If the high price tag for Apple hardware has kept you from buying a Mac but you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get adventurous, you can build your own "Hackintosh"—a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard. What?!, you say. Apple's move to Intel processors in 2006 meant that running OS X on non-Apple hardware is possible, and a community hacking project called OSx86 launched with that goal in mind. Since then, OSx86 has covered major ground, making it possible for civilians—like you and me!—to put together their own Hackintosh running Mac OS 10.5. Today, I'll show you how to build your own high end computer running Leopard from start to finish for under $800. UPDATE: Building your Hackintosh just got a lot easier. After you build your system using the hardware I've listed in this article, here's how to install OS X on your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required.

Right now the cheapest Mac on sale at the Apple store is a $600 Mac Mini sporting a 1.83GHz proc, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. For $200 more, your Hackintosh can boast a 2.2GHz proc with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive, and a completely upgradeable case for expanding your setup in the future.

Building a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I'm going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you've got all the basic skills required.
The Hardware

There's no definitive best bet for a Hackintosh hardware configuration, so you may be able to experiment and come up with a better selection of parts than I did. However, I can guarantee that Leopard will (or at least has) run successfully on this hardware setup.


To make things easy, I've put together my entire hardware setup as a wish list on Newegg.

The build consists of a 2.2GHz intel E7300 core 2 duo Processor, a total of 2GB of RAM , an GIGABYTE GM945 motherboard,a 160 GB hard drive, a DVD burner and 20 inch samsung mist display. The motherboard is the most important element, You could probably tweak a lot of the other hardware without many complications, but if you stick with this motherboard and follow the installation instructions, you shouldn't see any major complications.

i bought all this parts for only 17500 INR that is equal to 350$.

The Build

Now that you've got all the parts, it's time to start putting your Mac together. We've detailed every step of the computer building process at one point. As always, be sure to read your hardware manuals before you begin—particularly from the motherboard—to get to know your hardware before you start the installation. Also, always remember to be careful of static electricity and always keep yourself grounded and your board unpowered until you're finished.

1.Install the motherboard and CPU: You can follow these instructions almost without variation, but the heatsink and fan installation, in particular, is a touch different. Rather than hooking the heatsink to your motherboard, the included Intel heatsink pops into place. For a more detailed description of how this works, consult your motherboard's manual and the manual included with your processor.

2.Install your RAM: The only thing you need to keep in mind when you're installing the RAM is that you should install the matched pairs—that is, the pairs that come in the same package—in like colored slots. This isn't strictly necessary, but it's a good practice and generally means better performance.

4.Install the hard drive and DVD drive: Your hard drive is an SATA drive, which is not the type of drive installed in the instructions (though they do address SATA drives). Just connect one of the power supply's SATA power cables to the drive and then connect the drive to the red SATA connector on your motherboard (it's labeled on the board as SATA1). Follow the same basic instructions to install your DVD drive but plug the drive into one of the other SATA ports (I used the SATA4 port).

When you've finished putting everything together, your open case should look like the nearly completed image below. In that picture, I've yet to install the hard drive and DVD drive and I still need to connect the case power and other connectors to the motherboard. (You may install other features of the motherboard if you prefer, like the FireWire connector for the back of the case).

To make sure everything's working properly, close it up, plug it into a monitor and keyboard and power it up. If the computer boots into the BIOS (by pressing Delete when prompted), you're ready to move on. If the computer won't boot, you may have to open the case back up and double-check your installation. Among other things, be sure that your RAM is properly seated.


I should note that at this point of my installation, I ran into a bum power supply unit (PSU) in my case. Unfortunately that meant that I didn't know whether the PSU was bunk or my motherboard was fried, and since I don't own a voltage meter it took an extra trip to Fry's and some troubleshooting to get to the bottom of it. The point is that when you're building a PC yourself, you can and should be prepared to run into snags, so if you're not ready to troubleshoot if a problem arises, you may want to think twice before trying this. That said, I've built several PCs in the past and this was my only major snag in the course of a build, so it's also very likely that your build could go off without a hitch.

Either way, as soon as you're able to boot into the BIOS, you're ready to get started with the pre-installation.
Pre-Installation

There are two things you need to tackle to prepare your computer for installation. First, you'll need to tweak your BIOS settings to properly work with the Leopard install. Second, you need to patch the Leopard DVD to install on your newly built Hackintosh computer.


Once you're there, arrow to the Tools tab of the BIOS, select EZ Flash2, and then hit Enter. Now choose your flash drive by tabbing to the appropriate drive, find the BIOS file you downloaded, and install it. When the BIOS has updated, your computer should automatically restart.

Now* you're ready to get into some nitty gritty preparation. If you plugged in your drives like I suggested during your build, you should see your hard drive and DVD drive listed in the BIOS as Third IDE Master and Fourth IDE Slave. (Don't worry about the fact that your hard drive isn't listed as the Primary IDE Master.) Arrow down to IDE Configuration and hit Enter.


Tweak

In the IDE config, you want to set "Configure SATA As" to AHCI. Next hit Escape once to go back to the Main screen. Now hit the right arrow key to move to the Advanced tab. In the Advanced section go to "Onboard Devices Configuration" and set "JMicron SATA / PATA Controller" to Disabled.

Now you need to arrow over to the Boot tab to configure the boot priority (which tells your computer what order you want to boot off devices in your computer). Go to "Boot Device Priority" and set your DVD drive as priority one and your hard drive as priority two.

Done? Then you're ready to move onto patching your Leopard DVD.

Patch Leopard for your Hackintosh: There are a couple of different ways one could go about creating a patched Leopard DVD. (i will publish the leopard Download link later). The second method requires patching a Leopard DVD yourself, which isn't really as hard as it sounds.

Installation

You should now be ready to fire up the patched Leopard install DVD. So power on your Hackintosh, insert the DVD, and let the boot process begin (you did remember to set the DVD drive as the first boot device, right?). You'll be prompted to press any key to start the installation or hit F8 for options. Hit F8.

You'll now see the boot: prompt. Enter -v -x and press Enter. (Don't ask me why, but this is the only way the install DVD would boot for me. Not using these options caused the boot to hang indefinitely every time.) You should now see lots of text scrolling over your monitor. You may even see some daunting errors. Don't be alarmed; just let it continue. After several minutes, the graphical Leopard installer should be staring you in the face.


Format the install drive: I know that you're raring to install now that you're finally here, but there's one thing we need to do first: Format our hard drive so that it's prepared to receive the Leopard installation. So go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Disk Utility (if you don't have a working mouse yet, you can still access the menu bar from the keyboard). Once Disk Utility fires up, it's time to format the drive. Here's how:


Select your hard drive in the left sidebar.
Click on the tab labeled Partition.
Select a 1 partition Volume Scheme, name the volume Leopard, and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format.
Last, click the Options button and choose Master Boot Record as the partition scheme.

Now that your drive is ready, so are you.

Install Leopard: This really is the easiest part—just follow the on-screen instructions and choose your newly created Leopard partition as the install destination. Then, before you make that final click on the Install button, click Customize and de-select Additional Fonts, Language Translations, and X11. These components were removed so we could fit everything on the patched DVD, so we won't be installing them now.

Now you're ready. Click install and grab a quick drink. In around 10 minutes, Leopard should have installed, leaving you with just one more step before you're running with the Leopard.


Post-Installation

After the installation completes, your computer will automatically restart.


OSx86 on Your Hackintosh

From this point forward, you're running Leopard on your PC just as though you were running Leopard on a regular Mac. You'll be jubilantly welcomed in a handful of languages. All of your hardware should work exactly as you'd expect. Your sound, networking, and video will all work off the bat. Your iPods will sync flawlessly, and CDs and DVDs read and burn just as you'd expect.

On the software front, Mail, Address Book, iTunes, and everything else I've tried so far work flawlessly. Firefox is browsing, Quicksilver is doing its thing, Spaces are rocking, Stacks are stacking, Cover Flow is flowing, and Quick Look is previewing.



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Make Doanation TO Download Hackintosh DVD Iso

Thx for the tutorial, surely will help other users

__________________
HP Pavilion Elite m9250f
iAtkos v5i (10.5.8), Asus IPIBL-LB MOD BIOS, Intel Quad Core Q6600, 4GB RAM (800mhz), 2x500GB, nVidia 8600GT (Works), ALC888S (Works), Wireless RT73 (Works), LAN (Works) - How to Install - Blog - Hardware Combos - FAQ by TJ2K7
Macbook Pro 13"
Follow meh: @icchansan

If you just want to support hackint0sh.org with a donation click here

i used the best patched osx version

i will post the download link later

here is the real post that i made and its updated weekly

Build a Hackintosh Pc For $350 (No Video Card Required)

I want to build this computer, but I'm having some trouble finding the motherboard. When I do a Google search for "GIGABYTE GM945" I don't come up with anywhere to purchase it. Also, I don't see the "new egg wish list" of the items you used.

You can try with this or check the hardware section theres some combos there for new users, is a sticky

__________________
HP Pavilion Elite m9250f
iAtkos v5i (10.5.8), Asus IPIBL-LB MOD BIOS, Intel Quad Core Q6600, 4GB RAM (800mhz), 2x500GB, nVidia 8600GT (Works), ALC888S (Works), Wireless RT73 (Works), LAN (Works) - How to Install - Blog - Hardware Combos - FAQ by TJ2K7
Macbook Pro 13"
Follow meh: @icchansan

If you just want to support hackint0sh.org with a donation click here

What kind of computer case would support all of the hardware. I have a old hp computer which I am going to take apart and rplace the hardware with the hardware above and I wanted to replace the case for a custom one. Thanks!

$199 Mac: Dell Mini 9. Great hardware compatibility.

Won't be too fast, but I love MacOS on my Acer netbook. Everything works. (although it took a bit of doing)

I feel like the comic book guy. Don't flame me, but I think it's cool to think about. Mr. Jobs would/must be steaming right now if he knew people were turning $199 Dells into fully functional Macs.

Muahahaha. Death to pretentiousness and a great OS for all. Just pay for it. At least once.

Useful as this post might be its a ripoff an article on lifehacker but wth several important details left out, moreover i dont think the poster asking for donations to his personal paypal is sensible.

All the updates downloaded from APPLE.COM installs without any problem.