[easy steps] Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion on your PC with Niresh
[EXPERIMENTAL GUIDE] CAUTION
If you're interested in running Mac OS X, but you don't want to pay ridiculous prices for a normal Mac, then a Hackintosh just might be for you. Right now, the newest iteration of OS X is 10.8, known as Mountain Lion. In this guide, we'll show you how to install Mountain Lion on your PC with the newly released "Niresh" distro.
We've previously covered how to install Mountain Lion on a PC using tonymacx86's Unibeast tool, which requires you to have an existing Mac OS X installation. This usually means that you have to install Snow Leopard on your PC first, or find a real Mac. you can't set up iAtkos on a regular DVD, and iAtkos doesn't work with AMD or Atom processors. If you find either of these limitations to be inconvenient, then using the Niresh distro instead may be your best option.
The difference between Niresh and iAtkos
Distros are pirated copies of Mac OS X that have been modified to work with a PC. If you don't have any qualms with the legal issues regarding distros, they're actually the most convenient way to set up a Hackintosh. If you're interested in installing Mac OS X on your PC with a distro, then you'll have two main options: Niresh, and iAtkos ML2. iAtkos is the far more popular choice of the two. However, there are a few reasons why you may want to use Niresh instead.
- Niresh works with regular DVDs. iAtkos only works with the less common (and more expensive) dual-layer DVDs and Bluray discs, because the iAtkos installer is slightly too large to fit on a regular DVDs.
- Niresh is distributed as an "ISO" file. The ISO format is a standard DVD image format that works on just about everything. Meanwhile, iAtkos is distributed as a "DMG" file, which is a proprietary "disk image" format made by Apple. DMG files are rather difficult to work with, since they don't work with Windows by default. To set up iAtkos on Windows, you have to use special software like Transmac.
- Niresh supports AMD and Intel Atom. Normally, computers that use AMD or Intel Atom processors are unsupported by in Mac OS X. However, Niresh includes experimental "patched" kernels that may allow Mac OS X to work with these processors regardless.
On the other hand, iAtkos offers a few key advantages over Niresh. Most notably, iAtkos includes built-in support for installation on RAID volumes and MBR partitions.
Requirements:
- An existing Windows computer/Mac/Hackintosh: This is the computer where you will download and set up Niresh. Either Windows or Mac OS X will work. Make sure your computer has a DVD/Bluray burner (just about every DVD/Bluray drive nowadays can act as a burner, too).
- A Hackintosh-compatible computer with an empty hard drive: This
is the computer where you will install OS X Mountain Lion. It can be
the same computer as the one mentioned in the previous point. If your
computer already has Mac OS X Lion installed, Niresh will just update
Lion to Mountain Lion normally, without deleting any of your apps or
files.
However, not every computer will work with Mac OS X. Be sure to read the Hackintosh compatibility guide very carefully, to check whether or not your computer qualifies. Also, Mac OS X needs its own hard drive-- a minimum of 10 GB of space is required, but at least 50 GB of space is recommended. As far as we know, Niresh will not work on a hard drive where Windows is already installed. - Niresh 10.8.2 (Free): Niresh is a "distro" of OS X Mountain Lion that has been modified to work with PCs. I won't go into details, but you can download it from just about any bittorrent website by using a bittorrent client (it's a little less than 5 GB in size).
- A DVD: In this guide, you will write Niresh onto a DVD, and boot your computer from Niresh to install Mac OS X. Any empty DVD will work.
- Multibeast (Free): Multibeast is a collection of kext files that your Hackintosh will need to run properly, after the initial installation. Be sure to download the newest version 5 of Multibeast, not the older versions 3 or 4 (which are for Snow Leopard and Lion, respectively).
1. Create your Niresh DVD
Burn Niresh onto a DVD disc. You will be booting your Hackintosh from this Niresh DVD, in order to install OS X Mountain Lion. On Mac OS X, burning capabilities are built-in to the operating system-- just insert an empty DVD into your DVD/Bluray drive, right-click on the downloaded Niresh file, and burn it.
DOWNLOAD: ImgBurn
Depending on the speed of your DVD burner, this can take up to few hours. Wait until the DVD has been successfully burned, and then proceed to the next step.
2. Set up the parts of your PC
- Unplug all USB-connected devices from your computer before you begin the setup (except your keyboard and mouse). A faulty external USB hard drive can cause your Hackintosh bootloader to give you EBIOS errors on startup.
- Open up your computer and unplug any extra internal hard drives that your computer has, besides the hard drive that you're installing OS X on. (Just unplug the hard drive SATA cables from your motherboard.)
- If possible, connect your monitor to the DVI port of your computer's graphics. The Mac OS X installer sometimes has problems with HDMI and VGA.
NOTE: If you're installing Mac OS X on a computer that already has Windows installed, you may have to enable AHCI for Windows beforehand. Otherwise, Windows won't boot afterwards. Also, after installing Mac OS X, you should also sync your clock on Windows with Mac OS X.
3. Set up your motherboard's BIOS
The BIOS is basically a settings page for your motherboard. To enter the BIOS on my own computer's Gigabyte P67A-D3-B3 motherboard, I have to press the delete key when it boots (before the operating system starts). Different manufacturers set different keys for opening the BIOS.
Boot Device - Change the boot device of your computer so that "CDROM" is first. You need to do this for Niresh to work. After you finish installing Mac OS X, you should change this setting back to default, so that "Hard Disk" is the first boot device (this optional, but it will speed up your boot times).
4. Boot into Niresh
Insert your Niresh DVD into your computer's DVD drive, and restart your computer. If things go well, your computer will boot into Niresh instead of booting from your normal hard disk. You will then be able to view the black-and-white Niresh menu.
At the Niresh menu, press the enter key (or return key) to start the OS X Mountain Lion installer. If you are trying to install OS X Mountain Lion on a computer using an AMD or Intel Atom processor, you'll have to type the boot flag "amd" (without quotation marks-- for AMD) or "atom" (without quotation marks-- for Atom).
5. Install Mountain Lion
Once you've entered the OS X Mountain Lion installer, you will come up
to a page that asks you for a "destination" for your Mountain Lion
installation.
On the installation page for Mac OSX, the hard disk/disk partition should now be showing up. Select it, and then click the "Customize" button on the bottom left. This is where using a distro becomes really useful: Niresh allows you to install extra Hackintosh drivers and kexts, straight from the Mac OS X Lion installer. The "Customize" page essentially does the same thing as Multibeast, though the layout (and most of the names of the options) are different.
After you're done with the "Customize" page, install Mountain Lion. This will take at least 30 minutes.
Another common issue with Niresh is that it tends to lag out of the account creation process, and skip straight to the Mac OS X login screen before you can make your own account. If this happens, simply log into Mac OS X with the following credentials:
Username: root
Password: niresh
This will log you into the "root" account of Mac OS X. From here, open the System Preferences app, go to "Users & Groups", and create your own account. (We don't recommend that you use the root account permanently, because it is insecure.)
6. Multibeast
Multibeast is a collection of kext files that you'll need to install for your Hackintoshes to have sound, internet, a high resolution screen, and more. Different Hackintosh builds require different Multibeast setups, though most setups are very similar. Find out what Multibeast options you need to install. If you have a Gigabyte GA-P67A-D3-B3 motherboard like me.
Once that's done with, you should be running a fully functional copy of OS X Mountain Lion on your PC. Congratulations!