Install Mac OS X on an IBM Thinkpad T43

UPDATE: I now have a MacBook Pro Unibody [Late 2008]. I will still try to support this tutorial as much as I can though. But I am not spending as much time on my T43 anymore – so I may take a while to respond.

I recently went about the task of installing Mac OS X on my ThinkPad T43. I installed both Leopard and Tiger, so I will layout pretty simply how to install either on your T43. First of all the disclaimer: I will not be responsible for what may happen to your laptop, or the grey hairs you may get doing this. And you are only supposed to do this if you are an Apple developer and or have a license for the OS you are installing.

It is actually pretty cool to show off to your buddies that you are running OS X. My computer specs are the following:

IBM ThinkPad T43, Intel 915GM Graphics Chipset, AD1981B Sound Chipset, 2GB DDR2 RAM, and 60GB HDD.

Now onto the fun stuff. Firstly, the steps that are the same for Tiger and Leopard.

You must use the paperclip trick to short out pins 6 and 12 on your VGA out. Just bend a paperclip into a U shape, with ends long enough to touch the contacts on both sides. Look at the following diagram to see which pins. Alternatively, you can take apart your laptop and solder the pins together from the inside like I did.

Now you must back up all your data onto an external HDD, because we will be formatting the entire drive.
Also, disable all CPU power management features in the BIOS because this slows the computer down quite a bit.
We are done the initial setup stages.

Leopard:

Download the install ISO from the green demon, or the pirate of the internet seas. Make sure you get the Kalyway 10.5.1 ISO and not any of the ToH ISOs. I repeat ToH WILL NOT WORK!
Fire up the computer using the burnt DVD, and press enter when it asks you for startup options.
Now, get a beer, and wait for this thing to boot up. If you get stuck on a blue screen with no cursor, that means that you did the paperclip mod wrong.
Open up Disk Utility from the top menu, and create one partition (and name it whatever you want)
When you get to the setup options screen, select SSE2 System, the MBR Bootloader, and also the Azalia Audio package.
Wait for the computer to finish installing, and then restart your computer.
Everything except the wireless and Quartz Extreme should be working now (No GMA900 leopard support yet).
Go to http://code.google.com/p/iwidarwin/ and download the latest 10.5 Stable package.

Run this in your terminal

sudo -s
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions.mkext (if exists)
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache (if exists)

Reboot, and everything should be working at this point.
Enjoy.

Tiger:

Download the XxX 10.4.11 ISO from your favorite ’source’.
Put DVD in, reboot, and press enter at the prompt to start the install.
As same as Leopard, if it stalls at the blue screen without a cursor, it means that your did the paperclip trick wrong.
Open up Disk Utilitiy from the top menu, and create one partition (and name it whatever you want)
For the install, Select the NoEFI Package, the 8.9 SSE2 Kernel, and the GMA900 package, but NOT the fixer.
Wait for the install to finish, then reboot.
Once running, you will probably notice that not much is working, don’t worry we’ll fix that.
Insert the Install DVD, and install the GMA900 Fixer and the AD198x package. You may have to dig in the install DVD to find the latter package. Once installed, reboot.
You should not notice that you have working QE+CI, and also working sound.
Now, download the Broadcom Ethernet Kext file, and extract it to wherever you can remember. You will need to copy this file over from another computer because ethernet/wireless isn’t working yet.

Now, run the following commands.

sudo -s
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext
mv /PathToFile/IONetworkingFamily.kext /System/Library/Extensions
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions

Now reboot, and you should have fully working ethernet, with the exception of your MAC address being 00:00:00:00:00:00. You can set your MAC Address by using the command:
```
ifconfig en0 ether <MAC Address>
```
Go to http://code.google.com/p/iwidarwin/ and download the 10.4 Installer (Stable), and install the package. Reboot, and you should have working wireless (although you can only connect to unencrypted or WEP APs).
Enjoy!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask via comments or just send me an e-mail.

Brennan

27 Responses to “Install Mac OS X on an IBM Thinkpad T43”

RichardJohnson Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
how did you get Quartz Extreme to work in Leopard? I couldn’t really see that in the How-To. It looked like you only included the wifi info.
kooty Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
@Richard
“Everything except the wireless and Quartz Extreme should be working now (No GMA900 leopard support yet).”

That answer your question ?
Testx Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:02 am
hi, i have also an IBM T43,
i installed the Kalyway 10.5.1,
the instalation went perfectly,
but when the gry screen whith the apple show up it takes a few seconds and then reboot, and so on,
an infinit reboot.

i’ve found a lot of tips on the net, like changing some bios features,
or changing some options in the instalation menu
but none works!

Please, i need some help.
my e-mail lionidas at gmail.com
Dave Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Hi,
I cannot see the diagram for the VGA out paperclip trick ? Could you please email it to me ?
Thanks
megob Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 1:08 am
hi, and thanks for this post! I’am trying for some days already to do the same on my T43, but it did not work out yet. Two questions:
- will Kalyway 10.5.2 work as well? (I tried with this release, but get a kernel panic (whatever this is and means) on the first “verbose” page)
- how does the paperclip trick work? I could not find the diagram, and was not able to figure out myself…
Thanks!
megob Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Hi, and thanks for this post! two questions:
- will kalyway 10.5.2 work as well (I get a kernel panic on the first “verbose” page)
- how does the paperclip trick work? don’t manage to figure out the pins.
Thanks!
xavier Says:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
don’t do an rm on the mkext or kextcache. do a touch instead.
example: touch /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
kooty Says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am
@Dave
It’s back up there now – sorry

@megob
Kalyway 10.5.2 doesn’t work for me…. and like you it kernel panics. And the diagram is back up, sorry.

@xavier
If I understood correctly, the whole point of removing those two files is so that the OS rebuilds the kernel extension cache. If you do a touch, it MAY work, but the OS might not rebuild the cache. rm is the way to go IMHO.
Andrzej Says:
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Hi, I would like to install Leo on my t43 too. Please tell me what for is shorting out pins on VGA out? You haven’t written it. What will happen If I don’t short it out? Leo won’t insall corectly?
Owen Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 am
Pin shorting

Another method could be a vga connector shorted if not using external screen
-or short the pin in the screen cable

/owen denmark
kai Says:
October 11th, 2008 at 9:04 am
hey Brennan,

did you get your wifi working? I’ve got a 2200bg in mine and couldn’t get wifi going using the iwidarwin drivers (stable.. didn’t try SVN).

have you tried updating to 10.5.5?
Mike Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
HI I followed your directions but I cant seem to get the paperclip trick to work. You menchined that if your get a blue screen that the paper clip mod was not done right. Well I have tried multiple paperclips and one end is in the 6 and the other in the 12 to short it out. do you have any suggestions on what I might be doing wrong?
kooty Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
@Andrzej:
You need to short out the pins to fake the computer into thinking that you have an External display connected. I don’t know the details – only that it works

@Owen
Yes, that works and is confirmed as well. Thank you.

@kai
No I have not unfortunately. It’s a sad situation

@Mike
Yes, if you do not do the paper clip trick right, it stalls at the blue screen. You may want to try a thicker paperclip to see if that fixes the problem! Do you have the GMA900?
mindblowerz Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I seem to be stuck at partition creation… which one to select? jounaled? can’t seem to create it cos everytime it reverts to original settings….
Luca Says:
March 21st, 2009 at 4:54 am
Do you think it could work on a T41?
CP Says:
April 7th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I can install Mac Os X on my t42. It works fine, until i shut down or reboot. I can’t seem to open it a second time without re-installing everything :O When i open my computer, all i get is my IMB thinkpad screen, then a black screen that last forever. Any idea of what it could be?
Sabu Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Installed successfully @T43..

but iCal crashes… any suggestions ?
macospat Says:
June 6th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Can you use the DVD that came with a MacBook?
Ryan Says:
June 11th, 2009 at 7:25 am
is 1400×1050 supported out of the box for ATI graphics chipsets of the T43? i have an M300..
Tim Cupples Says:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Likewise, can you install an earlier version Macintosh on an IBM380Z? (MAC OS 7.5)
china t43 Says:
August 12th, 2009 at 5:30 am
my t43 2668 wmy even cann’t install
but ideneb 1.3 can install but cann’t boot into
Albert Widjaja Says:
September 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
OK, does this trick works for a desktop PC as well ?

I wonder if ESXi can run / host MacOSX ?
Troy Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
awesome! i got this to work!

the only tricky bit was the wireless – it’s a bit confusing. for me, after install i had to open network preferences. using the simple ‘join other network’ did not work. I had to hit ‘advanced’ button and then manually configure my wireless SSID, security and password and ‘add’ it. after this it magically connected.

so far, so good.
Troy Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Having lots of issues with the wireless – will try leo instead.
efraem Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 11:26 am
everthing went fine but the wifi is not working. i have the same ibm t43 type 1871 with intel gm915 graphics. I tried the instructions about the wireless but no luck. My wireless lan comes with atheros chipset i just donnu which model coz i saw it in the properties of my windows 7 since i have dual operating system kalyway 10.5.1 and windows 7. can somebody help me to make the wireless work pls. thanks
Raffaele Says:
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Hi Brennan

I am going to have a go at installing Leopard on my T43. I am a noob so please bear with me. I have no experience with the Mac terminal. In the section where you run code in the terminal 1) do I hit enter after each line of code or after I have typed in all the code, and 2) the 2 lines of code re .mkext & .kextcache files. Where do I go to see if they do exist and presumably I don’t enter this code if they are not there.
Raffaele Says:
January 24th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Hi Brennan
another question. Does the paperclip have to be used after installation? Will actually connecting an external monitor allow me to install without the paper clip? Thanks for your patience.

Raffaele

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27 Responses to “Install Mac OS X on an IBM Thinkpad T43”

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