No AHCI == No OSX?

[8BitAce]

Hi there,

I'm not exactly brand-new to the Hackintosh scene (I've installed OSX in a VM a vew times) but I was looking for an upgrade. I bought a dell Inspiron 620, but I'm now finding out that the BIOS does not have an option for AHCI.

Am I completely out of luck on installing Lion?

Thanks in advance!

 

[thelostswede]

To see if AHCI is enabled in Windows, go into the device manager and click on IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and it should say something like Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller.

You might also want to pitch in here if it's not enabled http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-D ... CI-request

Worst case, you could put in a bootable AHCI PCI Express SATA controller in one of the PCI Express slots.

 

[8BitAce]

Thanks for the response.

In Device Manager it's listed as:
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 1C00

No mention of AHCI there. I'll keep an eye on that thread you posted as well.

But I am curious, what exactly is the error one would experience with a non-AHCI installation? I keep getting to "Still waiting for root device", but it gets stuck there.

Thanks!

 

[8BitAce]

Sorry for the double post, but I just found this from a previous thread:

Perhaps easier to make the install to a USB-connected drive. Then swop that over or clone it to the internal one via CCC/SuperDuper. You can usually boot and run in IDE/ATA just fine if the appropriate driver exists. Might work anyway if the chipset is supported by AppleIntelATA kext. Else look around for a suitable kext.

Is this accurate? I think I might give it a try regardless but just wondering if anyone has any experience with it.

 

[thelostswede]

The problem is lack of drivers, so yes, installing to a USB drive and then installing IDE drivers would potentially make it work.

It's really **** poor by Dell not to offer AHCI support as it improves the way hard drives work and not having it limits SSDs.

For future reference, don't buy brand name computers for hackingtoshes...

 

[nejaat]

hi guys so how did it work out ?

i also have the Dell Inspiron 620 and i wanna install hackintosh on it

so what should i do now will it work without AHCI? or is there another way to enable AHCI

 

[Te-Moz]

For future reference, don't buy brand name computers for hackingtoshes...

Or if you do, and want to try and Hackintosh them, be prepared for a large amount of fails.

 

[thelostswede]

hi guys so how did it work out ?

i also have the Dell Inspiron 620 and i wanna install hackintosh on it

so what should i do now will it work without AHCI? or is there another way to enable AHCI

There's nothing to work out. No AHCI = no hack and that's sadly that.

 

[shibirian]

All modern computers (5 years or newer minimum) offer AHCI modus. Almost all mainboards and stock computers ship with AHCI enabled. Just because there is no visible option in a Dells bios for it doesn't mean that its not activated or present.

Windows does not necessarily need to display this, but as long as a controller is listed as SATA and you get full speed from that controller that's a good hint that AHCI is enabled. (Note:If it says only IDE, then is a clear hint that its missing.)

So go and try to install OSX on your Inspirion! And as always good luck to you, mate.

 

[thelostswede]

All modern computers (5 years or newer minimum) offer AHCI modus. Almost all mainboards and stock computers ship with AHCI enabled. Just because there is no visible option in a Dells bios for it doesn't mean that its not activated or present.

Windows does not necessarily need to display this, but as long as a controller is listed as SATA and you get full speed from that controller that's a good hint that AHCI is enabled. (Note:If it says only IDE, then is a clear hint that its missing.)

So go and try to install OSX on your Inspirion! And as always good luck to you, mate.

This is simply not true, if Windows doesn't report that you have a SATA AHCI controller and there's no way of enabling it in the BIOS, you're simply out of luck.
I have no idea as to why any company would not enable it by default, but sadly there are clearly companies that chose not to, despite native chipset support.