this hardware.
As I understand it SFOTT installs a little program that 32 bit EFI is capable of starting, and that in turn is capable of staring a 64 bit system. Also, SFOTT patches a few files so Mavericks feels comfortable running on the unsupported hardware.
You can do all of this on your own without SFOTT. SFOTT “just” makes this reasonably easy.
Contact memy paperbuses. There are plenty of forums, tools and information about running Mac OS X on unsupported hardware (also non-Apple-hardware: a Hackintosh). Those forums of course focus a lot on problems people have.
Install Mojave On Unsupported Mac
Yosemite
It is supposed to be possible to install Yosemite in a similar way. SFOTT has a beta release for Yosemite. For my purposes going to Mavericks gave me virtually all advantages of an upgrade (supported version of OS X, able to install latest Xcode, etc).
Conclusion
In the beginning of 2015, it is not that hard to install Mavericks on a MacBook Mid 2007, with a quite good result. I have pointed out the tools and downloads you need and that will work.
I have an old Mac Pro, 2,1 late 2007 model running 2x quadcore 3.0 ghz Xeon processors. I'm using snowleopard and it has been my workstation for a long time.
Recently I had an issue with Python and couldn't get Django installed correctly for a course I'm taking, My advisor told me to upgrade to mavericks. So, I found that my machine wasn't supported because of 32bit efi. Not sure what that means. It runs 64 bit programs like Maya and Nuke like a champ, so apparently 64 bit and 64bit efi are different things. Anyways, I did some research and found the sfott 32 to 64 tool and used it to install mavericks on my machine. I found it at oemden.com
Because snowleopard was working fine, I decided to install mavericks In a brand new separate drive.
Mavericks works fine, other than some video card issues, I get some random, rgb pixels on my monitor now and my second display isn't detected at all. But I can do the python Django training so I'll live. I'm using a quadrofx 4500.
But now, when I boot into snowleopard on my other hd, it freezes almost every time. Most of the time it gets stuck on the white screen after the apple logo. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get it logged in but it freezes randomly. I always have to hard boot to get it back.
I tried using disk utility while in mavericks and after running repair permissions and repair disk it stated that the drive was in good shape. Because I can run things in mavericks I don't think it's a memory issue.
I thought because I installed mavericks on separate drive it wouldn't affect my snowleopard drive.
Any suggestions, thoughts?
How To Install Mavericks On Unsupported Macs
LAST UPDATED ON: November 4, 2013
Requirements:
- A compatible computer: Not every computer will work with Mac OS X, even with the help of myHack. Be sure to read the Hackintosh compatibility guide very carefully, to check whether or not your computer qualifies. The hardware requirements for OS X Mavericks are essentially identical to those for OS X Mountain Lion; AMD processors and older 32-bit Intel processors (such as Pentium M) are not supported. If your computer already has OS X Mountain Lion installed, myHack will just update Mountain Lion to Mavericks normally, without deleting any of your apps or files.
- An empty hard drive partition: Mac OS X needs its own hard drive partition (a minimum of 10 GB of space is required, but at least 50 GB of space is recommended).
- myHack(Free): myHack is a Mac program that modifies the official OS X Mavericks DP1 installer, and writes it onto a USB drive. You can then use this myHack USB drive to run the Mavericks installer on a PC. myHack works with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and newer.
- A Hackintosh with Snow Leopard/Lion/Mountain Lion already installed, a real Mac, or a Mac OS X virtual machine: myHack is a Mac app, so you need a computer with Mac OS X to run it. You could use a real Mac, if you own one. As another option, you could install Mountain Lion on a virtual machine, and run Unibeast on there instead. Be sure to install the Virtualbox Extension Pack to view USB drives from your virtual machine.
- OS X 10.9 Mavericks: The method used by this guide requires that you have a copy of the Mavericks installation app, which is available for free from the Mac App Store.
- An empty USB drive (8 GB or larger): The USB drive used for myHack must be at least 8 GB in size. Since myHack will erase all of the files on your USB drive, make sure to back up its contents first. You can reuse this USB drive for normal stuff after you finish installing Mavericks.
- Multibeast (Free): Multibeast is a collection of kext files that your Hackintosh will need to run properly, after the initial installation. Download it onto a USB drive. Be sure to download the newest version 6 of Multibeast, not the older versions 3, 4, or 5.
1. Run myHack
Plug your USB drive into your computer, and start myHack. Enter your Mac OS X password when the app begins, and the setup process will begin. When myHack prompts you, select 'Create OS X Installer' and 'Create OS X 10.9 Install Disk'.
myHack will ask you for the location of your copy of OS X 10.9 Mavericks. It's usually faster to 'Browse Manually' for the Mavericks installation app.
myHack will begin to set up your installer USB drive. Click 'Ok' when myHack asks to erase your USB drive, so that it can begin the setup process.
From here, the setup process is pretty automatic. myHack will erase your USB drive, copy the contents of the Mavericks installer app onto it, and then modify those contents to be bootable on a PC. Near the end of the process, myHack will ask you whether you want to apply the MBR patch to the USB drive. Click 'Yes' if you plan on installing Mac OS X on a hard drive where Windows is already installed.
This entire process should take about 10-15 minutes, though it may take up to an hour if your USB drive is slow.
2. Install Mavericks!
From here, the installation process is pretty much the same as the process for alternative tools like Unibeast. You can refer to Steps 3-7 of our Unibeast installation guide.
Obviously, you won't have to follow Steps 1-2 of the Mountain Lion guide, which are about running Unibeast. You've already made your own installer USB drive, with myHack! Otherwise, the installation process is mostly the same-- you'll still have to make sure that your computer and BIOS are set up (Step 3-4), and go through the normal installation and post-installation procedures (Steps 5-7).
The only other thing that's really different is that the myHack installer USB drive lets you install Hackintosh-specific kexts and configuration files straight from the OS X installer. So when you install OS X Mavericks, myHack will also prompt you to install an 'Extra' folder.
- If you're installing Mavericks on a new computer, choose the 'Use Generic One' option.
- If you're upgrading an existing Mac OS X installation to Mavericks, choose the second option, which lets you install your own personal 'Extra' folder-- select the 'Extra' folder located at the base of your main hard drive.
And that's all there is to it! Thanks to myHack, you should be able to boot OS X Mavericks from your computer's hard drive (