Seb's Blog

Mac OS X Lion has finally been released. It was let out of its cage on the 20th of this month (July). Even before Lion was released people were wondering whether it would be as easy to hackintosh and run on an intel system as its predecessor, Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Fortunately Lion is still fundamentally based in the same was as Snow Leopard so the method in which to install it hardly changes. I urge you to purchase Mac OS X Lion from the Apple App Store, rather than ‘obtaining it’ by ‘other means’ (you get what I mean). It’s really quite cheap and Apple have put a lot of effort into their operating system.

So lets begin the guide to install Mac OS X Lion on an intel computer.

Step 1. Download a copy of Lion from the App Store either from a Mac or from another Hackintosh.

Step 2. On the Lion .App, right click and find show package contents. Open the resources folder and you should see a InstallESD.dmg, this is what you need. Double click it to mount it.

Step 3. Download Carbon Copy Cloner from the internet and plug in a memory stick large enough to fit the InstallESD.dmg on. Now, in Carbon copy cloner, select the Lion InstallESD.dmg as the source and your memory stick as you target. It will ask you for your password, type it in and off you go.

Step 4. Using a chameleon boot loader such as iboot, boot from the memory stick you just copied InstallESD.dmg onto. This will start the installation process.

Step 5. From here on its exactly the same as installing Snow Leopard, once booted you can install the kexts (drivers) that you need. Have fun with Lion on your Hackintosh PC!