Mac on PC: Install Mac OS X Lion on PC

As announced at WWDC 2011, Apple may drop Mac OS X Lion update anytime soon (Update: It’s released). Mac OS X Snow Leopard users are currently waiting to receive this update through Mac App Store, but there are some enthusiasts who would love to install OS X Lion on PCs.

So, today we are going to share a relatively easy guide to run Lion OS on Windows based computers. Well, you need to understand few things before starting the installation process.

Important notes:

1. If you have not installed Mac OS on PC earlier, proceed at your own risk. We won’t be responsible for any damage.

2. Please check the given requirements for this experiment. If you think your system is not compatible with them, upgrade your system and then try to follow the installation steps.

3. This guide may or may not work on your computer, so be aware!

Requirements

Software requirements:

• Mac OS X Lion (.dmg file)
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard on existing PC (OS X 10.6.8 recommended)
• iBoot EFI bootloader – Link
• Partitioned Drive

Hardware requirements:

• Intel Core 2 Duo (Minimum)
• 4 GB RAM (Can work on 2 GB RAM as well)
• High-end graphic card

Other requirements:

• Full battery for laptop users
• Two USB drives (One of the drives should have a capacity to store the data of 8 GB space.)

Now, if you’re done with all the requirements check, let’s begin the actual work.

Pre-installation Steps

1. Turn on your Hackintosh PC or Mac and start mounting the Mac OS X Lion.dmg file.

2. Open Terminal application and write following command on the screen

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

3. Connect your 8 GB USB drive to computer.

4. Open Disk Utility software and format it by keeping Mac OS Extended (Journaled) option. Set GUID Partition Table in ‘Options’. See the following image.

5. Once you’re done with formatting, restore BaseSystem.dmg file to your USB drive. Now, find this restored drive with the help of Finder.

6. Open this folder – System –>Installation. Delete ‘Packages’ and create a new folder with same name ‘Packages’.

7. Coming back to the Terminal application, type the following command -

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

8. Copy all the content to the previous created ‘Packages’ folder.

9. Find ‘FakeSMC.kext’ file on your Mac. You’d find it in this folder – Extra –>Extensions.

10. Copy above file to this path – System -> Library –> Extensions.

11. Now, we need to change the permissions of the aforementioned file. You can do this by right clicking on file or just give these commands to Terminal app -

sudo su
[enter your password]
chown –R 0:0 FakeSMC.kext
chmod –R 755 FakeSMC.kext

Alright! We have just finished the first part of Mac OS X Lion installation on PC. Let’s start the iBoot installation.

iBoot Installation

1. Now, open the iBoot setup file (download link).

2. Connect your second USB drive to computer and format it.

3. Pull back the USB drive and connect it again.

4. Click on the ‘Prepare iBoot’ option. Install DSDT and EFI drivers to the respective folders.

Yay! Second part of the installation is over. Now, we should quickly finish the third and last part of this process.

Installation of Mac OS X Lion on PC

1. If you have disconnected USB drives from your computer, put them back again. We will need both these drives for the installation process. (Read step 2 before the execution)

2. Reboot your PC and change the boot preference as USB drive. Make sure your second USB drive (used in iBoot installation) is set to high priority.

3. Once this is done, you will see following icons on your screen. You can use ‘U’ and ‘D’ keys to increase and decrease the screen resolution respectively. If it’s still not appearing, press ‘V’ to refresh the loader.

4. Press ‘M’ key and set boot flag as –v to enable the verbose mode.

5. Select the first USB drive i.e. ‘Mac OS X Base System’ and press Enter.

6. Now, Mac OS X installation screen will appear on your monitor. Fill the required details and complete the process.

Note: you don’t have to follow the step 7 if you are planning to install Mac OS X 10.7 on new hard drive.

7. Don’t forget to choose an appropriate drive while formatting it. You can do this by using Disk Utility software. Follow the same formatting steps as we did earlier i.e. Mac OS X Journaled and GUID Partition Table in ‘Options’.

Make sure you rename the partition as “OSXLion”.

8. Get back to the Installer if you have finished with the partitioning task. Continue the installation process.

Last, but not the least: If you’ve made it so far, follow these steps to run Lion OS efficiently on your PC.

Last Steps

(This will help you boot into the Mac OS X Lion.)

1. Connect your second USB drive (iBoot setup) and reboot the computer.

2. Choose ‘Mac OS X Base System’, as earlier.

3. Open ‘Terminal’ application, again and type the following commands -

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

In the first command, ‘OSXLion’ is the name of your partition. You may change it as per your settings.

4. Reboot your PC and boot it using iBoot setup. Choose volume as ‘OSXLion’ or whatever you have named it.

5. The popular Welcome Video will pop-up on the screen. Done!

That’s it! Enjoy your Hackintosh PC with Mac OS X Lion.

[Source – 99bits]