How to Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy Steps
Building a Hackintosh from scratch—that is, installing Mac OS X on non-Mac hardware—has never been easier, and the final product has never performed better. Here's how it works.
Note: This is our third and most recent Hackintosh build (here are the now-outdated first and second). This time, to make things really easy on you, we put together a video walkthrough of the entire process. You can watch the video in its entirety below, but we've also broken up the video next to the accompanying text in each step below.
The Full Step by Step in Video Form
Best viewed in 720p. Background music by Pex "Mahoney" Tufvession.
What You'll Need
Before you get started building your Hackintosh, you will, of course, need a few supplies.
The Hardware
There's no such thing as a definitive Hackintosh build, and you can find plenty of hardware that will run OS X using this or a similar method, but we're not going to dive into every possible option here. Instead, I've put together a list of the hardware I'm using and that I can guarantee runs like a dream (or at least it does for me). Also, the installation process below is tailored to this hardware; you can still build a Hackintosh using other hardware, but this installation process may not work 100%.
Here's all the hardware I bought off Newegg for this Hackintosh build:
- Antec Sonata III Case with 500W Power Supply
- ASUS P7P55D-E Pro ATX Intel Motherboard
- EVGA GeForce 9500 GT 01G-P3-N959-TR Video Card
- Intel Core i7-860 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory x 2 (for a total of 8GB); the amount of RAM you choose is optional.
- OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD): This SSD isn't strictly necessary, but in our opinion, SSDs are one of the best upgrades you can make.
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
- LITE-ON DVD Writer - Bulk - Black SATA Model iHAS224-06 LightScribe Support
In all, the subtotal on Newegg for all that hardware is $1,123.92; skip the SSD and the second set of RAM, and you've still got a solid machine for an even more reasonable $828.92.
Once you've got all your hardware, you'll need to assemble your computer. Putting together the hardware for your Hackintosh is just like building any other computer from scratch. You mount the motherboard to your case, install your CPU, RAM, graphics card, storage and optical drive, and plug in all the necessary cables. It's always a good idea to read over your motherboard's instruction manual, but if you want a little more help, hit up our first-timer's guide to building a computer from scratch.
The only thing you need to know is that you shouldn't plug your SATA drives into the off-white SATA ports at the bottom of the board. All the rest should work fine.
The Software
On the software end of the spectrum, you'll need a few things. Apart from the obvious (the Snow Leopard install DVD), you'll need to download some files that'll contain the tools that let you install OS X on your machine. The method I'm using to install OS X on our Hackintosh this time around is a new one by a guy called tonymacx86, and it's really great. I've added direct links to the downloads below, but all credit goes to tonymac for the dead-simple tools.
- A Mac OS X 10.6 Install DVD (which you can buy from Apple)
- MacOSXUpdateCombo10.6.4 package (free from Apple)
- iBoot (from tonymacx86; find the iBoot download link on this post below step two)
- MultiBeast (also from tonymacx86; find the MultiBeast download link on this page below step three)
- Other post-installation files
I'd suggest downloading everything you need now, and putting MultiBeast, the Mac OS X Combo update, and the post-installation files on a thumb drive.
Install OS X on Your Hackintosh
At this point you should have assembled your PC, and have all the software you'll need to install OS X on your Hackintosh. Now it's time for the fun—and easy—part. The process this time around is surprisingly simple, but I'll still walk you through the process step by step.
Step One: Burn iBoot to a Disc
Above I told you to download iBoot from tonymacx86. If you haven't already, unzip iBoot.zip and extract iBoot.iso. Now it's time to burn the file to a CD or DVD. (It's a small bootloader, so a CD will work just fine.)In Windows: Insert a blank disc, right-click iBoot.iso, and click Burn disc image. Select your disc burner in the next Windows prompt, and hit Burn.
On OS X: Insert a blank disc, right-click iBoot.iso, and click Burn "iBoot.iso" to Disc.
Burning the disc shouldn't take more than a minute or so, and iBoot should be ready to go.
Step Two: Adjust Your BIOS
Now that you've got the iBoot disc ready, it's time to turn on your soon-to-be-Hackintosh and adjust the BIOS so your computer's OS X-friendly. So make sure you've plugged in a keyboard, monitor, and power, and fire it up.Note: At the time of this guide, I'm using the latest BIOS for this motherboard: P7P55D-E-PRO-ASUS-1002.ROM.
When you get to the first boot screen, press the Delete key to open up your BIOS. Once inside, you'll need to make a few adjustments.
- On the first BIOS screen, arrow down to the entry labeled Storage Configuration, hit Enter, and change "Configure SATA as" to AHCI. Press Escape once.
- Next, arrow over to the Advanced tab, then arrow down to the section labeled Onboard Devices Configuration. Hit Enter, find the Marvell 9123 SATA Controller entry, and set it to AHCI. Press Escape.
- Now arrow over to the Power section and set Suspend Mode to S3 only.
- Finally, arrow over to the Boot tab, hit Enter on Boot Device Priority, and set your first boot device to boot first from your DVD drive, then set your second boot device as your primary hard drive.
Hit F10 to save your changes and exit the BIOS.
Step Three: Boot from iBoot into the Snow Leopard Install DVD
When your system restarts, put the iBoot disc you burned above into the DVD drive. Assuming you set everything correctly in your BIOS, iBoot should boot into the screen below.
When you get to this screen, eject your iBoot disc, insert the Snow Leopard install DVD, and press F5 on your keyboard. In few seconds, the iBoot disc in the center should be replaced by a new disc labeled Mac OS X Install DVD. (If it doesn't right away, wait a few seconds and hit F5 again.) Once it does, hit Enter, and your computer will boot into the Snow Leopard installation wizard.
Step Four: Format Your Disk and Install OS X
After a minute or two of loading up, you should be looking at the Snow Leopard installation wizard. Select your language and continue. Before you get started with the installation, however, you'll need to format your hard drive so you can install OS X. So, from the file menu at the top of the screen, select Utilities -> Disk Utility.Once Disk Utility loads, click on your hard drive in the sidebar and select the tab labeled Partition. Set the Volume Scheme drop-down to 1 Partition (unless you have a reason for wanting otherwise), name the volume whatever name you want, and set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Now click the Options button and ensure that GUID Partition Table is selected as the partition scheme.
Now that everything's set, hit Apply. When you're prompted for confirmation, click Partition.
In twenty seconds or so, your drive should be formatted and you'll be ready to install OS X. Quit Disk Utility, and continue with the installer.
The installation is completely straightforward, so just follow along with the default settings. When the installation finishes (the time will vary—it always claims it'll take 30+ minutes, but is normally done in 10 to 20), you'll most likely see the Install Failed screen pictured below.
Don't panic! This is all part of the process. Just click restart, put iBoot back in the drive, and this time, when your computer restarts, iBoot's Chameleon bootloader will give you the option to boot into your new installation. Select it and hit Enter.
Step Five: Update but Don't Restart
The first time OS X loads, you'll see Snow Leopard's fancy welcome video. Once that's done, OS X will walk you through the setup wizard, during which you'll enter in your username, location, etc. Just follow along.Once you're finished with the setup, you're finally at your new Hackintosh desktop. Since you probably want to use the most up-to-date release, you'll want to update your Hackintosh before adding the finishing touches.
At the time of this writing, 10.6.4 is the most current release, so if you didn't already download the update package above (remember, we told you to put it on your thumb drive?), grab the MacOSXUpdateCombo10.6.4 package from Apple, double-click on the DMG, and run the installer.
When the combo update finishes, you'll be prompted to reboot. Don't reboot your computer—at least not yet. You've got one thing you need to do first.
Step Six: Run the MultiBeast Package
Remember the MultiBeast download from tonymacx86 that we grabbed earlier and stored on a thumb drive (along with other post installation files)? It's time to use it.Make sure you've plugged your thumb drive into your Hackintosh (or just re-download the files if you forgot to save them to a thumb drive) and open MultiBeast. This tool will allow you to boot from your hard drive going forward, so you don't need to use iBoot every time you want to boot up OS X.
On the Install MultiBeast screen, tick the checkboxes next to EasyBeast and System Utilities, then click Continue. When the EasyBeast installation completes, eject the iBoot disc and restart your computer. Once you've rebooted, you've got one more step to go.
Step Seven: Copy Custom Kexts to Extra Folder, Manually Add Sound and Ethernet Kexts Using Kext Utility
Now it's time to use those other post-installation files you downloaded earlier. So dive into the folder named Post Install and open the folder named
Extra/Extensions. In a separate Finder window, navigate to the/Extra/Extensionsfolder at the root of your drive (in Finder, you can just type Cmd+Shift+G, type/Extra/Extensions, and press Enter).Now drag all the files from your thumb drive's
Extra/Extensionsfolder into your hard drive'sExtra/Extensionsfolder. Enter your password when prompted, and let Finder replace any files that already exist.Finally, navigate back to the Post Install folder on your thumb drive. Inside you'll see three files: An app named Kext Utility and two kext files named VoodooHDA.kext and RealtekR1000SL.kext. Drag and drop VoodooHDA.kext onto Kext Utility (enter your password when prompted), and you'll see a window like the one above. Once it says Done, you can quit Kext Utility (click Cancel), and then this time drag and drop Realtek R1000SL.kext onto Kext Utility. (Basically this installs custom audio and Ethernet extensions to your system so they work as you'd expect.)
Step Eight: Restart and Enjoy!
Now that you've updated and installed a few extensions customized to your hardware, you're ready to restart your computer, boot directly from your hard drive, and enjoy your new Hackintosh.
A Note on Performance and Other Loose Ends
I've been using this system for a couple weeks now, and in all my testing, everything's been working like a charm. If you're interested in benchmarking, here's how my build fared on Xbench (spoiler: the total score was 303.38).
As I mentioned above, you don't need to buy a pricey SSD (a regular hard drive will work fine), but the system with the SSD is fast, especially on startup. I've added a handful of startup applications to my login items, including apps like Chrome. When my system boots, all of my startup applications are running before my desktop fades in from blue—it feels more like resuming from sleep than rebooting.
Another thing to note: About this Mac identifies the processor as i5, but it's a superficial issue. You could manually edit the text file that populates those fields, but I won't go into that here.
Finally, keep your iBoot disc handy. In the event something does go flaky, especially if you end up having any problems booting directly from your hard drive, you'll likely want that iBoot disc on hand for troubleshooting.
Huge thanks go out to my Hackintosh-helping pals Onetrack, Stellarola, and Davide, to tonymacx86 for his great tools and work, to videographer extraordinaire Adam Dachis, and to the Hackintosh community.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Build a Hackintosh Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Kylo - TV Optimized Web Browser
Kylo Is a Big-Screen, TV-Optimized Web Browser
Windows/Mac: Kylo is a Mozilla-based web browser optimized for surfing the web on your HDTV from the comfort of your couch. Check out our screenshot tour to see it in all its 10-foot display glory.
Kylo was designed to complement the nifty gyroscopic mouse—produced by Kylo's parent company—called The Loop. While The Loop is pretty sweet and we certainly wouldn't mind field testing one, for our testing we just used a regular old wireless keyboard and mouse hooked up to our HTPC. Kylo shines without any fancy peripherals, although it's certainly a great ambassador for The Loop.
Kylo is optimized to be easy on your eyes and to make browsing the web from your couch as comfortable as possible. The address and toolbar are located on the bottom of the screen—looking down repeatedly towards the bottom of the screen is more eye-friendly than looking up to the top of the screen, it's also a better spot for good contrast if the TV is mounted too high.) They tailored everything from the buttons to the visual bookmarks for fumble-free clicking when the screen is far away.
We took both screenshots and actual photographs of Kylo in action. The photograph at the top of this article is of Kylo as viewed from a spot on the couch dead center to the television and approximately 13 feet away. Our tireless office helper Spawn volunteered to sit in for a sense of scale. The photographs of Kylo and Firefox—seen below—were taken from standing height approximately 18 feet away from the screen. We grabbed screenshots of same screens we photographed for those of you that wanted a clearer picture of the interface:
Kylo is a free offering from Hillcrest Labs, the company behind The Loop. The Loop is not required to use Kylo but an input device of some sort is—Kylo sports an on-screen qwerty keyboard, it's possible to go mouse-only. The only complaint, in fact, we can log against Kylo has nothing to do with Kylo itself—the jerks at Hulu decided to block Kylo the day Kylo publicly launched their browser. It was disappointing to load up Hulu only to have all the videos blocked. That said there are plenty of fish in the media sea and you can take your eyes elsewhere.
Have experience Kylo or The Loop? Let's hear about it in the comments. Can't quite let go of Firefox for your couch-based browsing? Check out how to set up a 10-foot display in Firefox so you can keep your add-ons and other tweaks. Kylo is freeware, Windows and Mac only. Thanks n00ge!
How To: XBMC Start to Finish
The Ultimate Start to Finish Guide to Your XBMC Media Center
XBMC is a fantastic and free cross-platform media center application we're nuts for. If you've wanted to start using it or just wanted to customize the XBMC installation you're already running, this guide will walk you through everything, from installation to total customization.
We've featured quite a few XBMC tips, tricks, and guides here at Lifehacker. We're quite fond of it, and with good reason: It's attractive, powerful, and highly customizable. In fact, nearly everyone at Lifehacker has a copy installed somewhere—and I have XBMC networked and running on every television and computer in my house.
Rather than leave you to dig through the archives of all the tips and guides we've shared, today we're going to walk you through our guides covering everything from installation to tweaking your media and media center for the ultimate XBMC experience, start to finish. Rather than rehash the detailed instructions we've laid out in various guides, we'll highlight the most compelling reasons for each tweak and direct you back to the original guide for a step-by-step walk through. When you're done, you'll have a streamlined media center with some awesome skins, a tidy media collection, automatic television show downloading, and games!
Install XBMC
XBMC originated as an ambitious media center project on the original Xbox, but has since grown well beyond the capabilities of its platform of origin. While our step-by-step guide to turning a classic Xbox into a killer media center is still a great way to breathe life into an old Xbox, the old Pentium III in the classic Xbox is showing its age. If you're using the classic Xbox you can follow along with the suggestions in this guide, but keep in mind that the original Xbox can't handle some of the flashier skins.Everyone can grab a copy of XBMC for their respective operating system here. For additional guidance you'll want to check out our guides to installing XBMC on a USB drive, on a Mac, or if you have any troubles with the straightforward Windows install, check out the XBMC for Windows wiki.
On the other hand, if you're feeling ambitious—and have a little extra cash to spend on this project—you'll definitely want to check out our guide to building a silent and standalone XBMC media center on the cheap. It really is dead silent, tiny, an excellent upgrade path from the classic Xbox architecture. Imagine squishing your classic Xbox down to the size of a paperback book—see the picture above—and upgrading the video output to 1080 and you've got the awesome nettop-based XBMC build we put together.
Even if you don't opt to buy a new nettop for the project, using the XBMC LiveCD to install XBMC on an older machine is a great way to turn an otherwise lacking machine into a great, dedicated HTPC for media playback. I've installed XBMC from the LiveCD onto many an older box that wouldn't have done very well with Windows + XBMC for Windows but does HD playback easily with the lightweight version of Ubuntu that installs with XBMC from the LiveCD.
Set Up Your Remote
Some people will have it easier than others when it comes to configuring their remotes. The classic Xbox works with the Microsoft DVD playback kit right out of the box. If you're running XBMC on Linux (like our silent standalone build, you can use Windows Media Center remotes just fine—but good luck using that Windows Media Center remote on a Windows machine running XBMC without a big hassle (go figure!). Mac users can read about configuring the Apple remote in our guide here or jump directly to the XBMC for Mac wiki.Be forewarned that in some situations, especially on Windows, configuring IR remotes to work with XBMC can be a chore. On Windows, I've used both LIRC for Windows and EventGhost with success. You can read up on LIRC with our guide here or see an example of using EventGhost with XBMC here. Speaking from experience here, once you get your remote configured just the way you want, make sure—extra, extra sure!—to back up your remote configuration file from your respective application. It's a pain to set up remote configuration files, but if you back it up, you'll only be doing it once.
Configuring the basic remote is a great start and many people won't need to venture beyond the basics, but this would hardly be a comprehensive guide if we didn't cover some of the other neat ways you can interact with your XBMC. After recently upgrading to an Android-based phone, I started experimenting with this Android remote control for XBMC—seen in the screenshot above—which essentially turns my phone into a wireless touchscreen remote that can access any of my XBMCs and browse their music and movie collections. If you have an Android, iPhone, or Windows Mobile phone, you'll want to check out the remote applications available for them. I can't say enough good things about Android remote control for XBMC. It even supports multiple XBMCs so I can swap music in one part of the house while queuing up a movie in another—amazing!
Even if you don't have a phone, you can still enhance your XBMC experience with computer-based remotes. XBMC has a built-in web server with a remote tool and a variety of small applications like XBMC Control—seen in the screenshot above—make it easy to control your music or video playback from your netbook, laptop, or desktop—quite handy for changing the music playing through the living room stereo from your office. Check out our full guide to enhancing your XBMC experience with remote controls for any device for more information.
Make It Pretty
With each new generation of XBMC, the default skin becomes more beautiful. Even with a great default, there are tons of stunning skins that make exploring alternatives to the default quite worthwhile. We highlighted five awesome ones here, and you can browse even more at the official XBMC site—the video above is of Aeon, one of the more ambitious skins around.Aside from actually enjoying your media, showcasing it with a beautiful, easy-to-navigate skin is probably the best part of XBMC. Without fail, every visitor who sees my setup asks me how much I paid for it and has trouble believing that something as polished and awesome as XBMC is available for free. There simply isn't a commercial media player that comes close to the "The future is now!" vibe of XBMC. I won't point fingers, but having played around with many of the commercial media devices on the market, most of them have interfaces that look like they hail from last century. Read up on skinning your XBMC install here.
If you want to keep on top of the latest skin developments and really see how far designers are pushing XBMC, you'll want to keep an eye on the skinning forum at XBMC.org. You'll find sub-forums there for popular skinning projects like Aeon, Confluence, and more. I've logged quite a bit of time over the years reading posts on the XBMC forums; it's a great place to get very specific help on nearly everything related to XBMC from install issues to little tweaks for your favorite skins.
Massage Your Media for Maximum Wow Factor
If showing off a glossy new skin catches peoples attention, you won't believe how impressed they are that you can do things like display all movies with a certain actress in them, browse by director, or at a glance look over the media information and see immediately if a movie is in HD, what kind of audio channel it uses, and see a summary of the movie or view a trailer.Earlier this year we put together an extensive guide to getting your media collection in shape for XBMC. While the XBMC media scrapers do an admirable job on their own, there's no substitute for storing information about your media collection with the actual media collection instead of in the XBMC database.
Things run faster, restoration after a hard drive crash or an XBMC reinstallation takes minutes—instead of hours, hours, and more hours of rescraping your collection—and you get fine tuned control over your media. If you've ever had to leave your XBMC running for a 12 hour marathon of movie and music scraping or you've been annoyed at frequent mistakes from scrapers, you should take the time to clean up your media and start storing the media info with the media itself and not within the XBMC database. It's not as intimidating or as time consuming as it sounds, but you'll definitely want to make a weekend project of it if you've got a huge collection. Just be prepared to continually explain to guests that you didn't pay anything for the awesomeness they are experiencing.
Automate TV Show Downloads
If you use your XBMC to watch downloaded and ripped television shows, you really need a system in place to automate the process before you get buried under unwatched and weirdly named episodes. Check out this guide to fully automating the flow of television shows from the tubes to your XBMC server to learn how to take television shows from torrents to neatly named and filed away without any interaction on your part.If you've never wrestled with cataloging lots of television shows before, we can't emphasize enough how much time an automated system like this will save you. XBMC isn't a TiVo but with an automatic workflow like the one outlined here, it might as well be.
Fun and Games
We all have projects we've been intending to get around to doing but never find time for. Ever since I switched from using the classic Xbox to using a PC running XBMC, I missed the games. My old Xbox was set up with emulators and I had my old Xbox games on it too. When I moved to a new machine I never got around to setting up the game section of XBMC until Whitson wrote up an awesome tutorial on how to turn XBMC into a video game console.Check out the tutorial to see how to use XBMC to catalog your computer games, emulators, and how to play them all with an Xbox 360 controller. Thanks to the guide, the only thing I missed from my classic Xbox is back in my media center menu. You don't need games on a media center, of course, but we're building the ultimate media center. The real measure of the ultimate media center is if it will stream the Super Mario Bros. movie, showcase the Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, and let you play Super Mario Bros. 3.
Not to engage in some "Back when I was a lad..." nostalgia but I would have killed for a guide like this when I first started with XBMC. Back in the early days of XBMC, if you had a question about how something worked you hit up Google, the XBMC forums, and dug until you found some answers. Every new thing involved crazy tweaks, tinkering, swearing, and more digging in the forums for answers. Thankfully XBMC has evolved and now somebody with no prior experience can take a guide like this, work their way from the top of the list to the bottom, and be rewarded with a jaw dropping media center when they're done. Speaking of lists, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed at all the stuff that goes into tweaking XBMC into an ultimate media center, check out the list below and schedule each step onto your calendar:
- Download and install XBMC (also check out our silent nettop build)
- Set up your remote.
- Slap on some new skins!
- Clean up your media.
- Automate TV show downloading and sorting.
- Install emulators and link to your installed games.
- Invite your friends over to check out your awesome handiwork!
Have a favorite XBMC tweak or tip? Stuck trying to figure out how to do something with XBMC? Sound off in the comments to share your tweaks or get some help.
Setup Mac OS X in VirtualBox
How to Run Mac OS X in VirtualBox on Windows
If you're on Windows, need to use OS X, but don't want to buy or build a new computer, reader Bobby Patton shows us how to run Snow Leopard in a virtual machine on Windows with just a few tweaks.
We've shown you how to install Snow Leopard in VMWare, but if you haven't purchased VMWare, you can now do it using previously mentioned, free program VirtualBox. Apart from VirtualBox, you'll also need an OSX86 ISO. The group Hazard has put out a good patched Snow Leopard installer that should do fine (just search for it on Google). Of course, if you feel bad about downloading the ISO of Snow Leopard, you could always go buy a copy to feel a bit better, karmically.
After you have them both, install Virtualbox. Open up Virtualbox and click on New at the top left.
At the Create New Virtual Machine window, click Next.
At this window type OSX as the name and it will automatically change the system and version. The next window will let you choose your RAM amount:
If you can spare it, crank it up as far as you can go, but 1024MB should be sufficient.
This is where you'll make your hard disk. 20GB should be enough so what it comes down to is dynamic or static. Dynamic will expand on use and Static will be a fixed 20GB no matter how much data is actually in it. Dynamic is better for not taking up your hard drive but static should give you better performance. I normally use dynamic. Click next unless you want to change it from dynamic or if you want to increase the disk size or file location.
It will show a summary of your settings. Click Finish, then click Settings at the top. At this window click on System in the left pane and uncheck Enable EFI.
Now click on the Storage button on the left. From there click on Empty under the OSX.vdi, then click the folder with the green arrow on the right (next to "CD/DVD Device").
At this window click the Add button at the top. Then find and add the OSX86 ISO you downloaded earlier. Then highlight it and click Select at the bottom. Then click OK, and hit the Start button on the left side of the main VirtualBox window.
As it starts up, click inside the window and hit F8. Then at the boot: prompt type
–vso you can see what exactly went wrong if something does go wrong. All the services will run and eventually you should come to the language screen. Choose your language then click next. If you are unable to move your mouse around then hit Right-Ctrl + I. Click Continue and Agree. Next, start up Disk Utility by going to Utilities in the menu bar.
At this screen highlight 20GB VBOX HARDDISK. Then click the Erase tab, name it what you want in the name box and click the Erase button on the bottom right of the window. It shouldn't take long. Then click Disk Utility in your menu bar and quit it. Now you're back at the installer. Highlight the drive that is now showing up and click Continue.
The next window is important. Click the Customize button on the bottom left.
AMD Users check:
Any Updates included at the top.
Drop down Kernels and choose Legacy kernel.
AMD option below System support.Intel Users check:
Any Updates included at the top.
Drop down bootloaders and check the newest Chameleon.
Drop down Kernels and choose Legacy kernel.
Then click Done and hit the Install button. To speed up the process you can click Skip when the disc check pops up.
As soon as it says "installation finished" and starts counting down to restart, press the right Ctrl key. Click on Devices at the top of the VirtualBox window, hit CD/DVD Devices and click Unmount CD/DVD Device. Then go to Machine > Reset and click Reset at the prompt. Next you'll see the Chameleon loader and then OS X will begin to boot.
After it boots you will see the setup screens for OS X! You're good to go. The only hiccup I've found is that it can only be virtualized with one core. It could be the OSX disc I was using or it might not be. And I have yet to find the right kext that will allow audio to work and the resolution is limited also. But other than that you'll have a fully functioning OSX virtualized!
Update: I'd like to post some answers to the resolution and audio. I should have looked around before posting this but I just didn't have the time. So anyways heres what you can do:
To fix the resolution issue, open Finder and go to the OS X drive on the left. Open the folder called Extras. Right Click on the file com.Apple.Boot.plist and open it with TextEdit. Under the first insert this:
Graphics Mode
1280x1024x32or another compatible resolution. Select "Save As" at the top and save it to the desktop, unchecking the check under Unicode and then save it as com.apple.boot.plist. After that drag and drop it into the extras folder and overwrite the original file, entering your password when prompted.
Instructions for the sound issue can be found here.
Don't install system updates. If you want updates you'll have to install another iso distribution with the updates on it. If you install the updates directly from apple it messes with the custom kexts and chameleon. Just a forewarning.
And for those of you getting boot issues try choosing a different version of Chameleon or a different kernel. Sometimes that seems to help. And If your getting one of the USB errors then try disabling USB in the VirtualBox settings and see if that helps.
OSX in Virtual Box (Hackintoshed VM) [Tek411]
Problem occurs because the VM needs to use VT (Virtualisation Technology). This must be enabled on the BIOS.
1.) Reboot machine
2.) Enter Bios and look for performance/processor settings
3.) Make sure VT is enabled
4.) IMPORTANT: make sure Trusted Execution is disabled (this is unsupported and you get that annoying box come up everytime you start the VM.)
5.) Save/Exit
6.) When you start the VM now, you should not see the error box and the ISO will boot.
Thanks,
Ben
Essential Free Mac Applications
Most Popular Free Mac Downloads of 2010
Unless you built yourself a Hackintosh, Macs can be get pretty expensive. Fortunately, some of the best Mac software costs you absolutely nothing. Here's a look at the most popular, free Mac downloads for 2010.
VLC 1.1 Brings Hardware Acceleration and Lighter Operation to Media Playing
VLC's been around for awhile, playing basically any media file you can throw at it, but things got especially good on the Mac with version 1.1. This update brought hardware video acceleration, support for the the open WebM video standard, and making it extra fast. If you're not up-to-date on your VLC knowledge, you can go through our full VLC coverage, spanning more than just a Mac to give you VLC playback support on other Apple devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
VirtualBox 3.2 Beta Virtualizes Mac OS X (On Macs)
VirtualBox is a free solution for putting a virtual Mac on Mac. Why might you want to do this? If you want to test a thing or two on a Mac without putting your own system at risk, a virtual machine is an excellent solution. It's also extremely useful for Hackintoshers who want to test specific settings. Whatever reason you have for needing a virtual Mac in a Mac, VirtualBox is a great, free solution.
Kylo Is a Big-Screen, TV-Optimized Web Browser
Maybe you've got a Mac mini hooked up to your TV and you want to use it for more than just playing videos. Kylo makes web browsing a lot easier with its TV-optimized user interface. Everything is a bit bigger than you'd actually like it on your laptop or desktop, but those big buttons and couch-friendly features make browsing a lot easier in the living room.
MakeMKV Rips DVDs and Blu-Rays with Just Two Clicks
There is still no official Blu-ray support on the Mac, which is extremely frustrating for some. Nonetheless, if you're intent on ripping your Blu-rays to high quality MKV files, MakeMKV will do the trick. It's very straightforward and surprisingly quick. It's also pretty much your only option—if you need to rip Blu-rays—so be very glad it exists.
MediaRover Is Push Sync for Your iTunes Libraries
While I wouldn't call MediaRover the holy grail of iTunes sync, it is free and pretty great. Media Rover lets you take multiple machines (both Macs and PCs) and sync your music between them all. It only works on your local network and needs a network-attached storage device or central Mac to act as your iTunes hub, but if all of that works for you then MediaRover will too.
HyperDock Brings Window Previews, Other Dock Enhancements to OS X
Apple likes to criticize Microsoft for copying user interface elements from OS X, but lately Microsoft's come up with a few gems of their own. One of the more popular user interface features in Windows 7 is Aero Peek, letting you hover over a minimized application and quickly get a preview of the open windows. If you'd like to have a little Aero Peek on your Mac, HyperDock can provide. In addition to peeking at your docked application's windows, it also provides a number of window management features as well.
Perian Makes Nearly Every Video Playable in QuickTime
If VLC were a plug-in for QuickTime it would be Perian. While Perian isn't quite as versatile as VLC, if you prefer the minimalist, attractive interface that QuickTime Player provides you'll really appreciate Perian. All you have to do is install it and suddenly QuickTime will support a slew of new video formats. Even if you're like me and use VLC primarily, it's worth installing Perian anyhow for QuickLook support or for the occasional moment when you do use QuickTime Player instead.
CloudApp Instantly Shares Any File, Is My New Favorite Timesaver
I have an obsession with menubar apps, since they're so tiny and offer some of the best, simple functionality. CloudApp exemplifies what's great about about great menubar apps, letting you quickly drag a file to the menubar and share it with anyone. It reduces file sharing to a single step and provides a great online interface for uploaded files.
