Install OSX Tiger on Intel Machines (or USB Drives) Using Only Windows Software

Contributor Icon Contributed by OSX86 Date Icon August 14, 2005  
Tag Icon Tagged: Apple Mac

Many of the guides for installing OSX Tiger are complicated and use linux. You can install OSX using public-domain free windows only tools. Leopard instructions and links included as well.


If you wish to install OSX tiger to your intel machine or usb drive, you can follow these few steps. Be careful because you can kill your hard drive if you are not careful.

You will need either a seperate hard drive (seperate partition will not do) or an external hard drive. Whatever extra hard drive you use will be completely replaced by osx and you will lose all information on that drive.

1. Authorized users should obtain the OSX files from Apple. It is illegal to obtain them from torrent sites by searching under the following keywords: “VMWare files for patched Mac OS X Tiger Intel”
2. Unrar these files to the root of your C: drive
3. Download Forensic Acquisition Utilities
4. Unzip these files and copy dd.exe to the root of c: drive as well

Note: the dd.exe program is used to write the image to your spare hard drive or external hard drive. The command is the following:

dd if=c:\tiger-x86-flat.img of=\\.\PhysicalDriveSomething

PhysicalDriveSomething should be replaced with your real physicaldrive (PhysicalDrive1, PhysicalDrive2, etc.). What your hard drives or usb drives are labelled is not always obvious. So I use WMI to figure this out. If you don’t need it, don’t get it. It’s free… and it may prevent you from killing your wrong hard drive.

5. Download WMI Tools from Microsoft
6. Open WMI Browser Object
7. Allow block content and click the OKs until it loads
8. Select Win32_SystemPartitions.PartComponent in the left column
9. In the right column right-click on the drive device id (Disk #0, Partition #0, etc) and select Go to Object
10. The device window will open and click the associations tab
11. Exploring with this tool you should be able to match drive letters (Win32_LogicalDisk.DeviceID=”C:”) to each physicaldisk reference (Win32_DiskDrive.DeviceID=”\\\\.\\PHYSICALDRIVE0″)

Click for larger version:

12. Now that you know the physicaldrive label for your extra internal or external drive, you can drop to the root of your c: drive and run the command. Be sure to replace the physicaldrive text with the physical drive you determined above. If you use the wrong one, you will erase your primary hard drive.

dd if=c:\tiger-x86-flat.img of=\\.\PhysicalDrive

13. The command will appear to hang but you will notice your extra harddrive cranking away. It’s going to do this for 15min to hours. Just let it run.
14. Once it is done, reboot and set the osx drive to your boot drive through your bios.
15. If your hardware is compatable, you should boot to OSX.

If you need to debug, I recommend these forums.

This wiki is also excellent:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Leopard OS X on Intel Install Here:

http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/seamonkey420/2007/10/28/apples-leopard-already-hacked-for-pc/

http://forum.osx86scene.com/

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Viewing 87 Comments

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    So far it's the best guide for Windows users I've seen.

    dd can be downloaded on it's own: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite...

    Looks like concretesurf.co.nz couln't withstand all the trafic and collapsed.

    The title is a bit misleading - there's no need for a USB drive.
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    Thanks for the information and the nice comments!

    I am not sure how to edit my original recipe, but I give permission to the editors to update the recipe and/or change the title as they see fit.

    I believe the forums noted above are back up now.
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    When I first start up dd.exe within the Forensic Acquisition Utilities, I get the following message:
    Copying CONIN$ to CONOUT$...


    Then when I try to input the command "dd if=c:tiger-x86-flat.img of=\.PhysicalDrive1" (without the quotes of course), I get this message in return:
    F:dd.exe:
    CONIN$ <offset 0xffffffffffffffff>: Bad file descriptor


    If anyone can tell me what's going on it would be greatly appreciated =D thanks!
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>oblivinated wrote:</h6>When I first start up dd.exe within the Forensic Acquisition Utilities, I get the following message:
    Copying CONIN$ to CONOUT$...


    Then when I try to input the command "dd if=c:tiger-x86-flat.img of=\.PhysicalDrive1" (without the quotes of course), I get this message in return:
    F:dd.exe:
    CONIN$ <offset 0xffffffffffffffff>: Bad file descriptor


    If anyone can tell me what's going on it would be greatly appreciated =D thanks!</ul>

    Got the same problem, please help.
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    Are you using the files from the Forensic Acquisition UnicodeRelease folder? Those are the ones that I used... and it worked fine for me.
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>OSX86 wrote:</h6>Are you using the files from the Forensic Acquisition UnicodeRelease folder? Those are the ones that I used... and it worked fine for me.</ul>

    I have the same problem. Is the dd-command supposed to show copying CONIN$ to CONOUT$ ? Also, why should the dd.exe by copyed to the C:? Have tried to copy content of the UnicodeRelease folder to C: and run dd.exe from there, but that didn't work either :(.

    Please some advice :D

    Edit: well I figured that one out pretty soon. I started up ms-dos prompt and changed directory cd c:binunicoderelease. Ran the dd-command from the prompt and things seem to be working fine :)
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>Sheik_YerBouti wrote:</h6>Edit: well I figured that one out pretty soon. I started up ms-dos prompt and changed directory cd c:binunicoderelease. Ran the dd-command from the prompt and things seem to be working fine :)</ul>

    still won´t get it to work :x
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>hardheid wrote:</h6></ul><ul id="quote"><h6>Sheik_YerBouti wrote:</h6>Edit: well I figured that one out pretty soon. I started up ms-dos prompt and changed directory cd c:binunicoderelease. Ran the dd-command from the prompt and things seem to be working fine :)</ul>

    still won´t get it to work :x

    What kinda error you're getting?

    Btw..anyone know how to bypass/reset the password for the User?
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    Is this just a geek thing, or really a practical trouble free operating system for PCs?
    I am a Mac geek, and am considering picking up a inexpensive laptop for my son and converting to OSX. Is it easy or troublesome?
    Is it stable?
    Will we be able to update, or will apple figure out a wat to stop future cracks? - it seems like this will be a major blow to apple if they don't?
    Thanks in advance for your feedback,
    D
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    I think did everything to the letter... Darwin loads fine, but when OS X tries to start, it asks me to restart the computer. Did I do anything wrong?

    NOTES:
    200GB USB hard drive
    Found the files here
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>redwood wrote:</h6>Is this just a geek thing, or really a practical trouble free operating system for PCs?
    I am a Mac geek, and am considering picking up a inexpensive laptop for my son and converting to OSX. Is it easy or troublesome?
    Is it stable?
    Will we be able to update, or will apple figure out a wat to stop future cracks? - it seems like this will be a major blow to apple if they don't?
    Thanks in advance for your feedback,
    D</ul>

    The steps that are shown in this instruction worked fine for me. OSX runs very smoothly and stable on my PC (Dell dimension 5000; 3GhzP4; 1Gig RAM) but doesn't install drivers for my GeForce 6800 so I'm stuck at 1024*768 while my display should run 1600*1200. Can't change these display settings either. Safari runs very good but I had problems getting Office 2004 to work, prolly cause it's still PowerPC-based.

    So I guess it's kinda a geek thing but I'm sure new releases will fix current issues. I've got 2 Macs so I just wanted to try this out :)

    Btw..password for deadmoo is bovinity.
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>redwood wrote:</h6>Is this just a geek thing, or really a practical trouble free operating system for PCs?
    I am a Mac geek, and am considering picking up a inexpensive laptop for my son and converting to OSX. Is it easy or troublesome?
    Is it stable?
    Will we be able to update, or will apple figure out a wat to stop future cracks? - it seems like this will be a major blow to apple if they don't?
    Thanks in advance for your feedback,
    D</ul>

    It is totally a geek thing. Doing this for actual real world use would be evil. Apple designs great OS and hardware... don't rip money out of their pockets.

    Anyhoo... even if you get it stable, it's not near as stable as a typical installation of OSX or apple.

    Don't get me wrong, it's fun as heck...
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    It's a geek thing for now. There are no drivers for most devices and no programs compiled for osx x86. There will be eventually though.

    I used standalone dd and it worked. It will not work on my computers though cause the processors don't have SSE2, let alone SSE3. AMD have it starting from Venice I believe - so won't work on Athlon XP AFAIK. To check if your processor has sse3 use cpu-z
    http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php (look under Instructions field).
    I think user password is [edit] "bovinity". Look in the forums that the original recipe linked to.
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    i have the same problem the other guys wrote about
    CONIN$ <offset 0xffffffffffffffff>: Bad file descriptor

    i tried changing the cd but it didnt work. :(
    please help and thanks in advance
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    Yep. I tried the cd method, but once I try to input the command I still recieve the "bad file descriptor" error. Can't wait to install this and any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

    Edit:
    I was able to get OS X x86 up and running on my spare machine by following the guide from here (without linux!). Remember to download the dd from the given website and use the cd method to get it to work. Goodluck all!
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    I also copied the Diskio.dll from dd directory to the C: - it sounds like a possible cause.

    "...io" as in input/output I guess.
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    i was having the same problem... to fix it, i used i did this... first off download the standalone dd at http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.... Then extract the files to C: (and of course make sure that the tiger-x9-flat.img is in there too) after that, open up cmd by going to run and typing cmd... then in cmd type c:dd.exe if=c:tiger-x86-flat.img of=\.replace with your physical drive
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    Ok the recipe worked fine and i have change my boot drive in bios

    but when i get to the darwin boot screen i get the follwoing error

    Error Parsaing PList fileLoding Darwin/x86

    what does this mean is my hardware not compatable or have i done somthing wrong

    thanks for your help

    treeb :?
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    Which dd.exe does the author refer to? There are two dd.exes in the folder, one under unicoderelease at 56.0 Kb, and one under unicodedebug at 128 KB. Which one?
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    <ul id="quote"><h6>motleyrik2 wrote:</h6>Which dd.exe does the author refer to? There are two dd.exes in the folder, one under unicoderelease at 56.0 Kb, and one under unicodedebug at 128 KB. Which one?</ul>

    unicode release.
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    Why After I use dd to make the img into a harddisk. When I boot the computer with that harddisk, it said it is not a boot up disk. And in Windows, When I try to click into that harddisk. It said it is not well formatted.

    What's wrong with me?

    I've followed all the steps in the install tutorial.

    Thank you very much.

    PS: my comptuer: 2.4 Ghz P4, 768mb ram.
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    I feel like seriously yelling at the inventer of this GENIUS idea of installing OSX using this method. It killed my 40gb maxtor hard drive. i know it gave me a warning that this might happen... but this is ridiculous. if the risk is that high and 90% of the people are getting the same error and not a single answer has been provided by the website itself, maybe it should be taken off the site as a possible installation method. i got that generic error that everyone has been getting about that "Bad file descriptor" so i looked through the posts for a solution, i found someone who said they fixed the error. it was something about downloading a di