Hackintosh…

So I got my issue with my new, used, hand me down laptop (A Dell Inspiron 8600).  The problem was a bad CD/DVD drive.  I took it to Jafferson Computers in Ann Arbor, MI and they fixed it up right quick for me.  Here’s a plug for Jafferson…they’ve been great to me.  Ask for Mateen if you ever need help…

So not being satisfied to go back to a Windows world I was determined to try and install Hackintosh on my computer over the weekend.   I will admit, I was a little skeptical and didn’t think I would have much luck.  Given my experience with Linux, etc… I was expecting even worse (if that’s possible).  I was expecting some major command line conjurring, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I downloaded the Jas 10.4.8 SSE2 & SSE3 DVD iso from a poplar torrent site (Ahoy Matey) and burned it from my Mac and popped it in my dell.  It took right off, popping up on the install menu.  Using a walk thru from the OSX86 wiki  I just followed the directions.  It took me three atempts to get it to install correctly (let me explain).  There are several options specific for your computer that you are allowed to choose.  The first install attempt I installed every option except the Titan Driver (for the video card).  Upon re-booting it the computer frooze on the white apple boot screen.  I thought the problem might be with the video card, so I installed again…this time with the Titan Driver selected.  Second reboot didn’t even get that far….after the initial screen the display went all crazy so I knew it was a video card problem that time.  So my final attempt…. I decided to only install the basic drivers…no extras.  And upon boot up…It worked like a charm.

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t believe it.  I kept waiting for it to crash…or blow up…or something.  After all I don’t have the best luck with Tech stuff.  But it worked, OS X (10.4.8) was loaded up, It came with the essential programs (Itunes, Mail, Safari, etc….)  But that was it.  I still had video card issues.  I was stuck in a 1024X screen resolution and when you moved windows around you could see there where some rendering issues.  I also had no internet connection.

So I had to get my wireless connection and video card working if this was going to be viable.  This was the most frustrating part of the process.  Who do you call for help on these kind of issues?  You have to rely on the support of the community.  Luckily enough, the community around the OSX86 is very good.  I was able find how to fix my issues relatively quick by doing searches on google.  All the info was on insanelymac’s forumns, though strangely enough something is screwed up with their forumns in general.  The only way to search them is really from your browser search engine.

I was able to download an installer that got my wireless network working as well as a installer to get my video card going.  In all it took me about 2 hours.

The only downside is (and you could say it’s a big downside)…the Hackintosh wireless connection for some reason will not connect to my WEP encrpyted connection.  I tried all the other ones and they wouldn’t work either.  So for right now my wireless network is wide open.  I’m still going to work on that.

So bottom line…the process was really easy.  I’m not a hacker, not a programmer, not even really good with tech stuff.  But I was able to figure it out and follow directions.  If you got an extra computer lying around and want to see what the Mac OS is all about give it a try…you can even do what I did…partition your current hard drive…keep Windows on one partition and OS X on the other.

Yes….I did keep windows on one partition.  It never hurts to have a backup.  I trust Macintosh, but Hackintosh…I’m still learning.

Here are some pics in case there are any skeptics.  And Yes, Hackintosh is the full OS X, not some skin or whatever running on top of another OS.

The worst luck…

I swear I have the worst luck ever…

As mentioned in an earlier post.  My mother-in-law got a new computer thereby passing her old Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop down to me.  I was so excited to get my hands on this thing.  I just love messing around with new gadgets.  Now the computer worked fine when it was handed over to me…fine that is when you consider all the usual glitches etc… associated with a Windows machine that you just decide to live with (Yes that’s a jab from a Mac fan).   So being new to me I had no plan on living with the little bugs that drive me crazy.

I’ve wanted to try Linux for a while now so was looking forward to the opportunity.  I swear I must have tried every livecd distro out ther, but I couldn’t get anything to work with video card (Nvidia Geforce Go5200).  To me that’s pretty lame…  I think I’m giving up on my Linux pipe dream.

So giving up on Linux I just reformatted with Windows XP.  It took me a whole day I swear, manually installing all the dell drivers (I didn’t have the Dell Recovery Disk).  Then it took several hours to install all the windows upates.  I went to bed and the computer was a clean, mean, machine.

Yesterday…got a call from my son.  The computer stopped working.  Stuck on the boot screen, keeps cycling through the boot screen no matter what you do.  I thought I could fix it when I got home…but no luck.  I can’t get the thing to do anything.  Not even boot from a CD…any CD I tried.  Something is screwed up.  I feel terrible because this was going to be my sons laptop and now it’s bricked.  I’m also really mad at myself because anyway you cut it… I bricked it.  (Though I swear I did everything right and it’s not my fault).

So I’m pretty mad today.

My wife’s going to take it to a local computer store and see if they’ll look at.  I don’t want to spend much money on it.  Looking on Ebay and Craiglist they’re going for about $200-300.  I’m thinking something went out…video card, motherboard, CD/DVD drive.  Probably not worth replacing.

What really makes me mad is that after giving up on Ubuntu I came across another idea yesterday that I was extremely excited about trying.  Can you say Hackintosh???

Check out this site…pretty interesting.

I’ve just decided that the Tech God’s hate me…  But I don’t know why I’ve sacrificed enough blood, sweat and money to them.  You think they’d show me a little love.

Maybe there just jealous that I have an iphone and they don’t.  I don’t know.   But I give up…   For now.