How would I go about installing OSX?

[ShawnShyGuy]

This has got to be the biggest thread topic but I legitimately would like to know how to make a hackintosh. It's been done with my hardware before, but I dont know. putting an iso on a usb via Rufus is the extent of my knowledge on this matter. Kexts, Kernels, Bootloaders, I don't really get any of that. If someone could explain everything, or point me to a website/thread that explains it, that'd be great.

Also, is it possible to install to a secondary partition? and if not, can i at least install osx to my main partition and windows to a secondary partition? if the answer for both is no, then forget informing me on the rest, because I don't currently have a dedicated machine to make into a hackintosh, I still need a windows machine for lots of stuff.

[0000-1248]

Hello! Welcome to the forum. In a lot of cases, installing Mac OS X on a PC can be easier than installing Windows! To my knowledge, there a two main ways to install OS X on a PC. Method 1 is to install Snow Leopard first (10.6) then download El Capitan or Yosemite or one of those from the Mac App Store. After, you use Disk Utility, myHack etc. to make an install USB. Here is a guide for Snow Leopard.

 

The second option is to make an OS X Virtual Machine in Windows (VirtualBox, VMWare etc.) then just skip straight to making a USB without Snow Leopard. Here is a guide for VirtualBox.

 

You asked about bootloaders as well. There are two main bootloaders that most people use (Ozmosis is a little too advanced for a lot of people) and they are Clover EFI and Chameleon. The best choice right now is Clover, however for my BIOS based computers I use Chameleon since it was made for them. For your hardware, I would recommend the Enoch branch of Chameleon.

 

You also asked about kexts. Kext is short for 'kernel extension' because it 'extends' the kernel to support more hardware. It's basically a driver for Mac OS X.

 

The kernel is the part of the OS that communicates with the CPU. It contains support for CPUs (the vanilla kernel only supports Intel CPUs, but that's where hacked kernels come in). A hacked kernel is a version of the vanilla kernel which supports a wider range of CPUs that were previously unsupported, i.e. AMD CPUs.

 

Now finally, you asked whether you could install OS X on a secondary partition. If your second partition is on an HDD that has Windows installed, then your Partition map will most likely be MBR (Master Boot Record). OS X is only compatible with GUID Partition Table (or GPT), however, there are ways to hack an OS X install USB to enable it on MBR. Here is a guide. It's for Mavericks only though, so it's a bit out of date.

 

You can do it on GUID (without using those hacks) if you install Mac OS X first. Then you need to install Windows in EFI mode. To make a long story short, it's much easier to dual-boot on different Hard Drives.

 

Best Regards,

 

- Matt