MadMode

The macbook that hold our oldest (digital) family photos is aging rapidly (keyboard and mouse went out years ago; battery hardly works). I set it up as a home theater PC and media workstation back in August 2012, but despite having a big 32" (TV) screen, we don't use it much. Every time I sit down to it, it wants to spend 20 minutes updating all the software. So I'm looking into using a Mac OS VM (aka hackintosh) to access the iPhoto libraries, at least long enough to migrate them to another platform.

The path is reasonably well-trodden:

• How to install a Snow Leopard Hackintosh in Virtualbox Feb 8, 2012, MacBreaker

But there's a catch:

This guide does not cover AMD processors

I found a work-around: Empire EFI with AMD support. My mac vm bookmarks on diigo from Nov 2013 detail a few other known issues.

I can boot to Mac OS X by way of a (virtual) install DVD, but I can't get the normal bootloader path to work. (Oops... I neglected to record the symptoms.)

I haven't really peeled back all the layers to understand how things work; perhaps I should forgo using pre-packaged stuff and Use The Source, Luke.

Wish me luck.