guide How To Build a Hackintosh

[Turk.]

What Is a Hackintosh, Exactly?
A hackintosh is simply any non-Apple hardware that has been made?or "hacked"?to run Mac OS X.

First, let's talk about choosing hardware and what makes certain options better than others.
When Apple builds their official Macs, their parts are not that different from the parts we can buy online when we build our own PCs. Many motherboards, graphics cards, and processors are compatible thanks to these combined efforts.

The next question is, how do you know what is and isn't compatible?
Hackingtosh Hardware Buyer's Guide
Hack Pro
Hack Mini
Once you have your hardware you're going to need to assemble it into a working computer.
We have an
entire night school course on computer building,
but this specific lesson will walk you through
how to build your first computer.
Follow it diligently, read your motherboard and case manuals closely, and you should have a functional machine in no time.

Pre-Tested Hackintosh Builds

This is an actual hackintosh we've built, based on hardware suggested by tonymacx86. It only costs a little over $600 (without all the extras), so it's a great option for beginners. Here's the list of parts:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87N-WIFI ($112)
CPU: Intel Core i3-4330 Dual Core Processor ($150)
RAM: Corsair Vengence PC3-12800 8GB ($85)
Case and Power Supply: MI-008 Tower ($50)
Optical Drive: Lite-On Super AllWrite 24X SATA DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive ($22)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB Hard Drive ($80)
GPU (Optional): EVGA GeForce GTX760 ($105) - This is optional, as you can use the integrated graphics if you want
Solid-State Drive (Optional): Samsung EVO-Series 250GB SSD ($170)
Wi-Fi Card (Optional): TP-Link PCI Express Adapter
Bluetooth (Optional): Jabra A320s USB Bluetooth Adapter (this adapter works much better than any others I've tried, so I recommend getting this one even though it's larger and generally a little more expensive)

More Builds

Tonymacx86's October 2013 buyer's guide
Custom Hackintosh Build Gift Guide
Build the Hack Pro You Wish Apple Did

How to Install Mac OS X on Your Hackintosh

Installing Mac OS X on hackintosh hardware involves a bit more than just popping in a DVD, choosing a boot volume, and clicking a button. You'll have to take those steps, too, but not before quite a bit of prep work. Let's get started
Step 1: Configure the BIOS

When you turn your machine on, it should display its BIOS welcome screen. This is generally an image with the name of your motherboard and indicators for a few keys you can press to edit your BIOS. Before we can install OS X, we first have to make a few changes to the BIOS (your motherboard's settings), so you're going to need to press the key that corresponds to the BIOS Settings when you power on your machine. This is almost always a function key (like F12) or the delete key, but reference your BIOS image to be sure. (Click the image to the left to see an example.) Press and hold down that magic BIOS settings key and wait for the BIOS settings to load.

The BIOS settings for every motherboard is going to be somewhat similar but never exactly the same. For that reason we can't tell you, command-by-command, where to go to find and make certain adjustments. That said, we can tell you what to look for. Here are the settings you will need to adjust (or at least verify) in your BIOS to make your hardware hackintosh-friendly:
Disable Quick Boot. You may have to look around for this, but we've often found this in a section titled Advanced BIOS Settings. Just look for a Quick Boot or Fast Boot option and ensure it is set to disabled.
Configure SATA as AHCI. By default, your motherboard will configure SATA as IDE and you'll need to change this to AHCI. In some cases you'll be asked if you want to do this when you boot up for the first time. If so, choose yes. If not, go into your BIOS and look for this setting as you'll need to make the change for everything to work smoothly.
Change the Boot Device Order. Your BIOS will default to a specific boot order, which means it'll look for a startup volume (where the operating system lives) in various places until it finds one. The boot order is the order in which it checks each location. In general, you want to set your optical drive to first boot device so you can easily boot to a disc by simply putting it in the drive and turning on your machine. The second item in the order should be the hard drive or SSD where you're going to install OS X. The order beyond that isn't terribly important and entirely up to you.
Adjust the Hard Disk Boot Priority. Some BIOS settings pages will also have a setting called Hard Disk Boot Priority, which is used to identify which hard drive to try and boot from first if there are multiple drives in the machine. If you install more than one drive in your hackintosh, be sure to set the Hard Disk Boot Priority to the drive where OS X will be installed.

Once you've made these changes, you'll need to save them. In most cases you'll only need to press the escape key a few times to get back to the main screen, and then F10 to save and exit. Your BIOS settings page will tell you which keys save, exit, and so on, so you should have no trouble figuring out the right keys to press.

Step 2: Install Mac OS X Mavericks

Now we're ready to actually install OS X, but this is going to be a fairly in-depth process that requires a number of tools. Before getting started, be sure you have the following:
A copy of OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store.
An 8GB thumb drive (or larger).
UniBeast, available from tonymacx86.
MultiBeast, also available from tonymacx86. (You want version 6.0 or later, for OS X Mavericks, as other versions were designed for older versions of OS X.)
The DSDT file for your motherboard of choice. If you followed our hackintosh hardware guide in the previous section, you may already have a pre-edited DSDT file for your motherboard. If not, visit tonymacx86's DSDT database, choose your motherboard from the list?making sure you choose the version that matches your motherboard's firmware?and download it to your hard drive. (Note: You can generally discover the firmware version of your motherboard by looking at its BIOS boot image.)

Once you have everything, you'll need to prepare your 8GB+ thumb drive to be bootable and capable of installing OS X Maveric. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Connect your USB drive to an existing Mac (ask a friend if you don't have one) and open Disk Utility (in your Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities folder).
2. Click on your thumb drive in Disk Utility and then click the Partition tab.
3. Click on the drop-down menu that reads "Current" and choose "1 Partition."
4. Click on the "Options..." button and select the partition scheme labeled "Master Boot Record." Click "OK" to accept your choice.
5. Give the thumb drive the name USB (which you can change later).
6. Set the drive's format to "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)."
7. Click the "Apply" button and then the "Partition" button.
8. When Disk Utility has finished partitioning your disk, make sure the "Install OS X Mavericks" application you purchased from the Mac App Store is in your Applications folder.
9. Open UniBeast and click "Continue" three times, then agree. This should bring you to a drive selection screen. Choose the USB thumb drive you just partitioned and click "Continue."
10. You'll now be presented with the option of Laptop support and Legacy USB support. If you're planning to install Mavericks on a motherboard with an 1156 chipset, you'll likely need the legacy USB support. It won't break anything if you don't need it, so if you're updating multiple Hackintoshes and not all require it, there's no reason to worry. If legacy USB support isn't working for you, just add your motherboard's patched DSDT file to the hidden /Extra folder on your installer drive and that should fix the problem. Phew! When you're ready, click "Continue" and enter your admin password.
11. Wait about 15-45 minutes (it can vary) for UniBeast to do it's thing. DO NOT unplug the drive or stop the installation while it's in process.

When UniBeast finishes, you'll have a hackintosh-bootable USB thumb drive. Plug it into your hackintosh, boot up, and press the key on your keyboard that will take you to the boot selection menu. (If you don't know what it is, just look on your BIOS boot screen. It is commonly ESC, F10, or F12.) If the thumb drive boots successfully you'll see a thumb drive with the tonymacx86 logo appear on your screen along with a single boot option: USB. Choose it and boot into the installer.

Note: In some cases you may need additional boot flags to get to the installer. If you have an unsupported graphics card, you'll need to add GraphicsEnabler=No. If you have an ATI Radeon 6670 installed you'll need to add PCIRootUID=0. You can just type these in at the boot option screen before you press enter to choose "USB" and boot into the installer.

When the OS X Mavericks Installer finishes booting, you'll be presented with a welcome screen and can choose your language. Do that, but before you can continue you'll need to format your disk. Go to the Utilities menu and choose Disk Utility. Select the disk you want to use for installation and format it. To format it properly, follow these steps:
1. Choose the disk in Disk Utility and click the Partition tab.
2. Set the partitions to one (or however many you want) and their format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
3. Click the options button and set the partition scheme to GUID Partition Table
4. Click Apply and wait for the disk to finish formatting.

With your destination disk ready to go, you can now run the Mavericks installer just like you would on any other Mac. When it completes you might be met with an "Installation Failed" message at the end (or not), but that's nothing to worry about. When the installation is complete just restart your machine. When you do, access your boot menu and choose the USB drive. You still need it to boot up. When you see the familiar boot options screen again you'll now be able to choose the drive you installed Mavericks on. Pick that and press enter, also entering any boot flags you used when booting into the installer previously.

Step 3: Install Your Drivers

Now that you've got Mavericks installed, it's time to make all your hardware work properly. For that, you need to install some drivers. Copy MultiBeast to your hackintosh's hard drive and open it up. Click through the install windows and get to the options page. What you choose is going to vary based on your build, but you'll most likely follow these steps:
1. Click the Quick Start tab and choose EasyBeast, UserDSDT, or DSDT-Free. You'll most likely ignore EasyBeast and need to choose one of the DSDT options. If your motherboard does not require a DSDT file, as many newer ones do not, you can choose DSDT-Free. If you downloaded a DSDT file for your motherboard earlier, choose UserDSDT and put that DSDT file on your desktop.
2. Select the Drivers tab to choose what drivers you'll need. Again, this will depend on your build but you'll likely need drivers for audio. Find out the chipset on your motherboard and choose the relevant AppleHDA driver for it. You may also need Ethernet drivers. Most everything else will be determined by whether or not you chose other natively compatible hardware like your GPU. Some GPUs require special drivers and others work by default.
3. Skip the Bootloaders section, as you won't need to make any changes there.
4. Click the Customize tab to change a few options. You'll want to choose a hibernate mode?most likely desktop, as this guide doesn't deal with laptops, turn on Generate CPU States, and turn on Use KernelCache. Changes here will vary based on your hardware choices, but those are the basics.
5. Click Save to save a backup of your configuration so you can load it up again later, when updating or in the event of a fresh install.
6. Click Build, then click Install. MultiBeast will do its thing.
7. Restart your hackintosh.

With those steps completed, you should have a fully functional hackintosh. Congratulations!

Step 4: Updating Your Hackintosh

OS X Mavericks was just released, so there are no updates yet and therefore nothing to discuss. When updates get rolled out and issues arise, however, we'll update this section. In the meantime, create a bootable backup of your installation (and the configuration file you made with MultiBeast in the last section) so you're ready for any troubleshooting you may need to do after future updates.

How to Troubleshoot

Things go wrong with hackintoshes all the time. It's unlikely you'll create one without running into, at least, a minor dilemma. A lot of troubleshooting involves trial and error, unfortunately, and you'll just have to tinker around until you get the problem fixed. You will be able to find help on the InsanelyMac and tonymacx86 forums if you get stuck. You can also use tonymacx86's rBoot rescue CD to help you boot when you're having trouble doing so. You'll also want to spend some time disabling potentially problematic options and kexts in your /Extra folder (which you can get to by pressing Command+Shift+G, choosing Go to Folder, typing /Extra, and see if removing anything can help. Sometimes you'll need to add things, too, to get the proper hardware support without any glitches so just be diligent and you'll get there.

Finally, once you do get things working you should clone your hard drive so you have a boot-able copy available should things go awry. This way you can restore back to that copy or at least compare the things that changed since it was all working nicely. No matter what you think, you're going to screw something up at some point. Keep a backup. You won't regret it.

For more troubleshooting tips, check out our hackintosh troubleshooting guide.
Source

[Krome]

I love how-to's project.  This should be bookmarked.

[Tech085]

this is why we can't have nice things.

[tsupersonic]

this is why we can't have nice things.

On the contrary, this allows you to have nice things as you don't have to spend major $$$ on Apple hardware ;) 

 

On a serious note, I have contemplated building a Hackintosh, but Mac OS just doesn't spark any interests/is worth a build.