So I know a lot of people are reporting on how the new program, PearPC, lets you run OS X on Windows. But I actually tried to get it working on the newest PC I have: 1.8 gHz P4, 640 RAM, Windows XP Pro. Its not exactly easy, or at least it wasn’t for me.

According to the PearPC site you have to run download Darwin and use that to format this .img drive to then install OS X on it via an ISO file (PearPC won’t, at this time, let you use your acutal CD Drive on your Windows PC). Sounds kinda easy…well, I had problems. PearPC wouldn’t see the .img, 6 gig, HD I downloaded and uncompressed. Basically, I can get to the OS X install, but when I need to pick a partition to install to, nothing it there.

I feel like a dumbass, sitting here working to get OS X going on a Windows system, that is sitting next to a perfectally good Mac running a real, functional OS X install.

I’ll keep going…now I’m on a mission. (I did it! Click “read more” to see how.)

Thursday (the next day)
Over last night, I tried the first install of OS X, it installed fine, but I couldn’t boot back into the HD image, so back to the begining…

Ok, so I re-did the file HD img. I ran Darwin on it, which will format it for the OS X installation, and gives me the ability to “boot” to that HD img. That took forever! But now I’m giving it my second try to installing OS X. (If you are doing this yourself, some of the forums are suggesting you use their “pre-formatted” disk images. I tried them and came up empty as well, so I tried the blank 3 gig image and tinkered with the config files and finally got it to work. So if those pre-made drives don’t work for you, don’t worry.)

…about 2.5 hours to go in OS X install….

Install Screenshots:
Screenshot #1
Screenshot #2

Thursday 7:00pm
Success! I did it. I can now run OS X on my somewhat piddly 1.8 gHz Windows XP box. You wanna know what it does? Well when I click on anything, the finder crashes…so nothing really. But I did it, and that all I was really aiming for. Hopefully, since this is a really “pre-alpha” it can only get better from here. It will be fun to see what this project brings in the future. And it kept me busy, not thinking about how I still need a real job, for the last day or so.

Final Setup and Running Screenshots:
Screenshot #3
Screenshot #4