20 January 2012

How to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on VirtualBox under Windows 7 x64

Written by Alexander. Posted in Uncategorized

This guide explains how to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on VirtualBox working under Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.

Configuration of my PC

laptop Asus G2S.
4GB RAM
two core processor
VirtualBox 2.3.8
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 (boot image file)

Steps to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

Dowload Mac OS X image

You need image of Mac OS. You can buy it or download from internet. The image usualy have extension .dng – it's Mac analog for .iso extension on Windows.

Convert dng file to iso file

Unfortunately VirtualBox does not understand .dng file extension and you have to convert it to .iso. There is a great tool dng2img which you can use to convert dng to iso. It's free and small.

Create virtual machine at Virtualbox

To create new virtual machine in VirtualBox press New button and follow the steps in wizard. Below is the screenshots from my PC. Select at least 1.5 Gb RAM for Virual Machine.

Add boot image for Virtual Machine

After you have created Virtual Machine go to settings and under Storage add Mac OS X image file as a second boot device.

Modifing Mac OS X Virtual Machine setting

To install Mac OS X to VirtualBox you need to modify configuration file in text editor. Configuration files is just XML files. Close VirtualBox. Open in text editor file

c:\Users\\.VirtualBox\Machines\<virtual-machine>\<virtual-machine>.xml
at my PC this path is
c:\Users\Alexander\.VirtualBox\Machines\Mac OS X Snow Leopard\Mac OS X Snow Leopard.xml

Add the following lines to <extradata> section of xml file

<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" value=" "/>
<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal2/SmcDeviceKey"
    value="ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc"/>

Close and save file. Now you can start VirtualBox and Run Virtual image of Mac OS X.

Installation of Mac OS X Snow Leopard on VirtualBox

Now you are ready to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard. After you run Virtual Machine installation should start. After than you need to create disc where you want to install Mac OS. Open Disk Utility under Utilities menu. Select the virtual disk and click Erase. Close it and you can now install OSX.