Hi, I was just wondering, is there a way to install Mavericks on a MacBook that is not officially supported? I have an old 13' MacBook from 2007 with a Core2Duo and Intel 950 graphics. OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the tenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.' S desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013 worldwide. The update emphasized battery life, Finder improvements, other improvements for power users, and continued iCloud integration, as well as.

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.

I want to first write what does not work:

1. Sleep mode – not working at all – leave on or shut down
2. The build-in web camera – “works” but not as it did in 10.7, I think
3. 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:

1. A USB Memory, 8GB or larger
2. 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.)
3. SFOTT: I used version 1.4.4 which is currently the latest stable
4. 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.

Can I Install Mavericks On My Mac

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:

Install Mavericks On Unsupported Macbook

1. Video Drivers – and in the case of my MacBook2,1 the unofficial ones mentioned
   above may be good enough
2. 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.
3. 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.

There are known vulnerabilities for Mac OS X 10.9 'Mavericks' that are not addressed by Apple. Users should migrate as soon as possible to a fully supported version of OS X, see https://information-technology.web.cern.ch/services/fe/howto/software-updates-mac.

The information below is only for historical reference.

My suspicion is that the new installer will use it’s own boot.efi / PlatformSupport.plist file(s) preventing you to upgrade using the App Store. My reasoning is that I tried to download the Mavericks Install file from the App Store on the Mac Pro and the App Store prevented the download from happening since the Mac Pro is unsupported. My best advice for any Hackintosh install, is get things installed on a real mac first, and then modify things to work on your unsupported rig. This worked for both the Xserve and my i7 PC. I had a junky MacBook Pro sitting around I did the Mavericks install with, and then modded the PlatformSupport.plist. Install 10.8 on old unsupported Mac. It is a very long thread. I still don't definitively know if you can get the OS X 10.7 64-bit kernel running on your specific kind of Mac, but I suspect for the reasons mentioned in this image from the MacRumors forum thread that you can't. Install Mavericks on Unsupported.

Mac Os On Unsupported Mac

• 'Thirty two sixty four for Mac OS X' search that in Google, you can run Mavericks and Yosemite on any unsupported mac with at least a core duo processor, just down load the software and follow the directions. And FYI you can install windows 10 on any Intel mac.
• The 1.6.5 installer for Mountain Lion refuses to install on Mavericks, so if you want to use it on Mavericks you must install it before you migrate or hack the install package to disable the OS version check. ROOT v5-34-12 builds and runs fine on Mavericks. Previous versions don't and won't.

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks is available since October 22nd 2013. It can be installed directly from the Apple AppStore, or via our NetInstall server (see https://information-technology.web.cern.ch/services/fe/howto/install-os… for details anbout our NetInstall service).

There are three important actions to take before you install Mavericks:

1. Ensure that all the software you are using is compatible with it.
2. Verify your hard-disk or SSD before doing the install.
3. Make sure you have a recent backup, allowing you to recover your data in case of problems

Known Issues

Here we summarise a list of known issues that has been brought to our attention. Please note that this list is by no means complete.

Authentication

Smart boardslcsd educational technology resources. Using Network Groups from Active Directory (egroups in CERN speak) does not work properly. It might work for accounts that are members of few egroups only.

External Hard Disks

Western digital is warning anout potential data loss when using its drive manger software under Mavericks. Details are available from http://community.wd.com/t5/News-Announcements/External-Drives-for-Mac-E… . Users of Western Digital drives should uninstall the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and/or WD SmartWare before upgrading to OS 10.9.

Mobile device syncing

Mavericks has disabled local syncing of most data, you have to use iCloud for syncing of most data types. Depending on your settings this might include (and thus expose) all the passwords stored in your keychain!

Openafs

OS X 10.9 requires openAFS version 1.6.6, released on January 24th 2014, or higher. The version 1.6.5 for Mountain Lion appears to work for most cases, but there is a problem when editing files in afs directly from emacs or when creating symlinks within the afs space. The 1.6.5 installer for Mountain Lion refuses to install on Mavericks, so if you want to use it on Mavericks you must install it before you migrate or hack the install package to disable the OS version check.

ROOT

ROOT v5-34-12 builds and runs fine on Mavericks. Previous versions don't and won't.

XQuartz

Install Osx On Unsupported Mac

The XQuartz developers recommend to use 2.7.5 or later (http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing).