Who said you need to dust off $1200 to work on Mac? If you want, you can install it on your computer too. Yes, it wont give you the same experience, but you would be atleast working on Macintosh OS.
I have come up with a step by step guide to install Mac OS X Lion on computer using USB without much of fuss. In this tutorial, we would be using a nifty tool, UniBeast which would make the whole installation business simple.
Steps To Install Mac OS X Lion On Computer Using USB
Pre – requisites
- First thing you need is a bootable USB which needs to be created on Mac machine
- Storage device or pen drive
- Installation files for Mac OS X Lion. (Either get it from App Store or buy its installation USB drive)
Create Bootable USB Drive
- Plug in the storage device or pen drive into the Mac machine and launch its Disk Utility by navigating as Applications > Utilities
- We need to creation partitions on the pen drive now. So, choose the pen drive from the panel on left hand side and click on Partition. Now click on Current and choose 1 Partition
- Now name it the way you want (lets say BootME) and then click on Options and choose Master Boot Record
- You need to choose the format type now. Click on Format tab and then click on Mac OS Extended (Journaled) , and then to save it, click on Apply and Partition
Use UniBeast
- For the below steps, make sure your Mac OS X Lion Installation USB is mounted, and if you want to install the same from Mac App Store, then ensure that its available in Applications folder
- Since we are good to go ahead, download and install UniBeast. This would also require you to complete some registration
- Run UniBeast and when it asks to choose a destination, choose the USB drive that you have formatted in the above steps
- Now choose the installation type, and then choose the third option too if you are installing Mac OS X Lion on laptops
Setup Your Computer
- Like every other OS installation, you need to do some tweaking with the BIOS settings
- Press F10, F12 or DEL (whatever works on your computer), to enter into BIOS settings
- Set USB-HDD in the highest order or boot priority sequence
- And also set HDD SATA mode to AHCI, ACPI to S3 and Xtreme hard drive to Disabled
- Now when you restart your computer, Chimera boot screen would pop up. But this will happen only if bootable USB drive is plugged in. And to start the installer, you can use the below options:
- For AMD Radeon 6670 type, PCIRootUID=0 (Nvidia cards are supported by default) and for any other graphics support, type GraphicsEnabler=No
- Single User mode, type -s
- Verbose mode, type -v (use for troubleshooting as it gives detailed description of problems)
- Sage mode, type -x (use this if you fail to boot into installer)
Prepare The Hard Disk With Lion OS
Well, you need not follow these steps if your computer is already running on Snow Leopard. Below are the steps to prepare the installation pen drive:
- Open Disk Utility and then Choose the hard disk from the left panel,and click on Partition. Now click on Current and choose 1 Partition
- Now name it the way you want (lets say LION) and then click on Options and choose GUID Partition Method
- You need to choose the format type now. Click on Format tab and then click on Mac OS Extended (Journaled) , and then to save it, click on Apply and Partition
NOTE: This will erase data from the hard disk completely
Go Ahead And Install Mac OS X Lion
When the installer prompts you to choose the location for installation drive, choose LION that you have created, follow the instructions and let the installation complete.
First Time Booting
- For the first time, you need to boot it from BootME drive and when it asks, choose LION drive
- Now go ahead and download Multibeast, as it would help you fix all the issues with drivers and stuff
- Now get on to DSDT database, browse and download the DSDT for your respective motherboard. The download file will have an extension, .ami
- Now use Multibeast and click on its option UserDSDT, choose the downloaded .ami file, and follow the instructions
That is it! We are all set now. Now you can start your computer and find that it is running on Mac OS X Lion. This is the complete step by step guide to install Mac OS X Lion on computer.