I was recently given a non-functioning laptop (Dell Vostro 1510), which I decided to fix up and install the Mac operating system on. Its power supply was bad. (It cost only $10 on eBay to get a replacement.) Its processor was good (Intel Core 2 Duo). The wireless card, graphics processor, etc, were all fairly compatible. Its SATA hard drive was good, but it was a little small (80 GB). So I bought a new SATA hard drive for it (eBay, again), ramping it up to 500 GB. Its RAM was a little lean (only 1 GB), so I bought some new RAM (not eBay that time) and upgraded it to 4 GB.
Using a Mac retail DVD for the install, I now have the unit running OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.7. By tweaking my DSDT file and using selected KEXTs, I was able to get everything working except for the SD card reader, which is a Ricoh multi-card reader (if anyone has any tips on that, let me know).
At that point, this formerly "Plain Jane" Vostro 1510 was running pretty sweet. However, it originally came with a low-end optical drive that could only read DVDs; it could not write them. So I bought a Sony Optiarc DVD burner (eBay, again). Based on a little eBay research, I knew that drive was compatible.
This unit is a slot-loading type of laptop, as far as CDs and DVDs go. That means replacing the optical drive is a bit of a chore. I had considered yanking the unit open without any special guidance, but I have opened just enough laptops to know that I would probably be better off to have a guide. This online guide was very helpful to me. My hat is off to that site for their wonderful help!
