How to install macOS Sierra on an unsupported Mac

Apple released MacOS Sierra At the end of last month, the new version of its desktop operating system that arrives with interesting news, such as Siri or the possibility of making Picture-in-Picture watching YouTube videos in a floating window. The problem is that, as usual, Tim Cook and company only allow a new version to be installed on computers where they are sure that it will work well, so many Macs have been left out, which, in theory, should not present major problems .

What if we want install Sierra from scratch in a Mac not supported? Well, we can't ... or not officially. In fact, if there are Hackintosh, how can macOS not be installed on an Apple computer? Yes you can. In this article we will teach you everything you need to know, which includes the problems that we may encounter in the present and in the future.

Install macOS Sierra on Unsupported Macs

Requirements

A copy of the macOS Sierra installer. Although it can be found online, it is best to get it by downloading it from a supported Mac.
A minimum 8GB USB stick.
The macOS Sierra Patch Tool, available from here.
The AUSEnabler tool, available from here.

Things to keep in mind

We have to bear in mind that what we will be installing on an unsupported Mac is a kind of Hackintosh, that is, install Mac on a computer where we should not be able to install it, even if it is a Mac. This means that we may run into some problem such as the following:

There may be Wi-Fi issues. Macs with the Broadcom BCM4321 Wi-Fi module will not work with macOS Sierra unless the Wi-Fi card is changed. The computers affected by this problem would be algunos MacPro3,1; MacBook5,2; MacBookPro4,1; iMac8,1; Macmini3,1 and MacBookAir2,1.
El MacBook5,2 trackpad is not supported. It works, but it detects it as a mouse and some settings for the Trackpad are not available.
El iMac 8,1 audio has a problem in which the volume does not change even if it indicates that it does. Audio works, but always goes to the maximum. A solution would be to put some speakers connected to the headphone output and control the volume from them.
We already know that we will not be able to update from the Mac App Store. In September we valued two possibilities: 1) the updates are installed without presenting problems; 2) updates do not appear and / or are not installed; To solve this, we will have to use AUSEnabler.

To give you an idea, I have it installed on an iMac from the beginning of 2009 and the only problem I have encountered so far is that sometimes (few) I have to connect the Wi-Fi manually when starting or waking up of rest. Regarding updates, iTunes did update me, so we already know that Apple software will be updated no problem.

Our Process

The process is very simple. It will only be necessary to follow these steps:

We put the USB in the Mac where we are going to create the Bootable USB.
We open Disk Utility.
We select the root of the USB, click on "Delete" and select everything as in the following screenshot (we can put the name we want):

Name: whatever we want.
Format: Mac OS X Plus (Journaled).
Scheme: GUID partition map.

To format, we click on «Delete».
With the USB already created, we open macOS Sierra Patcher.
- We click on "Click icon to Browse ..." and select the macOS Sierra installer.
- In "Volume" we select the USB drive.
- We click on "Start Operation ..." and wait for it to finish.

With the USB already created, now we will have to start from it. To do this, we restart and keep the ALT key pressed until we see the available units.
From the drives we see, we choose the USB Bootable that will have the name "OS X Base System".
The installation is like any other: if we want to install from 0, go to the "Utilities" tab, choose Disk Utility and erase the entire hard drive. Then we start the installation of macOS Sierra and wait for the process to finish.
Once installed, it will reboot automatically. Here we will have a problem, and that is that it will not be able to start the operating system. At that time we have to turn off the Mac with the power button.
We turn on the computer again and press the ALT key again to start from the USB.
Now we go to Utilities and choose "macOS Post Install".

Here we will see that we have a drop-down menu. On top of it we have which computer it has detected. We display the menu and choose the same type of Mac that we see above, in my case an iMac9,1.
Here it is advisable to leave what is by default checked, but we can also choose to patch the recovery partition (I do not recommend it because it does not work for me), the ambient light sensor and the Ethernet adapter. If you don't have any of that, I would leave only the first and third boxes checked.
Next, we select the volume where the patches will be installed. The volume is the hard drive where we have installed macOS Sierra.
Finally, we click on "Patch" and wait.
When you restart, we will only have to follow the steps to configure the new installation.

If you prefer, you can see how to install macOS Sierra on an unsupported Mac in the following video.

And how do I update macOS Sierra on my unsupported Mac?

Well, the first thing you have to know is that you can't unless you either get the image of a more modern version and carry out the whole process from scratch, which would eliminate all the data, or you use a version that will be uploaded to a third-party server. If you want to use the second of the previous options, you only have to add a few steps to the previous process:

We open AUSEnabler.

We click on «Switch Catalogs». This will make it no longer look for updates on Apple's servers, if not on an unofficial one. If you go ahead, each one is responsible for their actions.

And we would already have it. Finally, we click on «OK». Now we have to wait for the new version to be uploaded to the servers, which can take a few hours or a few days.

Have you managed to install macOS Sierra on an unsupported Mac?

SoydeMac