Is it possible to multiboot Win7 and OSX? (related to iPhone restore errors 1603/1604)

[Occulus]

It's a Win7 box right now, with one completely blank hard drive and a couple other full ones. I'm trying to restore a friend's iPhone, which is experiencing the dreaded "Error 1603" and "Error 1604" errors when performing a restore. I've tried everything under the sun to restore it, and I'm down to this last-ditch, tear-apart-your-PC, reset-your-drive-jumpers-so-OSX-doesn't-kernel-panic-during-installation effort.

What I've read on various forums is that OSX and iTunes play better with each other than Win7 does with iTunes, and some users getting the errors I'm getting have stated that "it finally worked when I used a Mac". I (most definitely) don't want to keep OSX, but I don't have access to a Mac (and nobody I know has one), so I have to go the "Hackintosh" route, I guess. I'm certainly not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a Mac just to restore someone's iPhone!

Has anyone here done this before? Does anyone have any other advice about the iPhone 1603/1604 restore error? Nothing I've tried from any of the common sources has worked, and I'd really like to hand the guy a working iPhone. Any help is appreciated... right now, the phone is a several-hundred-dollar brick.

[Occulus]

1. Hm. Further research concludes the answer is "yes,

but..."

The dealbreaker:

Pre-requisites

* A PC with Intel Core Processors and Chipset (AMD is not yet supported).

:(

[struggle4progress]

2. Apple's EULA sez you can only use OSX on apple hardware

I haven't thought about it recently. Last year, I looked into doing a Hackintosh: IIRC nobody was really sure whether apple could enforce the EULA in court, and there was actually a company selling non-apple machines with OSX, but it wasn't an entirely trivial thing to try to do. Also, apple doesn't like it and apparently keeps making it harder. I think the reports were apple had closed off a number of options with the Snow Leopard release. The only EULA exception I know is: apple will let you run an OSX Server version virtually in VMware -- which is not terribly attractive, because VMWare ain't free and OSX Server costs an arm and a leg more than OSX

My crude and uninformed guess is that the Hackintosh route will drive you bananas

[Occulus]

4. You're right! It *did* drive me bananas.

My final conclusion is that I could do it, but. But! I have to set my SATA drives to run in AHCI mode, disable legacy USB support, and refuse to use the onboard sound on my motherboard. I also have to disable APIC support, and the drive I want to use has to be physically plugged into either SATA port 1 or 2 on the motherboard (it's currently on SATA 3).

"Also, apple doesn't like it and apparently keeps making it harder."

Just like jailbreaking the iDevice. And, in typical corporate protectionist fashion, they're spending money on something they will never be able to stop instead of spending it on improving the product as it is. One could convincingly argue that Apple's protection practices have actually done it more harm than good by reducing the potential consumer base. I probably wouldn't mind using OSX, but I will never pay for Apple hardware when I can get the PC equivalent for half the price.

As for the EULA, well- I haven't taken an EULA seriously in, oh, fifteen years or so. When companies started seriously considering an anonymous mouse click on a dialog box button to be the equivalent of a personal signature to a binding legal agreement, I decided to give them all the finger and just do whatever I damn well pleased. The terms and conditions of the EULA will never even enter my mind as a legitimate impediment to doing what I need to do to make my PC work "my way". The funny part is, I can't even buy OSX and expect it to work with my hardware. That kind of makes the EULA a bad joke....

Hardware issues like these? Very different story. I could do it, but is it worth two or three days of work just to get another "Error 1603/1604" when I try to restore the phone?

Hell no. I think I'm giving up for the time being. The punch line? I was doing this to try to fix an Apple device.

Words fail me at this point. I kind of don't really know what to think.

As for my original problem, the 1603/1604 restore error on the iPhone seems to be related to an Apple update. I guess I'll just have to direct the guy to a Genius Bar appointment at the nearest Apple Store.

Bleuagh. Well.... I tried.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. This is not definitive, but we looked into doing a Hackintosh on a net book

What we concluded is that it is not easy, it is not foolproof, it often fails, it violates the use agreement whent you buy OSX