Paperclip/Staple Trick

If you are a Desktop user skip this section

If you are installing JaS OSx86 on a laptop (in this case the Gateway M280), the installation DVD will boot and you will see first a grey screen with the animating symbol on it, and then you will see a blue screen with the mouse on it. But for some reason after the blue screen comes up it will stay there forever, no matter if you leave the installer alone for hours. You will probably think several things at this moment:

Am I doing something wrong?
Is the downloaded ISO corrupted?
Did it burn correctly?
Does my PC support this install DVD?

… And many other questions that I did not asked myself when I got stuck at this point. Maybe one of those questions is correct and it is causing the problem, but let me tell you something you my find interesting. If you connect an external monitor to your laptop and reboot the installer I am completely sure you will be able to continue. Why does this happen? That I don’t know, but I do know it happened to me the first time I tried to install JaS OSx86 in my laptop. This problem as far as I know only happens on laptops, not on desktops. I installed the same OS on my desktop and without a problem. So, if you got stuck at the blue screen you can hook up your external monitor and bingo, problem solved. But we have another problem with that: yes it works, but you will need to connect that monitor back in every single time you boot to the Mac OS X partition, which is annoying. To solve this problem I used my modified version of a trick I found that helped me to get rid of this bug. Many people know it as the “Paperclip trick” but since modified it I decided to name is the “Staple trick” and here is how to build it.

You will need one small staple, something to cut it, something to blend it, and some degree of precision. A picture says a thousand words, right? Therefore I do not feel comfortable writing word by word how to do this, but I did take pictures of the process you need to follow to build and use/install the trick and here they are (This are my own pictures, taken at the time I built my second device). I hope they can also do the trick for you and you are able to continue the install and boot Mac.

Notice: remember to leave the staple inside to be able to boot. Also even if it is inside and it worked before but it does not work again, just push it in a little and hold it, and try to boot again. That happens to me from time to time.

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