Creating a Mac OSX VM on a Windows 7 host (part 2)

By | October 22, 2010

Yesterday we set up the VirtualBox VM so it would be ready to install OSX on our Windows host. Today we’ll do the fun part 🙂

If you followed part 1, you’re all set. Select the new VM from your list of VMs, and click “Start” on the toolbar. The VM will boot up, and you’ll get this screen:

Image

Pop the Snow Leopard DVD into your DVD drive. Ignore the Autoplay or Boot Camp popup in Windows. In your VM, click the Devices menu, then under “CD/DVD Devices” choose the host drive that has the Snow Leopard DVD. (If you want to use a Snow Leopard ISO instead, mount that.) Wait five seconds or so, then press F5. After a few moments, the text below the CD icon should change, like this:

Image

Press enter. EmpireEFI will prep the system for boot, and it will tell you to “press any key to continue”, as in this screenshot:

Image

At this point, press any key. This boot may take a few minutes; you might think it’s frozen. Wait a bit longer 😉 You should soon see this screen:

Image

So far, so good 🙂 Proceed with the OSX installation. Pretty soon you’ll get to this screen:

Image

Click the “Utilities” menu, then choose “Disk Utility”. On the left you’ll see a hard drive and an optical drive listed. Click on the hard drive. On the right, click on the “Partition” button. In the Volume Scheme dropdown, select “1 Partition”, and then just to the right of that, under Volume Information, change the name to something prettier than “Untitled 1”. I chose “OSX”:

Image

Once you’re satisfied that it looks correct, click “Apply” in the lower-right corner. It will ask you to confirm what you’re doing, and then it will format the VM’s virtual hard disk. It will probably only take a few seconds. Once it’s done, quit Disk Utility. Your disk will show up now:

Image

Select the drive, and click Install. OSX will now be installed; it took about half an hour on my VM. Follow the rest of the installation procedure as normal. When it’s done, the installer will reboot, and the reboot will fail, like this:

Image

Don’t panic! This is ok. Click Devices->CD/DVD Devices and select the EmpireEFI iso again, then click Machine->Reset to reboot the VM. You’ll get this screen:

Image

Push the right arrow key to select OSX, and then press enter. (It will ask you to “Press any key to continue…” like last time, so do that.) You’ll get a welcome screen.  Proceed with the setup; register with your Apple ID, create your user account, etc. You’re almost ready; there’s just one more thing to do.

If you leave things as they are, you’ll be able to use the VM just fine, but you’ll have to have the EmpireEFI ISO mounted to boot, like we did just now. Let’s fix that. You should have the Empire EFI disc on your OSX desktop, so double-click on that, then in the window that pops up, open the Post-Installation folder.  Run the myHack Installer:

Image

Just install with all the default settings. Once it’s done (it will take a long while, even though it says “less than a minute” remaining), you can unmount the EmpireEFI ISO — your OSX VM will boot on its own! It will still have trouble rebooting or shutting down, so you’ll need to manually shut off the VM after you tell OSX to shut down. There doesn’t seem to be a solution to that.

Next week, I’ll post a tutorial on how you can use resolutions higher than 1024×768.

118 thoughts on “Creating a Mac OSX VM on a Windows 7 host (part 2)

  1. istvan

    Hello

    Thank you for the great post.

    Have you checked networking and audio? Both are working?

    I am waiting for the screen size fix post 🙂

    Istvan

    Reply
  2. Dan

    Hi istvan,

    Networking works already, using either the VirtualBox NAT or Bridged settings. No additional setup is needed there.

    I’ll be covering both audio and screen resolution in my next post.

    Reply
  3. Ken

    Does not work on Ubuntu 10.04 host, running VirtualBox 3.2.10. First attempt I used 4 cores and 200 GB drive, and it hung at 26 minutes remaining. Second attempt I used 2 cores and 20 GB drive (matching this tutorial), and it completed, but gave an error at the end (didn’t capture it), and when I then rebooted it said “FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted.” Oh well, $29 wasted…

    Reply
  4. Dan

    Ken, when you rebooted, did you make sure the EmpireEFI ISO was mounted? The error you got looks like the error you would get if you forgot to do that.

    Reply
  5. Sid

    NEED HELP!

    Everything works until the language selection menu comes up…at that point I can’t click the arrow to continue. It doesn’t seem to be accepting input from my USB mouse, touchpad, or keyboard.

    Has anyone else run into this problem?

    Reply
  6. Sid

    Figured out the problem. When I used SATA drives as the tutorial states I was getting I/O errors when the install disc was starting, so I switched to SCSI. I flipped it back to SATA and suddenly the mouse and keyboard started working again……really weird.

    Reply
  7. Chris

    Good morning. When I start the VM, it takes me to a shell prompt, an EFI Shell version 2.10 screen. Any ideas ?

    Cheers Chris.

    Reply
  8. Dan

    Chris,

    You didn’t give me much to go on, but I’m going to guess you either forgot to disable VirtualBox’s built-in EFI, or you didn’t use the same version of EmpireEFI that I used in this tutorial.

    Reply
  9. Chris

    Thanks Dan. I didn’t disable the built in EFI. I’ll RTFM next time.

    Cheers Chris.

    Reply
  10. Mike

    How long is it supposed to take, when booting from the Snow Leopard CD from the Empire EFI screen, for Snow Leopard to do something? I’m waiting more than 30 minutes and nothing changes on the screen.

    Reply
  11. Dan

    It depends on how fast your processor is, whether you have your processor’s virtualization extensions enabled, how much RAM you allocated to the machine, whether you’re trying to do something else with the host computer at the same time, etc. There are a lot of factors, some of which are not immediatley obvious. If you have an older computer, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that first boot take much longer than half an hour.

    You may also want to see if it helps to reboot your host computer and try again.

    Reply
  12. Mike

    I doubt it’s the computer. I’ve got a 64-bit Intel i5 with 6 GB of RAM and was only running a browser at the time and had allocated only 2 GB to the VM. I’ll give it another shot though, maybe leave it on overnight or something, to make sure my impatience isn’t getting in the way.

    Reply
  13. Mike

    Hmm, would it make a difference to the boot time if I’m using a large, fixed-size hard drive (85 GB) instead of a dynamically allocated one? VMWare recommended doing that for better performance, so I figured it’d apply here too.

    Reply
  14. Dan

    In general, a fixed-size drive will perform better than a dynamically-sized drive, but during the first pre-install boot you haven’t even formatted the drive yet so I don’t think it’s much of a factor.

    You may want to double-check your BIOS settings and make sure the Intel VT-x extensions are enabled (it’s not enabled by default on some motherboards), and then make sure your VM is configured to take advantage of them. (Both checkboxes on the Settings->System->Acceleration tab.)

    Reply
  15. Mike

    The only BIOS setting (just labelled Virtualization) was turned on, and I triple-checked the settings for the VM before even posting here. The main reason I mentioned the hard drive was because of the size; maybe it’s somehow getting scanned by Snow Leopard, so an 85 GB drive would take longer?

    What’s supposed to happen once EmpireEFI tries to boot the Snow Leopard DVD? I get the few lines of loading text that you show in your screenshot, plus the prompt to press a key. I do so and nothing changes on the VM’s screen. The DVD’s still spinning at that point, but after a while, it stops. I know the VM’s hard disk is being accessed (or, at least, the external USB hard drive where I have the .vdi fle is; the only other thing on there is a Linux VM so that’s why I’d assume it’s something to do with the OSX VM), but other than that, nothing seems to be happening.

    Reply
  16. Mike

    Yes, and that’s where it stops. I let it go overnight this time; it’s not just taking its time, it’s just not doing anything.

    Reply
  17. Mike

    Yeah, I figured that. There’s always potential for weirdness when you’re trying to do something with technology that wasn’t intended; I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with your post. Thanks for all the help!

    Reply
  18. sentrix

    Hi Dan. Thanks for the tut. It doesn’t seen to install on a Dell Latitude in Virtualbox or naitive. OSX says “Can’t be installed on this computer”. Do you know of any workaround?

    Reply
  19. Dan

    I’d rather not guess, since I don’t have enough information, but in your case the first thing you should do is make sure VirtualBox’s EFI support is disabled for your VM, and that you’re using the right EmpireEFI iso to boot your VM before you install OSX.

    Reply
  20. Jochem

    I find this tutorial very helpfull, but I have a problem.
    Do you know virtual dvd software for windows that mounts .dmg? I noticed that poweriso does dmg but only creates cd-drives and that daemon tools doesn’t mount dmg..

    Also I changed .dmg in .iso and now the computer thinks it’s an iso, but deamon tools won’t load it.. Can’t change it back either, I’m in trouble!

    Reply
    1. Jochem

      Found a way to change the iso back to dmg, but this leaves me with the same problem

      Reply
    2. Dan

      I don’t know of any software that supports dmg files, sorry. I suggest you find a friend with a Mac and burn the image to a DVD from there.

      Reply
  21. Sakura

    Hi Dan,

    Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for this post. I tried several other blogs in order to install Snow Leopard, but all to no avail. Your cookbook works like a charm. Well, I had to do some steps twice (first time I got some failures just after the eff-thingy), but in the end it is all working. And it is the result that counts. Next I will try your post on the screen resolution.

    Again, thanks!

    And to all who didn’t get it working: just try a few times. Eventually it might just work. BTW I’m using win7 64bit on an intel I7 Q840. And even on that it took a loooooong time.

    Ciao!

    Reply
  22. Sakura

    @Centix: I installed it on a custom notebook, but I also own an older Dell Lattitude D830 (off topic: battery power over 3.5 hours! hah!), with win7 32bit. Maybe I will try to install it on that and post back. Would that help you?

    — Martijn

    Reply
    1. Sakura

      Well, today I installed it on my Dell Lattitude D830. Guess what? It works. I think the absolute key is the EFI-mounting. Our Amazing Dan appearantly was using an older VirtualBox app, so the screen shots don’t match to the exact letter. Here is what worked for me: Just delete the SATA controller. Add a new one and mount the vdi file. Then on the EDI controller node, first change it to “host drive”, mount EFI and check “pass through”. Don’t mount any snow leopard iso yet. Start up the VM. and EFI should start. Proceed with mounting the iso/DVD via the “devices” menu. You should be fine then.

      If anything fails: delete the complete VM and start over. To my experience continuing a partially completed installation never gets you to a working VM in the end. Just delete and start over.

      Dan, thanks again for this fine blog.

      — Sakura

      Reply
      1. Dobbelthest

        Ok.

        So I’m loading at the moment and I will wait the whole day.

        But I thought about that maybe it could be related to different versions regarding both OS X and the MyHack Installer?

        What version did you use?
        I use Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 and now it might be needed to download a updated version of the Installer maybe?

        Thanks for helping!

        Reply
        1. Dan

          If I remember right, I used a retail Snow Leopard 10.6.3 DVD. I provided download links to the EmpireEFI iso at the beginning of part 1 (it’s version 1.085), and I used the version of myHack found on that EmpireEFI iso (myHack 1.0 RC4.1, according to my screenshots above).

          The version of VirtualBox you’re using could also make a difference – I used 3.2.10 for this tutorial. I have not tested installation with later versions of VirtualBox, though I have *booted* my OSX virtual machine with later versions.

          Reply
          1. Dobbelthest

            Ok.
            So I tried some things :

            First I downloaded the newest myHack version.
            Same Problem.

            Now I also downloaded the older VB version (same as in post) and now the machine gets a critical error in the loading screen.

            Reply
      2. Dobbelthest

        Ill shut it down now.

        Doesn’t work …

        If anyone got some help post it here!

        Reply
  23. Remco

    Hi Dan, awesome tutorial !
    But I’m stuck on the ‘first boot’ step..
    Normally the language choice screen should pop on after a few minutes, but I’m waiting for over an hour now, and all I can see is just a black screen. I’ve closed all applications on my host system.. Is it normal that there’s a black screen? because in another comment there’s a grey screen with some text on it..
    Hope you can help!

    Reply
    1. Dan

      If you got through the EmpireEFI boot process (as in the first three screenshots on this page), then I’m not sure what could be wrong… first, go back and make sure the VM’s settings are configured correctly (as described in part 1 of my tutorial). You might also check to make sure your processor’s virtualization extensions are enabled in the BIOS. Other than that, I don’t know what else to try 🙁

      Some people have said that simply starting over again has worked, so I suppose that’s worth a try too.

      Reply
      1. Remco

        Ok, I checked all my settings, which are correct, and I’ve got through the first three screenshots. If I click away from my VM, than the screen turns black. And if I don’t click away after the last ‘enter’ than it seems to take hours, I’ve let it be like that for over four hours, I think, but nothing happens..
        Maybe it’s something with my BIOS that’s wrong, like you said. If it could be so, could you explain me what I have to do?

        In the meantime I’m going to start all over again, from part 1, maybe that helps 🙂

        Reply
        1. Dan

          Every BIOS is different, so I’m afraid I can’t give you any specific instructions there.

          You might also want to check that you’re using the same software versions that I used.

          I used a retail Snow Leopard 10.6.3 DVD. I provided download links to the EmpireEFI iso at the beginning of part 1 (it’s version 1.085), and I used the version of myHack found on that EmpireEFI iso (myHack 1.0 RC4.1, according to my screenshots above). I used VirtualBox 3.2.10 for this tutorial. I have not tested installation with later versions of VirtualBox, though I have *booted* my OSX virtual machine with later versions.

          Reply
          1. Remco

            Oh, do I have to do something with the files in the iso too? Guess I’m not so smart after all, haha 🙂
            I’ve looked in the folder, but there aren’t any setup files?

            Sorry if I sound quite dumb ..

            Reply
            1. Dan

              Sorry, the files on the EmpireEFI iso are for after you’ve got OSX installed. I just copy-pasted that from another comment above.

              Reply
  24. Dobbelthest

    ALRIGHT I DID IT!!!

    So if anyone got the same problem there’s a quite simple solution:
    Just look at all the other files the CD supplies!
    Use the Chameleon Installer not myHack.
    As the Filename says: If myHack fails ….

    Am disappointed over myself lol

    Thanks for your help.

    Reply
  25. Kris

    Hi Mate, great tutorial.

    I just got to the point when I insert CD it shows the change on EFI I hit enter, it gets to please press any key and than lots of line and system uptime in nanoseconds.
    It looks like it crashes. Don’t get even install screen :(, any ideas?

    Cheers

    Reply
    1. Dan

      I remember getting that a few times while I was preparing this tutorial; as far as I can remember, it was always because I had configured something wrong at some point. The best advice I can give you is to delete the VM and start over fresh, from the beginning of part 1, making sure you follow every step in the tutorial.

      If it still doesn’t work after that, I don’t know, sorry. Good luck!

      Reply
  26. Etienne

    Hi, Can anyone tell me if it is possible to update to 10.6.7 ?

    Thanks in advance

    Etienne

    Reply
      1. Etienne

        Thanks for your quick response ! Do you had to do any tweaks with myHack or simply proceed to the update to 10.6.7 via apple software update ?

        Reply
    1. Sakura

      Indeed… I just upgraded to the latest version. Without a sweat.

      Reply
  27. Juan Pablo González

    Going to go through my third install. I can get all the way until the installation is going on, which takes forever, and then, when it’s nearly complete, I get an error about an “Install failure” on that hard drive. So close to get it working…

    Reply
    1. Juan Pablo González

      Just to give the full error message, in case someone knows the solution:

      “Install Failed

      Mac OS X could not be installed on your computer

      The Installer could not start up the computer from the disk “OSX”. Try selecting your disk using the Startup Disk utility.

      Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again.”

      I’ve tried using the utility but when I select the hard drive it says:

      “You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk

      The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk.”

      Reply
  28. Sakura

    A bit off topic, but if you are planning to develop apps for the iPhone: set the initial VM size to 30 or 40G. I started out with 20G and that is *not* enough. Xcode alone will eat up over 10G. And it is not that easy to enlarge an allready created vdi file. I tried, with Vboxmanage modifyHD, but did not succeed. Just so you know.

    And again, kudos go to Dan.

    Reply
  29. Psyko

    Hi, Dan!

    Without sounding too cheesy: I loved your tutorial. Well written and very easy to follow with the images.
    After a lot of trying I finally got the EmpireEFI thing booting, but after I manage to attempt booting my ISO (mounted with Daemontools Lite) it says press any key to continue and just stops there =/
    It’ll hang there and if I do something like draw attention back to my Host OS (windows 7 home premium 64-bit) the screen in the VM goes black =/

    Any ideas? Am I not waiting too long? (I think I’ve waited 10-15 minutes, and I’ve tried redoing the whole guide to make sure I didn’t miss anything)

    Reply
    1. Dan

      Juan mentioned above that EmpireEFI didn’t work for him but iBoot did. If you want to try that, you’ll want to look at tonymacx86’s iBoot+MultiBeast tutorial, starting on step 2, all the way to the end of his tutorial. You can skip burning the iBoot iso to a CD, since you’ll just be mounting the ISO in VirtualBox. Hope that helps!

      Reply
  30. donyque

    hi , Dan I need help
    your tutorial is awesome
    i using intel i5 2,53 with 2gb ram and win 7 64bit can’t I instal this OSX leopard without addind the Memory ram?

    Reply
    1. Dan

      If your machine only has 2GB of RAM, you’re going to have a very hard time running a virtual machine. It might work, if you set the OSX virtual machine to have 1GB of RAM, but I doubt you’ll get decent performance.

      If you want to run a virtual machine, I highly recommend you upgrade your computer to at least 4GB of RAM.

      Reply
  31. Malte

    im stuck at the before the welcome screen. I boot with EmpireEFI and choose the target disk. Then after i press any key, it freezes when the welcome video should begin. Whats the problem?

    Reply
  32. Mac Bell

    I had the same problem as Mike, once empire ran, i changed the device to DVD and then press enter and it worked perfectly.

    Reply
  33. racterman

    Hi Dan… im happy have snow leopard working on my pc, thank you for tutorials. But i have a problem with the usb, my VM do not detect any device…

    Can you help me in this issue…?
    ps: also is there any file for apple id, if so how can i find it…?

    Reply
    1. Dan

      There’s an option in your VM’s settings to forward certain USB devices on your host machine to the virtual machine. Keep in mind, though, that this can be flaky – I got the VM to sync with my iPhone, for example, but when I tried to undock the phone, the VM crashed.

      I don’t know what you mean by “apple id”.

      Reply
  34. racterman

    Ok… maybe i didn’t explain well… im using a pc with the following properties: AMD Phenom II Quad Core
    4 GB DDR 2
    ATI RAdeon 5400 Series
    .
    .
    .
    .
    I have tried all VM settings… all usb settings and i lowed the processor number to just 1 … still without detecting usb devices…

    Pleas i need solve this issue… i need use the serato device…

    I’ll apreciate your help

    Reply
    1. Dan

      You’ll have to google around and see if anyone has a USB driver for your motherboard’s chipset (or compatible) for OSX. I’m afraid I don’t have any experience there. (Edit: Sorry, I’m leading you in the wrong direction here. Sakura has the answer you want, below.)

      Reply
  35. Etienne

    Does somebody know how to do the cmd shortcut in virtualbox ? Thank you very much !

    Reply
    1. Dan

      Try the Windows key, usually between Ctrl and Alt on the left side of the keyboard.

      Reply
      1. Etienne

        Thanks for your answer. Strangely, on my side it is control for some functions and windows for others..

        Reply
  36. Dahra

    Does it matter if your OSX install DVD is 10.5 or 10.6? Cause I have 10.5….

    Reply
      1. Dahra

        That’s weird because everytime I try to boot the disk from Empire It’ boots to press any key to continue and then it does that problem Kris had. Where it would go to that nanosecond stuff.

        Reply
        1. Dan

          Sad 🙁 You can try starting over, or if that doesn’t work, you can try using iBoot instead of EmpireEFI. I linked to it in the comments above somewhere.

          Reply
  37. Harshit

    i am getting this error after i press any key when it asks me to press any key to continue.
    “A critical error has occurred while running the virtual machine and the machine execution has been stopped.press ok if you want to power off the machine or press ignore if you want to leave it as is for debugging.please note that debugging requires special knowledge and toold,so it is recommended to press ok now.”
    If i press ignore it shows me a black blank screen .i waited for very long but no response.please help.

    Reply
    1. Dan

      Based on your description, it looks like VirtualBox is crashing. There are a lot of reasons this could happen, so unfortunately I don’t know how to help you there.

      Reply
  38. Akshay

    Hey Dan,
    My processor doesn’t support hardware virtualization …can i still continue??
    Because VBox says some OSes fail to boot w/o it.

    Reply
  39. Alberto

    Hi Dan,

    What a wonderfull tutorial, even me, a complete computer noob, was able to successfully install osx on Virtualbox 4 running on W7 X64 host.

    I faced some problems with the install launcher, since I haven´t got a proper Retail disc but a dmg image disk instead. I tried to mount the EFI & dmg on master slave virtual drives attached to IDE controller, but that didn´t work. Then I found out that once EFI was loaded it was possible to remove iso from drive and mount the osx disk dmg image in its place. Then reload and osx install started, postinstall scripts done and OSX running and updating ok.

    This are my settings:
    computer: Lenovo 3000N200 0769K2G
    CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T8100, 2100 MHz – 4Gb DDR-2
    Video: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 (256 MB)
    Host: Win 7 SP1 X64
    Guest: snowleopard_10a462_userdvd.dmg

    Hope info can be of use.

    again thank You dr. Dan

    Reply
  40. Tosh

    Hey Dan

    Fantastic tutorial, you da man!

    Got Snow Leopard up and running, and about to finish installing myHack.

    However, it looks like performance is nor so good.

    Would upping the cores and the ram given to the virtual PC at this point be possible/would it mess up the settings too much used to boot?

    Reply
    1. Tosh

      My pc has 6gb ram and an i720, so there’s much to give.

      any help from anyone is appreciated.

      Reply
      1. Dan

        Hi Tosh, increasing the amount of RAM for the virtual machine should help, and the same goes for the number of CPU cores.

        Reply
    1. Digitolic

      I did everything as you mentioned before, maybe the only problem I could think about is that I needed to convert the .dmg image to a .iso image, otherwize my deamon tools couldn’t load it.

      Reply
      1. Dan

        Assuming your dmg->iso conversion was done correctly, my only suggestion would be to either buy or borrow an actual retail install DVD, and see if that works. They’re only $29 🙂

        Reply
  41. Muja

    Hi Dr Dan,

    First of all I want to Thank you for your incredible work. My prob is when I starting VM VirtualBox i get following error msg.

    “VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration has been enabled, but is not operational. Certain guests (e.g. OS/2 and QNX) require this feature.
    Please ensure that you have enabled VT-x/AMD-v properly in the BIOS of your host computer”

    Please help me out.
    Muja

    Reply
    1. Dan

      First, check your BIOS to see if you can enable VT-x (if you have an Intel processor) or AMD-v (if you have an AMD processor).

      If you can’t, then you should turn off VT-x/AMD-v acceleration in your VM’s settings.

      Reply
  42. Konraden

    Hmm. I’ve gotten about as far as I can and I’m still without a clue. I left it to install while I went out for dinner. Now all I see is a console with “Still Waiting for root device” printed line after line. No idea why. Any suggestions?

    Reply
    1. Dan

      Depends on what step you got to 🙂 Either it’s not seeing the virtual hard drive or it’s not seeing the install DVD.

      Reply
      1. Konraden

        Figured it out. I ended up changing my IDE controller to ICH6 instead of whatever it was defaulted to. Solved my problem. I’m still installing, but it finally and properly booted to the OSX installer.

        Reply
        1. Aeneas

          Looked for ages to find the solution to this and then found your comment and fixed! Thanks!

          Reply
      2. Konraden

        Virtualbox was using a PIIX4 IDE controller. When I set it to use ICH6 (Intel’s controller–now it makes sense), it took right off. I’m still working out some bugs with my install. It’s pretty slow and crashes a bunch. It feels like it’s running on a Dimension 2400 from 2005.

        Reply
  43. Phoenix Roberts

    Hey Dan,
    After several months dealing with a Windows 7 installment that wasn’t genuine, I switched to Ubuntu 11.04(natty). Unfortunately, I forgot to reconsider keeping my faulty windows for at least the iTunes. I have tampered around with virtual box running my own OS, and figured I’d put Mac OS on a VM on Ubuntu. Luckily, this was the first google link I found and followed every step, but I’m stuck at switching the EFI to Mac OS install disk. Do you know of anything that could help me?
    System information:
    Ubuntu 11.04(natty)
    Virtual Box OSE 4.0.4_0SEr70112
    [OSX disc] – This was converted to .img and then to .iso

    Reply
    1. Phoenix Roberts

      Sorry. I forgot to include computer information if it was of any use.
      Acer Aspire 5515
      3Gb RAM
      AMD Athlon™ processor 2650e (512 KB L2 cache, 1.6 GHz, DDR2 800 MHz, 15 W)
      ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1200 Graphics with up to 19191 MB of HyperMemory
      InviLink™2 802.11b/g Wi-Fi

      Reply
    2. Dan

      My guess is the disc image format conversions didn’t work right. I recommend you buy or borrow a retail OSX DVD and see if that works.

      Reply
      1. Phoenix Roberts

        Well I also had a spare OS install disk from before that was .dmg to .iso using a windows and it worked, but it was by Hazard. I used it in this tutorial and it did the same exact thing. Is it because I’m using it as a file mount instead of using the disk with passthrough?

        Reply
        1. Dan

          It could be, I’m not sure. Honestly I’ve only tried this using a retail DVD…

          Reply
          1. Phoenix Roberts

            Okay. I’ll try burning it to a DVD, and if that doesn’t work I’ll comment back.

            Reply
  44. Vedant

    (FOR VirtualBox)
    Hey listen, i downloaded a Mac iso file. then i downloaded the Empire EFI iso.

    I intalled the MAC OS X iso file and it installed perfectly and it told me to restart. I clicked restart inside the virtual box mac. then i unmounted the install iso image and just ran the program but it loaded and then it said, debugger ,
    and later down on the same page it said,
    Mac OS Version:
    not yet installed

    (even though earlier it loaded just fine and installed properly)

    What is the problem and what do i do?

    Could you tell me which MAC OS X iso you have used and i’ll use the same?

    – Thanks

    Reply
    1. Dan

      I used the retail Mac OSX 10.6.3 Snow Leopard DVD. You can buy it for $29 from any Apple store or their website.

      Reply
  45. Phoenix Roberts

    No luck. Great tutorial though. Just wish that something on my laptop would work properly. I’ll defiantly refer your links to someone wanting this.

    Reply
  46. Hawre

    hallo, I have done everything that you have done to images, but when I click start will be vt-x/AMD-v, Nested deaktive, but have seen on setting that it is activated, can you help me plissss

    Reply
  47. Rushi

    I m having error when i have mounted the Mac ISO and press any two key.

    it worked at some extend but at some stage while booting it shows error like as follows:
    “Still waiting for root device”

    Reply
  48. Juan

    Hi, everything works until i load the mac os iso after the EFI tells me to, i press enter and some text appears and then to press any key…i do but then virtualbox says that the VM was stopped due to a critical error…doesn’t say which one, do you know what it may be?

    Reply
    1. Dan

      There are a lot of reasons VirtualBox could crash, unfortunately I can’t troubleshoot that for you.

      Reply
  49. Gil

    Thank you very much for this exhaustive guide! Wonderful work! Cheers

    Reply
  50. Andrew

    I can get to the OSx Installer menu after i have switched from the EFI to the OSx installer, but after i select my language i’m told that my computer cannot run it, any ideas why? The host computer more than meets the specs.

    Reply
  51. Nevlimit

    Thank you very much ! I disabled EFI and did not go to shell again 🙂

    Reply
  52. hpcd

    Do these steps work for Lion OS X? Snow leopard is no longer available on Apple’s site. Most tutorials gave instructions for snow leopard–any technical reason lion will not work?

    Reply
    1. Dan

      I’m not sure. I haven’t purchased Lion, so I haven’t tried it myself. I don’t know of a technical reason it wouldn’t work, but Apple might have changed things in the guts of the OS that could potentially make it not work.

      If you try it, let us know 🙂

      Reply
  53. ido

    i tried it but the software gets stuck when it got to the ‘press any key’ massage. i know it supposed to take a few minutes but i belive it got stuck because i left it open all day long.

    Reply
  54. Fred

    Thanks for providing this resource! I have a slightly “backwards” query…

    Can anyone tell me how to “unhack” a previously hacked Mac OS X Server 10.6 install so that it will run properly on Mac hardware? I’ve had it on a Vista machine up to this point, and it has worked fine. Won’t boot when moved to MacBook Pro, however. More info here:

    https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=50545

    Some DB moderator at VBox forums locked my thread for trying to go legit…awesome.

    Thx,
    Fred

    Reply
  55. Fred

    I take back the harsh comment about the moderator…we PM’ed and he unlocked the thread and let me modify the post to remove mention of “hacking”. 🙂

    Reply
  56. flameshadow

    I got an error on this…
    after i hit the point where you are supposed to hit any key and it goes to the installation screen.
    I get some stupid meditation guru thing saying it hit a critical error.

    Reply
  57. highflier

    Well I just finished and it did work for me

    core2 3.1 ghz
    4 gig ram 1.5 to the virtualbox

    I first tried it with 10.8 mountain lion and it hung on first boot to do install, Then tried it with 10.6.? snow leopard and it worked.
    Thanks for the post

    Reply
  58. Rio

    How long are most people waiting between the EFI screen and the OS X language screen? I’ve been waiting for about an hour so far.

    Also, I’m trying this with Mountain Lion. Does this work with 10.8, or should I try with Snow Leopard?

    Reply

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