Now that Apple have released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to the world, there are a lot of happy campers out there who are enjoying the latest and most advanced operating system from the Cupertino based company. The download and installation of Mountain Lion for Mac users couldn’t be any simpler with it being available as a digital download via the Mac App Store and it being installed with just a matter of a few clicks over the top of an existing 10.7 or 10.6.8 installation.
But what about those users who want to enjoy the benefits that this latest operating system brings and run the latest OS X on a Windows based PC? Once upon a time this process, known as a Hackintosh, was quite a lengthy process that threw up a few hurdles along the way. Those days are a thing of the past thanks to the UniBeast method of creating a bootable USB drive and thanks to a recent update this is now possible using OS X Mountain Lion. Read on for the step by step guide.
Requirements:
- Access to a Mac to download OS X Mountain Lion from App Store and prepare UniBeast USB Drive.
- A minimum of 8GB or larger USB flash drive.
- A PC capable of running OS X Mountain Lion.
Step 1: First and foremost, this process requires that you own a copy of Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) and a USB drive with a minimum capacity of 8GB. The operating system is available to download from the Mac App Store for $19.99. If you haven’t already, download OS X Mountain Lion using your registered Apple ID.
Step 2: Download the updated and current version of UniBeast that is available from thedownloads section of the tonymacx86 website (free of charge registration required).
Step 3: After the relevant software has been downloaded, the initial step is to create a bootable USB drive containing OS X Mountain Lion. With the formatted USB plugged into an available USB port on your Mac, open up an instance of Finder and navigate to/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and highlight the relevant USB drive in the left hand column of the interface.
Step 4: Select the Current drop down menu and choose the 1 Partition option.
Step 5: Select Options underneath Partition Layout menu and make sure the Master Boot Recordoption is checked. Click Ok.
Step 6: On the right hand side of the Disk Utility window there are options to name the USB Drive. You can choose a name now or it can be done later. Under the Format header, make sure Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is selected. Select Apply before selecting Partition.
Step 7: Run the UniBeast 1.5.1 application that was downloaded in step 2. If UniBeast is giving you an error message relating to Mountain Lion being missing, make sure the installation file downloaded from the Mac App Store is located in the /Applications folder.
Step 8: When UniBeast is running, skip through the first few screens before selecting the relevant USB drive on the Select a Destination screen. Choose Continue, then enter your system password for approval. UniBeast will then look for the Mountain Lion installer file in the/Applications folder and install it to the USB drive.
Once the process has ran its course and completed, the partitioned USB drive will have a functional version of OS X Mountain Lion on it that can then be used on a PC to create an installation of Mountain Lion. The next few steps can be followed through to ensure everything is working without issue.
Step 9: Insert the USB drive into the PC that you want to turn into a Hackintosh and make sure that the machine is set to boot from USB through the BIOS.
Note: Steps 10 – 12 are only required for new installations. If you are updating from an existing installation of Mac OS X Snow Leopard or OS X Lion these steps can be skipped.
Step 10: After booting from the drive, you should now be in the OS X installer. Set the desired language, choose the Utilities option from the menu bar before selecting Disk Utility. Select the target hard drive for the installation of Mountain Lion on your PC and click the Partition tab.
Step 11: Once again, select the Current drop down, select 1 Partition before selecting Optionsand choosing GUID Partition Table.
Step 12: Type in Macintosh HD as the name of the partition and once again set the Format toMac OS Extended (Journaled).
Step 13: Click Apply then Partition before closing down the Disk Utility.
Step 14: Now simply install Mountain Lion on this hard drive.
When the process is completed, restart the machine. When the machine boots up, choose the new Mountain Lion option to make the drive bootable.
So there we have it, a fully functional Hackintosh PC running the latest Mac operating system. Last but not the least, you will need to install the drivers for your machine. This can be done using MultiBeast tool, which can again be found in the downloads section over at tonymacx86.
Apple will obviously tell you that the Mac machines they produce are designed to work harmoniously with the software and operating systems that they also develop, but running OS X on a Windows based PC can be an extremely pleasurable experience now that the installation process is relatively pain free.
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