Guide To Installing Mac Os X On A Pc

Let's start by checking if you have a capable processor. After downloading /http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php, open it and view the "instructions." My particular so called testing machine hosts a Northwood Pentium 4 which has MMX, SSE and SSE2 but not SSE3, that's fine, you can always patch Mac OS later to run programs that require SSE3 with SSE2. Just make sure you have at least SSE2.


How do you do it?

First of all, you can’t install OS X on a new partition, it needs it’s own drive. For this guide Im installing it on my Sony Vaio TR2A. Since I only have one harddrive, it means I’m wiping windows and all my files in the process. You can easily follow the same steps but instead install it on a second harddrive in your PC. Here is how I have succesfully install OS X x86 NATIVELY on my laptop!

First of all, I think your CPU needs at LEAST sse2. For rosetta and to get itunes and other ppc apps working, you need sse3. My vaio has a Pentuim M, so no rosetta for me. Everything else works. Im posting this from the OS X x86 port of Firefox Wink

1. Download “VMWare files for patched Mac OS X Tiger Intel” from your favorite torrent site. (Hint: Use the search function).

2. Copy tiger-x86-flat.img from the archive to an external USB drive (it’s 6gb)

3. Download Ubuntu Live CD (link) … be sure you get the “Live CD”!!

4. Burn the ubuntu iso, stick it in your pc, and boot it! (make sure you have your bios set to boot to CD)

5. Once ubuntu boots and the gui finally comes up, hook up the USB drive you copied the 6gb image to. A window should pop up showing the contents of the drive. Take note of where its mounted. It should be /Devices/Yourdrivesvolumename

6. Open a terminal window and cd to that directory (/Devices/Yourdrivesvolumename). Do an “ls” to make sure you are in the right place (you should see the 6gb img file.

7. In the terminal window type:

dd bs=1048576 if=./tiger-x86-flat.img of=/dev/hda

Replace hda with the correct drive! If you only have one drive, its probably hda. Thats what mine was. You are about to erase this entire drive so make sure youve got it right and make sure you want to do this! Hit enter. It takes a while… took my vaio about 9 minutes.

8. When it’s done, remove the ubuntu disc and shut down the pc. Disconnect your usb drive. Thats it! When you power it back on, OS X should boot!

For whatever reason, mine hangs when its loading. If this happens to you, boot with the -x option (hit a button at the darwin screen when you boot your pc. enter “-x” and hit enter). Should work without any problems, and I dont see any restrictions being in safe mode.

You’ll notice there is a login screen, and you dont know the password! This image was created by “deadmoo” and we can easily change his password. Reboot the machine again. Again, hit a button at the darwin screen. This time type “-v” and hit enter. At the command prompt screen type:

sh /bin/sh
passwd curtis
(change the password to what you like)

passwd deadmoo
(change the passwrod to what you like)

Done! Now reboot once more, and again use the “-x” option. Everything should boot, and at the login screen enter your new password.

WELCOME TO THE OS X x86 CLUB!

Note: If you are installing this in a PC and have multiple drives, you dont need to use an external drive or linux distro. Simply dd the image in the same manner to any physical drive in your pc, and when its done boot to that drive and it should work.


This is not my guide, So use at your own risk like any other guides