Mac Mini 3,1 Late 2009 Catalina Woes *El Solved*

[WalnutSpiceTheIII]

Hey all, long time no see. Used to be very avid in the PowerPC forums back around 2015, but here I am on a new account as who can remember a password that long?

So I'll cut into it, I have a Late 2008 15' MacBook Pro. I've set it up with a triple boot, Catalina being the prime OS, Windows 10 on the secondary, and a small El Capitan recovery partition. I've installed Mac OS versions on unsupported machines before, and never really had issue. On the MBP, Everything just worked. Back in the day on my MacBook 5,2 with High Sierra, it just worked great.

So here I am trying to mirror the same setup as the MBP on my Late 2009 Mac Mini 3,1. Currently have it running a fresh install of El Capitan 10.11.6. I copied over my ol' Catalina installer I had on my MacBook to the mini and began to run the patcher (1.4.4) on the mini creating a usb boot disk. Once the disk was made, I rebooted into it to find it simply doesn't boot. It just sticks on the Apple logo and does nothing past a certain point. I tried running the patched installer from within Mac OS, and the patched Catalina installer doesn't even open, just shows up in the dock with an "Unresponsive".
I've tried redownloading a new copy through the patcher, no effect and I've also tried changing time settings for possible certificate issues and no dice. And yes, I've disabled system integrity something protection via terminal.
Any suggestions?

Mac Mini 3,1 / Late 09 / 2.26 Core 2 / 9400 256MB / SMC 1.35f1 / Boot ROM MM31.00AD.B00 / Airport Extreme 0x14E4, 0x90 / 10.11.6

 

[WalnutSpiceTheIII]

Well guys, if you ever have a weird problem you think shouldn't even be a thing.. yeah just mention it publicly and then it'll probably go away. I had maybe 7 failed attempts before coming here to post with a new account, made the post, and then tried just once more making a patched catalina usb installer. Magically, the mini booted to the installer in minutes.

TL;DR I wasted a thread, I'm ashamed, Computers exist to watch us suffer

 

[MultiFinder17]

Well guys, if you ever have a weird problem you think shouldn't even be a thing.. yeah just mention it publicly and then it'll probably go away. I had maybe 7 failed attempts before coming here to post with a new account, made the post, and then tried just once more making a patched catalina usb installer. Magically, the mini booted to the installer in minutes.

TL;DR I wasted a thread, I'm ashamed, Computers exist to watch us suffer

Remember, computers fear you. When you show that you mean business, it scares them into shape. The same thing happens in my classroom all the time - as soon as a kiddo calls me over because the computer isn't doing something, the moment I get within a few feet of it, it starts working

 

[WalnutSpiceTheIII]

"the moment I get within a few feet of it, it starts working"

Ah yes, the fourth constant in life. Well thanks any ya guys, but it seems like this Mac Mini Catalina upgrade was a success. Just to add, it is nice to see the place finally got a designated Early Intel forum, I remember years back we begged for this in the PPC forum with people showin up with those plastic MacBook's and Core Solo Mini's. Nice to see it seems like everything has a proper spot now

 

[eyoungren]

Remember, computers fear you. When you show that you mean business, it scares them into shape. The same thing happens in my classroom all the time - as soon as a kiddo calls me over because the computer isn't doing something, the moment I get within a few feet of it, it starts working

LOUDER please! Maybe write their name on the board…

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/no-you-are-not-miss-independence.2309543/