2014 Macbook Pro Retina?? It's not as weird as you think.

[Shirikatsu]

Hi guys,

My girlfriend has a Macbook Pro 2014 Retina model and after suffering whilst watching her use Yosemite, whilst my successful Hackintosh build runs Mountain Lion is just downright painful to me and I attempted to downgrade that thing to 10.8.

After reading up I found out that I couldn't downgrade to an older OS because it didn't have required drivers to support the newer hardware to which I thought "If a legit install doesn't work, let's Hackintosh it!".

And so I'm here to ask a possibly very silly question: Will a Hackintosh work on Apple's own hardware in order to downgrade the OS? And how safe will this be? I want this to be as successful as possible before I try anything because warranty will no doubt we voided if we do this and I can't exactly take back a Hackintoshed machine to the genius bar and expect help.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[RehabMan]

Hi guys,

My girlfriend has a Macbook Pro 2014 Retina model and after suffering whilst watching her use Yosemite, whilst my successful Hackintosh build runs Mountain Lion is just downright painful to me and I attempted to downgrade that thing to 10.8.

After reading up I found out that I couldn't downgrade to an older OS because it didn't have required drivers to support the newer hardware to which I thought "If a legit install doesn't work, let's Hackintosh it!".

And so I'm here to ask a possibly very silly question: Will a Hackintosh work on Apple's own hardware in order to downgrade the OS? And how safe will this be? I want this to be as successful as possible before I try anything because warranty will no doubt we voided if we do this and I can't exactly take back a Hackintoshed machine to the genius bar and expect help.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

I assume this is a Haswell MacBook Pro? Detailed specs would be useful, but on that assumption...

10.8.5 is a possibility (first release with Haswell support), although no need to fully hackintosh it. But you'll probably need to modify /System/Library/PlatformSupport.plist. The 10.8.5 version of this file has the Haswell MacBookAir6,x, but not the Haswell MacBookPro11,x.

No idea if the rest of the components in the system are ready for MacBookPro11,x, but I once hacked an HP Envy using MacBookPro11,x on 10.8.5. The only trick was the change in PlatfromSupport.plist (adding board-id and model identifier). That was a non-retina scenario, of course, so more similar to the MacBookAir6,x graphics-wise.

You could also do a normal install of Mavericks as it supports the Haswell MacBookPro directly.

 

[Shirikatsu]

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry I wasn't more specific, but I thought that since Apple's releases are pretty categoric, you'd be able to fish out the specs.

• 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Should be haswell
• 16GB 1600MHz RAM
• 512GB SSD
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory

Is there a cleaner way to install mountain lion on this machine or will I have to hackintosh it fully?

The reason why i'm asking this way is because I've attemped to make a clean install but the machine wouldn't let me boot my USB installer of Mountain Lion that I'd prepared on another mac so the ability to edit any plist files would be out of the question without Hackintosh-ing.

 

[RehabMan]

...
[/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR]Is there a cleaner way to install mountain lion on this machine or will I have to hackintosh it fully?

The reason why i'm asking this way is because I've attemped to make a clean install but the machine wouldn't let me boot my USB installer of Mountain Lion that I'd prepared on another mac so the ability to edit any plist files would be out of the question without Hackintosh-ing.

Read post #2. In order to install 10.8.5 on the machine, you'll need to edit the mentioned plist. AFAIK, No need to do any other hacking.

 

[Shirikatsu]

I've found the file but it seems like it's a file that notes the supported models of that OS. Correct me if I'm wrong.

How do I edit this to allow a Mountain Lion Installation?

 

[RehabMan]

I've found the file but it seems like it's a file that notes the supported models of that OS.

It is.

How do I edit this to allow a Mountain Lion Installation?

Use a plist editor to add the board-id and model-id of your Mac.

 

[Shirikatsu]

If the file is a list of supported models of THAT OS it means it's the supported list of models for YOSEMITE, and the fact that it's installed on the macbook pro wouldn't that mean the machine is already supported?

So if I added the board id and model id of that mac into the plist file, are you saying that the mac would then boot my USB mountain lion installer instead of failing to like before?

 

[RehabMan]

If the file is a list of supported models of THAT OS it means it's the supported list of models for YOSEMITE, and the fact that it's installed on the macbook pro wouldn't that mean the machine is already supported?

Your model is in the Yosemite plist, but not ML. Hence the suggestion to edit the ML file.

So if I added the board id and model id of that mac into the plist file, are you saying that the mac would then boot my USB mountain lion installer instead of failing to like before?

No idea, as I'm not able to predict the future.

I can tell you this: I booted my HP Envy with a MacBookPro11,2 SMBIOS into ML 10.8.5 (installer and after install) by modifying that plist.

 

[Shirikatsu]

Have yet to attempt to edit any files but supposing this works and I can install ML and boot it on the newer Macbook Pro, I am afraid of the driver issues and lack of hardware support for the newer models that made Apple prevent this installation to be possible to begin with.

Would this just be solved by using Multibeast to install extra drivers to allow the Operating system to function with the hardware?

Thanks

 

[RehabMan]

Have yet to attempt to edit any files but supposing this works and I can install ML and boot it on the newer Macbook Pro, I am afraid of the driver issues and lack of hardware support for the newer models that made Apple prevent this installation to be possible to begin with.

Definitely a possibility.

Would this just be solved by using Multibeast to install extra drivers to allow the Operating system to function with the hardware?

Probably not.