Mac Os High Sierra Iso For Virtualbox

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In our previous post, we have shown you how to install macOS Sierra 10.12 on VMware, and now in this article, I’m going to show you how to install macOS Sierra 10.12 on VirtualBox on Windows 10.Apple has announced the next version of its Mac operating system “macOS Sierra”. Of course, the real change is that, after fifteen years, Apple has finally ditched the “OS X” moniker.

Windows, macOS – which one do you want to use today? On a traditional setup, you’re stuck with one or the other. But with virtual box, you actually have macOS on a Windows PC.

Download the macOS Mojave Image file for VMware & VirtualBox. Therefore, you can easily download the macOS High Sierra iso file from given links below. And don’t forget one thing that it is only supported for VMware and Virtualbox. You can download from google drive to avoid viruses and malware. When you would like to install a working system typically in your computer, you will want to have at the running procedure ISO or installer file with you. 2.1 Create MacOS Virtual Machine In Virtualbox. Open virtualbox, click New button to create a new. The content goes to Apple. Enjoy the operating system! (Installs VMWare Workstation 14.0 only).

It’s the freedom that computer users have enjoyed with Linux and other operating systems.

But Apple has made it difficult to install their operating system on anything other than their own hardware. All of that is changing, and Virtual Box is responsible for it and the rise of the Hackintosh.

New to hackintosh? Learn more about it in our what is hackintosh? overview.

Note: A lot of people will be able to get a mac virtual machine one Windows running smoothly, but sound doesn’t seem to work well. That’s really not an issue because you’ll still be able to access all of your apps and software.

I also recommend that you have access to a real Mac. You might be able to find some distributions of the High Sierra ISO online, but there is always a risk when downloading from an unofficial source. Instead, borrow a Mac from a friend, or use your own and download the High Sierra OS from the App Store.

Check out our high sierra installation guide for hackintosh

Everything You Need to Get Started with Installing macOS on VirtualBox

Before we go through the steps on how to install macOS on Virtual Box, let’s get everything together that you’ll need to get started.

  1. Open up your Mac
  2. Go to the App Store
  3. Type in “High Sierra”

You’ll want to search for your desired operating system (we’ll be using High Sierra), and Download it.

Note: You’ll need a decent computer to be able to run Virtual Box. Your computer will need to meet these minimum requirements:

  • Dual core processor
  • 4GB Ram or higher
  • 64-bit

If your computer doesn’t meet these requirements, you won’t be able to run macOS properly. You’ll be able to download VirtualBox from the official website. I’m not going to go through the installation process, as the website will have all of the information you need to be able to install VirtualBox.

I do recommend that you read all of the documentation and ask any questions that you have in the community section of the website.

VirtualBox 6.0 was just released, so it’s definitely a great time to get started with your own macOS.

Extract macOS Sierra

Make sure you’ve downloaded High Sierra, and then you’ll want to run a few commands from your terminal . You’ll be able to open the terminal at: Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Once inside of the terminal, you’ll want to run the following commands:

Go to your desktop and rename the file, removing the “.cdr” extension. You need this extension to read “.iso” for it to work properly.

You’ve successfully created your own ISO file so that you can bootup your macOS.

The next step is to copy the file over to your Windows machine (using a large USB drive seems to work best). This file will be mounted in your virtual machine later on in the article, so it’s very important that this step is completed successfully.

Creating a mac Virtual Machine on Windows

Mac Os High Sierra Iso For Virtualbox

You’ll want to create a virtual machine, and this is really easy. You’ll open up VirtualBox and click New. You’ll want to have the following parameters selected or entered before clicking Next.

  • Name: High Sierra
  • Type: Mac OS X
  • Version: Mac OS X (64-bit)

Pay attention when selecting the version because you may find that High Sierra is offered as a version when you go to install it. But if it’s not, you can just choose the settings I listed above and they should work fine.

You’ll then be proceeding through all of the settings.

When you come up to the RAM setting, you’ll want to be generous. VirtualBox requires a minimum of 4GB or RAM to run, but the more the better.

Why?

You’ll want to provide at least 4GB to your macOS, or 4096MB to be precise. A general rule of thumb is that if you can spare it, supply more RAM to your virtual machine. RAM will allow the operating system to put more information into memory and retrieve it faster.

For better overall performance, supply as much RAM as you can.

The next steps are also important, and they’ll include:

  • Hard Disk: Choose the “Create a virtual hard disk now” setting.
    • Choose VDI when choosing the hard disk type.
    • Choose Fixed Size instead of Dynamic for added speed.
    • Set the size of the drive to at least 25GB.

You’ll now have your virtual machine using the RAM and disk space properly, and you’ll have to work your way through a few screen prompts before having everything setup properly.

Configuring Your VirtualBox to Run macOS High Sierra

We’ve made a lot of progress so far, and now it’s time to configure your virtual machine properly. You’ll see in the main window of VirtualBox that “High Sierra” is listed. Click on this and then click on the “Settings” button.

You’ll want to go to “System” and make sure that the following are unchecked on the Motherboard tab:

  • Floppy
  • Network

Click on the Processor tab and make sure that you have 2 or more CPUs set for your virtual machine.

The next few settings are rather simple:

  • Display: Video Memory with a minimum of 128MB
  • Storage: Click “Empty” and then click on the CD at the top right. Choose your High Sierra ISO file

Now you’ll need to click “Ok,” and save all of the changes you’ve made. Close out your VirtualBox now.

Apple is very strict on the system that their operating system runs on, so it’s very important that you do your best to configure your virtual machine in such a way that it tricks the installer to thinking you’re on a retail machine.

We’ll now be going into the Windowscommand prompt.

You’ll do this by:

  • Clicking the Start Menu
  • Typing “Command Prompt”
  • Right-clicking on the Command Prompt desktop app
  • Choosing Run as administrator

It’s very important to follow all of the following command prompts exactly. Your goal is to run each command, one by one, hitting the Enter button and waiting for the command to complete successfully.

Remember that VirtualBox needs to be closed before running these commands, or it won’t work properly.

You have to make sure that the virtual machine is properly named “High Sierra” for this method to work. If not, you’ll be able to go back and make changes to the name to get everything to work properly.

Once all of the commands are completed, and there are no errors, you’ll then be able to open up your VirtualBox and get macOS High Sierra installed properly on VirtualBox.

It’s a long process, but we’re almost done with your installation.

Running VirtualBox and the macOS Installer

You’ve almost learned how to install macOS on VirtualBox entirely, and we’re on the home stretch. You’ll want to open up your VirtualBox and then click on your virtual machine that you set up earlier.

Now, click “Start.”

There will be a lot of information displayed on the screen as everything starts running. I recommend stepping away from the machine and letting it run for a few minutes before coming back. Some errors can hang for 5 minutes or longer.

If you’ve done everything properly, you can be confident that the installer will boot properly.

You’ll eventually be presented with the option to pick a Language. If you’ve reached this point, you’re doing very well and are almost ready to run your macOS.

The next steps can be followed:

  • Choose your desired language, and click
  • Click “Disk Utility” and then
  • Click “View” and then “Show All Devices.”
  • Click on your empty virtual drive that has been setup and click “Erase.”
  • Choose the following settings:
    • Name: Macintosh HD
    • Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    • Scheme: GUID Partition Map
  • Click “Erase” and close Disk Utility when the process is complete.
  • Click “Reinstall macOS.”
  • Click “Continue.”

You’ll come up to one point where you’ll be asked to choose a hard drive, and you’ll want to select the Macintosh HD partition that you just created with the Disk Utility.

We’ve successfully copied all of the files on the virtual machine, but we’re not done just yet.

Exit your virtual machine and then go back to your virtual machine’s settings. You’ll need to change up your Storage settings. Click on your ISO for High Sierra in the “Storage Tree.” You’ll click that CD icon just like we did earlier and then choose “Remove Disk from Virtual Disk.”

You need to do this to unlink the ISO from your virtual machine.

Start up your virtual machine and you should come across a black screen with the EFI Internal Shell. You’ll want to look for FS1. If this is listed in yellow, click on the virtual machine and then type fs1: and hit the Enter button.

You should be in the fs1 directory.

Mac

Type in the following commands:

  1. cd “macOS Install Data”
  2. cd “Locked Files”
  3. cd “Boot Files”

Now we’ll run the installer by running: boot.efi and hitting enter.

If everything goes well, you’ll come across a graphical installer and will just have to work through the prompts. The virtual machine will reboot eventually and then you’ll need to go through the settings and the rest of the setup process.

Soon enough, you’ll be right inside of macOS, where you’ll be able to start using your mac virtual machine on Windows.

Having a virtualbox mac OS is the easiest method of using mac as and when you need it. In addition, using virtualbox is far less complicated than the dual boot hackintosh method we have looked at previously.

During a recent pentest, I needed to throw together a macOS virtual machine. Although there was lots of guides around the web, none seemed to work from start to finish. This post contains the steps I extracted from various resources in order to get a fully working High Sierra install within VirtualBox 5.

Step 1: Download The High Sierra Installer

To do this, you need to be on an existing macOS system. I was unable to find the download within the App Store itself, but following this link opened the App Store at the correct page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?mt=12

After opening the aforementioned page in the App Store, start the download, but cancel the installation when it starts.

You can then verify that the installer has been downloaded by checking that '/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app' exists.

Step 2: Create a Bootable ISO

Next, you need to create an ISO from the installer application that was downloaded in step 1.

Macos High Sierra Iso For Virtualbox

Running the below commands will create an ISO on your desktop named HighSierra.iso:

Step 3: Creating the Virtual Machine

I experimented with a few different settings in regards to the CPU and RAM allocation. I didn’t find a combination that didn’t work, but create a VM with the following things in mind:

  • Ensure the name of the VM is MacOS (ensure to keep the same casing)
  • Ensure the type is Mac OS X and the version is macOS 10.12 Sierra (64-bit) (there is a High Sierra option too, but I chose Sierra by accident and it worked)
  • Untick Floppy in System > Motherboard > Boot Order
  • Use >= 4096 MB of memory in System > Motherboard
  • Use >= 2 CPUs in System > Processor
  • Use 128 MB of video memory in Display > Screen
  • Optionally enable 3D acceleration in Display > Screen
  • Remove the IDE device in Storage > Storage Devices and replace it with a SATA controller
  • Add a new hard disk device under the SATA controller with >= 60 GB of space
  • Ensure an optical drive is present under the SATA controller and mount the previously created ISO to it
  • Untick the Enable Audio option under Audio

After creating the virtual machine with the above configuration, hit OK and exit the settings screen. Now, a number of extra options need to be set.

If you’re on Windows, you’ll need to cd into the appropriate directory under the VirtualBox installation path to run VBoxManage. For Linux users, this should be in your PATH variable already:

Macos High Sierra Iso Virtualbox

After running the above commands, the VM should be ready to boot!

Step 4: Installation

This is where near enough everything I read stopped, despite there being one more problem in the way - UEFI.

Boot into the VM, go into Disk Utility and erase the virtual disk that you added to the machine.

After erasing the disk, start the installation procedure. After a short amount of time, it will reboot the VM.

Once it reboots, it’s going to boot back off the ISO again, once it’s done this, just shutdown the VM and eject the disk [the ISO] and then start the VM again to boot from disk.

On the next boot, it should boot into the installer that was copied to disk, but instead, you will be presented with a UEFI shell like below:

To continue the macOS installation, follow these steps:

  1. Type exit and hit return
  2. Select Boot Maintenance Manager and hit return
  3. Select Boot From File and hit return
  4. You will see two partitions, select the second partition and hit return
  5. Select macOS Install Data and hit return
  6. Select Locked Files and hit return
  7. Select Boot Files and hit return
  8. Select boot.efi and hit return

After following these steps, you will boot into the remainder of the macOS installation. From here, just follow the steps as per a regular macOS installation.

The next time you boot your virtual machine, you will not have to go through the UEFI shell; it should work without any further problems.

Step 5: Tweaking The Resolution

As there is no VirtualBox additions for macOS, the screen resolution won’t automatically change. If you know what resolution you wish to use, however, you can set it manually.

Ensure the virtual machine is powered off, and then run the following command; replacing 1920x1080 with whatever resolution you would like to use:

After running the above command, the next time you boot the machine, it will use the resolution specified.

Now, you should have a fully working macOS virtual machine!

References

The information found in this post was pieced together from the following sources: