Install ... without installing?

[BandTrumpet7]

Hey everyone,

 

Been looking at this forum for a while...finally decided to register and post something. Unfortunately, it's a newbie question. Brace yourselves.

 

Is it possible in VMWare to use Mac OS X on occasion ... without actually INSTALLING it onto the hard drive and screwing up my existing Windows installation/computer? Want to make sure before I start anything ... Dual boot sounds interesting but I'm not ready to work up enough guts to do that yet.

 

I tried running a virtual machine I made in VMWare ... got the Kernel Stack error thing ... set the OS to Windows NT, and now I get the apple logo with a little spinny thing, and that's all I get. It just spins and spins ... fun to look at, but then it just gets ... repetitive...

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

-BT7

[DiaboliK]

running in virtual machine is fine. try hitting f8 before you get to the apple logo then enter -v then enter and you will get a verbose log and it will show you what goin on.

 

also running in virtual machine is quite the bit slower than native.

[BandTrumpet7]

Hello,

 

I realize that running in VM is significantly slower...however, I don't plan on using Mac for much more than curiosity. (Macs look neat. Windows works for me.) I may just go out and buy one :-\.

 

Anyways, tried the -v thing, and I get a big list of things, and it stops. Am I supposed to hit enter?...or do something else? Blah, I should know technical stuff by now. (edit: never mind, it's just going very slowly.)

 

(P.S. The virtual machine that I made might not have the right settings, so that's something to consider. Anyways, I ended up staring at the spinny thing for 20 minutes. I don't think it would run THAT slowly inside VMWare...although it might...huh.)

[DiaboliK]

what does it stop at when in verbose mode? does it go into a blue screen after the logging?

[Dr. Evil]

if your own installation isn't working you could always try downloading a vmware image (if that's not what you did already?)

 

i tried the deadmoo vmware image at one point in vmware (set guest os type to BSD and it worked fine). no way it should take 20 mins to boot unless your using a 286!

[BandTrumpet7]

Hello,

 

I'm not using the deadmoo image or any other VMWare image. I created my own virtual machine using an x86 install iso I found. (Torrents don't work for me, can't get the deadmoo VMWare image anywhere except torrents ... had to improvise.) The boot thing (when using -v) stops at an errno 88 ... which I searched on Google and got redirected to this site. I didn't mount the disk using DAEMON-Tools or anything, I just used the built-in iso feature of VMWare when creating the virtual machine. That's probably my problem. I'm going to install Daemon and try that, then let you know my results.

[asap18]

yup u shud be right since vmware has trouble "emulating" a hfs image as a drive

[Dr. Evil]

i don't think using daemon tools will make any difference, pointing vmware to and iso instead of a real drive is perfectly fine, i've done this dozens of times. chances are the install disc has detected some hardware it doesn't like. have you applied any patches to install disc? in addition to the -v option you can try the -s option (single user mode). this worked for me with an installation disc that kept hanging. there is a -x option i think, but i can't remember exactly what it does, google it maybe.

[BandTrumpet7]

DAEMON-Tools did make the difference.

 

Now, I'm at the install. What do I do? LOL...I'm confused...if I install it using this, will I end up installing it on my hard drive and screwing up my existing Windows installation? Please help ... if possible, point me to a guide to emulating Mac OS X instead of dual-booting ... haven't found many guides that do that ... Sorry for all the newbie questions. Thanks for all your help, though!!!!

[Dr. Evil]

i stand corrected! no, installation will not mess up your windows drive. it will install onto the virtual disk which vmware creates (which is contained in a large .vmx file probably in a sub folder of your documents). If you're in the nice shiny os x installation gui then your all set.

 

These tips might be helpful.

1. I can't remember exactly at what screen, but there is an option to do a custom install, which involves stripping out additional languages, printer drivers etc before installing. this can save a lot of space (who needs 4gigs of printer drivers?!)

 

2. if you get thru install ok, when os x reboots for the first time it will ask you to register your details with apple. to escape this screen simply hit command + q.

command = alt on windows keyboard.

 

hope it goes well for you, don't worry about messing up windows, this is the beauty of vmware, you can just delete virtual machine and start again if needs be. have fun.

[DiaboliK]

now that you can install. in the vm ware settings you want to make a new virtual hd. theres a slew o options i cant remember but they are very straight forward in the setting screen. create your virtual hd then boot up again. once installer is up and displayed. in the top bar goto utilities > disk utility > select the "virtual" hd > format to mac OS extended journaled or not dosent matter > quit disk utility start installing!

[BandTrumpet7]

Wow, guys, thanks for all your help!! Very comforting to know all of this.

 

I go through the Mac installation, and I get to the "Install to..." screen, but nothing is listed. Did I miss something? I remember making a hard drive......but maybe I didn't? Argh. (Edit ... it's the "Destination Volume" screen. I see the screne, but there's nothing listed. What do I do?)

 

P.S. Mac is very slick-looking. I can't wait! It's actually running sort of fast ... I know, it's not really that fast, but it's faster than I thought it would be ... at least for now.

[Rammjet]

I get to the "Install to..." screen, but nothing is listed.

You have to format your virtual disk.

 

Go to the Utilities menu and select Disk Utility.

 

On the left, click your partition and on the right, click the Erase tab.

 

Be sure it says MacOS Extended Journaled and click the Erase button

 

Quit Disk Utility and select your formatted partition in the Installation window.

[BandTrumpet7]

Sorry!

 

Went to disk utility. I see a "4.4 GB Virtual IDE CDROM Drive," with "Mac OS X Install Disc x86" underneath (as a sub-drive or whatever ... it's contained within the virtual CD drive.) There are no partitions ... did I skip that step? Ooops ... can someone let me know how to do that? Or if there's a workaround?

 

Sorry everybody, haha, told you I'm a n00b. I would do this on my own but many sites tell you how to INSTALL Mac natively, not just emulating it. Unless I haven't found the right one yet.

[Rammjet]

http://buddhistnerd.blogspot.com/2006/06/n...te-friends.html

[Dr. Evil]

double check your virtual machine settings, i think it creates and 8gb virtual hard disk by default? if there is any disk there, disk utility should see it and allow you format as 'MacOS Extended Journaled'. If needs be, start over and create a new virtual machine choosing 'typical' and os type as bsd (although not sure this matters).

 

besides the partitioning of your physical hard disk, the installation process for native or virtual install are identical once your in the os x installer.

[BandTrumpet7]

@Rammjet : Thanks for the site, I'm following the instructions now ... I think I can see what I did wrong at first!

 

@Dr. Evil : Thanks for the info ... I restarted and chose "BSD"... originally, mine was set to "Windows NT." Maybe this was what was wrong? ... It was because I got the Kernel Stack error, and I read changing the OS to Windows NT solved the problem. (Which it did.) I'll try BSD and see if it helps!!!!

 

Thanks for all the updates, I'm following the tutorial on Rammjet's link now, hopefully it will help ... if anything else comes up I'll let you all know. Thanks for all the great info!! I really appreciate it!

 

(Lots of edits!!!! Edit: Switching to FreeBSD makes it crash. Windows NT makes it not crash.)

(Edit #2: I'm installing. Thanks for all the help you guys!!! I really appreciate it.)

[BandTrumpet7]

Gah ... so close, yet so far away. We have an error.

 

A bo error, to be exact.

 

It's covered in Rammjet's link, but for some reason I can't boot with the disk in. It's mounted in DAEMON-Tools but it won't recognize the F8 key when I hit it repeatedly ... eventually the computer just gets annoyed and starts beeping at me whenever I hit it.

 

Any suggestions as to how to fix the bo error problem?

 

(EDIT: Fixed!! I think it's starting now! Thanks you guys!)

[BandTrumpet7]

OK ... blah ... uninstalled Mac OS X to try to find out how I could use the Internet in there. (I'm using a different network setting now.) I'm following the guide for reinstalling Mac, and my virtual hard drive is NOT APPEARING in the Disk Utility. I've allocated the disk space (20 GB ... just in case ... ) but still. No luck.

 

Any ideas? I forget what I did last night to make this work. If you have any suggestions let me know.

 

(HOPEFULLY THE FINAL EDIT: All right, guys, here's the deal. I fixed this problem, it's a bit nitpicky, but it works. When making my new virtual machine I selected Windows NT as the operating system because for some reason Mac wouldn't run on a virtual Linux or FreeBSD (kernel stack overflow ... whatever.) Anyways, for anyone else who may be having this problem, select FreeBSD as the operating system when making a new virtual machine, do your hard disk stuff, then click "Edit" and make the system Windows NT. Your hard disk will show up in the Disk Utility.

 

Thanks to everyone for their support!)