How to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a PC

LAST UPDATED: January 3, 2013

If you're interested in turning your PC into a Hackintosh, but you have no idea where to start, this is the right guide for you. Though installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a PC is a rather simple process in theory, it can be a lot more difficult in practice. Tonymacx86's iBoot+Multibeast install guide is a good start, but it's very basic. This guide on installing Snow Leopard attempts to explain every part of the Hackintoshing process, from start to finish (with pictures, courtesy of Virtualbox).

How to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a MBR partition

When you install Windows on a hard drive, it automatically sets the partition scheme of your hard drive to MBR (Master Boot Record). Unfortunately, Mac OS X doesn't support that partition scheme, so you usually have to erase your entire hard drive, including your Windows install, before you can begin Hackintoshing with it. However, it's possible to install OS X on a hard drive without erasing Windows, by using nawcom's ModCD.

How to enable AirDrop on a Hackintosh

One of the most publicized features of Mac OS X Lion is AirDrop, a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol that allows Macs to send files to other Macs that are on the same WiFi connection. However, the AirDrop feature is conspicuously absent in Hackintoshes. This is because AirDrop is only designed to work with a specific set of WiFi adapters; it won't work with the 3rd-party WiFi adapters that Hackintoshes use, and it doesn't even work with wired internet connections (ethernet). However, you can force enable AirDrop with the following tutorial.

How to view HFS+ hard drives from Windows

If you dual-boot your Hackintosh, you've probably noticed that Windows can't read hard drive partitions used by Mac OS X. Mac OS X uses the HFS+ hard drive format, which Windows doesn't support. Luckily, you can enable HFS+ support on Windows with the help of one or two Windows drivers (depending on your budget). Read past the break for a tutorial on how to access your Hackintosh's Mac OS X hard drive partition from Windows.

Enable writing to NTFS hard drives on Mac OS X

Windows uses the NTFS hard drive format for its hard drives. Mac OS X can read files on NTFS hard drives, but it can't write files to them, which is a glaring omission. Attempting to drag a file into an NTFS drive in Mac OS X will only result in your mouse cursor turning into an error sign. Since most Hackintoshes dual-boot Windows and Mac OS X, being unable to share files between hard drives can lead to problems with file management. Fortunately, you can enable NTFS writing on Mac OS X with relatively little trouble. Read past the break for more.

Mac SuperBundle sells Parallels Desktop and more for less than $50

Parallels Desktop has always been my virtualization suite of choice for Mac OS X. If you're looking for a way to boot your Hackintosh's Windows partition in a virtual machine, I can't recommend it highly enough. Best of yet, Parallels Desktop is now available for $49 (normally $60 on Amazon) in the Mac SuperBundle.

The Mac SuperBundle bundles Parallels Desktop along with two other popular Mac apps, iStat Menus Pro and Little Snapper. Also included are several less well-known apps: Flux 3, iStopMotion Home 2, Fantashow, Video Converter 2, SyncMate Expert 3, and CuteClips 3.

This SuperBundle is touted as a 89% discount. If you're only interested in Parallels Desktop, $49 is still nearly twenty percent cheaper than Parallels' $60 price on Amazon, and nearly forty percent cheaper than Parallels' standard $80 price point. This bundle lasts a total of 10 days, meaning that it will end on February 8.

I'm also obliged to give a quick shout-out to VMWare Fusion ($40), which has always been Parallels' main competitor. VMWare Fusion has its own advantages: it's more competitively priced than Parallels, and you can use it to create a virtual machine from your retail copy of Lion (Parallels only allows you to create virtual machines with the server edition of Lion). But in my experience, VMWare can't match Parallels in terms of performance or user experience. If you've been interested in virtualization for your Hackintosh, or if you've already pirated Parallels and you want to go legit, now's the time.

SOURCE: Mac SuperBundle

Common boot options for Chimera, Chameleon, Unibeast, Niresh, and more

If your Hackintosh can't boot, changing your boot options with boot flags may be your last chance at getting Mac OS X to start. If you don't know, "boot flags" are options that change the way that your bootloader (the program that boots Mac OS X) runs at startup. Read past the break for list of common boot flags for iBoot, Unibeast, Chimera, Chameleon, and more.

How to set boot options for iBoot, Chimera, or Chameleon

Starting up Mac OS X for the first time on your Hackintosh can be a very tricky process, which often requires you to set special boot options through the use of boot flags. For those of you who don't know, boot flags are "arguments" (pieces of data that you enter) to change the way that your bootloader runs. The bootloader is the program that boots Mac OS X. Boot flags can set the boot options for iBoot, Chimera, Chameleon, and any other boot CD or bootloader for Hackintoshes. Read past the break to learn how to use boot flags.

How to record your screen in Mac OS X for free

Every now and then, you may need to record a video of your computer screen. Whether you're making a tutorial to teach your friends (or parents) how to do fix a bug, or you just want to show off some new trick on your computer, screen recording is a convenient feature that's useful for all sorts of situations. Luckily for you, Quicktime Player actually has a screen-recording feature built-in. Read on for more details.