OSx86 Machines - Mac OS 10.4 Tiger On A Windows Box




Posted by Velvet Nightmare

Well, I heard about this the other day, and thought it was really intresting, so I gave it a try. It is a very complicated process, and requires some knowledge, but if you have an extra hard drive around and would like a weekend project, try it out. It took be about 16 minutes to do, but I've been doing this type of thing for years, so you might be a little longer. Anyway, here is a guide to it:

How-to Install Mac OS X on a PC
The Clearest Guide on how to use the DD-Method for a Native Installation


Apple's Mac OS is one of the three main operating systems that users use to run their computers, the other two being Windows and Linux. Things erupted when news recently came in that Apple was switching to Intel-based processors instead of IBM's PowerPC chips. Apple has been developing their OS to work with x86 (Intel) based systems since 2000 and recently released developer kits to certain individuals. The x86-compatible OS was then "leaked" onto the internet where crackers then cracked the protection lock put on the OS by Apple. Now all over the internet you can find videos and pictures of people just like you and me who had installed Mac OS on their own PCs.

Like you, I was curious to do this myself and after a day's work of figuring things out with complicated guides, I was able to get Mac installed and running. This guide is based on how I myself got Mac installed, so if you follow each step, you should be fine.

Requirements:

-PC with at LEAST an SSE2-capable processor - check with CPU-Z
-tiger-x86-flat.img (can be found at Pirate Bay as tiger-x86.tar.bz2)
-Spare hard drive - with 10GB minimum recommended
-DD for Windows - Google "DD for Windows" and download the newest edition
-CPU Z (Google it)
-Make sure the drive is unformatted. It doesn't have to be, but I did this without a formatted drive.
-THE DRIVE THAT YOU ARE INSTALLING TO HAS TO BE IDE. SATA and PATA are untested for me.

Let's start by checking if you have a capable processor. After downloading CPU-Z, open it and view the "instructions." My processor IS SSE3 compatible, which is good, for that will save you some time later down the line when trying to run Rosetta apps. If you have a SSE2 proc, no prob; this can be patched when the OS is done installing.

Ok, if you think you have everything ready and have a capable processor, let's start the installation process. Place your dd.exe and Diskio.dll in the folder in which you extracted all the tiger-x86.tar.bz2 files to.



Alright, now, the hard part begins. We need to know the PhysicalDrive # of the spare hard drive we want to install Mac to. Go to Control Panel -> Switch to Classic View (if not already done so) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management. As you can see I have two "Disks," Disk 0 and Disk 1, the large 152GB drive disk would be my main drive that I have Windows on and the smaller 37GB disk would be my secondary drive that I have already installed Mac on. As you can see, only 6GB have been used. Anyways, remember the disk number of YOUR secondary drive, DO NOT ACCIDENTALY DD YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE. So the disk I want to DD is Disk 1 or "PhysicalDrive1".



*Velvet Nightmare's note: That is not my box, I have multiple hard drives totally FAR more than that, thanks.

Now open up the command prompt by going Start -> Run -> Type "CMD" (without the quotes). This is the part where you REALLY don't want to screw up. The prompt should read the Windows information up top and "C:\Documents and Settings\Username>". Now type in "cd" and the path to your folder where you have all your Mac files. Hit enter. Now it should say "C:\Path to files>", now type:

dd bs=1048576 if=tiger-x86-flat.img of=\\.\PhysicalDrive#

*Velvet Nightmare's other note: I can't remember if there is a space after "img of=\\.". I'm almost 100% sure that there is NOT, so try that, then if it doesn't work, try again with a space.

Replace the # sign with the number we found earlier.



Hit enter. The installation will now read the following text and finish by itself:

rawwrite dd for windows version 0.3.
Written by John Newbigin
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details

Your computer will run very slow now as this process takes a lot of CPU power. This took me about 10 mintues, but my friends have reported time of 20 minutes to 3 hours. After this is complete, installation should finish and display the following text:

6143+1 records in
6143+1 records out

That's it. You've just installed Mac OS X to your secondary hard drive! Yay! Now just turn off your computer and pull out the power and cable to your Windows drive and replace them it with the Mac drive so that the drive is set as the Master drive or Mac won't boot properly.

*Anoter note: Put the master setting on your Windows drive and have the master IDE cable going into this, then set the second hard drive to cable select. To boot, hit F8 during POST (pre operating system test, where it runs the numbers for the RAM and whatnot) and select your boot device from there, otherwise try using a multibooter like LILO or GRUB to accomplish this.

I you boot and run into trouble, type "-s" into Darwin for single user mode. Also, deadmoo/Curtis have the same password for the system, which is bovinity for both users. I didn't get a log in screen because of how I booted, but in case you get it, now you know.

A problem has been noted that some computers run very sluggishly with Mac. In Mac, go to: System/Library/Extensions and remove AppleTPMACPI.kext and then restart Mac. Mac should now run MUCH faster.

*Note: OS 10.4 will ask for the "bovinity" password when doing this.

There is a ton of other tampering to do as well once you are in the OS to get everything to work right, so let me know if you need help getting things to run. Just so you know right off the bat, everything depends on your hardware, for example, a lot of people need to do a patch to enable sound, I however didn't, as my ASUS P4P800-E motherboard is supported, however, I cannot use onboard LAN, and I needed to get a PCI NIC (network interface card). So results will vary, but at any rate you will end up with a cheap new Mac.

Here is my report to the OSX86 Wiki with my current specs:

Custom Intel [Pentium 4 (3.0GHz, SSE3); ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Motherboard (Intel 865 Chipset)]

Method: DD'd Curtis/Deadmoo's image to a 120GB internal IDE hard drive using this: http://www.techzone.5gigs.com/guides/computers/macosx86/main.html stratagey, which I had no problems with.


System Information:

# - Intel Pentium 4 Processor @ 3.0GHz w/SSE3 compatibility
# - 512MB Corsair PC3200 RAM
# - Radeon 9550 Graphics Card (VESA 2.0, therfore I cannot change the size of my desktop or refresh rates)
# - 120GB Hard Drive - Windows XP currently installed here
# - 120GB Hard Drive - OSX86 currently installed here


I boot by hitting F8 during POST to bring up my boot selection menu (it isn't GRUB or LILO or anything, just the stock boot selector that came with the motherboard) which will take me into Darwin. From there I simply hit enter to start the OS, I do NOT boot into safe mode or single user mode, and I do not get a login screen for one reason or another. My boot time, last I clocked, from the time I see the grey Apple logo to the time I see my desktop and can use everything was 8 (Eight) seconds, which runs circles around my iBook G3 (it's an old Icebox [G3, 20GB, 384MB RAM, OS 10.3.9)


Working:

USB - Have used an external hard drive
Keyboard and mouse are also USB
FireWire


Untested:

CD Burning/Reading - Update: Reading works fine, have yet to burn something.
Using iTunes - Update: NOT WORKING.
Using Ethernet, though I know it will not work seeing as I have a Marvell 88E8001 Giabit Ethernet Controller. I'm going to get a PCI NIC to remedy this.


Currently working on fixing:

Sound - Update: My speakers wern't on.
Turning Rosetta on - Update: Still not working.

For more information, check out http://www.osx86project.org where I learned most of this, and post successes and failures in this thread and on OSX86 as well.

If you do not have a hard drive to use, check OSX86, you can also run by making a new partition.

Enjoy, and good luck.