Mac Mini Early 2009 planted with SSD containing OS Catalina

[redhatcode29]

Edited :
Update : i put back hdd in Mac Pro and ran the legacy ethernet patch, it worked on the mini. No wifi though. Maybe because my Mac Pro’s airport could not be detected as it was already not functioning



THE BELOW WAS THE ORIGINAL POST.

Hi again and again ! As per title, i planted an SSD into this Mac Mini which was installed with Dosdude’s Catalina patcher. The Install on the ssd was done in a Mac Pro 3,1 which was successful on the Mac Pro.

The Mini boots fine into Catalina, However i found that the ethernet and airport were not functioning.
- there were nothing in the network manager which showed that both were present
- system profiler showed that there were no ethernet card present
- airport/wifi control was also not present

Spoiler: Network

Thinking that i might’ve screwed up the mini while doing the transplant, i checked if the wifi signal was present at the install manager, the wifi signal was present and i could log in to the wifi.

Spoiler: Wifi

Can i install specific ethernet and airport kexts to get pass this issue ? thanks.

 

[mdgm]

You would need different patches for the Mini. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are very different machines with very different hardware.

 

[redhatcode29]

You would need different patches for the Mini. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are very different machines with very different hardware.

Update : put back hdd in Mac Pro and ran the legacy ethernet patch, it worked on the mini. No wifi though. Maybe because my Mac Pro’s airport could not be detected as it was already not functioning

 

[mdgm]

I think no wifi isn't unusual with running unsupported Mac OS on an old Mac. There may not be drivers present for legacy wifi cards not used in systems supported with newer Mac OS. Some systems can have a newer wifi card put in them that's compatible with newer Mac OS (not sure if there's a newer wifi card that will work in the 2009 Mini or not). Newer wifi cards break wifi for Internet Recovery (not that that would be an issue for the 2009 Mini as that doesn't have Internet Recovery).

 

[redhatcode29]

yeah its not something new that wifi isnt present in this case. Perhaps a third party dongle could do the job. But i use ethernet, rarely wifi on this. Hence not a biggie.

However this planting of the ssd was a back up plan if i could not install the patch directly to this Mini. It turned out that i was able to install the patch directly to a late 2009 Mini of mine, so this route will be aborted. Thanks.