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Installing mac os on pc. Parallel installation of Mac OS X and Windows on Hackintosh. Peripherals from Apple

Even if you're a longtime Windows fan, you've probably thought about trying Apple's rival OS X at some point. Perhaps you wanted to try out OS X before deciding to switch to a Mac, or perhaps you are planning to build a Hackintosh yourself, or maybe you just want to run some of the applications under Mac OS X directly on your PC . Well, whatever the reason, you can easily install and run OS X on any PC with an Intel processor. And a wonderful program called VirtualBox will help us with this.

Installing and running OS X on Windows is not a difficult task and will not take you much time. However final result You will be pleasantly surprised.

So what do we need

Before we begin installation, please make sure that your computer complies with system requirements, and also that you have prepared everything you need:

  • Computer with 64-bit Windows on board (Mountain Lion is a 64-bit system, so Windows should be the same), at least 2 nuclear processor And 4 GB random access memory . If you use a 32-bit OS, don’t worry, you can install Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
  • VirtualBox : VirtualBox is our favorite virtualization program for Windows and it's completely free. We've already used VirtualBox to increase space on Dropbox. Keep in mind that if you need USB support ports inside OS X, then you also need to download the VirtualBox Extension Pack.
  • Mountain Lion special ISO image. Unfortunately, the standard method (which uses an officially purchased Mountain Lion installer) for installing OS X Mountain Lion will not work here. Instead, you will need a jailbroken version of OS X, also called distribution. The Olarila hacker team has posted a ton of ISO installers online, so you can easily find them on Google or any torrent tracker and download them using a torrent client.
  • and - ISO files. Hackboot 1 will help us launch the OS X installer, and Hackboot 2, in turn, will help us launch Mountain Lion itself.
  • MultiBeast 4 – which will ensure the correct functioning of audio and other functions. To download it, register at Tonymacx86.com. It's free.

Step One: Installing and Configuring VirtualBox

Before installing OS X, we need to configure VirtualBox so that our installation file was able to work correctly:

    1. Launch VirtualBox and click Create. In the window that appears, enter the name of your virtual machine (I simply named it “Mac OS X”). In the tab Type select Mac OS X, and in next tab Version– Mac OS X (64 bit).

  1. Click Forward. Now we need to decide how much RAM we are ready to allocate for the needs of our virtual machine. It all depends on how much RAM you have installed on your computer. You can allocate 2GB - this will be quite enough, but if you have enough RAM (for example, 8 or 16 gigabytes), then it is better not to be greedy and allocate more. 4 or 6 GB are the best options.
  2. Click again Forward and select the item Create new virtual hard disk. Create your own new disk in VDI format and with dynamically allocated space. When you're done, VirtualBox should return you to the home screen.
  3. Now let's click right click mouse over our just created virtual machine and select the item Tune. Go to the tab System and uncheck the box Enable EFI(if you have it checked).
  4. Next we go to the section Carriers. Click on the CD icon with the inscription Empty, which is in the panel Information carriers. Then click on the CD icon, but this one is on the right and select the item. Select the HackBoot 1 ISO file that we downloaded earlier and click OK.

Your virtual machine is now ready for installation. Make sure you have the correct Mountain Lion ISO image and move on to the next step.

Step Two: Install OS X in VirtualBox

The next step involves directly installing OS X on your virtual machine. When you are ready to install, launch VirtualBox and follow the instructions below:

    1. In the left pane, select your virtual OS X system and click Launch. Next will appear loading screen HackBoot with an icon in the middle.

    1. Click on the CD icon at the very bottom of the VirtualBox window and select Select optical disk image. Select the hacked Mountain Lion ISO image downloaded earlier.

    1. Return to the HackBoot loading screen and press F5. The window should reload and display this time OS X Install DVD. Select and press Enter. After a while, you will be redirected to the OS X installation window.
    2. After you select a language and agree to the terms of use, you will see that OS X cannot detect any hard drive valid format. To solve this problem we go to Top Menu and choose Utilities > Disk Utility.

    1. The fact is that Mac OS X can only be installed on an absolutely clean HDD. Therefore you need to use Disk Utility to clean up the virtual hard disk you created in VirtualBox for Mountain Lion. So, being in Disk Utility, select our HDD from VirtualBox and clean it.

  1. Once Disk Utility has finished formatting, a formatted drive should appear in the left sidebar. You can then exit Disk Utility and continue installing OS X.

Further installation is quite simple and should not cause you any difficulties. The entire OS X installation process took us only about 20 minutes. When the installation process is complete, a black window with white text should appear in front of you. Once the installation of Mountain Lion is completed successfully, you can click on the "X" on the right top corner windows, thereby turning off the virtual machine.

Step three: make it beautiful

We're at the finish line! We've already installed OS X on PC, but we still need to tweak a few things to get our graphics and audio features to work properly. So here's what we need to do.

Fixing an audio bug using MultiBeast

    1. Launch VirtualBox. In the left panel we find our virtual OS X and right-click on it. Select an item Tune and go to the section already familiar to us Carriers. Click on the disk icon located on the right side of the window and select the HackBoot 2 ISO file.
    2. Click the Run button to reboot your virtual machine. After this, the HackBoot menu will appear in front of you again, but this time with the option to boot your new virtual OS. Select it and press Enter.

    1. In a minute or two you will see the signature Mountain Lion desktop screensaver. Open the Safari browser, go to Tonymacx86.com and download MultiBeast as described in the section What do we need.
    2. Opening System Settings > Protection and safety. Click on the lock in the lower left corner of the window, enter your password and in the subsection Allow downloads of programs from: put From any source. This will allow us to run MultiBeast on our Mac OS X.
    3. Launch Multibeast. When you get to the point Installation type, check the boxes as shown in the screenshot below. Click continue and wait for the Multibeast installation to complete. The installation process may take several minutes.

Our audio features aren't working yet, so we need to do a couple more things.

Launching OS X without HackBoot

So, in order to boot our OS X without the help of HackBoot, we need to delete the problematic kext file.

      1. Open Finder and select Transition > Go to folder.
        Type in /System/Library/Extensions and press Enter.
      2. Find the AppleGraphicsControl.kext file in this folder and delete it. This will allow our virtual machine to boot without iso file HackBoot.

      1. Next, remove the HackBoot CD; To do this, right-click on the CD icon in the lower right part of the VirtualBox window and uncheck HackBoot, since we won’t need it anymore. Restart the virtual machine. Now your Mac OS X can boot normally and play audio fully. Congratulations!

Setting the screen resolution for the virtual machine

You may have noticed that our VirtualBox is running at a fairly low resolution. Naturally, we are not happy with this, so let's make a couple more settings so that the VM runs at the same resolution as our monitor.

      1. Again in the Finder, select the item Transition > Go to folder and go to /Extra/. Double click on the file org.Chameleon.boot.plist and add between the tags And, the following lines:
        Graphics Mode
        1920x1080x32
        Save the file and close TextEdit. This will allow OS X to run at a higher resolution. Keep in mind that you can set any resolution you want, just replace 1920×1080 to the resolution you need.

      1. If you set the resolution to greater than 1280x1024, there is one more thing you need to do to make sure everything works correctly. Shut down your virtual machine and open command Windows string . Enter the following commands, pressing Enter after each:
        cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"
        vboxmanage setextradata "MyVirtualMachine" "CustomVideoMode1"
        "1920x1080x32"
        In the first line, specify the path to the VirualBox folder on your computer. In the second line, replace MyVirtualMachine with the name you gave your virtual machine (in our case, Mac OS X), and finally 1920x1080x32 with the resolution you specified in the first paragraph in the Chameleon plist file.

When done, reboot your virtual OS X and enjoy high resolution and working audio functions. Now you can install your favorite apps, customize your keyboard and mouse, and do whatever you want. So now you have a fully working virtual OS X Mountain Lion right on your Windows computer!

Most Mac users upgrade to the next generation of operating system with a simple click of the " Update» on Mac App Store, although it is believed that a clean installation of OS X is the most reliable method. In this material we will tell you how to do this.

In contact with

How to do a clean install of OS X El Capitan on a Mac by first formatting the disk?

1 . Restart your Mac and hold down the keys while turning on the computer ⌘ Cmd And R.

2 . In the loaded application, select the menu item " Disk Utility" and press the button " Continue».

3 . In the left side menu select system disk(by default it is called " Macintosh HD") and in the main window go to the " Erase" and format it by specifying the format " Mac OS Extended (Journaled)».

Attention! All data will be deleted from the Mac.

4 . After finishing the formatting process, close " Disk Utility».

5 . Select an item Install OS X in the window " OS X Utilities", if you need to download a copy of OS X El Capitan from the Internet and click the " Continue».

6 . If you plan to use bootable USB flash drive(by creation), then close the window " OS X Utilities».

7. In the window that appears, click Boot disk...

8 . In the window that appears, select the one previously connected to the computer Bootable USB flash drive drive with OS X El Capitan and click Reboot.

The computer will reboot and offer installation of the system from the USB flash drive.

It is worth noting that you can also press a button ⌥Option (Alt) on the keyboard when you turn on the computer. A list of available drives will appear from which you must select a bootable USB flash drive.

She has her own special form style, which is famous for the fact that its interface is very user-friendly. There are no unnecessary elements in this OS, no unnecessary information, which could interfere with the user's work. A special feature of this system is Spotlight - its intelligent navigation, which greatly facilitates and simplifies a person’s work. Therefore, it is perfect for installation on imac home computers.

Causes, why Mac OS X is beneficial to use:

  1. this system is very secure, hackers practically never attack it, so there are almost never viruses on it;
  2. on this OS you can install games that run under Windows, as well as other operating systems;
  3. TimeMachine is a feature that allows you to create backups. It is clear and easy to use;
  4. the system can function without rebooting for a long period of time;
  5. the system is multitasking. It can handle multiple processes at once. At the same time, system performance is not reduced;
  6. There are many applications for this OS that can be useful and interesting for users.

Can the system be installed on simple PCs?

Installing this operating system on a regular computer is quite labor-intensive. Installation has many nuances that many users simply are not aware of. For example, its installation is possible only on computers that have compatible components. So, it requires an NVidia video card and an Intel processor. And if these components can be seen in many PCs, then the coincidences end there. This system does not support most peripheral devices. Those users who want to install it on their machines can try this if they have an SSE3 processor and a Quartz 2d, Core Image, Quartz Extreme video card. In addition, to install this OS, the NTFS file system will have to be replaced with FAT32, otherwise there is a risk that it will no longer be readable.

Stages of installing an OS on a simple computer

Users who have never installed this system before should try installing version 10.4.7 or 10.4.6. Their installation is the easiest of all. existing options Mac OS X. For those who are looking for system files to download, you need to be prepared that they will be in DMG or ISO formats.

The process of installing Mac OS X on a PC takes place in several steps:

  1. The disc with the system is inserted into the DVD drive. After this, you will need to restart your computer and press F8. After a few seconds you will need to press the Y key, after which the installation mode (text) appears. It is not recommended to press other keys. Pressing them will redirect the user to graphics mode installations that may seem incomprehensible to an inexperienced person;
  2. During installation, the following error may appear: “system config file ‘/com.apple.Boot.plist’ not found" It notifies you that this distribution is not suitable for installation on this PC. The user will have to select a different OS version;
  3. an error may appear the following type– “Still waiting for root device.” It indicates the incompatibility of the PC hardware with the requirements of the installed system;
  4. If the OS version is suitable for PC, then a blue screen appears. You need to select a language and start installation. It is important to select the correct partition into which the OS will be installed. It must be in accordance with Mac OS Extended journaled.
  5. mode setting Acronis Disk Director Suite. It is used if disk utility is unable to format an area in HFS. Using Acronis Disk Director Suite, you need to create an area yourself, which will be in FAT32 format. After creating the area, you need to adjust the type of the created section. It must be set to 0xAFh. Then a message about data loss will appear, you can ignore it.
  6. you must confirm acceptance of the license, select the installation partition and components that will be consistent with the system;
  7. The final stage is installing the system and rebooting the PC.

The network is now full of copy-pastes, essentially the same article, about installing MacOS X on hackintosh with about the same title. I’ll tell you how to install Mac OS X from a flash drive on a Mac.

There is nothing complicated here, however, not everyone is a pro, and reinstalling the system on a Mac is quite a rare thing, this is not Windows. When is this necessary? In my case, I needed to upgrade from an old version of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) to the next Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6).

The question arises: why write about such old stuff when OS X 10.9 is on the way, but today we’ll leave the topic of novelty alone, the essence of the question doesn’t change. Disk image OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD 10.6.3 Retail I took it from the inmac.org torrent.

In general, you can install both OS X Lion (10.7) and Mountain Lion (10.8) from a flash drive. You can legally purchase OS X Mountain Lion in the App Store (issue price is only 625 rubles).
Once the download is complete, a utility will appear in the Applications folder. installing Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
Right-click on the installer and select “Show package contents.” Next, copy the OS image from the “SharedSupport” folder to any convenient location InstallESD.dmg.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive or Mac OS X disk

For recording Mac image OS X Snow Leopard required DVD disc double density (6.3 Gb will not fit on a regular disc), and there was no drive for recording this stuff either. I wasn't upset. At a time when spaceships are plowing... use CDs bad manners.

Stick it in suitable flash drive into the computer and launch it Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

  1. First of all, we format our flash drive. In the “Erase” tab, specify a new name (for example MAC_OS_X) and file system Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  2. We mount the image of the future system by double-clicking on the image file. In my case it's Mac.OS.X.10.6.3.Retail.dmg(or InstallESD.dmg as described above). The image will appear in the left pane of Disk Utility.
  3. Go to the “Restore” tab. From the sidebar of Disk Utility, in the “Source” field, drag (Mac OS X Install ESD). In the “Destination” field, drag the created partition on the flash drive (MAC_OS_X).
  4. Click the “Restore” button. This process is not fast, so you will have to wait a little.

Booting Mac from USB flash drive

Boot the system by holding Alt key(aka Option) until a selection of boot options appears. Well, then all you have to do is follow the installer’s instructions.

By the way, all user data, even the desktop screensaver, remained untouched when moving from one version of Mac OS X to another. Although at the time of installation, a lonely cold ant ran down the back when it suddenly became clear that the user did not store some of the documents on the server and did not make backup copies. So, I recommend not to be lazy and, just in case, create backup copy important documents in advance.

We remind you that this material is provided for informational purposes only. If you are going to reproduce the steps described below, we strongly advise you to carefully read the article to the end at least once. The editors of 3DNews do not bear any responsibility for any possible consequences.

⇡ Introduction

"Hackintosh" is an ironic name for Mac OS X, not installed on Apple computer, but on a regular PC. This phenomenon became possible when the Cupertino company began migrating its machines from the PowerPC platform to x86 in 2005, and Macs began to be equipped with the same processors and Intel chipsets, which are used in personal computers. Since its initial modest victories, the so-called OSx86 project has grown from a hobby of a few enthusiasts into a mass movement with a growing user base. Today, when Apple officially released new version its operating system, Lion, it’s time to tell everyone about Hackintosh who doesn’t have a Mac, but has an interest in Mac OS X and a desire to experiment.

The first questions a person asks when he sees a Mac operating system on a PC: “Is it difficult to install?” and “Is everything working fine?” The answer to both is no. Installation has now been simplified to the extreme, so you can play around with Mac OS X on almost any modern computer, but the full functionality is not available to everyone - for a fair proportion of users it will either not work hardware acceleration graphics, or the network, sound or something else will fall off. Hackintoshes also have big problems with sleep mode. All these difficulties can be overcome, but you will probably have to spend a few sleepless nights. In general, the situation completely copies what happened with desktop Linux distributions a few years ago. However, this is a very flattering comparison both for the hacker community and for Apple itself: given that no one has ever prepared Mac OS X to work with non-native hardware, everything could have been much worse. Yes, some hardware will never run under Mac OS, others will require dancing with a tambourine and a hare's foot. But at the same time, a huge fleet of components either works out of the box or starts after simple manipulations. And software for Mac OS in all cases installs and works exactly the same as on a real Mac. It turns out that he’s not so scary, this Hackintosh.

For those who are concerned about the legal side of the phenomenon: of course, Mac OS X can only be legally installed on an Apple-branded computer, and any other options violate the license agreement. It is also prohibited to modify OS components, not to mention using pirated distributions from “torrents”. However, Apple does not persecute the OSx86 community in any way (although it is suing companies that make money from Hackintoshes), and the means of protection against unauthorized use are in their infancy, and ways to overcome them have long been found. Mac OS X doesn't even require input license key or online activation. After all, hackintosh people advertise this OS for free and secretly dream of buying a real Mac. And the most devoted red-eyed experimenters, who fundamentally prefer Hackintosh, are still lost as potential buyers.

If there is no difference, then why pay more? Or is there?

So, if a small crime doesn’t bother you, and technical difficulties only cause healthy excitement, let’s try installing Mac OS X on a PC together. In this article we will describe two simple ways installation of the previous one, but still popular version OS, Snow Leopard (10.6), and one way for the new one, Lion (10.7). There is no point in installing Leopard (10.5), much less Tiger (10.4). If you like the result, then these instructions will become the starting point for mastering Hackintosh yourself. The last section provides links to popular OSx86 community resources where you can learn from other users' experiences and find solutions to specific problems.

⇡ Preparing Hackintosh

Actually, why can’t Mac OS X just work on a PC and how to overcome these obstacles? Reason number one is that in Macs, not the good old BIOS, but EFI is used as a layer between the OS and hardware firmware, and in order for Mac OS to start, EFI is emulated at the level of a special “hacker” bootloader (by the way , we owe this achievement to a Russian hacker under the nickname Netkas). The most popular and rapidly developing loader today is Chameleon and its derivatives, for example Chimera.

The second reason: Mac OS X has a kext (from kernel extension, remember this term) called Dont Steal Mac OS X. It is required to decrypt the applications that make up what looks like an operating system to the user (Dock, Finder, loginwindow, SystemUIServer and others), based on keys from the SMC chip, which is only available on real Macs. Well, if “there are no legs, then there are no cartoons.” The FakeSMC kext comes to the rescue, which successfully emulates an SMC Device, for which, again, thanks to Netkas. A special bootloader and FakeSMC.kext are all you need to Mac downloads OS X, if the hardware of the computer is not very different from real Macs.

And this is precisely the third reason. There are no drivers for unsupported hardware under Mac OS X, or there are built-in drivers, but the system cannot use them because it does not recognize hardware with unfamiliar identifiers.

The hardware requirements for Hackintoshes are the same - you need a processor that supports SSE2 instructions, best of all - Intel Core 2 Duo and older. AMD users will have to replace the OS kernel with a “hacked” version, and as a result, there will be problems updating the system from the Apple server. The same applies to netbooks on the Atom platform. Support for AHCI mode on the part of the SATA controller is highly desirable. To install Mac OS X Lion you need 2 GB of RAM, for Snow Leopard one is enough. The first rule for selecting iron: what more computer looks like real Macs, the less problems. Second rule: the newest and most advanced devices may not work no matter how hard you try, because... hardware support depends primarily on the Mac OS itself (heavy hardware drivers are not written for Hackintosh), and Apple is in no hurry. The site wiki.osx86project.org, which contains HLC (Hardware Compatibility Lists) for different versions Mac OS X.

For installation, it is best to use a separate drive with SATA interface, and turn off the Windows disk, to be safe. If you are not afraid to conduct experiments on one HDD with a working operating system, then you will have to create a new partition on it using some disk utility (for clean Mac OS X 10 GB is enough). Just keep in mind that during the installation process, the Hackintosh bootloader will be written to the HDD, and then you will only be able to get into Windows through it. There is no threat to your existing data, but a backup won’t hurt either. The disk must be connected to the southbridge port motherboard, the SATA controller in the BIOS must be set to AHCI mode. It is recommended to remove overclocking, remove all expansion cards except graphics adapter in the upper PCI-E slot, disable peripherals other than the keyboard and mouse, reduce the amount of RAM to 4 GB (if more is installed). If the installation with minimal functionality is successful, then all this can be returned step by step. Too many conditions? Then you can practice on cats, that is, in a virtual machine. There are even ready-made images for various hypervisors on the Internet, although using them will not bring you experience in creating Hackintosh.

We warn readers: although Hackintosh is a completely harmless entertainment that will not break your computer and is unlikely to spoil any data, all manipulations described in the article are done at your own peril and risk. In addition, you need to be familiar with the computer and know what the bootloader, OS kernel and hard drive partitioning scheme are. Well, when you master Hackintosh perfectly, do not agree under any circumstances if your friends ask you to install it on your PC, otherwise you, as an honest person, will have to get married in order to keep this miracle working.

⇡ Installing Snow Leopard from iATKOS 10.6.3 v2

The simplest and most universal option is to install Mac OS X with a specially modified distribution. Since the release of Snow Leopard, such hacker builds have given way to a more elegant solution - installation from a copy of a proprietary disk using a separate boot CD, and this is described below. But users of CPUs from AMD or Intel Atom, because the original Mac OS X kernel (which our English-speaking friends call the vanilla kernel) only supports Intel processors with Core architecture and older, and the build allows you to immediately select the “patched” version during the installation process. And after you have entered the world of Hackintosh using assembly and gained knowledge, you can make clean install, the components of which you have complete control over.

iATKOS 10.6.3 v2 is one of the latest builds released, and despite quite old version The OS (Snow Leopard has already been updated to 10.6.8), all the “hacker” software on it is quite modern. After downloading the image (we won’t tell you where from), write it to a disc. Boot from the iATKOS disk and wait until the “hacker” bootloader works and the OS starts.

This process takes several minutes, but if it suddenly takes longer than reasonable limits or displays an error message, it means that something went wrong.

In this case, you need to boot from the DVD again, but on the bootloader screen with the green chameleon, press F8, highlight the optical drive, enter “-x” from the keyboard and press Enter. This is the so-called safe mode, but if you have no luck with it, then you need to boot with the “-v” argument, which will allow you to observe the boot log. At the moment where the process is stuck or the phrase Kernel Panic appears, you can take a photo of the screen and then in a calm atmosphere try to understand what is happening using thematic sites, Google and advice from experienced “hackers”.

The appearance of a window with a choice of language indicates that the download was successful and your system is able to run Mac OS X. We recommend, if possible, choosing the Shakespeare language, since most instructions and problem analyzes on the Internet are written in it.

Scroll through the pages of the installer until the disk selection window appears.

Open in menu Utilities section and run Disk Utility. If you have given a blank disk to Hackintosh, then using this program you need to “partition” it (the Partition tab). To install on a partition adjacent to Windows, the partition is simply formatted as file system HFS+ (Erase tab). For reliability, it is better to choose the HFS+ Journaled option, and most users will not need the Case Sensitive option.

After the HDD is prepared for installation, disk utility you can close and specify the partition in the installer window. And now the important point is the choice of drivers and settings that allow Mac OS X to fully work on your hardware. The list is opened by the Customize button. All users are advised to look into the Bootloader thread and select the Chameleon v2 RC5 option instead of the default option. Owners of AMD and Intel Atom processors must select a modified kernel in the Patches, Modified Kernels section.

You should not select any “drivers” for the graphics adapter in the Drivers, VGA section. It is better to check the box next to the Graphics Enabler option in the Bootloader Options section - in this case, the bootloader itself will try to activate hardware acceleration. Be that as it may, the OS almost always boots in 2D mode, and if the Graphics Enabler method does not work, then you can try your luck with separate “drivers”. By the way, these are not drivers, but only injectors that allow drivers built into Mac OS X to work with unfamiliar video cards, which is why they are put in quotes.

Choose the right package for network card in the Drivers, Network section - there is a good collection there. For a laptop, the contents of the Drivers, Laptop Hardware section will be useful. You can take some driver for CPU power-saving functions from the Drivers, Main Hardware, CPU Power Management section. The “native” kernel extension called AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, which carries this function, is prudently blocked in the assembly, because it is only suitable for Intel processors, and even then not for all, and in case of errors it does not allow the system to boot.

Do not check Sleep Enabler in the Patches section - if you need sleep mode, then after updating the OS this extension will still have to be replaced.

The Language Translations section came to iATKOS from the official distribution and contains OS interface localization packages, including Russian.

It is advisable to write down a list of the options that you have chosen, in case the newly installed OS does not start and you have to look for the culprit. Once your selection is made, you can click OK and then Install. Go!

At the end of the installation, the computer will reboot. You can remove the iATKOS disk and boot from the hard drive that we've loaded Mac OS X onto. While the Chameleon bootloader is counting down the seconds until the OS starts up by default, you can press any key and see a list of partitions from which you can boot. If at first there was already Windows on the hard drive, then it starts from a service partition called System Reserved, or directly from its root partition, if the service partition is missing for some reason.

But we can't wait to see Mac OS, right? In this case, we just wait, and if the options were selected correctly during installation, a registration window will appear on the screen, and if the Graphics Enabler option worked, a welcome video will also be shown.

What to do if the operating system gets stuck at the loading stage or displays an error message? The first tip in this case is to boot up and view the log. To do this, you need to stop the bootloader while it counts down the time until the OS starts, select the partition with it, enter the “-v” argument and press Enter. Based on the messages on the screen, you can find the component causing the failure. Then you can try to boot into safe mode with the "-x" argument, and if this succeeds, then it is likely that the problem is some kind of kext - a driver or device injector that you checked in the Customize menu installation disk, and it needs to be replaced. How to work with kexts is described in a special section of the article.

⇡ Installing Snow Leopard from a proprietary distribution

A “Hackintosh” can also be created using the “native” image of Snow Leopard, which you can even buy to ease your conscience. At the same time, all the software that makes Mac OS X compatible with PC is recorded on separate disk. But this method is only suitable for owners of Intel CPUs, because both the distribution disk and the copy of the OS that will be installed from it use the original kernel without AMD support. In addition, the unmodified Snow Leopard installer will not allow you to roll the system onto a hard drive that is broken using MBR, and only supports the GUID markup scheme. Therefore, the disk with the MBR will have to be repartitioned.

If Windows is already installed there and you are not ready to say goodbye to the most popular operating system forever, then there is a non-obvious solution: with using Disk Utility first partitions the disk with a GUID, creates its own partition for “windows” and installs Windows, and then installs Snow Leopard on the second partition. Keyword here - Disk Utility. This program, which, as you already know, runs from the installation Mac drive OS X, creates a hybrid partition with synchronized GUID and MBR. And the MBR is required to install Windows.

So, first we need an image boot disk iBoot and MultiBeast Driver Pack - latest versions both are posted on the website www.tonymacx86.com/viewforum.php?f=125 (registration required for downloading). We burn the iBoot ISO image to a disc and boot from it. When a window appears asking you to select a partition to boot, you need to replace iBoot in the drive with the “native” distribution with Mac OS X, press F5, highlight the DVD and press Enter.

The further procedure is completely similar to what is written about assembling iATKOS, only in the Customize menu there are no “left” drivers, but only standard packages Snow Leopard - interface localizations, fonts, etc.

But once the installation is complete, you won’t be able to boot directly from the hard drive, because... the copy of the OS is pristine and no different from what is on real Macs. Therefore, you need to boot from the iBoot disk again and select the partition with Snow Leopad.

If an error occurs, you already know what to do: boot with the “-v” argument and run diagnostics, then try to start the OS in safe mode with the “-x” argument. The tonymacx86 site also recommends the PCIRootUID=1 argument, which can be combined with "-x" and "-v".

If Mac OS X showed a registration window, then it’s time to accustom it to the PC. You need to launch MultiBeast from the archive that we downloaded in advance, and scroll through all the installer pages right down to the component selection menu. Here, all users must check the EasyBeast Install item - which specifies the installation of a minimum set of kexts. To enable support for specific hardware, you should look at the individual branches of the list and select the necessary extensions. At the end of the procedure, the computer will reboot and you can safely boot from the HDD.

In addition to kexts, the Chimera bootloader will be installed on the disk, and if Windows was previously installed, it is loaded by selecting the appropriate partition.

⇡ Installation of Lion

Here's the tastiest thing - latest version Mac OS X. So far only Intel users can appreciate it. At the time of writing, Apple has not yet released the source code for the Lion kernel, which means there are no modified kernels. But most kexts written for Snow Leopard work with Lion.

To install Lion, we will need a working Snow Leopard version no lower than 10.6.6, a free partition on a 5 GB hard drive to accommodate the installer files, the Lion distribution (available for $29.99 in the App Store and you know where for free), xMove utility and the already familiar MultiBeast package.

The Install Mac OS X Lion program is launched directly from the running operating system, and as the partition for installation you need to select exactly the one from which Snow Leopard is running, which will not affect the OS in any way. Once the files are copied, you can agree to reboot and log back into Snow Leopard.

Now it's up to the xMove utility. Having launched it, you need to mark the empty partition that we prepared in advance for Lion, and xMove will transfer the files unpacked by the Install Mac OS X Lion program there. If Snow Leopard is installed using the iBoot + MultiBeast method, then just boot from the hard drive and select the partition with “Lion” in the Chimera bootloader menu. If iATKOS or another solution was used for installation, but the bootloader and kexts are also not the latest, then you will have to boot from the iBoot disk. The further procedure completely repeats the process of installing Snow Leopard from a proprietary distribution. Moreover, as a target, you can select a partition with an already running Mac OS X, and then it will be updated painlessly.

⇡ Installing and removing kexts

How to delete problematic driver, injector or add support for devices that did not start after initial installation? The storage for kexts (kernel extensions) in Mac OS X is the /System/Library/Extensions directory, and they are loaded from a single cache at /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext, where the OS puts only the necessary extensions. But modern Hackintosh loaders (already familiar to us Chameleon and Chimera) can load additional kexts from the /Extra/Extensions directory, and from them their own small cache /Extra/Extensions.mkext is formed. MultiBeast and iATKOS use exactly this scheme, only in the latter case the /Extra directory is hidden. Display hidden files enabled using a command in the terminal.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall finder

To install many kexts, just copy them to /Extra/Extensions. But some will not be able to resolve dependencies (there are no necessary extensions in the /S/L/C/c/S/Extensions.mlext cache), and you will have to create a single cache of all “native” and “third-party” extensions in the /Extra directory. which the OS will not be able to remake. The following command does this:

sudo kextcache -m /Extra/Extensions.mkext -- /System/Library/Extensions /Extra/Extensions

Before these files in /Extra/Extensions need to be assigned the necessary permissions. Teams:

sudo chown -R 0:0 /Extra/Extensions

sudo chmod -R 755 /Extra/Extensions

And one more nuance: if, even with the correct permissions, the kext is not included in the cache and is not loaded, you need to open it using the Show Package Contents option in the file’s context menu and view the Info.plist file in the Contents directory. This is an xml file, and at the end, before the closing tags there should be the following entry:

OSBundleRequired

Root

Otherwise, it needs to be added or changed.

Things are a little different in Mac OS X 10.7. Lion uses a different cache format - prelinked kernel. By default, Chameleon does not read it and scans the entire contents of the /Extra/Extensions directory, which slows down loading. The only thing that can be done for now is to create a shared cache in the system directory /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup. Team:

sudo kextcache -c /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache -v -t -K /mach_kernel -- /System/Library/Extensions /Extra/Extensions

And in order for the bootloader to pick up kernelcache, you need to use the “UseKernelCache=Yes” argument at startup. But unlike the contents of /Extra, this file is subject to the operating system, and from time to time it will update it, forgetting, of course, about our “hacker” extensions. A solution to the problem is to move the kexts from /Extra to the /System/Library/Extensions directory and give them the necessary permissions with the commands:

sudo chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions

sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions

⇡ OS update

Hackintosh can be updated from the Apple server using the built-in utility Software Update. But at the same time, you need to be prepared for the fact that after the update some kexts will stop working or start causing crashes and you will have to find a replacement for them. Fortunately, developers of popular extensions quickly respond to the release of new versions of Mac OS X. In addition, after the update, you need to rebuild the kext cache by first loading the system with the “-f” argument. Users of AMD processors should make sure that the latest version of the modified kernel is available before updating the OS, or you can leave the old one.

⇡ Bootloader setup

The operation of the Chameleon bootloader or its analogues is controlled by the file com.apple.boot.plist in the /Extra folder. It can be modified manually, but there are also special utility With graphical interface- Lizard, which can be downloaded from darwinx86.net/software/darwinx86_software.html. It is advisable to enter the screen resolution, loading arguments (for example, the aforementioned “UseKernelCache=Yes”) into the configuration, and for owners of “non-standard” processors the name of the modified kernel file. In iATKOS this is the custom file (look, it is in the root partition of the disk). Also check Graphics Injection if this option helped you enable 3D acceleration.

The 32bit Compatibility Mode option will force the kernel to boot in 32-bit mode, which may be necessary for some kexts. At the same time, support for large amounts of RAM is maintained, and applications can run in 64-bit mode regardless of the kernel. A similar command line argument is “-x32”.

The list of arguments may also contain special options for individual kexts.

The program automatically opens the file /Extra/com.apple.boot.plist, and if it is missing, it will create it when you try to save changes. This is exactly what will happen with iATKOS, because... This assembly by default stores the bootloader configuration in the system file of the same name /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.boot.plist. This is not correct, so it is best to clear it after creating the file in /Extra system file, leaving only those lines that are shown in the screenshot.

Another Lizard feature is editing the /Extra/SMBIOS.plist file. It contains information about the computer model and installed hardware and helps to imagine the computer as some kind of Macintosh in System program Information.

⇡ Peripherals from Apple

A question that worries many people, but they don’t want to spend money on an experiment: do Mac devices like Apple Cinema Display, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad work with Hackintosh? So, the monitor is compatible with any video card equipped with DisplayPort (DP Mini or a full-format version of the port with an adapter is suitable), and both the light sensor and brightness adjustment in System Preferences work. The mouse and touchpad require a Bluetooth USB adapter - some work right out of the box without any additional kexts, and the connection process is again no different from that on real Macs.

⇡ Free swimming

www.kexts.com - a database of original and third-party kexts for Mac OS X.