Beginner Guide for Building a Fully Working Snow Leopard Hackintosh Along With Windows 7 (Part II – Installation)

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In Part I of the “How to Build a Successful Snow Leopard Hackintosh Dual Boot With Windows 7” series, we’ve covered the basics on how to choosing the right hardware for your Windows 7 PC. We ended with a conclusion the best way to start is building a desktop PC by choosing your very own custom components. We’ve covered how to choose parts from different brand motherboards, different Intel CPUs, different type of Memory (depending on your motherboards), Hard Drives, SSDs etc. If you’ve missed the first post and would like to learn how to and WHY you need to choose those brand components, it’s a good idea to check part I first.

4122650014 02bf4c7226 thumb - Beginner Guide for Building a Fully Working Snow Leopard Hackintosh Along With Windows 7 (Part II – Installation)

Part II Install Windows 7 Along with Snow Leopard

What you need:

  • Windows 7 Installation Disk (Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate doesn’t matter)
  • A retailer Snow Leopard Install disk (should comes with 10.6.3)
  • iBoot or iBoot Legacy Disk Imagines
  • a USB Stick large enough to hold the Mac combo update (approx 1GB)

Thanks to tonymacx86 for providing those awesome tool such as iBoot, MultiBeast, BridgeHelper for free. Those tool really simplified the whole installation process and made your life easier as a Hackintosh wannabe.

There are two method to install Windows 7 and Snow Leopard Dual Boot. This primary depend if you want to install two OS on two different disk or if you want to install two OS on the same disk (separate partition) . I will cover both case, but remember the later one is tricky.

It is a good idea to always install two OS on two different hard drive, that way you will encounter a lot less headaches after wards.

Method 1: Install Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on two separate hard drive

Because you have two different hard drive, you don’t need to worry about managing boot loader. To switch between the two OS the best way is to change the boot order in BIOS and yet that’s the simplest way.

It doesn’t matter which OS to install first, but since Windows 7 installation are so simple we will cover that in the later part of this tutorial.

Let’s get started with install Snow Leopard. For reference please check the always up to date guide over on tonymacx86

  1. set your BIOS to ACHI mode, change to boot from CD as your first boot order
  2. Insert iBoot if you have first generation Intel Core i3/5/7 or earlier CPU, switch to iBoot Legacy if you have second generation Intel Core series CPU or any other unsupported CPUs
  3. Once you see the graphical iBoot screen, eject the disk and swap the retailer Snow Leopard disk then press F5
  4. Choose Mac OS X Install DVD
  5. This will let you boot into Mac OS X Install environment. You need to go to Utilities > Disk Utilities first to format your disk partition to GUID Partition table
    options thumb - Beginner Guide for Building a Fully Working Snow Leopard Hackintosh Along With Windows 7 (Part II – Installation)
    (select the hard drive on the left, then select Options on the right side. This is very important since by default is it not set to GUID Partition table )
  6. Now if everything is going well proceed the installation you can however uncheck some unnecessary components in the Customization
  7. Upgrade to 10.6.7, now this part is a bit tricky, since it will be very from people to people, the best way to upgrade to the latest OS X version is to find tutorials that have the same hardware as you do. Or to check what others are saying when they upgrade their system to the latest version
  8. The basic work flow is running Mac OS X combo update to 10.6.7 before restart your computer, run MultiBeast to overwrite the working kexts back to your system. If you are running Sandy Bridge CPU run the BridgeHelper after and restart your machine.
  9. Once you have a stable System, install Windows 7 on a different hard drive. The next when you want to switch back to Mac just need to go to BIOS to change the hard drive priority.

Method 2: Install Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on the same Hard Drive with Different partition

If you want to install both OS on the same hard drive, this will be a bit tricky. If you have Windows 7 already installed, you need to cleanup your hard drive and partition your hard drive give at least 30GB.

If you plan to install from scratch, it’s a good idea to install Snow Leopard first. Follow in Method 1, but in Step 5 make sure you select 2 partition and assign size to each. One partition will be format with Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and the other partition format in MS DOS. Very important to do all this in GUID Partition Table. Process the rest steps in Method 1.

When Snow Leopard is done here is the steps to

Install Windows 7 and recover Snow Leopard both boot from Hard Drive using (Windows Boot Manager)

  1. Insert Windows 7 Install Disk
  2. Install Windows 7 on the other partition that you have formatted earlier in MS DOS using the Mac Disk Utilities
  3. After Windows 7 finish install you will realize you can’t boot back into Snow Leopard again
  4. Insert iBoot or iBoot Legacy (whichever works for you)
  5. Choose to boot into the Snow Leopard partition that you have installed earlier (while you can always boot into the Snow Leopard with the help of using iBoot disk, but it’s always a good idea to boot straight from the disk)
  6. Once you are back in Snow Leopard, run MulitBeast, install Chameleon bootloaders from Drivers & Bootloaders > Bootloaders
  7. Restart and you will have Chameleon bootloader that enables you switch from Mac and Windows 7 (you don’t need to proceed further this if you are okay with Chameleon bootloader, meaning by default your system will always boot into Mac)
  8. If you would like to change your System boot into Windows 7, follow along
  9. Insert Windows 7 Install Disk
  10. Launch the command prompt in the Install Disk
  11. Type bootrec.exe /FixMbr
  12. Type bootrec.exe /FixBoot
  13. Restart boot back into Windows 7
  14. Download this file called tboot and place it in your root C drive
  15. Open up command prompt again as Administrator now inside Windows 7 and type the following
  16. bcdedit /create /d “Hackintosh” /application bootsector (this will return you a unique string see screenshot above)
  17. bcdedit /set {id} device boot (replace your unique ID to {id})
  18. bcdedit /set {id} path \tboot (replace your unique ID to {id})
  19. bcdedit /displayorder {id} /addlast (replace your unique ID to {id})
  20. Restart your machine again now you will see your system is running with Windows Boot Manager and when you select “Hackintosh” it will toggle you into Chameleon bootloader into Snow Leopard

Enjoy this concludes the end of Part II of How to Build a Successful Snow Leopard Hackintosh Dual Boot With Windows 7 series.

Next up in Part III we will talk about some fine tuning after you’ve installed both OS. Stay turned.

[Update September 13th 2011]

There is a new guide for installing Mac OS X Lion on the Virtual Machine, if building hackintosh is too complicated, installing Mac OS X on the VM is by far the easiest step. Be sure to check this out !

27 COMMENTS

  1. H61 chipset mobo should still work. Though, some good news on the integrated Intel graphic cards since I’ve wrote the article, because Apple use the same sandybridge CPU and with the expected release of Lion it is very likely to have Intel HD 3000 native support in the Hackintosh, stay tuned.

  2. Perhaps under fine-tuning you could mention Windows 7 SP1. One should unhook the OS X drive and be able to boot directly to the Windows drive (MBR and marked active).

  3. hey dude i succesfully installed it into my com using ideneb and im now on windows,how am i supposed to boot into the leopard?

  4. Hi Jonathan,
    at point 5. you are saying that “Choose to boot into the Snow Leopard partition that you have installed earlier”.
    The problem is, that the iboot menue only showes me the win 7 partition and the just entered iboot disk. It won´t show the Snow Leopard partition. Since you gave the advice of using the iboot cd, i wonder why the tonymac site uses a terminal command in there dualboot tutorial. why doesn’t he give the advice of just using the simple wayand instead the terminal way, which is not as easy as yours is.

    thx

  5. Tried iii to find part 3, look all over google and on this page, but couldn’t find the link.

    Please provide,
    Hozey

  6. Dear Friends,

    I had installed Mac SL first with a partition for FAT32. Mac was working like a song except Arthos 5001+ wifi card.

    When I tried installing Windows 7 as per your above posting, it said it can’t install in the FAT32 partition and asked me to Format it in NTFS format. Since it was only for that partition, I said OK and it installed Windows 7.

    Now I booted the PC with iBoot, it shows 2 partitions of Mac and Win (Names I have given). But if I select Mac it appears to start and crashes as a result of KP.

    Now I installed Chameleon Boot loader and kernel from the Mac DVD from Hazard, thinking that it will repair the Kernel and install the Boot loader. It installed successfully, but still no luck. Please help me with some solution to repair it.

    Shanks
    India

  7. Hey jonathan i have a intel core 2 duo processor with 3 gbs of ram and 2 hard drives i just bought a new one for windows and i’ll use the old one for mac the old one is 500 gb i haven’t tried this yet but i’m confused in 3 things 1stly if i have windows already installed on one seperate drive will mt booting process be affected if i don’t reinstall windows 2ndly Can continue with the original mac i hafe on the retailer disk without updating and 3rdly which iboot i’m supposed to use for my processer nd thnx 😀

  8. First off, thank you so much for your guide Jonathan. Hoping to attempt this over the next couple of days because I want to be able to run some apple software on my computer.

    Just one question. You mention that it’s much easier to install OSX if you install it first and Windows second. What will happen if I do the reverse? Also, would I be able to succeed in installing OSX if I install Windows from a recovery partition? And could I install from the recovery partition AFTER installing OSX?

    And while I’m at it, just to make sure I understand as best I can, when I use the recovery partition, it simply wipes the the C: partition to factory settings, but the partition between C: and the recovery partition remains, correct?

    Sorry, I know that’s a lot of questions. Really really appreciate your help.

    Dan

  9. Hi Jonathan,
    Nice guide but I am a newbee to all of this stuff so you do have another guide on how do I assemble all the parts together.
    Thanks

  10. Hey, tnx for the guide.
    If I’ll insert Lion DVD after eject the iBoot cd, it will work? or I must use the OSX snow leopard and after installing I’ll need to upgrade?

    I tried to insert Lion, but after I’m pressing F5 and then Enter it’s just restart the PC and load Win7…. =/

  11. I installed mac os 10.6.8 on sata 250gb, also have a windows on a 1 tb hd, i cant get into windows AHCI, so i have to get into the bios and change back to IDE, does anyone know if teres a way to get this to work with either of them? Without changing.
    An also i cant get the boot from easybcd to work with the mac partition, when i try to get in the mac i get the ” chain booting error”, anyone nows what to do about this too .
    Thanks

  12. hi
    mine installed smoothly. but my wireless is’nt working on MAC OS but working on Windows 7 OS. help please!!
    processor core2 duo 2.0 Ghz
    HP dv4t

  13. Question: After installing both on 1 hard drive, how do you select which os to boot and would it be possible to go into the 2nd partition with the different OS or to make a 3rd partition to share between the os’s. thank you

  14. i have a intel i5 i went into the bios and changed it from ide to AHCI mode but it wouldn’t boot into windows i kept getting a blue error screen so i have had to change it back to ide will the method u have described above still work
    thanks

  15. I want to install mac on my windows pc… but at the same time dont want to lose what windows i have alerady…(it has preloaded apps that are useful eg adobe master collection…. or also kaspersky pure 2011 (PS i have 1.windows 2.windows 8 3. jolicloud and hoping to install OSX)

  16. Hi,

    I have a year old custom computer with windows 7 installed. I followed the instructions:

    downloaded iBoot, burned it on CD, rebooted computer and changed it from IDE to AHCI, booted from the CD with iBoot in it, from the iBoot menu I switched CDs and inserted my SnowLeopard one, F5, clicked on SnowLeopard install, spinny grey wheel for a couple of minutes, and then screen of death “you need to restart your computer” in a couple of languages

    Could you tell me what’s going wrong? I don’t know if it matters, but i have an i7 950, nvidia gtx 470, and a rampage III gene motherboard.

    Thanks a lot 🙂

  17. Hey Guys I have Snow Leopard loaded on my Laptop and I didn’t have to remove the Windows 7 Professional from the Hard Drive.  It boots fine and I still have the Partition Table set as MBR not GPT.  I will convert the Partition Table at a later Date.  I loaded Snow Leopard onto a USB drive first and then used Carbon Copy (a 3rd party Apple App) to clone the drive to a partition on the Hard Drive.  A few more Tweeks and …. cool

  18. Hi everyone.. please i’m a novice and i’m really an apple freak (MAC OX S), i have an HP DM4 – 3055DX, core i5, 8GB Ram, 640GB hard Drive, Windows 7 Enterprise on my system. i’d really appreciate if anyone could tell me the step-by-step approach in Dual Booting Mac OX S as well as downloading a complete torrent file (the link) to any Mac OS X . pls u can mail me on [email protected] .
    thnks in anticipation.

  19. “If you have Windows 7 already installed, you need to cleanup your hard drive and partition your hard drive give at least 30GB.”
    Where is the rest of the tutorial for this case?

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