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I have been messing around with OSX86 (Mac OS X 10.5 on non Mac hardware) for just over two months and have a rather nice version of the OSX86 Distro IPC running on my HP 550 Laptop (or ‘Hackintosh’ as people call them).

But in order to get there, I tried many different distros which mostly failed to boot from the Burned DVD’s that I inserted into my machine (SAM Sense errors)

It turned out that this happens mostly due to the drive not being able to read the burned disk correctly.

A great way around this (and save wasting extra disks later) is to install OSX 86 from a USB stick. It also gives the advantage of being quick to install and also allows you to update your OSX86 distro at a later date by just copying a new one onto the stick.

Below are the steps that I when through to set the stick up:

(NOTE: I am actually thinking of having multiple OS installation isos on one USB stick, so I have created a few partitions, one for windows, osx and ubuntu/archlinux)

Prerequisites:

• You will need access to a Mac running OSX (normal osx or OSX86 will work) in order to run the OSX86tools app – Yes I know chicken and egg situation ;-(
• You need to download and install OSX86Tools (google for it – free)
• You need a USB stick with at least enough space for the OSX86 Distro (I use 16gb disk, but I think you would get away with 4GB)

Partition the USB disk:

• From another PC (I am using another Mac – G4), plug the usb disk into usb port and open the Disk Utility app (applications->utilities->disk utility
• Select the USB drive from the list
• Click on the ‘partition’ tab (you will see ‘current’ in a pulldown of partition layout
• Select from the pulldown the number of partitions you would like to create. The minimum is 1 (which will hold you OSX86 install, but you can have many partitions if you want to have option to install many OS’s.
• Click on the partition and format it as ‘Mac OS X Extended’
• Click on the options button and make sure that ‘Master boot record’ is selected (this is where the OSX86 bootloader will be stored)
• Click the apply button to create the partitions.

Screenshot of what your usb could look like is shown below, note I have 3 partitions, you need at least 1:

Disk Utility showing Partitions of Bootable USB Stick

Put the OSX86 ISO onto the partition:

• Still in the Disk Utility app, choose ‘file->open image’ from the menu and select the OSX86 distro iso image.
• The iso will appear in the left hand side.
• Click on the ‘Restore’ tab.
• Drag the image from the left hand side onto the’source’ text box (or click ’source’ button and select image)
• Drag and drop the partition you’ve just created to the “Target” field. 
• Click the “Restore” button. Disk Utility will now take a few minutes to restore the OSX86 image to your partition.
• Close the Disk utility.

Make the USB stick bootable:

• Close the Disk utility application (Cmd+Q)
• Download and install the OSX86tools application from here on the Mac you are using.
• Open the OSX86tools app and press the ‘Install EFI/Run fdisk’ button
• You will get a screen like below:

Using OSX86Tools to install EFI bootloader onto USB stick

• It should find the USB sticks Partitions (mine is called OSX86IPC). Select it from the list.
• Select ‘Cameleon’ from the 2nd pulldown list (’EFI to Install’).
• Press Install EFI to install the bootloader onto USB (this will allow it to boot the OSX86 install).
• After the OSX86tools app has finished, you can close the app and eject your USB stick.

Boot the USB disk and installer:

• Take your USB stick over to the laptop/pc that you want to install OSX86 on and boot the machine into the BIOS (usually press DEL or F12 at boot up to get into BIOS)
• Once in the BIOS select Boot from USB (different for each BIOS, but usaully have to make USB Disk highest in boot order above CD and HD)
• HP Specific additional step: I found that the HP bios would not read the USB disk quick enough before giving up and deciding it was not bootable. To fix this I entered 5 seconds in the ‘Delay at boot time’ BIOS option.
• Quit out of BIOS, saving settings
• Plug the USB stick into the Machine and reboot machine.
• With some luck, your PC will boot from USB (USB stick light should flash if you have one).
• You should see a the Leopard Mac OS X installer grey screen appear after about 10seconds.

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