Once upon a time, personal computer users and Mac OS fans could only dream of having this system on a desktop computer. There were many conditions that had to be followed in order to install and configure this "OS". Now everything is much simpler. The system began to support an overwhelming amount of equipment and is able to work with most peripherals. Most importantly, before buying it, check whether a specific device has Mac OS support.
Training
This is perhaps the most important point in the process. Installation on a PC Mac OS requires careful and thorough verification of all elements.
- The first thing we recommend you do is print this manual if you don’t have a second computer at hand. Do not try to do all the memory operations.
- If this is your first reinstall of the operating system, it may take up to 6 hours. Make sure you have some free time.
- Make sure you really need it. Why carry out experiments dangerous for your personal computer if, for example, a laptop with Mac OS Yosemite is enough for ordinary business purposes.
- Ideally, the entire hard drive should be formatted in FAT32. All its sections.
- Download and burn the Hiren's Boot CD. This program will allow you not only to work with hard disk partitions, but also to diagnose the condition of the computer if something goes wrong.
- Save all your data to a USB flash drive or external hard drive.
Form
Now it's time to download the disk image with the operating system, if you do not already have one. There are many assemblies, but it is better to choose not the newest "Mac OS Yosemite", but it is more stable and reliable, and just more convenient to install, and then update it with built-in tools.
After downloading the file, check its format. If it has the extension ISO, MDF, then you can safely write them to disk. If the format is DMG, you will still have to download the DMG2ISO utility and convert your image to a more suitable format for recording.
After you write the image to disk, several files up to 150 kb in size should appear on it or nothing at all. This is due to the fact that Windows does not recognize the file format intended for another system. So do not be alarmed, installation on a PC Mac OS should go smoothly.
Installation
Let's first look at how a clean Mac OS installation goes. That is, on a computer with a completely new and empty hard drive.
Everything happens the same way as when installing familiar to all Windows. We insert the installation disk into the computer and at startup press the desired button to boot from the external device.
After the message about installation from the disk appears, press F8, or wait a bit and enter "-v" without quotes. This will allow you to continue the process of installing the operating system in text mode, otherwise you will be taken to the graphical interface. In principle, you decide whether to do this, because it all depends on the situation.
- If you have already used this disk with the system assembly, you can try to continue in graphical mode.
- If this is your first install, it is highly recommended that you start text mode. So you can keep track of errors that occur.
Further nothing complicated. If everything went smoothly, then a blue window with a pointer should appear in front of you. Choose the language we need.
After that a menu will appear. Click "Utilities", select "Disk Utility" in the list. Using it, we format the FAT32 section we prepared in Mac OS Extended journaled. After the process is completed, click "continue" and go from screen to screen. We select the prepared section for installation and select the components we need. Setting up Mac OS is very important. You must select exactly those elements that correspond to the hardware of your computer. Moreover, you cannot install the same driver from different manufacturers. For example, if your processor runs on SSE3 technology, then in no case put a patch for SSE2. In this case, no one guarantees the operability of the system.
Mistakes
Installing on a Mac OS PC is fraught with considerable risks and difficulties, so it is possible that errors may occur during the process. The first troubles await the user at the initial loading stage, before the menu appears. There are two most common troubles.
"System config file '/com.apple.Boot.plist' not found." This entry means that you have downloaded the wrong distribution. You have to download another version of the OS.
"Still waiting for root device." Most likely you have hardware incompatibility with the OS. Unfortunately, you may need to replace the hard drive or motherboard.
The following problem may occur during the formatting phase of a partition. If the operating system cannot format the partition, use the Acronis Disk Director Suite. Set the manual formatting mode and create a FAT32 partition, and the partition change type is 0xAFh (Shag OS Swap). Restart your computer and try installing again.
Completion
When the installation on PC Mac OS is completed, you may still have problems starting it. If you encounter a "b0 error", this may indicate a problem with the boot sector. To fix this error, run "Hiren's boot CD". Select the utility "Acronis Disk Director" and activate the partition with installed Mac OS. Reboot. Now everything should work.
Boot flash drive
If you have successfully installed the operating system, now you may need to update it. For this purpose, a Mac OS bootable USB flash drive is ideal, because it is not always convenient to download an update from the AppStore each time. In order to create such a device, you will need a little:
- A computer with "Mac OS Yosemite" installed.
- Diskmaker X.
- A USB flash drive with a minimum size of 8 GB.
- Operating system update file.
- Administrative access to the PC.
After you have prepared everything, you can safely proceed.
- Insert the USB flash drive into the PC.
- Launch Diskmaker X.
- We select the operating system we need.
- Select the firmware file (update). You should have downloaded it from the AppStore. By default, it should be in your "Applications" folder.
- Choose your flash drive.
- Agree to clean it.
- Wait for the end of the process.
That's it, your Mac OS bootable flash drive is ready. Now, to install the operating system from it , restart the personal computer with the optional key held down. Or select a different boot volume in the system settings.
When installing OS X on a personal computer running Windows, remember that they support various hard disk formats and BIOS settings. You may need to change the OS boot priorities and its parameters through this system. Be careful.