PC Specifications

Dell Precision M6300

Video Card: NVidia Quadro FX 1600M
BIOS: A15
BIOS Settings: SATA=AHCI, Integrated NIC=Off, Internal Modem=Off, Internal Bluetooth=Disabled,
Internal WiFi=Disabled, USB HDD is set as the 1st boot device (instead of the Internal HDD)

OSX USB Preparation and First Boot

These steps need to be done through OSX or via VMWare running OSX (I used OSX v10.8)
This is the difficult part follow these instructions very carefully and be patient!
1. I used the OSX Maverick disk image: OSX-10.9 Mavericks.dmg (non-bootable 5.26 GB version)
2. Install the latest myHack to your OSX (I used v3.3.1)
3. Use myHack to prepare your bootable USB drive with the 10.9 image (This is pretty straight-forward,
and there are many tutorials available for this if you are feeling nervous)
4. When myHack asks if you want to use the MBR Patch, click Yes if you are planning to create a multiboot system, as it will significantly help things later. (If you are just installing OSX, then you can click
No.) Let MyHack do its thing until it finishes.
5. Install the latest Kext Wizard to your OSX
6. **IMPORTANT STEP - Use Kext Wizard to REPLACE the kext files in your newly created USBs
Extra folder with the kext files in the Extra folder that Ive attached. Make sure you select the USB
stick as the destination and not the OSX you are currently running! (These files were the biggest hurdle
I had to overcome in getting things working a GIANT Thank you! to Sergeant for getting me on the
right track with these files!)
7. Manually copy, paste, and replace the three files: org.chameleon.Boot.plist, smbios.plist, and
DSDT.aml to your USBs Extra folder. (Big kudos again to Sergeant for the advice on this!)
8. Next take a break from the OSX USB stuff for a second. I like to have a completely clean HDD to
start with (other systems on the HDD will cause you nothing but trouble later.) Use your favorite
partition manager software to remove all partitions from your Hackintosh PCs HDD. (I used Gparted,
but anything you like will work just fine.) Wipe it put completely so its a nice and clean blank slate.
9. Next, make sure your Hackintosh PC has its BIOS settings configured as Ive indicated above. (You
may have different luck with other settings, but those are what finally worked for me.)
10. Okay, now back to the OSX USB. Plug it into a working (bootable) USB port on your Hackintosh PC (I
use the left/top port). Start it up, interrupt the automatic boot count-down, select the myHack OS X 10.9
Install Disk, then at the boot: prompt, type in: -f -v and then hit the Enter key
11. **Getting through the first boot and into the OSX setup screen seems to be extremely temperamental.
On an average of five tries, without changing a single thing when I boot (always adding f v, using the
same USB port, etc.), I can maybe get to the grey OSX setup screen two of those times. I have no idea
why this is, it just is. Im guessing its a timing thing and some delay or other occasionally throws a
wrench into the startup sequence. It TAKES TIME to get to the install screen, sometimes it seems stuck
for as long as five minutes, then suddenly it finishes whatever it was doing and then continues to start up
normally. Other times, it hangs at some random text forever and ever and ever, until you lose patience
and have to do a hard reboot to start again. Sorry, I dont know the secret to making this work any
better, but I do know you have to be patient and try and then try again until it finally gets there!

Prepare Partitions and Install OSX

Once youve made it to the OSX installation setup, your hard drive needs to be properly formatted. Because
OSX is so touchy about its partitions, its probably best to use the native OSX Disc Utility to prepare your hard
drive.
Tip: If your USB mouse isnt working at this point, unplug it, count to 3 and plug it back in, it should work just
fine now.
Note: Im writing this as if I am creating a multi-boot system, so your settings may differ in steps 3
through 8 for the HDD partitioning scheme. If you are doing a straight OSX installation (a non-multiboot system), you can just create one giant Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition and continue through
the steps from #9.
Resist the urge to click Continue, you arent ready yet!
1. Open Disk Utility from the menu at the top of the screen
2. In the left-hand side, select your HDD, probably the top-most one (you shouldnt have any partitions if
you formatted the drive already)
3. In the right-hand side, click on the Partition button. In Partition Layout, change it from Current to 4
partitions (one for each OS youre going to install and maybe one additional as a shared partition for
youll want to share between the OSs). *- This part is for a multi-boot system
4. Click the Option button near the bottom and choose MBR Partition Table, then click OK. (If you did
not add the MBR patch in myHack, you will pick the OSX default of: GUID Partition.)
5. Click the first partition (Untitled 1). Type OSX for the Name. Change the Format to Mac OS
Extended (Journaled)
6. Select the next partition (Untitled 2): Name = WIN, Format = MSDOS (FAT).
7. Do the same for Untitled 3: Name=LINUX, Format=MSDOS (FAT)
8. Do the same for Untitled 4: Name=SHARED, Format=MSDOS (FAT)
9. Click Apply, let it do its thing, then close Disk Utility
10. Now you can click Continue and start the installation
11. When its time to select the partition for the OSX install, youll pick the one labelled OSX and then just
follow the prompts. It takes time for the install to complete, but if your original OSX install file (.dmg)
was good and your myHack was a success, you should be through the rough part now.
12. **VERY IMPORTANT STEP - Near the end of the installation when myHack asks you Do you want
to use the generic Extra that comes with myHack or specify your own?, use the drop down box to select
Use My Own, click OK, and then select the Extra folder from your OSX USB.
13. When myHack asks you Do you want to remove <blah blah> kext click Yes every time. (It was
three times for me.)
14. When its time to reboot for the first time, youll need to remove your OSX USB before it boots
(because its your first boot device) and at the boot: prompt, type in: -f -v again and then hit the Enter
key. (After the first full reboot has completed, unless I have a crash or a bad shutdown, I generally dont
need to enter anything anymore when booting up to OSX.)
15. Your OSX should now be up and happy! I did not need to alter any kext files again, as myHack seems
to have taken care of things for me pretty well.
Post Installation:
On your next reboot, you can put your BIOS settings back to the way you like (especially if you
want the internal WiFi and Bluetooth to work for one of your other OS installations.) Reminds

me - the M6300s internal WiFi doesnt seem to play nice with OSX, so I recommend a cheap
solution like a Ralink WiFi USB Dongle from dx.com or something similar.
(Link: http://dx.com/p/mini-usb-2-4ghz-150mbps-802-11b-g-n-wifi-wireless-network-cardadapter-black-120933)
In the Energy Saver settings, I change all the Sleep settings to Never. I cant seem to wake up
the PC once it enters sleep mode. (If you have a fix for this, please and thanks for posting it.)
It took me about a week of trial-and-error to get to this point right here. Im naturally blonde, so
it might be less time for you. In any case, I strongly recommend you use your favorite disk
imaging software to make a full disk image of everything at this point. That being said, I also
made an additional disk image at every additional OS installation along the way, just to be safe.

Install Win 7 or Win 8.1

Because you are using a MBR, the rest of the installations should go smoothly and without too much headache.
I created a bootable Windows USB stick (lots of tutorials around on how to do this Google is your friend.)
And yes, you read that correctly! - I had no problems installing and running Win 8.1 on my M6300. The only
drivers that were showing an error were for the Ricoh Card Controllers. You can get those 64bit drivers at this
link: http://ftp.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/precision-m6300-all.html (Ricoh R5C8xx Card (Driver) - Vista64 /
XP64) Running the installer doesnt fix the issue, but after they are unpacked, you can update the driver
manually via Device Manger by clicking Update Driver and pointing it to the unpacked files created in the
folder C:\Dell\Drivers\R168331. I also noticed that the NVidia drivers werent auto-installed (but there were no
errors.) You can download the 64bit Vista drivers for that from the link above too. (The regular installer for
NVidia will complete just fine. You wont need to manually update the drivers.)
Installation of Windows is straight-forward, in either (or both) cases of Win7 and Win8:
1. Insert the Windows installation media (USB or DVD)
2. Power up and boot into the Windows Installer
3. Choose Custom (Advanced) for the installation type
4. When presented with a list of drives, select the WIN partition you created earlier
5. Click Drive Options (advanced)
6. Click format, change it to NTFS, then Next
7. Follow the installation prompts you know the drill
8. The PC will probably automatically boot into Windows now (it has more than likely become the default
boot loader on the PC)

Install Linux
And now, for the easiest and fastest installation of all! Lots of flavors to choose from here, I personally like
Linux Mint. The instructions below are a guide using Mints installation process. The window names and
details may be different than yours, depending on which version of Linux you decide to install.
1. Boot with the Linux installation USB or CD.
2. Launch the Install shortcut on the desktop (or something similar)
3. **IMPORTANT - At the Installation type screen, be sure to choose Something Else (if you screw up
here, you could potentially wipe out the last two OS installations, and you will not be a happy camper!)
4. Find the empty partition under /dev/sda and select it. It might be MSDOS, it might be empty, as long as
the Type isnt labelled as ntfs (Windows) or hfs+ (OSX), youre going to be okay.
5. Click on Change Set the Size to something reasonable (I made mine 30GB)

6. Set the partition type to ext4 and click the Format the partition box.
7. Set the Mount point as: /
8. **VERY IMPORTANT Be absolutely sure to set the Device for boot loader installation: to the
SAME as the partition you are installing Linux. Example: if you are installing Linux to /dev/sda5, then
your boot loader installation should also be set to /dev/sda5 (It is NOT this way by default! You
MUST change this!)
9. I clicked Continue when asked about setting a swap area (I did not set a swap area)
10. Click Install Now
11. Proceed through the installation

Install Chameleon through OSX

After youve verified that all your OS installations are successful, you might want to have a nicer looking boot
loader. Lots of variations are out there, but Chameleon seems to be the most stress-free, its theme-able, and
there are lots of people with advice and information available if you need it.
1. Insert the OSX USB (from the first part of this tutorial) into your USB port
2. Boot the computer via the OSX USB and start OSX (not the OSX installation, the installed OSX
operating system!)
3. Install the latest Chameleon package via your OSX (I used Chameleon v2.2)
4. Your PC will now use Chameleon as its default boot loader. From this interface you can launch any of
the Operating Systems youve just installed. (No more booting from a USB stick, yay!)
Note: There are many themes and cool little tweaks available for Chameleon. Personalize your new toy with
something that looks nice every time you boot it up!

Okay, thats all I got! Theres not too much original information here, its all been
regurgitated from borrowed ideas in other posts and advice in forums everywhere.
For me, its nice to have a step-by-step of a working method that I can easily
follow. I hope this was helpful for you.

P.S. Im now the happy owner of a Win7, Win8.1, OSX 10.9, and Mint 15 quadruple-boot laptop. Fun Fun!