Installing Mac OS on MacBook. How to Install Mac OS X on Windows PC Using VirtualBox
Sooner or later the day comes when you need to reinstall the Mac OS operating system on your MacBook PC. This task is no more difficult than reinstalling Windows. This is what we will talk about.
operating system on MacBook
The reasons for reinstalling the MacOS operating system on a Mac computer are as follows:
- Damage or wear of the built-in storage device (HDD);
- selling or donating a MacBook to another person;
- “moving” to another MacBook (a newer model, but maintaining the previous version of the MacOS system);
- transferring data to Apple gadgets or to another computer.
What happens when reinstalling MacOS:
- “from scratch”, including formatting the built-in disk;
- reinstallation “on top”, preserving personal data and applications (macOS update).
For example, using the MacAppStore, you can upgrade your version of OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion to a newer version - OS X Mavericks.
Here are the steps to follow when selling or transferring your Mac to someone else. It deserves special mention.
- Backing up personal data from a MacBook to a separate media or cloud service.
- Disabling special services and functionality that manage data copying and transfer.
- Erase all personal information from the disk.
Attention! Before you start reinstalling MacOS on your MacBook PC, take the trouble to save all your data on an external drive! This will be discussed first.
Backing Up Data Using Time Machine
The Time Machine application is designed to backup personal files from a MacBook and restore them back to it. But it requires external USB drives (HDD, SDD drives) formatted in MacOS Extended or Xsan - FAT/NTFS file systems designed for Windows and Android are not supported. If the disk was previously formatted in FAT/NTFS formats, the MacBook will not accept it if you refuse to reformat it to your liking.
The Time Machine application is launched from the MacOS system preferences in the Apple menu. When you connect an external hard drive, a corresponding notification will appear.
Do you really want to destroy all data recorded on this drive in a different format?
If the external drive has already been formatted, the Time Machine application will give the go-ahead for its use. Confirm your request.
Do you really want to copy your data to this drive?
If Time Machine does not show disk selection, do the following.
Interestingly, backups in the Time Machine program are fully automated - the backup copy is “refreshed” hourly, and their storage is organized, so you won’t get lost in them. In addition, copying is also possible to an Apple server (like iCloud) and to local network storage that supports the Apple File Protocol. All this often helps, if you need to reinstall MacOS, to avoid losing precious working time.
After copying all your data, you can start reinstalling MacOS.
Reinstalling MacOS on Mac
There are several ways to reinstall the MacOS operating system on a MacBook: a “clean” installation from a flash drive, installation “over” a previous version (updating from MacAppStore) and restoring MacOS from a backup.
How to reinstall Mac OS from an installation flash drive
The preliminary steps are as follows.
- Download the Mac OS X installation image from the Mac App Store or third-party sites.
- Once the download is complete, right-click on the downloaded file and select “Show package contents.”
- Go to the /Contents/SharedSupport/ folder, copy the InstallESD.dmg file to a safe location on your disk, and mount it to your MacOS desktop.
We will need the Disk Utility application included with MacOS. The next steps are as follows.
Disk Utility will create an installation flash drive automatically, and it does this operation quite reliably. When copying is complete, Disk Utility will notify you.
Congratulations! The MacOS installation flash drive has been created! You can restart your MacBook. Preparing to install MacOS is as follows.
All! MacOS installation has started. The MacOS operating system will install automatically - this will take 30-100 minutes, depending on the performance of your MacBook. After it, your PC will be immediately ready for use.
How to install the system without formatting the internal drive
Installing MacOS without erasing the disk means downloading and installing MacOS updates directly from the MacAppStore. An installation flash drive is not needed here. This is reminiscent of updating iOS on smartphones and tablets over the air. This method is good for those who once bought a MacBook - and are not going to change it, but, on the contrary, will work on it for many years, because MacBook computers, like Apple iDevice gadgets, are very high quality, reliable and convenient.
Before updating, check whether your MacBook meets the hardware requirements of the new version of MacOS - otherwise it will slow down.
Not every previous version of MacOS can be updated to the desired version. So, if your MacBook is running macOS Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and your MacBook will run macOS Sierra, first upgrade to macOS X El Capitan.
The version of MacOS Sierra is taken as an example. Other copies are searched and “installed” in exactly the same way. Your actions are as follows.
If you have OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 (or more recent), the macOS Sierra version downloads silently. You will then be prompted to install this version.
Click on the install button
During the installation of MacOS, the PC restarts several times. If this version does not suit you (the performance of the MacBook has dropped), “roll back” to the previous one (for example, OS X El Capitan), with which the PC performance was very satisfactory.
Restoring MacOS from a backup
For example, we take a “rollback” from MacOS Sierra (10.12) back to OS X El Capitan (10.11) or OS X Yosemite (10.10). Let's say there are backups made in the Time Machine application before installing MacOS Sierra.
Important! You can restore a MacOS system from a backup only on the same MacBook. Trying to transfer your copy of MacOS with data to another PC in this way is useless. Use other methods.
- Connect your external drive to your MacBook and save your existing files to Time Machine, naming the new copy MacOS Sierra.
- Open a previous copy of OS X Yosemite with Time Machine on a different drive after connecting it to your MacBook.
- Restart your MacBook while holding down Command+R on your keyboard. The familiar MacOS recovery menu will open.
- From the OS X Utilities menu, select Restore from Time Machine Backup.
- Once in the “Recover from Time Machine” recovery window, click on “Continue”, and then specify the source - the disk with the OS X El Capitan “backup”.
- The saved copy should be: In the case of OS X El Capitan, the MacOS version should be 10.11.x. Click the Continue button. Specify the installation disk to restore from a copy, click on “Restore”.
Ready! The OS X El Capitan version will be reinstalled.
Transferring a copy of the operating system and your data to another MacBook
Go to Programs/Utilities and open Migration Assistant. The structure of your files and folders will be preserved.
Click to continue
When running, the application requires closing all other running programs.
If both computers are working, but you still want to duplicate your version of MacOS and all data on the second computer, connect the computers to each other using a LAN cable via a Wi-Fi wireless network. Connecting directly using a Thunderbolt or FireWire cable will require running your previous Mac in backup mode, which will make the Assistant experience a little more complicated. However, both methods work well. You can connect an external disk with a backup copy to the new PC instead of the previous PC - in this case, the operation of the Assistant on the new PC will not change significantly.
So, the procedure is as follows. As an example, we take the normal operating mode of a previous PC with “Assistant”.
All! The copy session has started. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours, depending on the amount of data and the performance of both Macs.
Problems encountered when reinstalling MacOS
Problems when updating or “rolling back” may be as follows.
- No recent backups. You once disabled backup yourself. Copy your files now to avoid losing them by starting the process manually. Enable backup.
- An error occurred during the next backup or when restoring personal data from a previous copy. The external drive that was previously recorded is unsuitable for further use. Contact an Apple service center or certified computer repair shop to restore your data. This procedure is not free.
- Error during the next MacOS update. Your Mac PC may no longer be supported. This happens once every few years. You will continue to use the current version of MacOS until you replace your Apple PC.
- The computer began to work noticeably slower than before the update. The minimum system requirements of the next new version are equal to or exceed the technical specifications of your PC. “Roll back” to any previous version of MacOS. Typically, Apple tries to prevent this from happening - it simply stops supporting older computers, just as it is no longer possible to install iOS 10.x on iPhone 4x devices.
- After several active years, your PC suddenly began to freeze despite the fact that you did not update MacOS. Maybe it's time to replace the internal HDD/SSD drive? Try to back up your important data before replacing the internal drive - while something is still being read from it.
- It is impossible to “roll back” to one of the previously installed versions of MacOS. The “rollback” must be done gradually. If there are no previous backups, download a new “image” and “roll back” to this version first, and then repeat the “roll back” to an even earlier version of MacOS.
Video on the topic
Reinstalling MacOS - “on top” or “from scratch” - is not difficult. It is only important to secure your data. This is a real way to extend the life of your beloved MacBook for another number of years. You will succeed!
They will be happy to tell you about the features of the Mac OS operating system and how it can be installed on a regular PC.
Historically, most people who would like to work with the Mac OS X operating system are exposed to a number of myths about both the operating system itself and the Macintoshes themselves. Before we talk directly about installation, let's dispel the most common myths.
1. Mac OS X can only be installed on computers with compatible processors and chipsets from Intel and video cards from NVidia, and most of the peripherals will not work.
Yes, it was once like this. But progress is an unstable thing in a good way. More and more new drivers are constantly being released, and the amount of hardware compatible with Mac OS X is constantly growing. Now Mac OS X can easily be installed on a computer whose processor only supports SSE2 (preferably SSE3), for example, AMD or Intel. Almost all new video cards support various types of hardware acceleration (GL, Quartz Extreme, Quartz 2d, Core Image, 2). That is, I think it is clear that too unaffordable demands will not be placed on your computer.
2. Installing Mac OS X is very difficult
In fact, everything is somewhat different. Installing Mac OS X is no more difficult than Windows if you choose the right texts and fixes.
3. Mac OS X will not be able to function on the same physical disk with Windows.
How could it? There are 2 options:
- Windows bootloader + chain0
- Acronis OS Selector
So let's get down to business.
Step 1. Preparation.
First, you need to check your computer to make sure it meets Mac OS X requirements.
The minimum requirement is to have a processor that supports SSE2. This matter can be determined using the CPU-Z program. It can be easily downloaded from the Internet.
RAM must be at least 256 MB and the more the better.
The video card should not be very ancient - AGP or PCI-E starting from GF4
You must clearly understand what and why you are going to do.
Be prepared for your first installation of Mac OS X to take 4-6 hours of your time.
Many people recommend downloading and burning Hiren’s Boot CD. If there are partitions in NTFS format on the same disk where you are going to install Mac OS, then it will be better if you convert them to FAT32, since when creating a partition an error may occur and the file system will become unreadable. There is an alternative option - to transfer the data to another physical disk or even to a flash drive.
In general, print this text before installation to be sure that you have not forgotten anything.
Step 2. Download the installation disk image.
First of all, you need to decide on the version of Mac OS X: at the moment the latest is 10.5. Since our task is to familiarize ourselves with the system, it is advisable to install version 10.4.6 or 10.4.7, since they install with less difficulty. Then you can update the system using combo-update. Next, go to rutracker.org and write something like this in the search bar: Mac OS X 10.4.6. Find the installation disk image.
If the file is in ISO format, you can easily burn it to disk, but if it is in DMG format, you will also have to download the DMG2ISO program and convert the file to ISO.
Step 3. Burn the image to disk
To create a bootable disk, you will need a blank disk and Nero or Alcohol 120% program. We think you can handle the recording process on your own. After burning, if you open the disk on a Windows computer and see that it is empty or contains only a couple of small documents, do not be alarmed, this is how it should be.
Step 4. Installation.
We insert the disk into the drive and reboot, naturally before setting boot from the optical drive as priority in the BIOS. When you see a message about starting installation from disk, press F8, or wait a couple of seconds and enter the “-v” parameter. If you do not do this, the graphical installation mode will start. Of course, this is beautiful, but we need text mode, since only in it can we see installation errors.
There are two most common mistakes:
“system config file ‘/com.apple.Boot.plist’ not found” – the Mac OS X distribution turned out to be “crooked” and you will have to download another one;
“Still waiting for root device” – there is probably a problem with the hardware, possibly incompatibility.
If the preload went smoothly, you will see a blue display with a cursor in front of you. You will be prompted to select a language. Choose which one you like from those offered. Click on the arrow and a menu appears at the top. In it, select Utilities -> Disk Utility and format the partition in which we will install the operating system, of course in the Mac OS Extended journaled format.
It sometimes happens that Disk Utility cannot format or mount a partition. No problem - this can be done with Acronis. How exactly? We select manual mode for working with partitions in Acronis Disk Director Suite and create a FAT32 partition. Next, in the partition context menu, change the partition type to 0xAFh (Shag OS Swap). Acronis will worry that all data will be destroyed. We reassure him, since we don’t have any data there anyway. Apply and reboot.
After successful formatting, click “continue”. A license agreement will appear, after which we select the previously prepared partition for installation. Click “continue”. Click “settings” (Customize) and select components to install. Particular attention should be paid to kexts and patches, namely, you need to install only those patches that are needed specifically for your system. You don't need anything extra. Under no circumstances install patches for SSE2 and SSE3 at the same time. You only need the one that suits your processor. Click “continue”. The preparation and verification of the disk will begin. Once the installation is complete, the computer will automatically reboot.
Step 5: Complete installation.
After a reboot, there are two possible outcomes - good and bad. If good, the system will boot normally (especially if you are using Acronis OS Selector). In the worst case scenario, you will see a b0 error message. In this case, we boot from Hiren’s boot CD and, using Acronis Disk Director, make the partition with the freshly installed operating system active. Let's reboot.
The system will boot and prompt you to enter various information - dutifully enter everything except the Mac ID, leave it blank, otherwise the system may start to freeze.
If you did everything correctly, the desktop will load. Hooray!
macOS is an advanced and at the same time reliable operating system that many PC users chose instead of Windows 10. Unfortunately, installing the Apple platform on a computer from another manufacturer is not so easy. The easiest and most convenient way is to boot a virtual machine.
Requirements for installing macOS on a Windows PC
To install Mac OS X (10.5 and higher) on a Windows PC, you will need a virtual machine. You can use VMWare, which allows you to run the macOS operating system in a Windows environment. As for hardware requirements, they are as follows:
- 8 GB RAM.
- Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processor.
- 128 GB hard disk space.
Applications needed to install Mac on Windows PC or laptop
You also need to download the macOS image. The password is “xnohat”.
How to Install Mac OS X on Windows
Step 1: Install the latest version of VMWare Workstation.
Step 2. Unpack Unlocker 2.0.8 and run the “win-install.cmd” file as administrator.
Step 3. After launching, you need to wait until the patch is installed and unlocks the ability to install macOS in VMWare. Open VMWare and create a new virtual machine (automatic method). In the window that appears, select “Apple Mac OS X.” In the Version list, select Mac OS X 10.7 or any newer version.
Step 4: After clicking the “Next” button, the virtual machine will be created. In order for macOS to work properly, you need to configure the hardware. To do this, select “Edit Virtual Machine Settings”.
Step 5: Click the "Add" button, then click "Next" twice and select "Use an Existing Virtual Disk" and click "Next" again. Now select the operating system image you downloaded earlier and click “Finish”.
Step 6: After completing all the settings, click on the blue launch button and follow the on-screen instructions to install OS X.
You cannot write code for iPhone on PC. Apple party politics. Although the iPhone SDK is classic GCC, I don’t know of cases where it was written on a PC. But you can still install the iPhone SDK on a jailbroken device, write and run code directly on the phone/tablet.
There are rumors that installing MacOS on a regular PC is "difficult and uneasy".
In fact, it all depends on luck :) On luck and on hardware.
In my case, installing MacOS X was a little more difficult than installing Windows 7.
There are a lot of installation paths. I will describe the simplest and most straightforward one. Complex options are not for me. If something doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that you can’t install MacOS. Perhaps it is possible, but in more complicated ways. For laptops, you can look for ready-made images of boot disks (modified by craftsmen).
The latest line of Macs is just a regular PC. An ordinary PC with a slightly modified bios. And MacOS only has drivers for a limited set of devices that come with Macs.
There is no need to reflash the bios (although this is one of the possible ways). I now have MacOS X, Win XP, Win 7 running on one hardware. But I’ll have to look for the firewood (written by craftsmen, even in the source code).
Briefly: "Download a special boot disk, reboot from it, insert the original MacOS X DVD, install it, update it, search for and install drivers. That's it."
0. Setting up bios
Optional, but desirable part.
1. Set the SATA controller to AHCI mode (I have always had it as AHCI).
2. Turn ACPI on (some people advise, on the contrary, turn it off).
3. Switch HPET (timer) to 64-bit mode (I didn’t find one like that).
4. Turn off all processor cores except one (I haven’t found one like this).
5. Turn off SpeedStep.
Everything works for me regardless of the ACPI and SpeedStep settings.
1. Is it worth visiting at all?
Burn .iso to CD-RW. We boot from it, if a disk selection menu appears - hurray, your PC is now almost a Mac. If it doesn’t work, try another .iso. I downloaded the very first one, for regular hardware: empireEFIv1085.iso.
If all .isos do not work, you can try older versions of EmpireEFI. If nothing suits you, then the simple option is not for you. There are a lot of complicated installation options left ( Google, forum and wiki to help), or buy Mac-compatible hardware (list), or buy a PC with MacOS already configured and installed (there are companies that do this), or find those who will supply MacOS, or still buy a real Mac ( having overpaid twice).
2. You need a regular MacOS X installation DVD
Now your PC is almost a Mac. You can insert the MacOS X boot DVD and install it.
For iPhone SDK 4.0, you need version 10.6 or older. I installed 10.6.3, auto update updated it to 10.6.4.
Where can I get such a disk?
1. From a friend of a poppy grower.
2. Buy in a store.
3. Download the image from the Internet and burn it to DVD-R DL (double layer) which is 8Gb.
4. Download the image from the Internet and make a bootable USB flash drive.
If you have a familiar Mac driver with a bootable DVD, this is the best way. It will help you install and configure MacOS.
If the “hi-tech crime department” often comes to visit you, buy the official disc. Installing MacOS on a PC violates the Apple license, but this license is not valid in the Russian Federation, because violates the laws of the Russian Federation (specifically, Article 1280 of the Civil Code). This license also violates laws and is not valid in Europe, but not in the USA.
You can download the image, for example, from here.
It is in Mac .dmg format.
This format for Windows can write (and convert to .iso): PowerISO, UltraISO.
You can simply convert to .iso using dmg2img.
You need to write to a two-layer DVD-R DL disc, at the minimum possible speed and with a recording check. If the installer cannot read something from the disk, he will write to you that you can throw the disk out the window.
To make a bootable USB flash drive, you need an already installed MacOS (even one running under VMWare will do) and a flash drive with a size of 8Gb or larger.
3. Where will we put it?
I don’t know how to install MacOS on one physical disk without erasing the already installed Windows. Paragon Partition Manager can create MacOS partitions on the same disk with Windows; the MacOS installer even sees this partition, but refuses to install it on it. He wants a GUID for the entire disk, but refuses to install it on the MBR.
But you can install MacOS, and then Windows (using BootCamp).
I did a simple thing - I bought a new disk specifically for MacOS.
4. Installation
We boot from the EmpireEFI CD, when the disk selection menu appears, remove the CD and insert the MacOS DVD (or bootable USB flash drive), select the disk from which the installation will take place. That's all.
For advanced installation diagnostics: in the disk selection menu, press Tab (which will switch to text mode), select the disk (up/down arrows) and type "-v".
If you see a language selection menu, then you're in luck the second time :)
If the USB keyboard or mouse does not work, then try removing and inserting them until they work. This only happened to me once, all other times everything worked without problems.
Switch languages: Win+Space.
The installation is no different from installing on a Mac.
When prompted to select a disk where to install, go to the menu (which is at the top): Utilities -> Disk Utility, select the disk, go to the Erase tab, set Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and click on Erase. After formatting, we exit the utility and see that a new disk has appeared suitable for installation.
MacOS will take up 7 GB of disk space.
5. After installation
After installation, my network card and Internet immediately started working. Updating the system to 10.6.4 via the Internet was successful (Apple -> Software Update), it downloaded more than a gigabyte. If the driver for the network card does not work, you can always configure it later.
I disabled all sleep modes (System Preferences -> Energy Saver). I have them disabled in Windows, and they wrote on the forums that there could be problems: either it won’t fall asleep, or it won’t wake up. I didn’t even try it myself. Restart and Shut Down - work.
MacOS will not boot on its own. To boot, you must first boot from the EmpireEFI CD and select the drive where you installed MacOS. To boot ourselves, we need myHack or Chameleon, both of which are on the EmpireEFI (Empire EFI/Post-Installation) CD. First, install myHack; if MacOS will not load, install Chameleon. And don’t forget to set the first boot disk with MacOS in bios.
If MacOS does not boot (wrong bootloader or driver does not fit), you can always boot from the EmpireEFI CD.
I have a new myHack, downloaded from the Internet, but it doesn’t work. Chameleon - got up, the old myHack with CD Empire - also got up, stopped on it, because... it boots MacOS without any extra clicks.
MyHack and Chameleon prompt you to select a boot disk at startup - this way you can boot into Windows (if you have one). You can also select the boot disk when you start the computer using Shift+F8 (my bios can do this).
6. Drivers
Drivers in MacOS have the extension .kext
The main (system) drivers are here: /System/Library/Extensions/
Drivers for PC: /Extra/Extensions/
A basic set of drivers is on the EmpireEFI CD: /EmpireEFI/Extra/Preboot.dmg/Extra/Exten sions/
Copy all these .kext to /Extra/Extensions/
Information about hardware as MacOS sees it: Apple -> About This Mac -> More Info.
If the network card does not work, you can search for drivers under Windows. MacOS can read NTFS and FAT drives. My MacOS sees all WinXP and Win7 disks in read-only mode. You can also download the drivers onto a flash drive.
Place the drivers in /Extra/Extensions. Sometimes you need to put the driver in /System/Library/Extensions, replacing the system one (this is written in the driver description). Sometimes you need to erase the system driver.
After changes in drivers, you need to update the driver cache.
This is easy to do with pfix. We launch it, it will ask for the password for the system and the disk number where the system is located. It works for a long time, about 15 minutes. If the system has an empty password, pfix does not understand this; it needs at least a 1-letter password (change the password here: System Preferences -> Accounts).
The driver for NVidia installed right away, I tried the first one I came across: NVEnabler 64.kext
After updating the driver cache and rebooting, the mode changed from 1024x768 to 1920x1080 and new modes appeared in System Preferences -> Displays.
I didn't find a driver for my mother. Everything worked as is, except for the sound. I read on the forums that my mother needs a universal sound driver, VoodooHDA.kext. I tried different drivers: either there was no sound, then volume did not work, then volume worked, but there was noise at maximum. This driver worked with a bang when the system AppleHDA.kext was erased.