Computer with no OS

[bballguy998]

Why is it exactly, that you cant install Mac OS X onto a computer with no loaded operating system. Meaning why cant I take a 2 year old computer(guess I better add that it was probaly meant for windows, its not a mac built comp.) that never had an OS installed on it, and install OS X?

Im new to the whole mac thing, Ive used anything but windows, Im hoping to buy a Mac laptop sometime this summer.

And if anyone can help, I know as of now you cant run OS X alongside windows XP, but what about virtually using emulators.?

[Eidorian]

The OS X installer looks for Apple firmware before it lets you install the operating system. Of course you can hack it so it appears that your non-Apple machine does have it. It'll really only work with a pirated/hacked version of OS X on an x86 based machine.

[nbs2]

The simple answer is "because it is a violation of the the licence agreement that accompanies the Mac OS, exposing you to civil (as well as possible criminal) penalties"

The more complicated answer has to do with windows machines running on a BIOS and the Mac OS not supporting it (thus the big hoo-ha-ha over getting XP on a Mac). I guess you could emulate your way to OS X on a PC, but I don't know what the limitations would be. But, it's been worked on for some time. Or, this entire part of my response could be crap. In which case, refer to my simple answer.

[MisterMe]

Why is it exactly, that you cant install Mac OS X onto a computer with no loaded operating system. Meaning why cant I take a 2 year old computer(guess I better add that it was probaly meant for windows, its not a mac built comp.) that never had an OS installed on it, and install OS X?

Im new to the whole mac thing, Ive used anything but windows, Im hoping to buy a Mac laptop sometime this summer.

And if anyone can help, I know as of now you cant run OS X alongside windows XP, but what about virtually using emulators.?It seems that you are trying to install MacOS X on a generic Windows PC, albeit without Windows. There are legal reasons why you can't do this. There are two technical reasons is that MacOS X 10 requires Intel's EFI firmware. No 32-bit generic Windows PC supports EFI. The other reason that you do not have a commercial version of MacOS X/Intel because none such exist in the wild. Your copy of MacOS X shipped with a specific model computer and can be installed only on computers of that model.

[mkrishnan]

In addition to what was previously stated, OS X for Intel CPUs is pretty unlikely to support most of the hardware on your computer....