how to build a hack into sh mac
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Lifehacker
w to Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy Steps
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How to Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy StepsBuilding a Hackintosh from
scratchthat is, installing
OS X on non-Mac
hardwarehas never been
easier, and the final produc
has never performed better
Here's how it works.
Note: This is our third and
most recent Hackintosh bui
(here are the now-outdated
first and second). This time
make things really easy on
you, we put together a vide
walkthrough of the entire
process. You can watch th
video in its entirety below,
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 byPex "Mahoney" Tufvession.
What You'll Need
Before you get started building your Hackintosh, you will, of course, need a few supplies.
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The HardwareThere's no such thing as a definitive Hackintosh build, and you can find plenty of hardware that will run OS X using this or
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'
using and that I can guarantee runs like a dream (or at least it does for me). Also, the installation process below is tailored t
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:
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
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 Hackinto
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.
Antec Sonata III Case
500W Power Supply
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
Intel Motherboard
EVGA GeForce 9500
01G-P3-N959-TR Video
Intel Core i7-860 2.8G
LGA 1156 95W Quad-Co
Processor
G.SKILL Ripjaws Seri
4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory x 2 (for a total of 8GB); the amo
of RAM you choose is optional.
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD): This SSD isn't strictly necessar
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
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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
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 obvi(the Snow Leopard install
DVD), you'll need to downl
some files that'll contain th
tools that let you install OS
on your machine. The meth
I'm using to install OS X on
Hackintosh this time aroun
a new one by a guy called
tonymacx86, and it's really
great. I've added direct link
the downloads below, but all credit goes to tonymac for the dead-simple tools.
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 funand easypart. The process this time around is surprisingly simple, but I'll still walk you through t
process step by step.
Step One: Burn iBoot to a Disc
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 l ink on this page below step three)
Other post-installation files
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Above I told you to download iBootfrom tonymacx86. If you haven't already, unzip iBoot.zip and extract iBoot.iso. Now it's ti
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 Windo
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.
Hit F10 to save your changes and exit the BIOS.
Step Three: Boot from iBoot into the Snow Leopard Install DVD
1. On the first BIOS screen, arrow down to the entry labeled Storage Configuration, hit Enter, and change "ConfigurSATA as" to AHCI. Press Escape once.
2. Next, arrow over to the Advanced tab, then arrow down to the section labeled Onboard Devices Configuration. Hi
Enter, find the Marvell 9123 SATA Controller entry, and set it to AHCI. Press Escape.
3. Now arrow over to the Power section and set Suspend Mode to S3 only.
4. Finally, arrow over to the Boot tab, hit Enter on Boot Device Priority, and set your first boot device to boot first fro
your DVD drive, then set your second boot device as your primary hard drive.
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When your system restarts, put the iBoot disc you burned above into the DVD drive. Assuming you set everything correctly
your BIOS, iBoot should boot into the screen below.
When you get to this scree
eject your iBoot disc, insert
Snow Leopard install DVD,
and press F5 on your
keyboard. In few seconds,
iBoot disc in the center sho
be replaced by a new disc
labeled Mac OS X Install D
(If it doesn't right away, wai
few seconds and hit F5 ag
Once it does, hit Enter, and
your computer will boot int
the Snow Leopard installati
wizard.
Step Four: Format
Your Disk and Install OS X
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After a minute or two of loading up, you should be looking at the Snow Leopard installation wizard. Select your language an
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 w
the installer.
The installation is completely straightforward, so just follow along with the default settings. When the installation finishes (th
time will varyit always claims it'll take 30+ minutes, but is normally done in 10 to 20), you'll most likely see the Install Faile
screen pictured below.
Don't panic! This is all par
the process. Just click rest
put iBoot back in the drive,
and this time, when your
computer restarts, iBoot's
Chameleon bootloader will
give you the option to boot
your new installation. Sele
and hit Enter.
Step Five: Update
but Don't Restart
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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 th
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 mos
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 computerat 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 othe
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
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thumb drive) and open MultiBeast. This tool will allow you to boot from your hard drive going forward, so you don't need to
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 th
EasyBeast installation completes, eject the iBoot disc and restart your computer. Once you've rebooted, you've got one mo
step to go.
Step Seven: Copy Custom Kexts to Extra Folder, Manually Add Sound and EthernetKexts Using Kext Utility
Now it's time to use those ot
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/Extensions folder at the root of your driveFinder, you can just type Cmd+Shift+G, type /Extra/Extensions, and press Enter).
Now drag all the files from your thumb drive's Extra/Extensions folder into your hard drive's Extra/Extensions fold
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 a
two kext files named VoodooHDA.kext and RealtekR1000SL.kext. Drag and drop VoodooHDA.kext onto Kext Utility (enter y
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 compute
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
fast, especially on startup. I've added a handful of startup applications to my login items, including apps like Chrome. When
system boots, all of my startup applications are running before my desktop fades in from blueit feels more like resuming fr
sleep than rebooting.
w to Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy Steps
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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Another thing to note: About this Mac identifies the processor as i5, but it's a superficial issue. You could manually edit the t
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.
Adam Pashis the editor of Lifehacker, loves to tinker, and can't bring himself to buy what he can build himself for less.
You can find his work daily on Lifehacker, or follow@adampashon Twitter.
Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at [email protected].
w to Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy Steps