Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

Post all questions and information about the CF-31 in here.
Message
Author
thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#21 Post by thewanderlustking »

Oh, my theory on the issue is that the HDD isn't correctly configured for the older OSX partition type. I have had this exact same problem before when I did the recovery and OSX reinstall on my MacBook. So quick access to the drive itself is going to make this much easier of a project to tackle.
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

theoak2
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:45 am

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#22 Post by theoak2 »

Nothing that I have tried, sounds complicated and easier on a desktop than a laptop, but maybe this will help:

https://saputra.org/threads/easy-guide- ... ncore.248/
CF-31 MK6 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, DVD, 4G LTE, No webcam :(
FZ-55 MK1 with 1 TB SSD and Windows 11

thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#23 Post by thewanderlustking »

Ador sent me some goodies to play with including another CF-30 drive caddy. I also now have a CF-31 caddy. It is quicker to pull the drive out of.

At one point somebody on NBR had either made or found adapters to plug into the Toughbook caddy connector and connect to USB or something without pulling the HDD out of the caddy. This would be really usefull to have but I am not even sure what to look for. None of my phrasing attempts had any hits.

I am fairly positive this is simply a configuration issue in how I formatted the HDD. ATM I am typing this on it with the W10 caddy installed. It is weird, but manageable and getting better. The backlight keyboard is super nice and feels almost comparable to the MacBook keyboard. It takes slightly more pressure, so I am dropping some letters and not typing quite as fast. But it is worlds away from the rubber keyboards!
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#24 Post by thewanderlustking »

Re-reading through this trying to sort out where I was to reboot this project, and I want to complain (again) about Apple's habit of breaking stuff that was working perfectly just to make it obsolete so you have to buy newer crap. My daily use computer is a 13" Macbook Pro from 2012! And you know something? It works just as good now as it did when it was new. Sorta. I say "sorta" as it has software issues and broke a lot after doing a reinstall and recovery. Actually even with those issues, it is faster than when it was new due to being upgraded to an SSD and cranking the memory all the way up. Still, the hardware behind this is 11 years old, and still functioning as it should. Modern MacBooks though you can't upgrade the HDD or memory. I have upgraded the HDD several times. But enough of that. This project isn't really because of all that though.

Apple broke my workflow when their upgrades did away with my most critical piece of software, Aperture. Sure I know there are other options, (don't get me started on Adobe), but they don't make sense for a hobbyist photographer like myself to use. And most are SUPER complex to use if you don't use it constantly. Then Aperture was first and foremost a serious library management tool. I have a HUGE library of photographs that I can no longer even access. All of this added up to a serious amount of frustration that ended up with my cameras all getting put away and barely touched in ages.

Sure, Aperture is probably more akin to having your film developed at the local drugstore, and Photoshop would be developing it yourself in your personal darkroom.... But on my older mac OSX I actually had both. Now I have nothing. Sorry, I probably repeated most of my first post above...

It probably would be much easier to get my Getac B300 Hackintoshed. I actually think it is a nicer laptop in many ways. Especially the keyboard. But I use the Panasonic M 4/3 system. Panasonic's cameras are absolutely amazing, and also built like TANKS! I love the synergy of that. We shall see, that B300 does have an easily replaceable processor too...

The point that is screwing me on this is the UEFI stuff, getting that turned off, bios correctly configured, and the hard drive formatted correctly. Tomorrow I am going to dig out my caddies and the rest of the supplies needed and give it another crack. I have an IT genius friend who is willing to tackle the project. But to get him caught up and hand him the documentation and supplies, requires me going through it again anyways. Plus he is pretty busy and I wouldn't ask him to do it without compensation for his efforts. So I guess I will star there. Document it well enough that if I do get stuck again, he knows exactly where I am and is hopefully solving a smaller set of issues.

Ironically my slightly older 2011 MacBook Pro 13" is running Sierra and has Aperture on it. It is noticeably slower and much lower specd' out. Memory and an SSD would likely fix most of that, but the SSD upgrade is a pain and the lower graphics set and lower processor power give me too many reasons not to bother. Finding a clean 2012 running the original OS night be simpler. But if I am going to spend money on this project, I would rather invest it in getting the Toughbook working.
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

User avatar
ADOR
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:51 pm
Location: Northeast Louisiana

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#25 Post by ADOR »

"Aperture is probably more akin to having your film developed at the local drugstore, and Photoshop would be developing it yourself in your personal darkroom"

And that is how it should be. The older I get the more the more I understand why my dad was pissed off at some stuff.

Me and my kids have always used the older hardware and have had good luck on it. The oldest one right now is a Phenom X 6 2.7 running 16 or 12 gb of ram / SSD and 680 GPU. Still plays most games just fine.

Have you thought about this project on a desktkop? Maybe easier to upgrade and find the right hardware for it?
CF-28 MK2,Mk3 / CF-29 Mk3 / CF-30 MK2 / CF-25 Mk1 ATI / CF-19 MK3/Mk3/Mk5 / CF-U1 Mk1,Mk2 / CF-M34 Mk7/Mk3 / CF-17 Mk1 / CF-07
Voodoo Envy M355 / M360 / M515 / M780 / U703 / Voodoo Hexx / Voodoo Idol / Voodoo Rage F1 / Voodoo Rage F1 / Voodoo Rage F1 "signed case" / Voodoo Omen
Alienware M11x R1, Alienware 17 R5

thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#26 Post by thewanderlustking »

I am not getting as far as I did in post #11 yet. I might actually have had it there and needed to go to the next step and use MultiBeast. I am not sure... Whatever the case I am glad I posted up links and a fairly decent description of what I was doing. Trying to reverse engineer that process again.

As I was saying, I love the synergy of utilizing a Panasonic Toughbook to support my Panasonic cameras. I don't think I am dealing with hardware caused issues. As far as the hardware goes the hardest part to get around, the wireless card, can easily be replaced with an Apple one. The issue I think is that the documentation is kinda outdated, since I am trying to put an older version of OSX onto it. And it is showing me steps and pictures that are different from what I have, or not even available.

After talking to Ador earlier today, he got me thinking and I actually went hunting on eBay for replacement MacBooks. The market is flooded these days and Macs don't hold their value like they used to. I can get a much faster speced out Mac than my current one, yet with an old enough OSX version installed, for $300-500. While not exactly what Ador intended, I could also pretty cheaply get a Mac Workstation. Of course I could potentially use the 2011 if I put in some upgrades. I just went through my graveyard and found I have two 15" MacBook Pros in it. I have no idea what is wrong with those, if anything.

Alright progress of a sort. If I setup UniBeast for UEFI boot, it is actually booting into Clover. I get multiple options. I can boot EFI Clover disk, Mac OSX Install Disk, then a bunch of configuration options. Clover EFI gives me a green clover, and then so far nothing. Its been up for a while... Mac OSX install kernel panics or something. I think that is the correct choice, but it isn't giving me the installation options then the loading bar like I had before. It is complaining about "ACPI" platform drivers. Odd. I will go down that rabbit hole next go around. Still a green clover. I think I need to try the legacy boot mode again.

For now I am calling it a night. I will leave it on in the odd chance it gets past whatever it is doing, or not doing.
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#27 Post by thewanderlustking »

Is this struggle even worth it??? Every time I stop for more than half an hour, it seems I lose track of what I did last and have already tried. I think I am just running in circles.

Realistically, this might be beyond my skillset to accomplish. Eventually, I might be able to get most of the way there. But without a very clear guide and blueprint to follow, I am not even getting past the FIRST hurdle of getting the OS installed. So I have to ask myself again, is it worth it???

I bought my first MacBook in 2011. I got it for my photography, and ended up never putting it back down. Everything about Macs is butter. The keyboards are a joy to use. The screens are awesome. They are much faster than a comparable spec PC. And it is near impossible to break their operating systems. And surprisingly, they are SUPER durable. The problem is, I am likely going to loose most of what makes a Mac, a Mac, if it is in a Toughbook case. I am going to loose the keyboard, the trackpad, the screen...

My main intent behind this was to get "daily driver" status out of one of my Toughbooks. But realistically, I am not sure a Toughbook will ever live up to the whole user experience of a Mac. Toughbooks are their own experience. I am not giving up fully yet on a Hackintoshed Toughbook. But I need a quicker and stable solution much faster than sorting that out is likely to be.

I really would like to get more mileage out of my CF-31... But for now I am just going to get another MacBook. I can use the opportunity to upgrade a few things.
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

thewanderlustking
Posts: 86
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: Hackintoshing a CF-3110778CM

#28 Post by thewanderlustking »

Well the attempt/struggle isn't over yet! I went and took stock of what I have on hand and worked on each piece a bit.

My daily use 2012 Macbook is running OS Catalina. The drive hasn't been wiped/cleaned in years, read EVER. So the software i needed, Aperture, was still installed. Just broken. I managed to get that fixed with a newer version of this app called Retroactive. It isn't 100%, I get some "unsupported file type" warnings, probably my RAW camera files. But I have access to my massive photography library now. Retroactive also lets me fix iPhoto and iTunes. Haven't followed that rabbit hole yet... If I can install iTunes 11 with it. I am good! This is only a partial fix though. I don't think I am going toe able to fix everything on this without a fresh instal of OSX. But the big take away is from this is that I can use a more current OSX version and get my software working on it. This should GREATLY simplify the Hackintosh process too. I need to follow up and find out on the iTunes portion though.

My backup 2011 is running a little quicker. I found some more memory stuffed into one of the broken 15" MacBooks. It isn't fast enough to bother as a daily. And it won't be updated. It has saved my butt as to get older OSX versions and grab outdated software, you have to have an older Macbook running an old version of OSX. On the newer versions of OSX, you can't download older software that doesn't work on your machine. It doesn't even show up in the App Store, even when you have bought it.

I bought a 15" last night on eBay from 2013. It is ready to go and "needs" nothing, other than my data and software put onto it. I could use a bigger SSD. It is an upgrade from the daily 2012. Slightly faster speed on the processor, but it is also a quad i& versus the i5. And it has an interesting dual graphics controller.

But the real interesting and learning part was pulling out the broken 15" Macs from the scrap pile. The better one wouldn't turn on and the MagSafe plug always shows green. A bit of fiddling traced it down to a bad MagSafe power board, so I replaced that and got it powering up. The battery is bad and I didn't find a spare in the pile. But I was able to verify that everything is working by plugging in a pack from the 13" 2011. The only thing I am still unsure of is the power button. It may not be working. Hard to say because without every piece and an operating system installed, some bits just don't work right. But I have a spare 15" parts machine anyways if I need to replace that.

Where it all ties back in and gets interesting though, is the 15" doesn't have a working OS. I was trying out random drives with either nothing on them, and I also tried out one of the drives I setup for the CF-31. But normal Mac OS recovery options won't work. I popped in the UniBeast/Clover thumb drive I made for the hackintosh install, and got that powering up. And found some REALLY INTERESTING things hidden in its menus. It might be the first time I have had things working well enough to actually look around in there. Ironically I think I can use it to install the OS back onto an actual Macbook. But it has a really detailed menus for "injecting" drivers for specific hardware. Like various options for the video cards.

Anyways the bog take away is installing OSX on a Mac is hard enough. Doing it un an unsupported ToughBook, WAY harder. I am pretty sure I have the right combination of tools to do it now though. I am going to keep working on this broken 15" and try to get it online so I better understand the process. I think I will also make up another thumb drive with the newer Catalina on it. Installing Catalina should actualy bypass a bunch of struggles I have been having trying to get the older El Capitan installed. I REALLY want to just be able to swap the drive caddies and pop in Windows, or OSX. Catalina works in the UEFI environment, so this should be a better choice. Changing from UEFI to Legacy on the CF-31 always seems to breaks something and need a couple restarts/fiddles. Catalina might actually get me to the simple pop the drive in that I want solution.

Back to the photography portion. I need to think about my workflow. While I don't do this on a massive scale (so a perfectly smooth and 100% efficient workflow isn't as critical), a smooth workflow does make it more enjoyable. Part of my obsession with Aperture, it its super simple workflow process. While I will loose a large part of the "Mac Experience" Hackintoshing the Toughbook, I wonder if I can take advantage of quick swapping OS systems and the BULLETPROOF hardware I gain from using the Toughbook? Lots of thoughts stirring around there. I have a new (for me) camera on the way. I can shoot tethered with it. I wouldn't take even one of my crappu MacBooks out into the wild and risk dropping it in a mud puddle to do this. But I wouldn't give leaving a ToughBook out in the elements a second thought. Or worry about dropping it into a puddle. Heck if I had to put it in the puddle to get the shot, I would. The only disadvantage is carrying it around.... Hiking a CF-31 into remote spots isn't happening LOL!
CF-3110778CM, CF-19ADUU51M

Post Reply

Return to “CF-31 Talk (Discontinued Model)”