Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Install OSX on external hard drive for PC
- Thread starter jcafaro10
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm not sure if you'd be able to do it from an external drive, but it is possible to boot OS X on a PC. However you need very specific components and either an EFI emulator or the internal dongle EFI-X. I just built an i7 Core system and dual boot OS X and Windows. Very quick and no glitches that I've encountered yet.
Which motherboard do you have on your i7 system? I have P6T Deluxe.. I am wanting to get osx loaded on my i7 system. Have a link of the basic guide (sure if took multiple sources, but a link to get me started) you used to get osx loaded?
Nope, can't do it. The only external drive you could possibly boot from is an eSATA drive.
I would have sworn I did this a a year ago with Linux testing. Also found this:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm?rd=1
That also claims it is possible. I don't have my USB drive installed with a bootable OS any longer so cannot test.
I know for certain you can boot from USB flash drives.
Yep, you can boot from usb flash drives as I have done it, just your mb/bios must support it, which most should in the past couple years.
Why would I be able to boot leopard from a usb flash drive and not from an external hard drive? I've heard that what I'd like to do can be done but is very finicky. I want to do some IPhone development. I've been using a virtual machine but it's very slow and buggy. I'm afraid to try installing os x directly on my laptop as a second partition so I'd like to try it on an external. I know some distributions work better than others. I have a dell inspiron 1420.
@Thunderclap,
I also have a Core i7 system with the ex58 board by gigabyte and wasn't able to successfully install OS X on it. What distribution/settings did you use?
@Thunderclap,
I also have a Core i7 system with the ex58 board by gigabyte and wasn't able to successfully install OS X on it. What distribution/settings did you use?
If you want to boot by USB, then you must build a custom boot loader to do so. Macs rely on their EFI for this information (which isn't found on PCs), thus you need to make a customized hackintosh boot drive for such things. Simply installing OS X onto a USB drive won't give you a bootable drive without the additional mods. On the other hand, installing onto an eSATA drive (using Boot 132 or Universal Installer) can work quite easily, provided your PC is hackintosh-friendly.
1. What is your mobo (make and model)?
2. What is your cpu model?
3. What is your gpu?
4. Is your eSATA on a bootable controller? (Consult mobo manual)
I am using the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P with the Intel i7 290 chip (2.66GHz). I don't know how you plan on building your system, but I used the EFI-X module as mentioned in my previous post. It's a little tricky because you need to have OS X 10.5.7 installed to use an i7 system since prior to that OS X won't work. So if you're doing a clean install you have to follow these instructions first.
Once that's done you just slip the drive into your new rig and you're good to go.
Yes. I have. I needed a temp back up for a hackintosh I wanted to update.
Darwin boot loader will do it. Try cloning a hard drive hackintosh installation onto a usb drive and select usb as the first bootable volume in the bios. Works no problem.
You need a retail copy of Leopard (not one that comes bundled with a system). The problem is that the retail version is 10.5.6, and i7 isn't supported in it. You need to upgrade to 10.5.7. In a previous post here I gave a link on how to get around this problem. Once you have 10.5.7 installed on a drive you should be able to get up and running.
This talk of cloning and bootloaders is somewhat new and confusing to me. Here are the steps I've currently tried:
1) Plug USB drive into PC
2) Put Kalway distro cd in drive
3) Boot to Kalway cd
This doesn't work however as I can't even get to the install screen using this disk. I'm going to try and use another distro. I've heard people have had success with Leo4All V3 or IAtkos v1.0ir2 with an Inspiron 1420. Any other suggestions?
1) Plug USB drive into PC
2) Put Kalway distro cd in drive
3) Boot to Kalway cd
This doesn't work however as I can't even get to the install screen using this disk. I'm going to try and use another distro. I've heard people have had success with Leo4All V3 or IAtkos v1.0ir2 with an Inspiron 1420. Any other suggestions?
Again, the motherboard has to be very specific from what I understand as are the components. I'd recommend looking at the OSx86 Project that has a list of compatible components and systems. That might help you out a bit.
I'm trying with iAtkos now. I've successfully got the install dvd to boot up and now I'm confused on which options to check.
I have an Inspiron 1420. What should I choose for Bootloader?
Choices are, Darwin X86 Bootloader, Darwin EFI bootlaoder, stock apple acpiplatform.kext, or stock kernel?
For patches, what patches should I install? SSE2 SSE3 kernel, remove cpupowermanagement driver, remove thermal kexts?
Is it safe to install the gma x3100 driver? How about the SATA support for JMicron and ICH9R?
I have an Inspiron 1420. What should I choose for Bootloader?
Choices are, Darwin X86 Bootloader, Darwin EFI bootlaoder, stock apple acpiplatform.kext, or stock kernel?
For patches, what patches should I install? SSE2 SSE3 kernel, remove cpupowermanagement driver, remove thermal kexts?
Is it safe to install the gma x3100 driver? How about the SATA support for JMicron and ICH9R?
Hackintosh laptop
I would like to boot to OSX with this laptop.
http://www.amazon.com/A73E-AH51-17-3-Inch-Versatile-Entertainment-Laptop/dp/B005UUS5L6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Would it be easier to do it to a 2nd internal drive bay with either a SSD or standard internal HDD, or to an external drive?
I would like to boot to OSX with this laptop.
http://www.amazon.com/A73E-AH51-17-3-Inch-Versatile-Entertainment-Laptop/dp/B005UUS5L6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Would it be easier to do it to a 2nd internal drive bay with either a SSD or standard internal HDD, or to an external drive?
Since this is your first post, I guess you registered on a variety of websites to ask the same question. Were the following any of those sites, because they specialise on that area?
- tonymacx86 Blog - very good guides and quite good message board
- InsanelyMac Forum
- InsanelyMac Hardware Database
- Hackintosh.com
- OSx86 Project
SSD or HDD don't matter, internal or external probably do due to different motherboards and chipsets and so on.