One of the most common questions I get asked is regarding Time Machine backups. A lot of people have been asking if it's possible to restore from a Time Machine backup on a Hackintosh. I'm here to tell you that this is indeed possible, however there is just one minor curve ball in the process. I recommend all Hackintosh users take advantage of Time Machine. This is the easiest way to make sure that you never lose a single file when installing kexts to your system.
Before we move on, here's what you're going to need to make this work:
Backup drive with at least one Time machine backup
A bootloader of your choice to boot into OS X and install to the OS drive
Once you have both the bootloader and your Time Machine ready, plug both into your machine and restart. Once you're at your computer's BIOS screen, make sure that you boot from your bootloader image, whether that be a USB drive or a CD. From there, simply boot into the Mac OS X installer as if you're about to do a clean installation of Mac OS X. Accept the licensing terms and click the Utilities menu at the top, selecting "Restore System from Backup". You will then be greeted with the "Restore your System" screen.
Click through the menus and select the Time Machine drive that has the backup that you want to restore from. You'll then need to select the time and date of the backup that you want to restore to. Most times, this will be either of the top two choices, depending on your reasons to restore. Once you do that, select the disk that you want to restore to, which will likely be your main OS drive. If you have Time Machine backing up multiple hard drives, those will not be restored here. You can manually restore those once you've booted back into OS X. Now that you've selected the drive to restore to, you can sit back and let Time Machine wind back the clock!
You'll want to leave your bootloader installed in your machine, as we'll be needing it one last time. Once the restore has completed, your computer will restart itself. At the BIOS screen, be sure to boot into your bootloader device again, this time selecting the OS X partition. Now that you're back into OS X, everything should be just the way you left it. The only thing to do now is to re-install the bootloader to the OS drive. The reason we have to do this is because Time Machine backups don't restore the bootloader. Therefore, we need to manually re-install it in order to boot in to OS X automatically on start up.
That's all there is to the process! I hope this helped you if you have been wondering about Time Machine backups on a hackintosh. For more tutorials and other tech content, be sure to check me out on YouTube and Twitter. My "Hackintosh From Start to Finish" series will be frequently updated with various tips requested by you! If you have a suggestion for a video to be added to the series, don't be afraid to contact me.
As always, in case you just happened to fall upon this series, please check out part 1 of my series before continuing on.
I believe that I've showed you guys everything you need to know, at least for now. This video is going to be covering some concluding tips and comments. With the speed of technology these days, expect this series to grow in the near future. If you feel that I missed out on something, please let me know! You can contact me via Twitter, YouTube comment/message, or my replying to this post. If I feel your question deserves its own video, then it will be added to the series! With that said, let's get on to the article!
Do Your Research Now, And in the Future
Doing your research is key in the hackintosh world. If you don't research, then there's no way that you'll get a fully functional system. Doing research is very easy, but it does take some time. Here's how I recommend you do your research:
Don't assume you know everything
Ask around for specific hardware
Take the time to make sure your components will work
As long as you follow those three basic guidelines, then you'll get a great system! Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have.
Back up your data
Backing up your data is important for every computer user, but especially hackintosh users. This mostly applies to you guys that like to tinker with your computer. Since OS X wasn't meant to run on this hardware, it's easier for things to go wrong if you go poking around the OS. While OS X is very stable on the right hardware, that's no excuse to not back up your data! It's also a good idea to back up data before doing an OS update, such as upgrading form 10.7.2 to 10.7.3. If something does go wrong, then you won't lose anything.
One nice thing about backing up is that there's many ways to do it. There's even solutions built into Mac OS X! Here are some of the best ways that I recommend to back up your data:
Multiple hard drives make backing up data very simple
Of all these methods, I recommend Time Machine. The reason for this is because it's fully automated. Provided you have a big enough hard drive to back up to, Time Machine automatically backs up your data for you. Other solutions like Carbon Copy Cloner aren't automated, but are very useful to have. I also recommend having multiple hard drives in your system. The more drives you have, the less likely you are to lose your data. This way, if a hard drive dies, you won't lose everything if you have other data on separate hard drives. I could go on all day about different backup methods, but in the end, it doesn't matter how you do it. Do it however works for you; I just ask that you do it!
The last thing I want to do is to point out the TonyMacx86 community. Without that community, the process I showed you guys wouldn't be possible. I highly recommend checking out their website if you haven't already. The forums offer tremendous amounts of information from a ton of very smart people. If you have a question that I can't answer, this is the place to look. Don't be afraid to ask any questions that you may have. The forum is completely free, so there's no reason to avoid signing up!
I want to thank you guys for making this series a success. I appreciate everyone watching. I hope you found this series useful. As stated in the beginning of this post, I will be adding on to the series as time goes on with tips and tutorials that I find worth a video. Please check me out on Twitter and YouTube and be sure to subscribe for all of my latest content.
If you've been keeping up with my series, then you should have a very functional hackintosh system! If you're new to my series, I highly recommend watching Part 1 before jumping right into any of the other videos.
As you read from the title of this blog post, this part of my "Hackintosh From Start to Finish" series is going to be all about Windows. If you're like me, then you've been using OS X as your primary OS for some time now. I haven't had the need to run any Windows apps in a long time. With that said, it's important to realize that everybody has different needs for their computer. Maybe you love using OS X, but every one in awhile you're forced to use a Windows application for either school or work. How can you do this on a hackintosh? In this post, I give you the two best options there are.
The two methods I recommend are using Parallels Desktop, or dual booting with Windows. Both of these are viable solutions to the common problem, however the difficulty involved and the price are what separate the two. If you watch the above video, I take you on a Tour of Parallels Desktop 7, highlighting some of the key features. At the end of the day, Parallels is just a virtual machine. Although it's probably the best virtual machine out there, it still can't unlock your computer's full performance. That's where dual booting comes into play. I also show you a complete tutorial on dual booting Windows 7 with mac OS X Lion. Let's get started with explaining Parallels Desktop a little more in-depth.
Parallels Desktop 7
What's needed to use Parallels Desktop?
Parallels Desktop
A copy of Windows (or other OS)
The simplest way to run those few Windows applications is to use Parallels Desktop 7. Going this route has some benefits, including:
No need to restart to boot into Windows
Run Windows and Mac apps simultaneously
Use Windows in a variety of different modes
These benefits may be enough for the majority of Mac OS X users. Using Parallels saves time by being able to run on top of Mac OS X. This saves the user from having to restart their computer, halting whatever they're doing on OS X. The user can even drag and drop files between Mac and Windows apps. This is a huge productivity booster. Windows can also be run in modes, such as coherence or full screen. Coherence mode allows the user to hide the Windows desktop. This mode puts the start menu in the menubar under a Parallels icon. Once right-clicked, the start menu drops down, allowing an application to be selected. In this mode, only the applications are shown, as seen in the picture below:
Personally, this is one of my favorite features of Parallels Desktop. The ability to run applications from two different operating system at the same time is a priceless feature, and I'm sure one that everyone can appreciate. Before deciding if you want to dual boot or not, give Parallels a try. The company offers a free trial on their website, so don't hesitate to try it out and see if it fits your needs.
Dual Booting
With all that said, Parallels Desktop isn't for everyone. What if you want to play Crysis 2 at full resolution? What if you want to edit 1080p footage on Windows? This simply won't work for you, especially if you have a mid-range system. This is where it will be necessary to dual boot with Windows. This process takes some more work than Parallels does, but it's worth it in the end. So what are the benefits of dual booting?
Uses your system's full potential
Less room for errors than a virtual machine
Dual display setups can be used
The rest of this post is going to assume that you want to dual boot your computer. I'm going to give a full tutorial on how the process works. First things first; what's needed to dual boot with Windows?
A copy of Windows
A bootloader (on USB or CD) that can boot you into Mac OS X
I've gotten loads of questions asking if OS X can be installed with a Windows partition already running. The short answer is yes. If you plan to have Windows on a separate hard drive, then this is absolutely possible. You'll run into issues when installing OS X to a different partition on the same hard drive. This is because Windows most likely formatted the hard disk as MBR. To keep it short, OS X doesn't like MBR partition tables. If you manage to get OS X installed on an MBR drive, you won't be able to modify any of the partitions on that drive. At the end of the day, I highly recommend that you install Windows to a completely different hard drive! This will make your life worlds easier! Assuming that you have everything you'll need and that you've followed part 4 of my series, let's get started. If you haven't watched part 4, I highly recommend it, as I show you how to create a bootable Lion flash drive using UniBeast. I'll be starting this guide from an installation of Mac OS X Lion, and I recommend that you do the same.
In Mac OS X, open up disk utility and select the hard disk that you want to install Windows to. If you want to partition the drive, click the partition tab near the top and do so however you please. With the drive/partition that you want to install Windows to, make sure that the format is FAT32. This will be changed back into NTFS once we're actually installing Windows. We're selecting FAT32 here because it's the only format on the list that the Windows installer will recognize. Once everything looks good, click "Apply" at the bottom of the window. Your drive is now set up for installing Windows! At this point, I recommend shutting your computer down and removing or unplugging any drives that you won't be using. This is to reduce the possibility of making an error.
At this point, you want to go into your computers BIOS and make sure that your hard drive boot priority is set to the drive that you have Mac OS X installed on. To do this, boot into you computers BIOS by hitting the appropriate key on startup (this varies from motherboard to motherboard). Once in the BIOS, you should have a menu called something along the lines of "Advanced BIOS Features". Go into this menu, noting the drive priority option. Simply put the drive that you've installed Mac OS X to at the top. Once that's done, exit your BIOS, making sure that you save the changes.
What we're going to be doing next is simply installing Windows. There's no tricks or loops here. Restart your computer, insert your Windows DVD, and boot from it. Once you're at the installation screen, simply click through the menus, making sure that you click "custom install". After that screen, you'll be greeted with a disk selection screen. Note the partition that you created using Disk Uility. Highlight that partition and click "format" at the bottom of the screen. Once you hit ok, your drive will be ready to install Windows on to! Proceed with the installation, noting that the machine needs to restart a few times during the installation.
This part is very important, so read it carefully! There are two options at this point:
You're installing Windows to a separate drive
You're installing Windows and OS X to the same drive
If you're installing Windows to the same hard drive as OS X, then you're all set and can proceed with the installation. If you're installing Windows to a separate hard drive, this is where you're going to run into problems. Since you set your boot priority to boot from your OS X installation first, you're going to come to the Chimera menu when you boot up. Your natural reaction to this is to stop the timer and boot back into windows. It's crucial that you don't do this.
This will give you all kinds of errors, causing the installation to fail, making you to repeat the entire process. What you need to do instead is to boot into your "boot devices" menu. This is similar to the BIOS, as there's a certain key to press to get to the menu. Once you're at the menu, you should see an option to boot from your hard drive. Since you have more than one, it will ask you which one to boot into. You want to select the hard drive that you installed Windows to. When you install a copy of Windows, it also installs its own bootloader to that hard drive along with it. If you try to complete the installation using a different bootloader, then it will fail, leaving you clueless as to why this happened. You need to do this every time the computer restarts during the installation process, which means that you have to watch the installation and make sure that you boot into the other hard drive whenever the computer restarts. Once Windows has finished installing, you will be able to use Chimera to boot into Windows or OS X.
Once Windows has finished installing, continue through the setup process until you get to the desktop. If you installed Windows to a separate hard drive, you are done! You can restart the computer and select what OS you'd like from Chimera. However, I'm going to assume that you installed both OS X and Windows to the same drives from here on out. Simply insert your bootloader into your machine and restart. When you get the chance, boot from whichever device has your bootloader and boot into Mac OS X. Once you're booted into Mac OS X, fire up MultiBeast. All you need to install is Chimera. When MultiBeast finishes installing Chimera, restart your computer and feel free to boot into either Mac OS X or Windows!
I hope this post has helped you. If you feel like being awesome, check me out on Youtube and Twitter!
If you followed my previous video, then you've probably gotten Mac OS X successfully installed on your computer. This is great news, but if you're like me, then you don't want to stop there. You'll probably want to tinker around and get the most from your system. It's also pretty common to have a few bugs in a fresh installation when not on Apple hardware. In this video, I'll be discussing dual displays, common problems and their fixes, as well as overclocking to get the most from your processor.
Dual Displays & Frame Buffers
Personally, I need more than one display. Since a dual display setup is a requirement for me, it was only natural that I would have to make this work on my hackintosh. In order for this to work, you must have a graphics card that can support dual displays in Mac OS X. To get some help with this, have a look at part 2 of my series, in which I detail what to look for when buying your hardware. You'll also need to have the appropriate cables and frame buffers set up. Here's a few things to keep in mind when looking into a dual display set up:
Most graphics cards support it, but not all
Frame buffers must be kept in mind if using ATI/AMD cards
Some setups require certain kinds of cables
Some cards don't have every port working.
In my video, I show you how to change the default frame buffer. This is a relatively simple process, but it's important to the functionality of your graphics card. If you have an NVidia card, frame buffers won't affect you. Some ATI/AMD cards work out of the box with the default frame buffer, and some don't. This is a great example of a situation in which you simply have to do your research when you're buying your hardware. What I'm saying is that depending on your graphics card, you may never need to touch a frame buffer. If you end up needing to change the default frame buffer, don't go changing things until you know which one that you need to be loading on every boot. There's an easier way to find one you need that involves trial and error. At the Chimera countdown screen, hit any key to make the timer stop. With the OS X partition highlighted, start typing:
"AtiConfig="
Type it exactly as it looks (without quotes), including the capital A and C. Without putting a space after the =, pick a frame buffer from the list below:
Pithecia
Bulrushes
Cattail
Hydrilla
Duckweed
Fanwort
Elodea
Kudzu
Gibba
Lotus
Iomoea
Mangabey
Muskgrass
Juncus
Once you've selected a frame buffer, hit enter to proceed with the boot process. If a compatible frame buffer has loaded, you'll be able to launch the DVD player application without it crashing. You'll also be able to see the real name of the card if you go to your "About this Mac" option and click on the "more info…" button as seen in the picture below. If you see something such as "AMD Radeon HD 6xxx", then you haven't picked the right one. Simply repeat the process with a different bootloader.
Once you find one that works with your graphics card, you now need to edit your boot.plist. By doing this, you're telling the computer to use this frame buffer every time so you don't have to manually type it in on every boot. In order to change your default frame buffer, you'll have to locate a file in your /Extra folder on your hard drive. The file you're looking for is called org.chameleon.boot.plist. Before double clicking it, make sure that you open it with TextEdit. As demonstrated in the video, here is the proper syntax for entering a frame buffer to your chameleon.org.boot.plist file:
Once you have the correct frame buffer being used, you should have no problem with your graphics. The only problem that you'll potentially run into is when attempting to run three or more displays at once. This is due to Eyefinity. With these newer AMD cards, you'll need an active adapter. As previously stated, this is highly dependent on your hardware, and should be researched when picking out your components.
iCloud & App Store Fix
A fairly common problem found not only in the hackintosh world is with the Mac App Store and iCloud. This was an issue even for a few legit Mac users. When trying to purchase an app from the App Store or signing into iCloud, the user would get a verification error. With that said, your system may not have either one of these bugs. If that's the case, then you obviously don't need this step! However, if your system has fallen victim to these bugs, there are solutions out there! The solution for the Mac App Store is easier than the solution for iCloud, so let's have a look at the Mac App Store fix.
Navigate to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguraton/ and look for the file named NetworkInterfaces.plist. Once you have located the file, move it to the trash and empty it. After that's done, simply restart your computer and give the Mac App Store another try. By deleting this file, you're forcing OS X to rebuild this file on boot up, which often times is enough to fix what ever problem existed.
The next step involves some work with an application called Chameleon Wizard, which you can download by simply clicking the name. Once the application is open, navigate to the "SMBios" tab at the top. Once you're there, click the "edit" button in the top right. Under the "Generate Serial" box, I recommend selecting the Mac Pro (5,1) if it isn't already. You can leave the manufacturing location alone, as well as the year of manufacture. You'll need to generate random weeks of manufacture and a unique number. Once you do that, click the save button at the top right and restart your machine. If you still can't sign in to iCloud, repeat the process using a pre-made SMBios within the SMBios menu of Chameleon Wizard. Keep repeating both processes until you are able to sign in.
Overclocking
First off, what the deuce is overclocking? Basically, it's taking your processor and making it faster than the manufacturer intended it to. While this sounds like a dangerous and bad idea, it's actually very commonly done and safe to do, as long as it's done right. With todays processors and motherboards, over clocking is easier than ever. The process might look a little bit scary at first, but rest assured that it's nothing to complex, as seen in my video above.
Why would someone want to over clock their processor? The key here is to get the most performance possible. This is the equivalent of putting a ferrari motor in a Ford Focus. The car may look the same, but it's going to go a whole lot faster! When you overclock, you'll be able to do processor intensive tasks much faster, depending on how much the processor is being overclocked. These tasks can involve things such as video editing, heavy gaming, 3D rendering, and many other tasks. If all you plan on doing with your machine is browsing the web and using Twitter, then it's pointless to overclock!
Overclocking sounds pretty awesome, right? Why wouldn't everyone want their processor to run faster? As you probably know, there's two sides to every story. While there's definitely some pros to overclocking, there are some cons as well. First of all, you're going to create more heat when overclocking. This means that your fans will have to spin faster inside your case to keep it cool, which can lead to a louder computer. This depends on your heatsink and processor, as some put off more heat than others. If you plan on overclocking, you absolutely need an aftermarket cooler. Have a look at my ***case tour*** to see the heatsink that I use. By overclocking, you're also risking shortening the life of your processor. After all, you're running it faster than it was meant to go. Think of running a marathon in the summer. The faster you run, the shorter distance you can go, unless you're kept cool and hydrated. This is why you need an aftermarket cooler, and not the one that Intel includes with their processors. By keeping the processor nice and cool, it will make the processor last longer, especially if not overclocking.
The overclocking process is done from your motherboard's BIOS. Every motherboard is different, but the process is fairly universal among many motherboards. This process is different for Core i'X' systems as it is for older systems because of the way the processor works. On Core i'X' boards, which you're probably using, your processor frequency is calculated by multiplying two numbers; your base clock and your multiplier, as seen in my video above. You have to play with these numbers until you get to a frequency that satisfies you. Once you've found that frequency, you'll probably want to decrease the multiplier of your memory, as your base clock affects the memory as well. Overclocking memory really doesn't do the user any good, so it's not worth doing. Keep the memory as close to the stock speed as possible.
Once you've determined the frequency you'd like for the processor and the memory, you now need to change your voltages a little bit. If you're going to make the processor go faster, it's going to need some more gas, right? When changing voltages, take it slow. Depending on how big the overclock it, the voltages should only be moved one or two "clicks" at a time. This is because adding too much voltage could potentially damage the processor. This is where some of the risk comes in. It's recommended that the frequency and voltages are only changed a little bit at a time. Once the settings have been changed a little bit, restart the computer and make sure that it boots. If it boots, runs successfully for a period of time and doesn't have too high of temperatures, then it's a good overclock. You can increase the overclock at this point.
Keep in mind that the CPU should never see temperatures above 80°C. If this occurs, decrease the overclock and/or buy a better heatsink. A great app for monitoring CPU temps is an app called iStat Menus. If this is installed on OS X, a kext is needed from MultiBeast called FakeSMC. The FakeSMC Motherboard plugins are needed as well. If using an AMD Radeon card, the appropriate box should also be checked.
I hope that this post has helped you. If it has, feel free to check out my YouTube channel. You can also find me on Twitter if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks for watching and reading! Look out for part 6 of "Hackintosh From Start to Finish" soon!
Now that you've watched my last video, you know some of the key terminology used in the hackintosh world. With that under your belt, let's move on to what you've all been waiting for; installing Mac OS X!
First thing's first; Snow Leopard is needed to get to Lion. This is because you need to purchase Lion from the App Store, which can only be accessed on Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or higher. Lion can't be installed right from Windows, even if you order Apple's Lion USB installer. Therefore, you need to get Snow Leopard running first. Note that this can be done from someone else's Mac, such as a friend or family member. If you have a Mac and the Lion app from the App Store, then you can skip to the step where we'll be installing Lion. Don't pirate Lion or Snow Leopard from the internet! Both Snow Leopard and Lion combined comes to $60. There's no reason you can't afford this if you just bought a bunch of expensive hardware!
As stated, we'll be installing Snow Leopard first. Here's what you need:
Once you have the correct version of iBoot burned to a CD and your Snow Leopard DVD, it's time to install Mac OS X! Insert the iBoot CD into your computer and boot from it. At the bootloader menu, eject the iBoot CD and insert the Snow Leopard DVD. Once a few seconds have passed, refresh the list by hitting the F5 key. You'll notice that the Snow Leopard DVD is now on the list. Select the DVD to boot into the installer.
Click through the installer until you're at the disk selection screen. Select Utilities in the menubar, and click Disk Utility. Once in Disk Utility, partition your drive so that the partition you will be installing OS X to is formatted as Mac OS (Journaled). You also want to click the options button below the volume scheme and make sure that it's GUID. If you install OS X when it's set to MBR, you won't be able to modify your drive's partitions without completely restoring. Once you have your drive set up appropriately, apply the settings and leave Disk Utility. When you're back at the disk selection screen, select the partition you just made and click customize. I recommend removing the language translations, as that saves you 1.2 GB. Once that's done, go ahead and install Mac OS X! When the installation finishes, reboot your computer, making sure that the iBoot CD is in your computer. Boot from the iBoot CD as before, and this time select the volume that you installed Mac OS X to. You will now boot into Snow Leopard!
Before continuing on, take a second and think of what kind of system you have. If you're running a Sandy Bridge system, this next step is crucial. If you're running a first generation core i'X' or any other system, then you can skip over this next step. If on a Sandy Bridge system, download the program from above called UpdateHelper. Simply run the application, click through it, and restart your computer once it's completed. While this seems like a petty step, it's required for Sandy Bridge Systems since Snow Leopard doesn't play very nicely with Sandy Bridge systems.
Once at the Snow Leopard desktop, the next thing you need to do is to open MultiBeast. Once it's open, simply select all of the kexts that your system needs, including a system definition and a DSDT (if applicable). Once you have everything selected, don't install anything just yet! Leave MultiBeast as it is and open up the combo update. Once the update is finished installing, do not restart your computer. Bring back the MultiBeast window and install those kexts that you previously selected. Once MultiBeast has finished, you can then go back to the combo update and restart your system.
When you're on 10.6.6 or above, you'll notice that you now have the Mac App Store. This is where you'll be getting Lion from. The Lion installer is about 3.5GB in size, so grab a cup of coffee while it downloads. Before we continue, you'll need a few things to get to Lion:
Lion image downloaded from the Mac App Store
USB drive of at least 8GB (Only if using UniBeast)
Once Lion finishes downloading, make sure that it's in your Applications folder. This is where we'll be using UniBeast. What this will do is create a bootable Lion USB drive for us. This will allow us to boot into the Lion installer from the USB drive and install Lion to our computer! UniBeast also makes a great backup solution since it has its own bootloader. Make sure that your 8GB or higher flash drive is in your computer and formatted as a Mac OS Journaled partition, as seen in my video. Launch UniBeast, select the Mac App Store option, and install to your flash drive. This will take some time, so go ahead and refill your coffee mug. Before moving on, it's worth mentioning that there are other ways to install Lion. I have other methods on my YouTube channel if you're interested. I recommend using UniBeast, as it's the easiest and most plug-and-play solution there is.
Once UniBeast has finished, you're all set to install Lion to your computer! With your UniBeast USB drive still plugged in, go ahead and restart your computer, making sure to boot from your flash drive. Once the Chimera bootloader comes up, select the flash drive and wait for it to boot. At the Lion installer, follow the same steps as when setting up the Snow Leopard partition. I recommend installing Lion over Snow Leopard, but you are free to install Lion to another partition if you want to have both on your system.
After Lion has been installed to your system, simply reboot using the UniBeast flash drive and Launch the Lion version of MultiBeast, making sure to include all required kexts, as well as the Chimera bootloader. After completing the MultiBeast installation, reboot and let the computer do the rest! You should now have a fully functional copy of Lion running on PC hardware!
For future reference, keep the UniBeast flash drive handy. If you keep it handy, you will be able to install fresh copies from this flash drive, which means that you won't have to go to Snow Leopard first. Snow Leopard was just a "stepping stone" to get the UniBeast flash drive. As long as you keep that drive handy, you won't ever need to install Snow Leopard again.
I hope this guide helped you! If you have any questions, be sure to check me out on YouTube and Twitter! Thanks for watching and reading this part in my "Hackintosh From Start to Finish" series! Stay tuned for the next part of this series, which will cover some post-installation tips.
Bob Roche 
