Mac Os X Virtualbox Image Download

OS X Lion virtual machine

The current Mac computer family is based on Intel x86-64 platform and also Mac OS X is optimized for current Intel processors. The only difference between IBM-PC and Macintosh lies in a special EFI BIOS that identifies that is needed for Mac OS X. However, third party developers established project called OSx86, better known as Hackintosh, which allows users to run Mac OS X on non-Apple computers, or in virtualization software.

So let's see how you can run latest Mac OS X Lion in virtual machine created in Oracle VM VirtualBox virtualization software.

How to install Mac OS X Lion to VirtualBox

  • MacOS VirtualBox VM. This is a preconfigured macOS VirtualBox Virtual Machine, along with a script for preparing a bootable install ISO image from a downloaded Mac OS installer app. Note: The createinstalliso.sh script is tailored to macOS hosts, and the macOS High Sierra installer app. The script will will need to be modified to work with.
  • Download Mac Os X Virtualbox Image I come back to HackBoot screen, the HackBoot icon now reads 'Mac OS X Install ESD' and I attempt to install the OSX. Instead of the OS X installation screen, I get black window with all this 'stuff' on.

Open virtualbox and click ‘New’ to create a new virtual machine with the following details: Name: El Capitan Type: Mac OS X Version: Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan (64 bit) Click next, select 4GB of RAM, and next again. Select the El Capitan image that you have downloaded and unzipped as the disk image, and create the machine.

Step 1 - Install VirtualBox to your computer

You can download free VirtualBox installation package from Oracle website. It has very straightforward installation without any complex settings.

Step 2 - Mac OS X distribution

They are few ways how to install Mac OS X to virtual machine. Advanced users can use original DVD with special boot loaders and test optimal settings for the best Mac OS X performance.

However, we used easier way with a pre-prepared installation image called iATKOS L2, that includes Mac OS X Lion and other utilities, patches as well as hardware drivers that allows users to install Mac OS X. You can Google for it and download it, for example on BitTorrents. Original iATKOS L2 is distributed in DMG format used for Mac OS X installation packages.

Step 3 - Create virtual machine

After you have installed VirtualBox and downloaded iATKOS L2 disk image, it is time to prepare the virtual machine.

To run Mac OS X in virtual machine you need to have processor with Intel VTx, or AMD-v hardware virtualization support. If you don't have it you can also try to install Hackintosh directly to your computer. Read How to create Hackintosh here.

StartVirtualBox and click on New option in the top menu. In welcome screen of the virtual machine wizard, click on Continue button.

Set the VM Name. SetOS Type to Mac OS X and set Version to Mac OS X Server or Mac OS X Server 64 on 64-bit systems (standard Mac OS X is not officially supported in VirtualBox). Click on Continue button.


Specify the name and type of OS

SetBase memory (RAM) to minimum of 1GB, if you can afford it set it to 2 or more.


Set the RAM size

In next Virtual Hard Disk screen uncheck the Start-up disk box → Click on Continue button. You will be warned by message, but ignore it and press again Continue button.


Warning message in VirtualBox wizard

In Summary window click on Create button and new virtual machine will be added to the VirtualBox virtual machine list.


Virtual Machine summary window

Step 4 - Virtual machine settings

Right click on new virtual machine and selectSettings option in pull down menu. Go to the System tab and uncheck box with Enable EFI option.

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VirtualBox virtual machine settings

Click on Display tab and setVideo Memory to 128MB and check the box Enable 3D Acceleration.


Virtual machine video settings

Click on Storage tab → Click on hard drive icon next to IDE Controller option → SelectCreate new disk.


VirtualBox create a new virtual hard drive

In simple virtual disk creation wizard selectVDI (Virtual Box Disk Image) option and click on Continue button → Storage details set to Dynamically allocated and click on Continue button → Set the name, location and size of virtual disk and click on Continue button (min. 15GB recommended) → On summary window click on Create button.

Now you are back to the Storage settings. Click on 'Empty' optical drive → Click on Optical Disk icon in the Attributes area → click on Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file... and select iATKOS L2 image. Now click on Open button and after that OK button.


Mount CD/DVD image in VirtualBox

Step 5 - Installing Mac OS X

Now the virtual machine is prepared for Mac OS X installation. Double click on new virtual machine and wait until the Mac OS X installation application started.

Select your language and click on Next arrow.


Mac OS X installation application

Now you need to prepare installation partition on virtual disk. Click on Utilities option in Top menu and selectDisk Utility.


Mac OS X Installer Utilities

Select VBOX HARDDISK in Hard Drive list → Select Erase option → Format - Mac OS Extended (Journaled) → set the name of disk and click on Erase... button. Wait until formatting is finished and close the Disk Utility.

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Mac OS X Disk Utility

You are back in the Mac OS X installation wizard → Click continue button and Agree with Read Me.

Select the installation hard drive and click on Install button. Now it is time for a break and wait until the installation process will be finished.


Mac OS X installation partition

After successful installation, the virtual machine will be restarted. If after restart the machine doesn't reboot, simply close the machine and select power off machine and start machine again.


Mac OS X install succeeded

After reboot, or restart you will see an Chameleon bootloader. PressF8 key to open boot option and select by arrow key bootable partition with new installed Mac OS X and press Enter.


iATKOS Chameleon bootloader

Wait until the Mac OS X will start Computer Setup Wizard, where you set configuration of your Mac like region, keyboard type, Apple ID, registration, computer account etc.

After the settings are complete you will be welcomed to Mac OS X Lion desktop.


Mac OS X Lion installed in VirtualBox

If you don't want to always use a mounted iATKOS installation image to boot up the system, go the System Preferences → Boot Loader → Boot Setup → check the Default Partition box and type to text box hd(0,2) to set bootable partition and close Bootloader Configuration. Now the system is able to boot without bootable image.


Chameleon Bootloader Configuration app in System Preferences

And that's it. You can now start to learn with Mac OS X operating system, install and test Mac applications as well as develop applications for Mac, iPhone or iPad with Xcode.

Screenshots in this article are from VirtualBox for Mac, but the same settings are working for VirtualBox for Windows and Linux.

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Windows, macOS – which one do you want to use today? On a traditional setup, you’re stuck with one or the other. But with virtual box, you actually have macOS on a Windows PC.

It’s the freedom that computer users have enjoyed with Linux and other operating systems.

But Apple has made it difficult to install their operating system on anything other than their own hardware. All of that is changing, and Virtual Box is responsible for it and the rise of the Hackintosh.

New to hackintosh? Learn more about it in our what is hackintosh? overview.

Note: A lot of people will be able to get a mac virtual machine one Windows running smoothly, but sound doesn’t seem to work well. That’s really not an issue because you’ll still be able to access all of your apps and software.

I also recommend that you have access to a real Mac. You might be able to find some distributions of the High Sierra ISO online, but there is always a risk when downloading from an unofficial source. Instead, borrow a Mac from a friend, or use your own and download the High Sierra OS from the App Store.

Check out our high sierra installation guide for hackintosh

Everything You Need to Get Started with Installing macOS on VirtualBox

Before we go through the steps on how to install macOS on Virtual Box, let’s get everything together that you’ll need to get started.

  1. Open up your Mac
  2. Go to the App Store
  3. Type in “High Sierra”

You’ll want to search for your desired operating system (we’ll be using High Sierra), and Download it.

Note: You’ll need a decent computer to be able to run Virtual Box. Your computer will need to meet these minimum requirements:

  • Dual core processor
  • 4GB Ram or higher
  • 64-bit

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If your computer doesn’t meet these requirements, you won’t be able to run macOS properly. You’ll be able to download VirtualBox from the official website. I’m not going to go through the installation process, as the website will have all of the information you need to be able to install VirtualBox.

I do recommend that you read all of the documentation and ask any questions that you have in the community section of the website.

VirtualBox 6.0 was just released, so it’s definitely a great time to get started with your own macOS.

Extract macOS Sierra

Make sure you’ve downloaded High Sierra, and then you’ll want to run a few commands from your terminal . You’ll be able to open the terminal at: Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Once inside of the terminal, you’ll want to run the following commands:

Go to your desktop and rename the file, removing the “.cdr” extension. You need this extension to read “.iso” for it to work properly.

You’ve successfully created your own ISO file so that you can bootup your macOS.

The next step is to copy the file over to your Windows machine (using a large USB drive seems to work best). This file will be mounted in your virtual machine later on in the article, so it’s very important that this step is completed successfully.

Creating a mac Virtual Machine on Windows

You’ll want to create a virtual machine, and this is really easy. You’ll open up VirtualBox and click New. You’ll want to have the following parameters selected or entered before clicking Next.

  • Name: High Sierra
  • Type: Mac OS X
  • Version: Mac OS X (64-bit)

Pay attention when selecting the version because you may find that High Sierra is offered as a version when you go to install it. But if it’s not, you can just choose the settings I listed above and they should work fine.

You’ll then be proceeding through all of the settings.

When you come up to the RAM setting, you’ll want to be generous. VirtualBox requires a minimum of 4GB or RAM to run, but the more the better.

Why?

You’ll want to provide at least 4GB to your macOS, or 4096MB to be precise. A general rule of thumb is that if you can spare it, supply more RAM to your virtual machine. RAM will allow the operating system to put more information into memory and retrieve it faster.

For better overall performance, supply as much RAM as you can.

The next steps are also important, and they’ll include:

  • Hard Disk: Choose the “Create a virtual hard disk now” setting.
    • Choose VDI when choosing the hard disk type.
    • Choose Fixed Size instead of Dynamic for added speed.
    • Set the size of the drive to at least 25GB.

You’ll now have your virtual machine using the RAM and disk space properly, and you’ll have to work your way through a few screen prompts before having everything setup properly.

Configuring Your VirtualBox to Run macOS High Sierra

We’ve made a lot of progress so far, and now it’s time to configure your virtual machine properly. You’ll see in the main window of VirtualBox that “High Sierra” is listed. Click on this and then click on the “Settings” button.

You’ll want to go to “System” and make sure that the following are unchecked on the Motherboard tab:

  • Floppy
  • Network

Click on the Processor tab and make sure that you have 2 or more CPUs set for your virtual machine.

The next few settings are rather simple:

  • Display: Video Memory with a minimum of 128MB
  • Storage: Click “Empty” and then click on the CD at the top right. Choose your High Sierra ISO file

Now you’ll need to click “Ok,” and save all of the changes you’ve made. Close out your VirtualBox now.

Apple is very strict on the system that their operating system runs on, so it’s very important that you do your best to configure your virtual machine in such a way that it tricks the installer to thinking you’re on a retail machine.

We’ll now be going into the Windowscommand prompt.

You’ll do this by:

  • Clicking the Start Menu
  • Typing “Command Prompt”
  • Right-clicking on the Command Prompt desktop app
  • Choosing Run as administrator

It’s very important to follow all of the following command prompts exactly. Your goal is to run each command, one by one, hitting the Enter button and waiting for the command to complete successfully.

Remember that VirtualBox needs to be closed before running these commands, or it won’t work properly.

You have to make sure that the virtual machine is properly named “High Sierra” for this method to work. If not, you’ll be able to go back and make changes to the name to get everything to work properly.

Once all of the commands are completed, and there are no errors, you’ll then be able to open up your VirtualBox and get macOS High Sierra installed properly on VirtualBox.

It’s a long process, but we’re almost done with your installation.

Running VirtualBox and the macOS Installer

You’ve almost learned how to install macOS on VirtualBox entirely, and we’re on the home stretch. You’ll want to open up your VirtualBox and then click on your virtual machine that you set up earlier.

Now, click “Start.”

There will be a lot of information displayed on the screen as everything starts running. I recommend stepping away from the machine and letting it run for a few minutes before coming back. Some errors can hang for 5 minutes or longer.

If you’ve done everything properly, you can be confident that the installer will boot properly.

You’ll eventually be presented with the option to pick a Language. If you’ve reached this point, you’re doing very well and are almost ready to run your macOS.

The next steps can be followed:

  • Choose your desired language, and click
  • Click “Disk Utility” and then
  • Click “View” and then “Show All Devices.”
  • Click on your empty virtual drive that has been setup and click “Erase.”
  • Choose the following settings:
    • Name: Macintosh HD
    • Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    • Scheme: GUID Partition Map
  • Click “Erase” and close Disk Utility when the process is complete.
  • Click “Reinstall macOS.”
  • Click “Continue.”

You’ll come up to one point where you’ll be asked to choose a hard drive, and you’ll want to select the Macintosh HD partition that you just created with the Disk Utility.

We’ve successfully copied all of the files on the virtual machine, but we’re not done just yet.

Exit your virtual machine and then go back to your virtual machine’s settings. You’ll need to change up your Storage settings. Click on your ISO for High Sierra in the “Storage Tree.” You’ll click that CD icon just like we did earlier and then choose “Remove Disk from Virtual Disk.”

You need to do this to unlink the ISO from your virtual machine.

Start up your virtual machine and you should come across a black screen with the EFI Internal Shell. You’ll want to look for FS1. If this is listed in yellow, click on the virtual machine and then type fs1: and hit the Enter button.

You should be in the fs1 directory.

Type in the following commands:

  1. cd “macOS Install Data”
  2. cd “Locked Files”
  3. cd “Boot Files”

Now we’ll run the installer by running: boot.efi and hitting enter.

If everything goes well, you’ll come across a graphical installer and will just have to work through the prompts. The virtual machine will reboot eventually and then you’ll need to go through the settings and the rest of the setup process.

Soon enough, you’ll be right inside of macOS, where you’ll be able to start using your mac virtual machine on Windows.

Mac Os X 10.9 Virtualbox Image Download

Having a virtualbox mac OS is the easiest method of using mac as and when you need it. In addition, using virtualbox is far less complicated than the dual boot hackintosh method we have looked at previously.