How To Install OS X Mountain Lion in Virtualbox With Hackboot
How To Install OS X Mountain Lion in Virtualbox With Hackboot
How To Install OS X Mountain Lion in Virtualbox With Hackboot
Is your PC compatible
with Mac OS X? Read
this first.
HOME
INSTALLATION GUIDES
NEWS
How to install OS X
Mountain Lion on your
PC with Unibeast
HARDWARE RECOMMENDATIONS
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
How to install OS X
Mavericks (BETA) on
your PC
WHAT IS HACKINTOSHING?
SEARCH MACBREAKER
Search
We've already shown you how to use Virtualbox to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Mac OS X Lion on virtual machines
in Windows, since it's great practice for installing Mac OS X on your actual computer. And now that OS X Mountain Lion
10.8 has been officially released, we can finally demonstrate how to do it with Mountain Lion too.
LATEST UPDATE (January 27, 2013): Don't want to use Hackboot? Check out the simpler iAtkos method for
installing Mountain Lion on Virtualbox instead.
In essence, this method will let you run Mac OS X from inside a program window in Windows. As always, we're going to
use Virtualbox for this. It's important to note that Windows virtualization programs do not "officially" support Mac OS X, so
you will not be able to enable full graphics support. This tutorial should only be taken as a proof of concept.
Computer Requirements
You need a computer with Windows to run Mac OS X on Windows (of course). The "System Type" of your copy of Windows
needs to be 64-bit, because OS X Mountain Lion is a 64-bit operating system. If you have a 32-bit copy of Windows, you can
only install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Virtualbox. You will need at least 4 GB of RAM and a dual-core (two core) processor
or better. Personally, the computer I was using for this had a 4-core processor and 12 GB RAM, which is way more than
enough. You also need about 10 GB of unused hard drive space.
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
Posts
Comments
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
1/16
10/19/13
Right click on "My Computer" on your desktop and click "Properties" to check the stats on your computer. If it doesn't
directly tell you how many cores your processor has, look up your processor model on Wikipedia or Google. You also want
to find out whether your processor is made by "Intel" or "AMD". Computers with AMD processors will not work with
Mountain Lion.
General Requirements
Virtualbox : This virtualization suite is free, and though it doesn't offer official support for Mac OS X, it works well
enough.
Mountain Lion bootable DVD : Unfortunately, the standard method for installing OS X Mountain Lion on PCs
(which uses a paid copy of the Mountain Lion installer) doesn't work with Virtualbox. Instead, you'll have to rely on
pirated "bootable DVD" copies of Mountain Lion, also known as "distros". I won't go into details, but you can
download these copies from about any bittorrent website by using a bittorrent client (it's about 4.5 GB in size). In
the past, we've used the iAtkos distro for this, but iAtkos hasn't updated for Mountain Lion yet, so I used the "OS
X 10.8 Mountain Lion bootable DVD for Intel PCs", by Olarila.
Hackboot 1 / Hackboot 2: Even though it's called a "bootable DVD", the Olarila version of OS X Mountain Lion
still can't boot in Virtualbox by itself. To help Mountain Lion start, you'll need to use Olarila's Hackboot CD. There
are three different versions of Hackboot; we'll need to use two of them in this guide. "Hackboot 1" is for starting
the Mountain Lion installer, while "Hackboot" 2 is for starting Mountain Lion itself.
Multibeast 4.6.1 : You will need to use Multibeast 4.6.1, our favorite Hackintosh post-installation tool, to set up
the Mountain Lion virtual machine after the initial installation. While Multibeast 4.6.1 is an old version designed for
Mac OS X Lion instead of Mountain Lion, in our case, it actually works better than newer versions of
Multibeast. Registration is required on the tonymacx86 website to download this.
Step 1: Prep
Download Virtualbox, install it, and open it up. Also, if you want to be able to view USB devices from your OS X Mountain
Lion virtual machine, download the Virtualbox Extension Pack and run it before going to Step 2.
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
2/16
10/19/13
I recommend assigning 4 GB of RAM to the virtual machine, but you can assign as little as 2 GB of RAM. Every time you
turn on Mac OS X, that RAM that you assign here will be used to run the virtual machine. The RAM will be given back to your
normal computer after you turn Virtualbox off.
You'll need to create a new hard disk for the virtual machine. Virtualbox will ask you what type of disk you want to create:
VDI, VDMK, or VHD. VDI is the original format for Virtualbox, while VDMK is the format used by VMWare. If you're
considering getting a copy of VMWare, you might want to choose VDMK. Otherwise, just choose VDI. I recommend creating
a dynamically expanding disk; the only other option, fixed-size storage, will eat up your hard drive.
EFI, which stands for Extended Firmware Interface, is a feature that helps operating systems start up. Unfortunately, Mac
OSX requires 'speshul' EFI, so the EFI that Virtualbox uses doesn't work.
Once you're done with that, go to the settings for "Storage". In the storage tree box, you'll see a CD icon labeled "Empty".
Click on it and click "Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file". In the window that pops up, choose the .iso file for Hackboot 1
(download below).
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
3/16
10/19/13
This way, when your virtual machine starts for the first time, it will boot into Hackboot.
Your mouse cursor will probably be trapped inside the virtual machine. Press the right "Ctrl" key on your keyboard to allow
your mouse to escape. Then, at the bottom right of the virtual machine screen, right-click on the little CD icon, and click
"Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file". A Windows Explorer window will pop up; from there, select the OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
bootable DVD.
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
4/16
10/19/13
Click back into the Hackboot screen, and press the "F5" key on your keyboard. This will refresh Hackboot. The CD icon in
the middle of the Hackboot screen will now say "OS X Install DVD". Press the enter key on your keyboard. You will then
enter the Mac OS X installer page.
Continue, and you will eventually come up to a page that asks you for a "destination" for your Mac install. Oh no, the page is
blank! We'll have to fix that. To do this, start up Disk Utility (located under the Utilities menu).
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
5/16
10/19/13
Mac OSX can only be installed on a completely clean disk, so you need to use Disk Utility to wipe your Virtualbox hard disk.
Click on the Virtualbox hard disk in Disk Utility and erase it. Don't worry, there's nothing important on it.
On the installation page for Mac OSX, the Virtualbox hard disk should now be showing up. Select it and continue.
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
6/16
10/19/13
Once that's done with, Mac OSX will install itself. This will take at least 20 minutes.
When the installation finishes, Mac OS X will crash into a black screen with white text. This is normal; Mac OS X has
installed successfully. Now proceed to the next step.
Step 5: Boot it up
Again, press the right Ctrl key to allow your mouse to escape from the virtual machine screen. Then, click on the CD icon in
the bottom right of the virtual machine. This time, choose the .iso file for Hackboot 2 (download below).
DOWNLOAD: Hackboot 2
Restart your virtual machine. You'll see the Hackboot screen once more, except there will be an icon for your virtual
machine's hard drive in the middle.
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
7/16
10/19/13
Select it (use the arrow keys on your computer) and press "Enter". Mountain Lion will boot, and you should eventually be led
to the Mac OS X setup screen. Fill it out, and you'll finally be led to the Mac OS X desktop.
This concludes the first part of the guide. However, you're not done yet! You still have to make your virtual machine bootable
without the help of Hackboot.
Step 6: Fix it up
By default, your ethernet (internet) should work in the virtual machine. However, the virtual machine will not have sound, or be
able to boot from the hard drive without help. To fix this, open Safari, and download Multibeast 4.6.1. While Multibeast 4.6.1
is an old version designed for Mac OS X Lion instead of Mountain Lion, in our case, it actually works better than newer
versions of Multibeast. Registration is required on the tonymacx86 website to download this.
DOWNLOAD: Multibeast 4.6.1
Before starting Multibeast, you have to go the "Security" section of System Preferences in Mac OS X, go to the "General"
section, and check "Anywhere" in the "Allow applications" section. Once that's done, run Multibeast and install the following
options (contrary to popular belief, you do not need an actual DSDT file to use UserDSDT).
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
8/16
10/19/13
Next, you'll have to delete a certain kext file in your hard drive that causes boot errors. You can do this from Finder, the file
browser built into Mac OS X. However, Finder hides your hard drives in Mountain Lion by default. To unhide them, open
Finder, and click on File -> Preferences in the menu bar at the top of Mac OS X. Under the "Sidebar" settings, check "Hard
disks", so that Finder will display your virtual machine's hard disks in the sidebar.
Then, go to your main hard drive, and go to /System/Library/Extensions. Inside the Extensions folder, delete the file
AppleGraphicsControl.kext.
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
9/16
10/19/13
This completes the post-installation process for your virtual machine. Eject the Hackboot CD; you can do this by rightclicking the CD icon at the bottom right of your virtual machine, and unchecking Hackboot. Then, restart your virtual
machine. Mac OS X will now be able to boot normally and play audio. Congratulations!
You can change "1920x1080x32" to whatever resolution best fits your monitor. For instance, if you want to use the 1600x900
resolution, type in "1600x900x32". Once you've saved it, turn off the virtual machine.
Next, open the Command Prompt in Windows (make sure you are logged into an Administrator account on Windows). You
can do this by opening the Start Menu, and typing "command prompt" into the Start Menu search bar. Then, type the
following command into the Command Prompt.
cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\Virtualbox"
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
10/16
10/19/13
Press the enter key to submit the command. Once that's done, start your virtual machine again. It will now boot in full
resolution. Congrats!
Recap
I'll just repeat what I said in my other two Virtualbox guides. Installing Mac OS X on a virtual machine is excellent practice for
the real thing: installing Mac OS X on your actual computer. Don't get too comfortable, though. Compared to most
computers, Virtualbox virtual machines are very "vanilla", meaning that they're very compatible with Mac OS X in the first
place. You can't count on being that lucky with a real PC.
And even if you don't plan on doing this for real, with a Hackintosh, it's still a really cool thing to try out over the weekend.
Related Posts -
How to install OS X
Mountain Lion in
Virtualbox w ith iAtkos
How to install OS X
Mountain Lion on your PC
w ith iAtkos
A look at AMD
Hackintoshing -- Mac OS
X Lion
How to install OS X
Mountain Lion on your PC
w ith Niresh
397 comments
Leave a message...
Best
Avatar
Share
Community
HE LP
4 months ago
after i refreshed and clicked enter, i get stuck at a black screen, and nothing works! help!
43
Reply
anoy
Share
When you are setting up the intail VM name select 64BIT!!! That'll fix all the problems.
1
Reply
Share
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
11/16
10/19/13
Avatar
Qwes i V iet
Share
3 months ago
i press the f5 and prompted me to ENter install and this is what i get and later turn black
21
Reply
GeorgeFeb
Share
Qwesi Viet 3 days ago
Step 3 is fucked up, you guys have to add your MAC OS X.vdi to IDE not to SATA!
Reply
Jawad S abra
Share
Qwesi Viet a month ago
Share
if you're using windows 7/8 and 32 bit, you must wait for a few
minutes after the black screen
Reply
Share
Tanmalhot
How much time should I wait as I am at the same step and it shows above
screen and then a black screen. nothing happened even after 5-10 mins. I am
using OS X 10.7 iso
2
Avatar
A nony mous
Reply
Share
5 months ago
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
5 months ago
Everything went perfectly until the last step, now I'm getting an error when I try to boot the machine:
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Mac.
One of the custom modes was incorrect. The format or bit count of the custom mode value is invalid.
(VERR_VGA_INVALID_CUSTOM_MODE).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}
14
Avatar
Reply
s udheer1437
Share
5 months ago
I got stuck in step 4. When I press f5, nothing happens. Please help. This is really very urgent for me.
Thanks!!
11
Reply
Share
Ibrahim A ns ari
Do you have an icon of f5? If it is there, then it is a hotkey and won't work. Use another
keyboard. I had to do this on my entertainment PC..
Reply
Avatar
A nony mous
Share
7 months ago
Great tutorial! Though I cant get through step 4, I had this black screen with text on it saying "Unable to
find driver..." I'm running win7 on i7 and 8gb ram, allocated 4gb. Here's a screenshot
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
12/16
10/19/13
find driver..." I'm running win7 on i7 and 8gb ram, allocated 4gb. Here's a screenshot
http://imageshack.us/f/201/mac... . Can anyone please help me?
11
Avatar
Reply
A us ie dudds
Share
2 months ago
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
a year ago
Till step 3 it was fine. During step 4 when I pressed enter, I got this error message after it started
loading files "Mach-o file has bad magic number" and it automatically came back to the Install OSX
DVD screen.
Any help on this? plz...
4
Reply
Share
Marawan
Did you find a solution to this issue? Because I'm having the same problem too
1
Avatar
Reply
S t even Harnie
Share
3 months ago
Avatar
Daniel
Reply
Share
a month ago
I can't check "About this Mac" it just freezes up and refreshes the dock.
1
Avatar
Reply
Share
himes h modas iy a
a month ago
I did exactly what I was told for changing the resolution but it stayed exactly the same.
1
Avatar
P rak as
Reply
Share
3 months ago
When I started the virtual machine below message was received and the installation of os x couldn't
start.Need help.
"VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration has been enabled, but is not operational. Your 64-bit guest will fail
to detect a 64-bit CPU and will not be able to boot.
Please ensure that you have enabled VT-x/AMD-V properly in the BIOS of your host computer."
1
Reply
s orifiend
Share
Prakas a month ago
You need to restart your PC, then go to BIOS and enable VT (virtualization)
Reply
Avatar
A nony mous
Share
3 months ago
If any of you can't change the settings to allow the 3rd party app the just hit the button you assign to
control (Mine is CTRL) then click on MultiBeast then hit open
1
Avatar
Reply
Share
5 months ago
You sir should be awarded the Nobel Peace Price! I've spent 4 days banging my head about this. In
the end I've disabled the sound in my virtual machine and increased the Virtual Hard Disk and RAM
sizes, and voila, my Mac OS X guest is up and running!
My host is Ubuntu 13.04, and my hardware is Acer Aspire 5830TG
1
Avatar
Jonny
Reply
Share
5 months ago
I know it has been awhile, but did you ever figure this out? I'm getting stuck at the same place.
1
Reply
Share
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
13/16
10/19/13
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
5 months ago
The administrator's password is the one that you set after booting from Hackboot 2.
1
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
7 months ago
hi,
i have OSx 10.8.3 in VirtualBox 4.2.10 and Multibeast 5.2.1
Audio Card: Intel HD. Witch VoodooHDA Version is working for the Virtual Hardware ?
Thanks
1
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
8 months ago
THIS WORKS PERFECTLY! thank you for such a wonderful guide. I can now use Garageband on my
PC!
1
Avatar
Reply
A nony mous
Share
a year ago
great i got it to refresh and now its giving me the mach-0 has a bad magic number error !!!!!!!!
1
Reply
Share
Marawan
Did you manage to solve this probelm? I have the same issue
Reply
Share
t ax man81
I just did this and got the same error - what i did to make it work was went into my BIOS
and enabled Intel Virtualization Technology. Now it works like a charm.
1
Reply
Marawan
Share
taxman81 3 months ago
Thanks I did that, it didn't exactly work but I guess I'm a step closer to getting it
to work now! I'm getting some weird errors
Reply
Avatar
Denis
Share
a year ago
I have a question. Is it possible to install Snow leapord/Lion/Mountain Lion in virtual machine if the
system doesn't support VT-x (hardware virtualization support)
Also I too got the "Mach-o file has bad magic number" error on trying the above steps with my acer
4750 laptop(which doesn't support VT-x as mentioned above).
With iAtkosL1 I got the grey screen with apple logo on the same acer laptop. Can you please help me
with any workaround for any of these issues?
Thanks in advance
1
Reply
Marawan
Share
Denis 3 months ago
Avatar
B iprajit S harma
Share
2 months ago
I am getting two error 1. vt-1/amd-v hardware acceleration is not enabled which I am ignoring, other
one is Mach-0 file has a bad magic no.
1
Reply
Share
James B loc k
Avatar
Mis afir
Share
6 days ago
Thanks
Reply
Share
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
14/16
10/19/13
Avatar
Mik e
Share
a month ago
Can I update Mountain Lion through the appstore after this install? or is that a bad idea?
Reply
Share
Mac B reak er
Mod
Updating through the App Store will usually work, but it can be risky-- the results vary from
computer to computer. If you want to update, you'll have to reinstall your audio drivers through
Multibeast afterwards (so basically, install AppleHDA Rollback again).
Reply
Avatar
Ros s Nec ro
Share
a month ago
Hi, thanks for the guide. I got to the last point where I changed bits to up the resolution and now I can't
seem to boot up, it just sits at the grey boot up screen spinning. Any idea why or how to change it back
to when it worked before the change?
Reply
Avatar
2A nony mus
Share
a month ago
I got stuck in step 4 during the installation. It says just 4 more minutes but it does not load anymore.
Reply
Share
2A nony mus
Avatar
Share
2 months ago
Everything's working fine, except I cannot configure my camera or any sound. Help?
Reply
Avatar
Liam Hart
Share
2 months ago
Works like a charm, i can finally use Logic Pro on my PC, thanks for the awesome tutorial :)
Reply
Avatar
nic k
Share
2 months ago
Avatar
Fabric at or Hunk
Share
2 months ago
i need os x mountain loin VIRTUAL BOX INSTALLED IMAGe can any one pelase share???
Reply
Avatar
jk haz raji .
Share
3 months ago
Awesome. Thanks very much. At last I could see Mac OS X 'Live' on my PC screen. Great job!!
Reply
Avatar
MGT
Share
3 months ago
I have a few problems/questions. When I follow step 7, changing the file in the Mac is fine, but when I
do the stuff with the CMD, it gives me an error (after I put in vboxmanage setextradata "Name of virtual
machine" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32") however, when I boot the machine back on, it
seams to work. Idk whats happening, but I guess I don't need the cmd
Question: the mac keeps telling me to upgrade my OS in the appstore. Should I do this? Will it break
the tonymacx86 stuff and the hackboot.iso? If I can upgrade, I will.
Reply
Avatar
Marc el A res
Share
3 months ago
Everything went fine... Until the "Enable location services" screen, on the initial instalation wizard.
Whenever I click on "Continue" it restarts the process, taking me back to the welcome screen.
Any tips?
Thanks and congrats.
Reply
Share
Marc el A res
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
15/16
10/19/13
Marc el A res
Please? :)
Reply
Avatar
A nony mous
Share
3 months ago
Share
NEWER POST
HOME
OLDER POST
www.macbreaker.com/2012/07/mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
16/16