Our previous guide:  Install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on your PC was rather difficult for beginners, this one is going to be way more simpler, thanks to the UniBeast.

UniBeast + MultiBeast makes thing smooth and easy. You can Clean Install OS X Lion 10.7.2 or update Snow Leopard 10.6.x to 10.7.2.

Pre-requisites:

All  you need is:

• Existing Mac OS X – For preparing bootable USB. You can borrow your friend’s Macbook or even do it via any hackintosh.
• 8GB or Larger USB pen drive
• OS X Lion Install application (via Mac App Store) OR Official Apple OS X Lion Install USB drive. (Buy it at apple.com or Apple store)

You can easily pirate an OS, but we recommend you buy OS X Lion, that ways your hackintosh becomes semi-legal.

Update: We’re trying to make this OS X Lion guide compatible with OS X Lion 10.7.3 Update. Stay tuned.

How to Install OS X Lion 10.7.2 on PC [Laptop, Desktop] using USB

Step 1. Creating Bootable USB drive

I. Formatting your USB pen drive:

• On a Mac OS X, insert blank 8gb usb drive,  Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).
• Select your USB drive on left and click Partition tab on the right. Click Current, and choose 1 Partition.
• Give it a name e.g. Geeknizer.
• Click Options, select Master Boot Record and hit Ok.
• Navigate to Format tab and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Apply, then Partition.

II. Modding OS X Lion with Unibeast.

If you’re using Install Mac OS X Lion Application (downloaded via App Store), make sure its available in Applications folder. In case you’re using OS X Lion USB drive, make sure its connected and mounted.

• Download UniBeast and run it. (You’ll need to register on tonymac forums)
• Proceed normally, when asked for destination choose your USB drive (geeknizer) that you formatted earlier.
• Choose your installation type: Mac App store Install Mac OS X Lion or Thumb drive. If you will install this on a Laptop, check mark third option “Laptop Support” too. Click continue, then Install.

Sit back and relax while your USB pen drive (geeknizer) is prepared for the Hackintosh.

Step 2. Installing OS X Lion on PC

Go to the PC you would want to hackintosh.

I. Preparing BIOS:

• While booting, press F12 (or f10 on older PCs) to enter BIOS settings.
• Go to boot priority and set USB-HDD to highest.
• Set HDD SATA mode to AHCI.
• Set ACPI to S3
• Set Xtreme hard drive to Disabled.

Now reboot your PC with geeknizer USB plugged in and you would be booted into Chimera boot screen that lets you boot from USB drive. For booting into installer, you may need to enter following flags.

• Nvidia cards are supported by default. For AMD Radeon 6670 type – “PCIRootUID=0″
• For Unsupported graphics  type – “GraphicsEnabler=No”
• Boot in single-suer mode – “-s”
• Boot in verbose mode – use this if you face any issues, this will show detailed error messages that you can post in comments section at the end of the post – “-v”
• Boot in Sage mode – Try this if you fail to boot into installer – “-x”

II. Preparing Hard disk partition for OS X Install

When you see the installation screen, follow the following steps, skip them if you’re upgrading from Snow Leopard.

• Warning: This will erase all data on your HDD.
• Open Disk Utility ( Menubar > Utilities). Select your target Hard disk on left > Partiton tab > Choose 1 Partition > Options > GUID Partition Method.
• Give it a name e.g. LionGeek, Format > Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• If you wish to install side-by-side with windows installation, create a new partition instead and format it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, using HDD exclusively for OS X Macintosh installation would avoid a lot of trouble.

III. Proceeding with the Installation

• Proceed with Installation and when Installer asks you the location to install Lion to choose LionGeek.
• When installation completes, restart system.

IV. Booting the First time

• At this point your LionGeek is not bootable, boot from geeknizer USB drive and choose LionGeek when prompted.
• Download Multibeast, the one stop solution to fix Boot, all drivers  for Audio, Graphics, Network. It also includes system utilities to repair permissions and more.
• Go to DSDT database and Download DSDT corresponding to your motherboard. It would download a .aml file, move it to Desktop.
• Run MultiBeast’s UserDSDT, select the .aml file and proceed with the install. Reboot when done.
• Run MultiBeast and install any other drivers you may need to make your hardware peripherals like Sound, Network to work.

You should now have a fully self-booting OS X Lion installation.

Updating Hackintosh to 10.7.3 & later

One thing to remember is that updating to pretty straightforward and you won’t run into issues, but it’s good to check tonymacx86′s blog when updates are released to see what you’ll need to do. In most cases you’ll just download the latest update from Apple directly (rather than running Software Update), remove Sleepenabler.kext (provided you’re using it), and then re-install it and any overwritten drivers using MultiBeast.

In most cases, the only driver you’ll have to reinstall is the AppleHDA Rollback, because that driver needs to be installed directly into your System Library where OS X makes changes. If you made any edits to graphics drivers, the update may overwrite them so you’ll need to make those edits to the new, updated drivers as well.

Download the updater directly from Apple rather than Software update. If you ever get into trouble, restoring from a backup is considerably less time-consuming than going through this entire process again from scratch.

Its easy to be lost somewhere in the middle, feel free to ask questions via @geeknizer or +Geeknizer or in the comments below. Thanks to Tonymac for making it possible.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us @geeknizer OR on Facebook Fanpage, Google+.

Why 10.6.6? Apple introduced Mac App Store, a versatile store for Mac apps, so if you wish to try them out, here’s your easiest bet!

Summary for Snow Leopard 10.6.6 VMware : We’ll download a pre-configured Vmware image for OSX 10.6.6 and then upgrade it to 10.7 Lion.

Pre-requisites / Downloads

• VMware Workstation 7
• Hardware Virtualization support
• Mac OSX 10.6.6 Vmware Image

Running Mac OSX 10.6.6 in VMWare Workstation

This would be pretty easy if you are not new to Vmware and Hackintosh installations. Its pretty straightforward, most of the stuff is already in-place.

• Launch VMWare Worksation and Select “Open Existing VM or Team”
• Unzip downloaded file and Browse and Select MacOs10.6.6 (If it asks you to “Take Ownership”, do so.)
• For the first Run, do not change settings, just Power on the virtual machine.
• Select “Moved it” if you get a prompt about virtual machine files.
• At run time, you would see the empire EFI screen, click on the screen so that you are “In” the virtual machine and Press F5.
• Using your arrow pad, hit the “Left” arrow to chose the “mac” named hard drive.
• On arrow pad again, hit the “Down” arrow. Go down once more to the “Boot Verbose” option.
• On the bottom of Mac desktop, hit the gear looking icon (system preferences.) That should be easy to find even though its all russian.
• In the top category select the thing that looks like a flag. Click and drag English to the top.
• Go to next tab and chose the top two tabs to “U.S. English” and “English (United States).” or any other language you are comfortable with. When done, log out. On next login it will ask you password. Just hit enter, there’s no password set.
• That’s’ all you are now running Mac OSX in Vmware.
• You can configure settings for your virtual machine on next boot. Play around with RAM and Video RAM settings.

What’s Next: Install Mac OSX Lion 10.7 on VMware workstation, stand by.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@taranfx on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Its now possible to Install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on your PC with the standard Hackintosh techniques.

Note: Hackintosh PCs are for nerds who desire to have them with effort, if you are lazy, you may quit now.

This Hackintosh is based on the developer release of Mac OS X Lion released to Apple’s developers.

Update: You can checkout the video of my hackintosh at the end of the post.

Minimum Requirements:

• Intel Core 2 Duo or better i.e. Core i3, i5, i7. (no Core Duo or AMD right now).
• 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
• A Nvidia or ATi radeon graphics card. (On Intels get ready to go glitchy)

Pre-Requisites:

• Mac OS X Lion .dmg image (Search on torrents or ask your Apple developer program friends)
• Existing Hackintosh PC – Can be a Snow Leopard or Leopard form any of our existing guides. OR ask any of your friends to lend you a Mac for preparing USB.
• EFI Boot Loader – iBoot Download (Let me know @taranfx on twitter if link goes down)
• 2 USB thumb drives, one  atleast 8gb in size.

How to Install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on PC/Laptop

1. Boot into existing Mac OS X installation (Leopard or Snow Leopard). This can be your friend’s Mac, it doesn’t matter.

2. Double click Mac OS X Lion.dmg to mount it.

3. In the Terminal, Type the following:

open /Volumes/Mac\ OS \ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem.dmg

4. Plug your 8gb USB drive and Open Disk Utility.

5. Format the USB drive as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”.

6. Navigate to Finder and locate the restored drive and goto folder System > Installation and there you will see “Packages”. Remove it. Create a new Empty folder called “Packages”.

7. In Terminal, type:

open /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/Packages

copy the contents to System > Installation > Packages (empty folder).

8. Locate your “FakeSMC.kext” (typically in Extra > Extensions) and copy it to USB’s  “System > Library > Extensions”.

9. In Terminal navigate to “Extensions” (you can do this quickly by typing “cd ” and then dragging & dropping “Extensions” to Terminal) and fix permissions using:

sudo su

[your password here]

chown -R 0:0 FaksSMC.kext

chmod -R 755 FakeSMC.kext

That should be all for the USB. It now has all the basic stuff for kicking the installation. We’ll add few more things to the USB to make it bootable and compatible with hackintosh hardware.

Phase 2. Installing iBOOT

Option I: If you have Windows Installation on same PC

1. Boot into your Windows installation (on same PC where you wish to install the Mac OS Lion) and extract the iBOOT, run the installation from iBOOT_SetupToolBeta.2.exe

2. Plug in your second USB drive and format (FAT preferred). Replug the usb drive and click “Prepare iBOOT” inside the iBOOT app.

At this time you can add DSDT (place it in the DSDT folder in your iBOOT USB stick, i.e. “iBOOT USB Stick > efi > dsdt”) or EFI drivers, if your hardware needs any. Checkout OSx86 wiki or insanelymac forums if you are not very sure. Option 2: No Windows. Use Mac instead

1. Navigate to folder iBOOT > DuetToHDD. Drag and drop this file to Terminal, press space bar and type “write /dev/rdiskXsY”

Where X = your second USB’s Drive number and Y is Partition number. Y should be 0 for most cases ,since its single partition.

2. Press space bar again and drag the file “Efildr20″ into terminal and hit Enter.

That’s it Both your USBs are ready to get into Action.

Phase III: Installation of Mac OS X Lion

If you’ve made it well so far, you shouldn’t face much problems, provided your hardware is compatible.

1. Go to BIOS settings of your PC, enable USB booting and give USB the highest priority for booting.

2. Plugin both of your USB drives (iBOOT USB & installation USB) and switch ON your PC. You should see a GUI interface in few moments. In some cases you might even see a white line for couple of seconds.

3. If you see GUI interface, Press “U” to increase resolution. (alternatively “D” to decrease). Do so until you see the available USB drives. If you still don’t Press “V” to probe the USB volumes.

4. Lets now set Boot flags by pressing “M” followed by boot flags i.e. “-v” to enable verbose mode. You can also use other flags that you know of from previous hackintosh guides like arch=i386, arch=x86_64, cpus=1 etc.

5. Select your Installation USB which might be shown as “Mac OS X Base System”.

Troubleshooting Tip: If somehow you don’t get this visual, you have either done a blunder during preparation of Installation USB or you are missing an important flag for your hardware.

6. Soon you would enter the installation where you can select your Language and continue with standard Mac OS X install. If you are confused over this, checkout the Video in Step 3 of this Hackintosh guide, its very much identical till the point you reboot. Basically, what you have to do is format the hard drive you want to install OSX Lion to (go to Utilities -> Disk Utility, then click on the drive, select 1 Partition, Mac OS X Journaled, give it a name, and make sure GUID Partition Table is set in the Options. After you Apply the new partition, go back to the installer and install like normal to that drive. You may want to customize the install to remove unnecessary stuff like printers, etc.

Phase IV: Finalizing and Fixing stuff

Bear it with us, we are almost done. This is the last part that would ensure that you can boot into Mac OS X Lion without trouble, everytime!

1. Once your Installation completes, Boot into iBoot again and Load “MAc OS X Base System” from USB. When installation screen appears, Goto “Utilities > Terminal” and type in:

cd /Volumes/Lion/System/Library/CoreServices/
rm -rf PlatformSupport.plist
cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/Extensions/
cp -R FakeSMC.kext /Volumes/Lion/System/Library/Extensions/
chown -R 0:0 /Volumes/Lion/System/Library/Extensions/FakeSMC.kext
chmod -R 755 /Volumes/Lion/System/Library/Extensions/FakeSMC.kext
exit

Where “Lion” is the name of the partition on which OSX Lion was installed.

2. Reboot and load iBOOT again, this time select your “Lion” Partition where you installed it, instead of USB.

3. All should go well and you should see a welcome Video. Congratulations, You now have Mac OS X Lion installed on your PC.

Phase V: Post-Installation Driver (Hardware) tips

Chances are most of your hardware like Graphics card, sound card, network card don’t work yet. Lets fix them one by one.

1. Add KEXTs to iBOOT

You can customize iBOOT to install kexts from “Extra > Extensions” from any of your previous hackintosh machines into “System > Library > Extensions”. If its your first time, you will have to checkout OSx86 wiki to see what kexts do you need to make your hardware work.

2. Essentials:

We are listing some of the must have KEXTs:

• FakeSMC.kext – We’ve already installed it. Essential for System Management controller emulation
• ElliotForceLegacyRTC.kext – Prevents the CMOS Reset encountered on some motherboards.
• NullCPUManagement.kext – Disables AppleIntelCPUManagement.kext which may cause Kernel Panics with incompatible DSDT.

Optional  KEXTs:

• EvOreboot.kext – Makes your hardware compatible for Shutdown and Restart (yes, Really!) without actually needing a DSDT.
• IOAHCIStorageBlockInjector.kext – Makes external drives behave as internal.
• NVEnabler 64.kext (NVidia GeForce 9500GT)
• VoodooHDA.kext 2.7.1 (2.7.2 doesn’t work, ALC888b)
• RealtekR1000SL.kext (Realtek 8111)

3. Making Graphics Card Work with Lion

Most of the Modern ATi, Nvidia Graphics card would work out of the box since Apple supports them in macbooks. If on a Nvidia graphics card, you are not able to get the optimal resolution, try using Fermi drivers NVDAResman.kext and NVDAFG100hal.kext from NVIDIA drivers into /System/Library/Extensions/ of Lion, and remove GeForce.kext.

I’ve achieved QE/CI out of the box with my ATi Radeon card (Desktop), and with some additional work on Nvidia GT 230m (laptop), but mileage may vary. I`ll update more about QE/CI support as soon as I get handson different machines.

Video of My VAIO Hackintosh:

Source:  InsanelyMac forum

Update: Video tutorial from HDGeek (Very easy instructions to Install Hackintosh) You can ask for help @geeknizer.

Update: Install OSX Lion 10.7.2 on PC Hackintosh [USB]

Related: Installing Mac OS X Lion on Mac? Make a bootable USB, DVD disk

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Hackintosh, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us @geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

There are several reasons why not to use Snow Leopard on VMWare and go for Virtualbox.

Who doesn’t love Open Source? And when a Open source product is better than a paid application, we adore it. So is the case with Virtualbox. Virtualbox 3.1 is an amazing platform for Virtualization, It’s not only free, but also much faster than VMware in Disk I/O, Network I/O, RAM optimization, CPU Usage,  Hypervisor level operations. Hats off to Sun-Oracle.

Before you begin, make sure you have enough CPU, RAM, Disk resources to share for the virtual machine.

Hardware Requirements:

• Processor: Any Intel Processor or AMD.  if you still have a doubt:@geeknizer.
• RAM: Anything above 1 GB, Recommended 2GB or higher
• Disk space: 10GB (minimum)

Software Requirements:

• Virtualbox 3.2.6 (Download)
• Snow Leopard Osx86 distro
• Bit of Patience 

How to Install Snow Leopard OSx86 on VirtualBox

Step 1. Create a new Virtual Machine with name “OSX”

On the next page Configure RAM you wish to allocate. We recommend anything near 1GB.

Step 2. Create Virtual harddisk

Anything near 20gb Dynamic should suffice most requirements but you are free to change it to something higher and click finish.

Step 3.  Configure settings in the left pane and uncheck Enable EFI.

Next  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.

Step 4. Starting up Mac OS firstboot

While it boots, click inside the window and hit F8. At the boot: prompt type –v.Next, Setup should boot into installation just  fine. Run the Disk Utility by going to Utilities in the menu bar.

Click the Erase tab, and click the Erase button on the bottom right of the window and then quit it.

Step 5: Proceeding with installation

Select the drive you just partitioned and continue

Step 6. Customizing the Installation

On next window, Click the Customize button and select checkboxes:

AMD Users:
Any Updates included at the top.
Drop down Kernels and choose Legacy kernel.
AMD option below System support.

Intel Users:
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. You can skip Disc checking and  speedup the installation. It should take anywhere between 15- 40 minutes.

Step 7. Setting the Chameleon Bootloader

When the installation completes, before restarting Click on Devices at the top of the VirtualBox window, hit CD/DVD Devices and click Unmount CD/DVD Device. 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.

What doesn’t work:

• Audio
• Custom resolutions. You can do this via the tips mentioned in snow leopard hackintosh guide.

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, you can do so on Twitter: @geeknizer.

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Hackintosh, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Before we Begin
You would need a Running Leopard to prepare a restore Disk. It can be any 10.5.x Osx86 distro (Google for iAtkos or any other that you prefer) or you can even get it done from someone’s Mac/PC which has any version of Mac OS X running.

In case you don’t have it, You can follow our Older guide to install Mac OS X Leopard on PC, just choose a OSx86 distro that works on AMD.

Pre-Requisites:
- A Retail DVD/Image of Snow Leopard 10A432.
- An empty partition or drive with at least 10GB free space.
- Download This ZIP (Hardknox) The files used from this archive are highlighted in Red over the tutorial.

Note: There’s a tutorial which is 90% similar to this one and published in Videos. You might want to check it in case you find it hard to follow the instructions below.

Installing Snow Leopard on AMD Turion/Phenom II Hackintosh

Step 1. Mount the Snow Leopard .DMG file, then use Disk Utility and save a writeable .DMG file to your desktop. Un-Mount the Read-Only .DMG and Mount the newly created writeable .DMG.

Step 2. Open the image, click Go In the Top Menu Bar and select “Go To Folder” then type “/Volumes/<Mounted Snow Leopard Install Disk>/System/Installation/Packages.

Step 3. Copy the OSInstall.mpkg to replace the one in the path we navigated to in Step 2.

Step 4. Using Disk Utility, create a new partition, let’s call it “Snowfx”, with “Mac os x Journaled” option. When done, make sure the permissions of the partition/drive are correct by running the following commands in the terminal:
>sudo -s
>chown 0:0 /Volumes/Snowfx

Step 5. Run the “OSInstall.mpkg” file you replaced earlier in the Packages folder. While installing, select the new Partition  and customize the install by removing all the unnecessary stuff like languages, Printers.
This installation would take anywhere between 10-25 minutes. chill out in the meantime.
Congrats, you are half way there. Bear it a bit longer.

Step 6. Run Chameleon RC2 and select the new drive When that completes go into the Chameleon RC3 Folder then into the i386 folder and copy the BOOT file.

Step 7. Run ShowAllFiles and select “Show”. Now you need to replace the boot file in the root directory of the new partition (Snowfx) with the BOOT file from the i386 folder.

Step 8. Next we do some Kext (driver) alterations in order to make it compatible with AMD.

• In “Snowfx” navigate to  /Extra/Extensions directory and delete “Disabler.kext”.  Next, goto /System/Library/Extensions and  delete “AppleHPET.kext” and “AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext”.
• Alright, 3 are deleted now we copy 7 into current directory (/S/L/E) from  Snow Kexts Folder. These 7 files are:  AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext, fakesmc.kext, NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, OpenHaltRestart.kext, PlatformUUID.kext, VoodooHDA.kext and VoodooPS2Controller.kext

Step 9. Copy the Kext Utility to your current desktop, then copy the /Extra/Extensions folder from “Snowfx” to your current desktop. Now drag this Extensions folder to Kext Utility app (the one on desktop) to open and repair the permissions of that /Extensions Folder. When done, it creates a new “Extensions.mkext “on your desktop. Navigate to the “/Extra” on “Snowfx” and delete the old “Extensions” directory and “Extensions.mkext”. Then copy the new “/Extensions” Folder and “Extensions.mkext” from your desktop to “/Snowfx/Extra”.

Step 10. Run DSDT Patcher from the DSDT folder. In the patcher for OS options select Darwin/Mac OS X and for patcher options select Apply DSDT to “Snowfx”

Step 11. Copy smbios.plist to /Snowfx/Extra and copy “com.apple.boot.plist” file to your current desktop, open it and look for “mach_kernel”. Add “.test7″ to the end of it as show below:
“<string>mach_kernel.test7</string>”
and save it. then drag drop it back to /Extra folder.
Once you are done that, copy **mach_kernel.test7** and place it in your SNOW partition/drive root directory.

Step 12. Hold your breath, this is the final step Lets run one simple command to repair permissions and we are all done. Open terminal and execute:
>sudo -s
>cd /Volumes/Snowfx/System/Library/Extensions
>chown -R root:wheel *
>chmod -R 755 *

Alrighty! you’re done.

Post Installation Fixes:

When you boot into your OS, you should probably repair permissions through Disk Utility. (If for some reason the OS says you don’t have the package installed for Repairing your permissions Navigate back to the Packages folder in the SNOW.DMG you installed from and install the BSD package).
There are high chances that your sound, ehternet, dont work out of the box thats coz snow leoaprd is made for Mac and not your PC. You will have to look around web or perhaps ask @taranfx for proper kexts.
If for some reasons you are not able to boot into Snow Leopard, try booting with “-v” and sendout the error message to me on @taranfx on twitter.

Goood Luck! Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx

Thanks to Mercury Squad, Under Project Camphor, a new Kext (driver) has been released that would make it possible to go Wi-Fi on Snow Leopard. The details have not been published on the author’s blog but a Facebook update informed us that it now works with all Snow Leopard versions 10.6.2 OSx86 and Retail. However, to make it work with 10.6.0 you will have to modify version numbers of OSBundleLibraries in the kexts’ Info.plist files to correspond to 10.6.0 versions. (Update: Mercurysquad has denied support for 10.6.0)

Update: Beta is now available

These kexts are only for OS X 10.6.2 or higher. You might be able to get it to work on 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 if you modify the Info.plist in the kexts and replace the version numbers of all bundles under OSBundleLibraries section with proper versions of your own kexts (use kextstat command in the Terminal to find proper versions).

Currently the only two limitations of this beta are that 11g mode is not stable at all, and that WEP/WPA/WPA2 are not yet supported. Which basically means only unsecure 11b networks will work with any reliability. Your mileage may vary. However, the previously fixed tx speed of 11mbps has been removed and the card will now adapt the speed as it sees fit based on line condition. The algorithm has been ported from FreeBSD’s Adaptive multirate retry.

You can download the KEXT from here.

Here are some Official screenshots:

If you are new and wish to install Max OS X on Pc, follow our guides:

• Install Mac OS X Leopard OSx86 on PC Dual Boot Windows 7, Vista in 9 Easy Steps
• Install Snow Leopard on PC using Rebel EFI
• How to Install Snow Leopard on PC [Hackintosh]
• How to Install SnowOSX Universal
• How to Install Snow Leopard on VMWare
• Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

Stay tuned, a step by step tutorial and possible troubleshooting steps will be here soon. Get the updates on @taranfx on Twitter or via subscribing below:

After 2 months of experiments, fighting in the dark, and with help from black Trinitron, the work is done and I think its time to reveal it.

Who doesn’t love Open Source? And when a Open source product is better than a paid application, we adore it. So is the case with Virtualbox. Virtualbox 3.1 is an amazing platform for Virtualization, It’s not only free, but also much faster than VMware in Disk I/O, Network I/O, RAM optimization, CPU Usage,  Hypervisor level operations. Hats off to Sun-Oracle.

Note: This is a Retail installation guide, hence little more tricky. If you don’t mind an osx86 distro inside virtualbox and want ease of installation, tryout Install Mac OS X Hackintosh in VirtualBox [Snow Leopard] instead.

Before you begin, make sure you have enough CPU, RAM, Disk resources to share for the virtual machine.

Hardware Requirements:

• Processor: Any Intel Processor with VT-x (Virtualization Technology) or AMD-V. (Almost all Intel processors starting from Core 2 Duo, Quad, etc. support it) Ask us, if you still have a doubt: @geeknizer.
• RAM: Anything above 1 GB, Recommended 2GB or higher
• Disk space: 10GB (minimum)

Software Requirements:

• Snow Leopard Retail Disc (or ISO). We recommend you buy Original, don’t pirate!
• A OSx86 Leopard Distro – Any OS X 10.5.x iDeneb, iAtkos, etc. (I had bad time with Kalyway) iDeneb v1.3 (10.5.5) worked great for me. (and iAtkos 10.5.7 as reported by a commenter)
• Virtualbox 3.1.2 (Download)
• Bit of Patience

Brief: We will be installing Osx86 Leopard then upgrading to Snow Leopard Retail, that is 100% upgradeable to 10.6.2 and Works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Alternatively, You can install Snow Leopard directly via an OSx86 Distro like SnowOSX (but that won’t be upgradeable, unless you use SnowOSX v3.6 which is already 10.6.2. But the upcoming 10.6.3 update won’t be possible). So let’s go the usual way (Leopard then Snow Leopard Retail), though it’s upto you to choose.

Let’s Get started:

Phase I: Install Leopard on Virtualbox

Step 1. Create a new Virtual Machine with name “Leopard”:

• System Type: BSD, FreeBSD
• Create Disk (10 GB will suffice) with name “Leofx”
• System > Motherboard > Enable IO APIC
• (optional) Processor 2 or 4 (Dual Core, Quad core)
• Acceleration > Enable VT-x/AMD-V
• Storage > IDE Controller – ICH6
• Attach New CD drive > select image (OSx86 Leopard)
• Hit Ok

Step 2. Open Virtual machine xml.

Windows 7: C:\Users\fx<Your User>\.VirtualBox\Machines\Snow\Snow.xml

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\fx<YourUser>\.VirtualBox\Machines\Snow\Snow.xml

Add string to the section <ExtraData> for the XML:

<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal2/SupportExtHwProfile" value="on"/>

Step 3. Switch on Virtual Machine and install Leopard distro as-usual. (You can check Install Leopard on PC guide, if you are new to OSx86).

Alright, Leopard setup would succeed and  is up and running after reboot.(Make sure you change boot priority to “Leo” Hard disk in VM settings).

Stuck somewhere? Get in touch @geeknizer on Twitter.

For installing Snow Leopard, proceed to Phase II

Phase II. Installing Snow Leopard

Step 1. Close VirtualBox and patch it with files from here (32 bit) and here (64 bit)

Update: I heard Virtualbox 3.1.4 Beta works out of the box, without patching. I haven’t tried that though.

Step 2. Attach the following Three disks to the virtual machine under “Storage” tab:

• Attach A new Disk (10 GB minimum) with name “Snow”.
• DVD drive, if you plan to use Snow Leopard Retail disk OR The Retail image. (use PowerISO to convert DMG to ISO).
• Download and attach this Addon Util image[iso]. (contains few Kexts, utils).

Step 3. Boot Leopard and Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilties ) and Format the new “Snow” with “Mac OS Journaled”

Step 4. From the addon image “MacUtils”, Run “unHideIt” and then browse to /System/Installation/Packages( inside Retail disc) and run OSInstall.mpkg

Step 5. Select “Snow” disk and customize install to remove unnecessary packages (languages, printers) and Install. Installation should finish without any problems.

Step 6. Install Chameleon from the “MacUtils” on to “Snow” drive. [How to Install Chameleon]

Beyond this point, all changes are made to /Volumes/Snow

Step 7. Let’s setup some drivers:

• Remove all stuff from /Extra/Extensions
• Copy “Mac Utils”/Mac/Extra/Extensions to Extra/Extensions
• Copy “Mac Utils”/Mac/System/Library/Extensions to System/Library/Extensions
• Navigate to System/Library/Extensions and delete “AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext”

Step 8. Fix permissions by using Terminal (from Applications > Utilities):

su
cd /Volumes/Snow/System/Library
chown -R root:wheel Extensions/
cd /Volumes/Snow/Extra
chown -R root:wheel Extensions/
kextcache -a x86_64 -K /Volumes/Snow/mach_kernel -m /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions.mkext /Volumes/Snow/System/Library/Extensions
kextcache -a x86_64 -K /Volumes/Snow/mach_kernel -m /Volumes/Snow/Extra/Extensions.mkext /Volumes/Snow/Extra/Extensions

Nice! Hold down your patience we are almost done.

Now, Shutdown Leopard and move on to Final Phase

Phase III: Creating Snow Leopard machine

Step 1. Alright, Let’s create a new Virtual Machine, name it “Snowfx” or whatever you wish to. Create it exactly as we did in Phase I : Step 1. Only additional step is t configure Networking:

• Network > Adapter 1 > Attached to “Bridged Adapter”
• Advanced > Adapter Type > Select “Intel PRO/1000 MT server”

And add the following to Snow Machine XML:

<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/e1000f/0/Trusted" value="integer:1"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/PDM/Devices/PcExt/Path" value="VBoxDD3"/>

Step 2. Run the Virtual Machine and you will land into desktop with everything (including internet) working.

Note: If your mouse doesn’t work use this Kext. For me it worked as-is.

Go ahead and update to 10.6.2. And when the upcoming 10.6.3 is released, you will be able to upgrade without issues.

There you are, running the latest Snow Leopard, sweet! Enjoy the speed and cost benefits VirtualBox has to offer, Praise the Sun and love Open Source

We write latest and greatest in Tech Guides, Hackintosh, Apple, iPhone, Tablets, Android,  Open Source, Latest in Tech, subscribe to us@geeknizer on Twitter OR on Facebook Fanpage:

Hackintosh is a state of the Art but it was never meant for smartphones. But Virtualization makes it possible to do it.

A Nokia geek managed to Run Mac OS X 10.3 on a Nokia N900 using PearPC.

OS X would be an overkill for this device that too running in a VM. I must admit it’s painfully slow but the joy is all about having it. It took hours to boot up! That’s what you would expect from an 600Mhz ARM with limited RAM.

With that said, the project is a good attempt full of fun and creating a history by making N900 the first smartphone ever to run a full version of OS X.

We write about Apple, iPhone, Hackintosh, Open source, Android and latest in Tech. Grab them @taranfx on Twitter or below:

Chameleon RC3 brought a number of Stability fixes. Chameleon RC4 was released recently, adds couple of New Features that can come handy:

Hide Partition
Define all partititions that you wish to hide from boot menu. e.g. define following in com.apple.Boot.plist to hide partition 2 on BIOS drive 0 and partition 6 on disk 2:

<key>Hide Partition</key>
<string>hd(0,2) hd(2,6)</string>

PciRoot
This is similar to what you  find in PC EFI v9 : The default value is ’0′ but you can set to any value:

<key>PciRoot</key>
<string>1</string>

Fixes in RC4-r684

Fixed booting the default partition when using timeout. Added Intel Core i5 support, fixes to stage 1 loaders, SMBIOS CPU detection patch, system-id patch, ead_lba register saving patch, fix to handle 2GB+ file sizes, ported ATI device injection EFI64 tables and hibernation fix from PC_EFI.

Download from here

How to Install Chameleon Bootloader:
Assuming your Root disk is /dev/disk0s1

Step 1. Gain Root priveledges and navigate to Chameleon Directory

sudo -s
cd Desktop/Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684-bin/i386

Step 2. Install boot0 to the MBR:

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

Step 3. Install boot1h to the partition’s bootsector:

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s1

Step 4. Install boot to the partition’s root directory:

sudo cp boot /

Note: If you need any assistance/guidance you can reach us @taranfx on Twitter.

We write Hackintosh guides and Tech guides frequently. You subscribe to us via @taranfx or below:

• Faster Installation
• Installation for Netbooks/Smartbooks which have no optical drive
• Damaged/faulty optical drive.
• More reliable way of installation

Whatever your reason is, here’s how you can proceed with making bootable USB.

Note: This guide can be used for installation of both Native/Hackintosh Retail Snow Leopard OR OSx86 distro like Leopard Kalyway 10.5.6 and SnowOSX v3.x Snow Leopard. In other words no matter what version of Mac OS X you wish to install via USB, this method works.

The credit goes to holyfield for his basic guide. This guide is much more simplified and illustrated making it truly feasable for just any one to perform it.

Before you begin, Make sure you have the following ready with you:

• A USB stick of size equal or greater than the OSx86 distro (8GB or higher will work with all)
• OSx86 Distro (like SnowOSX, Kalyway, iPC, iDeneb, etc) or RETAIL Snow Leopard Disc which you wish to install.
• A Running Mac OS X (hackintosh or Native)
• OSx86 Tools Download from Google Code

Step 1. Prepairing USB Thumb Stick:

Open Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities > DiskUtility.

If creating Disk for Native Snow Leopard:

Erase the disk with “Mac OS X (Journaled)” and the click Erase.

If Creating for OSx86/ Hackintosh:

Select your USB drive click “Partition” Tab. Change Volume Scheme to “1 Partition”.  Select Format “Mac OS X (Journaled)” with Partition map scheme “MBR” under “options” and Apply.

Step 2. Restoring Snow Leopard/ OSx86 Disc/ISO/DMG to USB drive

Insert your retail Snow Leopard/OSx86 Disc or mount the ISO/DMG you wish to use. Click “Restore” and select source and destination as shown below. I’m using My HP 16gb Usb named “Taranfx” in t he example below:

Hit Restore. This would take anywhere between 10 minutes (if using ISO/dmg) and 30 minutes (using DVD).

Step 3. Making the USB Bootable [Not applicable if your are installing Native Snow Leopard]

Now run the OSx86 Tools that you downloaded initially. Select “Install EFI/Run FDISK”  and then select disk to use i.e. USB and “EFI to install” followed by “Install EFI” as shown below:

That’s all. Enable USB boot in BIOS and reboot from USB, your installation should begin.

We keep on posting new Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Hackintosh. You can stay in touch with updates @taranfx on Twitter.

If you are installing OSx86 Hackintosh, you can check our guides:

• How to Install Snow Leopard [VMWare]
• How to Install SnowOSX Universal
• Install Snow Leopard RETAIL on PC [USB]
• How to Install Snow Leopard on PC [OSx86]
• Understanding MAC OSx86 for Dummies
• Install Mac OS X Leopard on PC [Leopard 10.5.6]

Pre-requisites:

• VMWare Workstation 7. Get it here
• Custom Package (VMWare image .vmdk, darwin_snow.iso, Vmware sound card drivers) Download here
• Snow Leopard Retail DVD.
• UPDATE: Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

Need to install Snow Leopard Natively?

Step-by-step guide:

Step 1. Open the .vmdk file and Edit virtual machine settings. Adjust RAM, Graphics, CPU settings to your preferred values. I recommend 1GB and above RAM if you  have physical RAM > 2.5GB. For the Graphics keep it somewhere above 50 mb to get QE/CI on Snow Leopard. And for the processor, use as many cores as possible.

Step 2. Set your CD/DVD location to ISO image Darwin_Snow.iso

Step 3. Now Run the virtual machine and hit F8 quickly. You`ll get boot options as shown below:

Boot Menu
c: Boot DVD
h: Boot First Hard Drive
e: Eject DVD

Your choice:

Step 4. Before continuing, you need to swap your CD image with Snow Leopard ISO/DVD. To do this, right click on the CD icon in toolbar in the bottom right and click settings. Now located your DVD drive or set the ISO image.

Step 5. Return to the boot menu that appeared in Step 3 and hit c for “boot DVD”. Press F8 again for advanced options on Snow Leopard installer. On the boot loader enter “-v” and Enter to start installation in verbose mode.

Step 6. It would be couple of minutes before you see the main installer User Interface. Install Snow Leopard the usual way by creating Mac OS Journaled partition and de-selecting few un-needed drivers, other stuff under the customization tab. You should finish up booting into Snow LEopard without any issues.

If you face any issues, it’s easy to geta  hold of it by contacting me on Twitter @Taranfx or leave a comment below.

Post Install:

Fixing Sound:

Take a VMWare snapshot, then Mount the darwin_snow.iso as the virtual drive. We will now attempt to make Graphics and sound to work properly. “Install VMware Tools” and Reboot. You should boot up all fine with better graphics and resolution.

Now we will attempt Installing Sound card drivers. Take a snapshot of the VM. Run the pkg EnsoniqAudioPCI.mpkg, choose both options, reboot.

Fixing Video Resolution:

1. Edit the boot.plist file to anywhere and edit it. /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
2. Edit boot.plist and Reboot

<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1280×1024x32</string>

You can specify any resolution above.

Note: if you have problems editing the boot.plist, edit via command line with root permissions.

After the Reboot, you should be able to see the new resoltion in Place. If you wish to enable full Graphics acceleration (QE/CI), Install EFI and then change the following parameter in boot.plist:

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>y</string>

IMPORTANT: You will always need to use the darwin_snow.iso to boot your VM. So keep it configured under CD/DVD

Once everything is done, you can use the VMWare image to run under VMWare player, free of cost.

Everything should be all smooth, in case you need help or assistance Twitter @Taranfx is your PoC.

[credits: prasys (for compiling VMWare files), Insanelymac (for more Tips)]

Mac machines don’t come any cheap. But with this one heck of a mod, which will cost less than half that price (around $1300) you can have a super cool Mac machine housed inside an Xbox shell.

Willudesign creates what they call a “OS Xbox Pro“.

When the mod is dealt with, you’ll have the High end configuration you thrive for. The current video tries to make a beast from  Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S 2.93GHz processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT graphics, 8GB of RAM, 16GB SSD drive and four traditional hard drives (for Windows 7 OS, Snow Leopard OS and other two for video editing).
Watch the Video:

Supported Hardware: The distribution is created out of Snow Leopard 10A421 works only with Intel. Following processors are supported: Xeon 5100, 5300, 3000 Series, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core i7, Core i5, Pentium Dual Core (NOT “Pentium D”), Celeron 4xx Sequence Conroe-L, Celeron Dual Core, E1200, Celeron M 500 series, Intel Atom (netbooks)

Disclaimer: Apple prohibits installing Mac on PC. But a genuine Snow Leopard before even attempting to damage the legal issues. We are not responsible for any kind of issues you might get into, this guide is for information purposes only.

Our Previous Hackintosh Guides:

1. Install Snow Leopard on PC [using USB] (Retail)
2. How to Install Snow Leopard on PC [Hackintosh]
3. Install Mac OS X Leopard OSx86 on PC Dual Boot (10.5.x)
4. Install Snow Leopard on PC using Rebel EFI

Download: The Distro is very easy to Find on Torrentz or Piratebay. Google is no evil

Step 1. Burn the ISO Image to DVD.

Step 2. You’ve got to make some small adjustments to your BIOS.

• Boot Priority: Enable USB Boot, and set USB thumb drive the highest priority for Boot.
• AHCI Mode: SATA RAID/AHCI Mode  should be set to AHCI
• ACPI Power mode: Set it to S3(STR).

Boot from your DVD, darwin bootloader will start. Press F8 and enter “-v” to enter verbose mode.

Tip: If you get any errors in this step, its highly possible that your DVD ROM/drive is not working properly. Try burning another disc and Rewritable is not recommended.

Step 3. You should be able to boot into the GUI installer with no trouble. Choose your language, and then Accept the Instructions/TOS appear on the screen. (you can ignore them)

Step 4. At this stage, it expects a partition to install Mac on. Let’s quickly create new partition or Format existing one. Tools > Open disk utility and select the partition yo want to format. Click Erase tab and select “Mac OS Journaled” as the Filesystem, give it a name like “SnowFX” and click ”erase”.

If this hard disk is brand new, you can create new partitions as shown below:

Step 5. Close the  Disk Utility and open the Terminal from tools. Enter the followng Command on the Terminal:

cd /
sh MakeDSDT SnowLeopardPartitionName

When it asks to press any key, do so. Then, when it asks for Darwin, Windows, etc. Write “0″ i.e. “zero” and press enter. This chooses Darwin.

Step 6. Now you are ready to start the installation to “SnowFX”. On the next screen, Click Customize and select all of the shown options. (by default two of them are unselected). One of the unselected box actually has a driver patch IOATAFamily. Hit OK and continue with the install.

Step 7. Next, it will start validating DVD source, you can skip that. The further automated installation takes around 15 – 20 mins, so sit back and relax.

Step 8. After the installation is complete, reboot with DVD ejected. Hit F8 on Darwin boot loader and enter “-v”. Probably, Snow Leopard will try to start and boom there is a Kernel Panic!!! Chill, Don’t Panic, it`s easy to fix, this was the bug that was supposed to be handled in the patch I mentioned earlier in Step 6. Their patch didn’t work, but we have a solution, another patch.

Step 9. Now to fix this kernel Panic, you need to get the driver (KEXT) patch in place. Download it here (2 zipped files, extract both of them). Either copy this patch to USB drive and copy to your drive or alternatively you can boot into Windows (using Windows Start-up repair from windows installation disc) and installing MacDrive 8 to read/write Mac drives on Windows.

Note: It is preferable that you do this via USB. Attempt the Windows method ONLY if USB doesn’t work for you. Boot into setup again and instead of installing, open terminal and write these commands

By USB:

cd /Volumes/PenDriveName/FolderWhereYouKextsArePresent
cp -R * /Volumes/SnowFX/System/Library/Extensions/
diskutil repairPermissions /Volumes/SnowFX/System/Library/Extensions

Tip: Replace the files if it already exists int eh destination folder.

Step 10. (only applicable if you chose Windows in step 9) You can copy and paste directly to the specified path if you are doing it via windows, there’s no need for permission repair. The .Patch file goes to IOATAFamily.kext\Contents\MacOS

If you perform the windows method, in step 9, it breaks your Snow Leopard booting. To fix it, Download and install EasyBCD. Open it and hit button that says “Add/Remove Entries”. Click on Mac tab and select “Generic x86 PC” and give any name you want e.g. “Snow Leopard”.
Step 11. Reboot. At Darwin bootloader,  press F8, and type -v and Enter.

Step 12. Now the startup Welcome Video is shown and you must be dancing already. “Snow Leopard ”

Step 13: To enable DualBoot with Windows, you can run Windows Startup repair from Windows installation disk and thereafter go back to Step 10 to use windows bootloader for Dual booting.

Step 14: (optional)

Fixing Video Graphics to Enable QE/CI:

Download and Install PC EFI v9 Chameleon to correct partition (its one click install) or Follow this guide on Installing Chameleon, and then edit /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/Boot.plist

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>yes</string>

and Reboot. In case you still have problems with graphics get in touch @taranfx.

Note: The first and the foremost thing is to try with chameleon and boot.plist, if that doesn’t work (95% success for Nvidia),  proceed below:

Now only thing you should have missing is the correct Display Resolution. You only need to set EFI strings for your graphic card and its fully functional.

Launch EFiStudio and look for your Display/Video Card through the drop down menu. Click add device and you will see some  numbers, “write to com.apple.Boot.plist”.

If you happen to have Nvidia Graphics card, you can follow this insanelyMac flawless guide for NVInject.

For Fixing WiFi: Intel 3945 Wireless Driver for Snow Leopard

I`ll be updating the Guide for all the troubleshooting steps so make sure you check back after a while.

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx

Or if you have a doubt, feel free to comment below. I`ll be happy to help in my free time. Feel free to spread the word by giving us a RT.

• Install Mac OS X Leopard OSx86 on PC Dual Boot Windows 7, Vista in 9 Easy Steps
• Install Snow Leopard on PC using Rebel EFI
• How to Install Snow Leopard on PC [Hackintosh]
• How to Install SnowOSX Universal
• How to Install Snow Leopard on VMWare
• Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

With all your generous support, we are now able to produce the Easiest Guide to Install Snow Leopard on PC.

Update: You can upgrade to OS X 10.6.2 without any issues.

Before We Start:

• This is “Retail method” for Installation [Most Trusted]
• You need Supported hardware.
• 8GB or Higher USB drive.
• Snow Leopard Install DVD ($29 upgrade disk works) or an equivalent downloaded ISO.
• Another Mac to prepare your thumb drive. You can also do this over a Hackintosh PC.
• The EP45UD3P Snow Leopard install package: Download. This Automates all CommandLine work.

Step 1: Prepairing USB

First, we’re going to format usb thumb drive, later  copy the Snow Leopard DVD image to the thumb drive.

Watch the video in HD and fullscreen to get clearer look at the process.

After you restore the Snow Leopard install DVD to your thumb drive, all you’ve got to do is Run the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard.pkg file (download link above), select your thumb drive, and, let the installer will take care of all the work.

Step 2. Configuring BIOS:

You’ve got to make some small adjustments to your BIOS.

• Boot Priority: Enable USB Boot, and set USB thumb drive the highest priority for Boot.
• AHCI Mode: SATA RAID/AHCI Mode  should be set to AHCI
• ACPI Power mode: Set it to S3(STR).

If you have trouble finding these settings, refer to the images below (click to enlarge) credits to Adam Pash.

Step 3: Installation

Now comes the easy part.

Restart PC, Make sure your prepared thumb drive is plugged into your PC. :

As shown in the Video: Boot into the Snow Leopard installer, format the hard drive you want to install Snow Leopard to (go to Utilities -> Disk Utility, then click on the drive, select 1 Partition, Mac OS X Journaled, give it a name, and make sure GUID Partition Table is set in the Options. After you Apply the new partition, go back to the installer and install like normal to that drive. When you reboot after the install completes, press the arrow keys at the graphical boot menu and select the drive you just installed Snow Leopard to.

Step 4. Minor Tweaks (optional but good to have)

You should have everything working by now. But here are few additional, optional steps to enhance your Experience:

1. Get Sound Fully working:

Sound isn’t entirely working yet. You may notice that sound actually does work in some instances, but not all. All you should actually need to do is open up the Sound preference pane in System Preferences (/Applications/System Preferences), click the Output tab, and change the output device to Built-in Line output (I haven’t tested with digital out, but it should work fine in theory).

2. Boot into Snow Leopard without USB Thumb Drive

Right now, your Hackintosh needs USB to boot. To boot from internal harddisk,  install the custom bootloader to your hard drive. Unzip EP45UD3P Snow Leopard.pkg zip file that you downloaded initially, run it and select the hard drive you’ve installed Snow Leopard to. Once the installer completes, you’ll no longer need your thumb drive plugged in to boot into Snow Leopard.

Bingo! You installed Snow Leopard on PC by the Easiest Way!

For Fixing WiFi: Intel 3945 Wireless Driver for Snow Leopard

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx

Liked the Guide? Subscribe to us below:

Don’t worry if you don’t like Windows 7? Try Snow Leopard on PC.

The projects like OSx86 were popular for installing Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard on PC. Here few popular guides that we’ve written so far:

1. Install Mac OS X Leopard on PC [10.5.x]
2. How to Install Snow Leopard on PC Dual Boot [OSx86]
3. Install Snow Leopard on PC using USB Easily [Retail]
4. Install Snow Leopard on AMD PC, Laptop [Retail]
5. How to Install SnowOSX Universal 10.6.2 [Snow Leopard OSx86]
6. How to Install Snow Leopard on VMWare [Virtualized]
7. Install Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.6 VMware on Windows PC [Ready made Image, Very easy]
8. Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox 10.6.2 [Retail, Virtualized]
9. Install Mac OS X in VirtualBox [Snow Leopard] 10.6.2 [Osx86, Virtualized]
10. Install Mac OS X Lion 10.7 on PC [Retail]
11. Install OS X Lion 10.7.2 on PC Hackintosh [USB]

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, you can do so on Twitter: @taranfx.

More Hackintosh Guides:

• Make Bootable USB [OSx86, Snow Leopard]
• Download, Install Chameleon RC4 Bootloader
• Understanding MAC OSx86 for Dummies

Before you start – You should have an existing OSx86 running. Follow the Guide Here: Install OSx86 Mac on PC to do that.

Update: We have 6 ways to Install Snow Leopard on PC.

If you are looking for Installation from USB: Install Snow Leopard on PC using USB, or virtualization: How to Install Snow Leopard on VMWare, Install Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

In the following tutorial we will show you how can you can Install the latest Snow Leopard (build 10A432 GM release, the Retail version) on your PC which has existing MAC OS X 10.x.x running.

Lot’s of sites have been consulted to prepare this guide. This guide might not be perfect yet (no guide is perfect, yet) but i`ll try my best to improve it within few days, meanwhile if you face any issues, leave your comments, I`ll try to solve any issues that you might come across.) UPDATE: Now, you can use a perfect guide that supports installations from Flash Drive too (8GB): Install Snow Leopard on PC using USB.

We need two disks. Why ? – Snow Leopard needs a Leopard Install — One HDD with Leopard already installed and Second hard disk for Snow Leopard.

Before you begin, download the pre-requisites -

1. Tools –  MediaFire RapidShare
2. Kexts –  MediaFire RapidShare
3. Chameleon 2.0 + EFI 10 –  MediaFire RapidShare
4. Chameleon 1.0 + EFI 10 –  MediaFire RapidShare
5. Misc. –  MediaFire RapidShare
6. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow leopard Retail build 10A432 (As ususal, we won’t post links, google it)

Let’s Roll

Step 1. Preparing the New Disk -

Make sure you have connected your second “New” Hard Disk or Flash Drive.

Boot into Leopard, launch Disk Utility from Spotlight. Partition your New disk with GUID partition scheme. Name the partition  e.g. “New”. Now set yourself as the owner by running the following at drive’s Root.

sudo –s

chown 0:0 /Volumes/New

Step2. Installing DMG -

Now, Mount the Snow Leopard DMG File.

Next, Installer window will pop-up, click on the free space anywhere in window and press key sequence - CMD + Shift + G . A small window will appear on top of the existing window. Here, type “Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/”, and Go.

In the next window, locate the “OSInstall.mpkg” and double click this package file to start Snow leopard Installation.

Note- Default “OSInstall.mpkg” works for GUID partitioned drive only. If you need to install on MBR, then google for Modified OSInstall.mpkg for MBR, download modified one and replace with default one.

Step 3. Customizing Install -

Go through the options and select your New drive. De-select all the stuff you don’t need like Printers, Languages, other drivers etc.. and wait for it to finish. It should take 10-20 minutes.

After its done installing, Don’t Reboot!

Now step 4. and onwards, we will install Bootloader and some important drivers (KExts), Patch DSDT and Install certain important system files, so, bear it with me.

Step 4. Installing BootLoader –

Unzip the Chameleon Bootloader, Install the “Chameleon-2-1.0-r431.pkg“ and then “Chameleon v2 Snow Leopard Support.pkg“ to the New Drive.

Note - If Snow Support Package Shows an Error, Then Follow Step 5.

IMPORTANT – If Chameleon 2.0  gives you Kernel Panics then try reinstalling with Chameleon 1.0

Step 5. If you are using PCEFI bootloader on your existing OSx86 system then “Chameleon v2 Snow Leopard Support.pkg” will NOT serve the purpose.

In this case, you have two options:

Option 1. Either install the “Chameleon-2-1.0-r431.pkg” over your current 10.5.x Installation then reboot and do the process again (from Step 1). or

Option 2. Launch the “ShowAllFiles“ (included in “Tools”) and click Show. Then Navigate to the root of your  New Drive and delete the “boot” file you see  and replace it with the boot file included System Downloads. After replacing the boot file again launch the “ShowAllFiles“ and click Hide. Continue to Step 6.

Step 6. Patching  DSDT -

From the downloaded Tools, Open the DSDT Patcher. Select “Darwin/Mac OS X” in Operating System, then select DSDT Patch in options and before hitting the Run DSDT Patcher button make sure to change the destination to “New” Drive.

Step 7. Installing KExts (Drivers)-

this assumes that you had downloaded all Kexts that might be needed for your system’s compatiblity. Place all the “kext files” in  ”/New/Extra/Extensions”, and copy the Extensions folder in Extra to the desktop, and drag it to “Kext Utility“. “Kext utility” will actually repair your permission and generate a new Extension.mkext. Now, Move the Extensions folder and the extension.mkext back to “/Snow/Extra“

Step 8. Configuring boot.plist with EFiStudio -

Launch EFiStudio and look for your Display/Video Card through the drop down menu. Click add device and you will see some  numbers, copy them.

Add the following XML to your com.apple.boot.plist in /New/Extra.

<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1280×1024×32 </string>
<key>device-properties</key>
<string>–number you got with EFiStudio–</string>

Save and Exit. Put the SMBios.plist into /New/Extra.

Update: Step 9 added

Step 9. If you added any driver kext to /New/System/Library/Extension, This step will rebuild the Extensions.mkext cache while booted in Snow Leopard. Reboot and go to Single User mode by typing the flag -x32 –s

Type the following commands:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mnt -uw /
kextcache -v 1 -t -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions/

Now Reboot and Fall in Love with the Snow Leopard -

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx

UPDATE 1.

Basic Troubleshooting Guide

As promised, I added this section to give out better troubleshooting in case of any issues you might have come across.

For those who are getting Kernel Panics try to boot in 32 bit Mode + Safe mode using following Boot flag.

-x32 –v –x -f

Kernel Panic (IOATAFamily.kext) – Go to your New HDD , navigate it through /System/Library/Extensions and delete IOATAFamily.kext or simply replace IOATAFamily.kext with a patched kext from your Leopard installation or from netkas. If that fails , simply delete this kext. You’ll lose ATA support , however it would still install on your SATA drives. Just make sure its set to AHCI instead of IDE

Generic Kernel Panic on CPU – This problem is related with Chameleon V2. Its recommended for you to use PC_EFI v9 with a patched boot file.
Kernel Panic (generic CPU error) - It occurs if you have an Atom processor or some of the very old boards. The only way to fix it by using PC_EFI v9. Its kind of simple to do , all you have to do is download this installer and boot file for Snow Leopard. Its bit old school. To do this firstly , you’ll have to download PC_EFI v9 installer and this boot file from it. Install this boot loader to your USB Drive (be sure to change its destination) and replace the boot file with this patched file. Be sure to follow rest of the guide such as generating extensions.mkext and so on and so forth. Its just that instead of Chameleon , you’ll have to use PC_EFI v9.

Another thing which I’ve noticed that it occurs when you do a -f. I think its related to permissions of the kext. Do refer to the guide up on how to generate extensions.mkext for both /Extra and /System/Library/Extensions and how to fix permissions

Reboot loop – It clearly means your processor is not supported for instance if you’re like me , still on a Pentium D. For this you’ll have to grab a patched mach_kernel.

CMOS Bug – If you get an error on BIOS after you’ve installed Snow Leopard (this includes BIOS settings have changed or other strange BIOS errors) This is a known issue and it requires your DSDT to be patched. Again you can check out the guide below which I’ve included on how to fix it

Disk Utility Permission fix error – If you get this error in Disk Utility , “ No Installer packages can be found for this disk” whenever you want to verify permission and fix permission. This is caused when you run Snow Leopard installer within Leopard itself. Its a simple fix. You’ll have to re-run BSD.pkg , it could be found in /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages or /Volumes/OSX86/System/Installation/Packages . Just run it and voila it should be fixed ! Now you can use Disk Utility to repair permissions !

UPDATE 2. More Troubleshooting Tips

1. If  you are stuck on Waiting for DSMOS then simply delete the DSMOS kext in Snow/Extra/Extensions but make sure you must have FakeSMC kext.
2. If you are stuck on RTL8169E error: Disable Hardware LAN in your BIOS and boot again. I’m making a list of it, so stick with us.
3. If you have an IDE drive or your laptop contains IDE drive then Install AppleIntelPIIXATA.kext by Netkas to make your ATA/IDE work in Snow Leopard. This kext is useful for ICH6/7/8/9/10 with ahci disabled and for lappies too. This kext also helps IOATAFamily related error causing Kernel Panic.

UPDATE 3: Replacing MACH_KERNEL (for Pentium D, Celeron, P4)

Version History:

1. Added Step 9, Basic Troubleshooting

2. Added Support for Flash Drives.

3. More Troubleshooting Tips

4. Replacing MACH_KERNEL

5. AMD Install Support

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx

Most of the users today migrate from Windows and this is the reason they have no understanding of the Mac Platform. Let’s do a Quick FAQ for Osx86 and Mac OS Platform:

Q. Can I Insall MAC OS X Leopard Retail DVD on my PC?

A. NO. Infact, it had been that easy, OSx86 project would have never come into existence. In actual, OSx86 has a MODIFIED kernel that let’s you support all your x86 systems with Mac OS. During Installation, it installs certain drivers (.Kexts) which are required to support your chipset, graphics and processor. This is so because the hardware used on macbook pro is pretty different, The chipset, graphics, audio it uses are all very different and Retail DVD will not support them.

Though it’s possible to install from Retail DVD but the procedure is very tough for most of the users since it involves compiling custom kernels(different for each Intel, AMD) and finding and compiling drivers. OSx86 is a much better and easier way of doing it.

Q. What are the limitations of OSx86?

A. Mostly OSx86 is able to do 95% of the stuff that a real MAc can do. Bad side is certain drivers are unstable or doesn’t exist for osx86. Best example is for the Intel 3945ABG wireless, it’s not supported by OSx86 though there is a open source project called iwidarwin which makes drivers for this card, but It’s not stable.

Q. Why there are so many Flavors of osx86 and which one is for me?

A. None of them is perfect, but as time passes, they approach perfection. iPC is the most advanced you can get, keeping into consideration that it supports largest database of hardware, followed by Kalyway, iDeneb and others. To answer “Which one is for me?”, You should check for is your Hardware compatibility List (HCL) i.e. which Flavor supports your hardware on OSX86 wiki.

Q. What is a kernel ? You referred to something called “Kernel”. what is that anyway?

A. A kernel is in short terms the “core” of the OS. It controls all low level operating functions. Kernels exist in all Linux and UNIX based systems, including Mac OS X. Infact, it exists in windows too, but Microsoft never exposed it to the user. In Mac OS X the kernel is located in the root of your hard drive (/) and is named “mach_kernel” by default. If you have a vanilla based system then replacing the kernel is most likely not necessary, however if you have an AMD or SSE3 incapable processor then a patched kernel will likely be required.

Q. What are kexts ? Some kind of Drivers?

A. Kexts, or kernel extensions are drivers to support various kind of hardware. Kexts are installed to /System/Library/Extensions/.Kext files often have the “.kext” extension and allow for extra hardware support and and in the case of OSx86, to replace Appleʼs original drivers with ones that are optimized for use on PCs.All the drivers which are not supported by Apple are custom developed and packaged in osx86.

Q. What is ACPI?

A. Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. ACPI specification is an open standard for unified operating system-centric device configuration and power management. ACPI defines platform-independent interfaces for hardware discovery, configuration, power management and monitoring. The specification removes device management responsibilities from legacy firmware interfaces. ACPI is an attempt to consolidate and improve upon existing power and configuration standards for hardware devices.

Q. What is a Vanilla ?
A. Vanilla is a kernel developed for Intel Core Duo platform. A vanilla compatible system is a computer capable of running OSx86 with minimal modifications (no patched kernel, compatible with Apple software updates).

Q. What is DSDT ?

Ans. DSDT is a part of ACPI. Actually DSDT tells OS how to interface with the hardware. OSX has an incomplete ACPI implementation which supports only a subset of DSDT. By replacing DSDT we can declare essentially the same interface but in the way that OSX understands. This potentially can solve nearly any ACPI-related problem (except if OSX bypasses ACPI). Other usage case is emulating by the means of DSDT features or hardware components not present on your system. But this is limited to devices that use ACPI. This can include resolving of issues like Failure to sleep, standby, recover from sleep, standby, monitor turn off, hibernate, etc.

Q. What is DSDT patching?

A. This is an area very rarely delved into, and is something that some of even the most experienced users dare not venture. In reality, its not dangerous, rather, it can be painfully hard at times.

DSDT is a table found in your computerʼs BIOS that controls ACPI (power, time, etc.) functions. Starting from OS X 10.5.6 Apple decided to start checking for faulty DSDTs when it boots. Obviously the PCs DSDT comes back as faulty so it will not boot. The only way to counteract this is to make a dump of the DSDT in the BIOS and patch it properly for Darwin. First of all, you need a modified bootloader that will support DSDT override. This installer includes just that, using the “Install PC_EFI v9 Chameleon Edition 1.0.x” checkbox. Now you need a patched DSDT file that will be copied to / dsdt.aml. To create DSDT dumps you can use the DSDT Patcher (also included in the Extras folder) but this is an advanced method, and often UOI plugins will include a DSDT file that you can install easily with this installer. However beware, even if you have the same motherboard DSDTʼs can vary by BIOS version so try to make sure that you have the same BIOS version as what is specified in the plugin.

Q. What is the difference between SMC & RTC ?

A. The SMC is basically System Management Controller. By resetting the SMC you can resolve some computer issues such as not starting up, not displaying video, sleep issues, fan noise issues, and blah-2. While The Real Time Clock (RTC) is a chip on the logic board that controls the date and time functions of the computer. If the computer is experiencing a booting issue, resetting the RTC may resolve it.

Q. What is EFI emulation ?
A. EFI is the Extensible Firmware interface found in Real Mac. EFI is basically the “BIOS” of a Mac. For a computer to be properly recognized as a mac and to have the most compatibility it must have EFI. The problem here is that PCs do not have EFI. Developers have counteracted this problem by using EFI emulation which enables basic EFI function calls through a specially modified boot-loader. EFI distributions for OSx86 include PC_EFI and Chameleon. Nearly all OSx86 installs have some form of EFI emulation installed, so this is not necessarily something to worry about. EFI emulation is required to use vanilla (unpatched) kernels and kexts, and to use GUID partition maps and EFI strings.

I hope I cleared most of your doubts encircling OSx86 world. In case you have more doubts, feel free to ask, I`ll be delighted to help you.

Tip: In case you need quick assistance, contact me on Twitter: @taranfx