This guide shows you how to set up your New-Way Hackintosh from scratch, without using our pre-made templates.
Prerequisites
You’ll need the following;
- Have a read through our Hackintosh page!
- An ISO file of macOS; Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma.
- An ISO of our custom made OpenCore boot iso. Comes with pre-made EFIs and various handy tools.
Once you’ve fetched the ISOs, upload them to your Proxmox node or your main storage for ISOs.
Creating the VM
Under the General tab, enter the desired name for your VM and hit Next. Should you be using Clustering, pick your desired node.
Navigate to the OS tab and proceed to select the macOS ISO file in the ISO image field. It is imperative to ensure that the Type field is configured to Other.
Please ensure that the settings on the System tab correspond with the screenshot provided below to prevent any potential issues with your Windows installation.
Details
- The SCSI controller is set to VirtIO SCSI, and the Qemu Agent option is checked.
- Under firmware options, BIOS is set to OVMF (UEFI), add EFI disk is checked, EFI storage is selected.
- If you need PCIe support for GPU passthrough on your macOS VM, make sure the machine field is set to q35 instead of i440fx.
- You can also change the graphics card from Default to VMware for the better quality experience.
Tip: There will be no proper Graphics Acceleration till a dGPU is passed through to the VM.
Ensure that the Bus/Device option is set to VirtIO Block and the Cache is set to Default on the Disks tab to optimize performance. The Discard option can be selected to enable the Proxmox node to recover free space, which is analogous to the TRIM option for SSD drives. Input the necessary disk size and maintain the disk format as QEMU image format. Subsequently, click on the Next button.
In the CPU tab, indicate the desired number of cores and select the host CPU type. Note that the kvm64 CPU type may have restricted instruction sets, potentially causing sluggishness in certain scenarios.
Note: macOS will only accept cores; 1,2,4,8,16,32 natively. Anything else will make the VM not bootable.
On the Memory tab, allocate your desired Memory to for the VM, and untick Ballooning Device.
That assures that the VM has all the allocated Memory at all times.
Select the appropriate bridge for your VM on the Network tab and ensure that the model is set to VirtIO (paravirtualized) to optimize network performance on your Windows VM.
Please verify all settings and ensure that the “Start after created” option is not selected. It is necessary to include an additional DVD drive in our virtual machine to mount an ISO file containing VirtIO drivers prior to initiating the VM.
Once you’ve followed the previous steps, you should be left with something similar to this.
In the Hardware tab, and then click Add to open a dropdown menu. Next, select the CD/DVD Drive option as shown.
Select the hsve-oc-boot ISO you downloaded earlier, and click Add.
If you’ve done everything correctly, you should be left with something similar to this.
Before we boot our VM, we need to make some adjustments to the Boot Order of the VM. Head into Options and hit Edit on the Boot Order.
Make sure to untick net0 and make sure the list corresponds as shown.
Head into the Shell and type in the following;
nano /etc/pve/qemu.-server/<vmid>.conf
<vmid> = the ID you gave your VM at the start.
Then we need do adjust some settings for our ISOs and add in an argument line for making macOS booting.
ide0 and ide2 will have media=cdrom in their lines, replace that with cache=unsafe as shown.
args depending on CPU;
Monterey (Intel CPUs)
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -device usb-mouse,bus=ehci.0,port=3 -global ICH9-LPC.acpi-pci-hotplug-with-bridge-support=off -cpu host,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc
Monterey (AMD CPUs)
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -device usb-mouse,bus=ehci.0,port=3 -global nec-usb-xhci.msi=off -global ICH9-LPC.acpi-pci-hotplug-with-bridge-support=off -cpu Penryn,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+pcid,+ssse3,+sse4.2,+popcnt,+avx,+avx2,+aes,+fma,+fma4,+bmi1,+bmi2,+xsave,+xsaveopt,+rdrand,check,+invtsc
Ventura/Sonoma (Intel CPUs)
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -device usb-mouse,bus=ehci.0,port=3 -global nec-usb-xhci.msi=off -global ICH9-LPC.acpi-pci-hotplug-with-bridge-support=off -cpu host,kvm=on,vendor=GenuineIntel,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,+hypervisor,+invtsc
Ventura/Sonoma (AMD CPUs)
args: -device isa-applesmc,osk=”ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc” -smbios type=2 -device usb-kbd,bus=ehci.0,port=2 -global nec-usb-xhci.msi=off -global ICH9-LPC.acpi-pci-hotplug-with-bridge-support=off -device usb-mouse,bus=ehci.0,port=3 -cpu Cascadelake-Server,vendor=GenuineIntel,+invtsc,-pcid,-hle,-rtm,-avx512f,-avx512dq,-avx512cd,-avx512bw,-avx512vl,-avx512vnni,kvm=on,vmware-cpuid-freq=on
Your VMs Hardware tab should be looking similar to this, make sure it is before continuing.
Installing macOS
Just follow through the installer until you end up as shown on the next step.
First of I’d recommend turning on Local Scaling for getting the image resolution of the VM display scaled to the corresponding window size.
When you’ve done so, just hit Enter on the first entry in the Boot Picker, whichever macOS version you chose.
If the VM successfully booted up, you should be presented with this menu. Enter into Disk Utility.
Type in your desired disk name, I chose Macintosh HD.
Leave it as APFS and GUID Partition Map, and hit Erase.
Click the Apple Inc. VirtIO Block Media, and hit Erase.
When it’s done, go ahead an Quit Disk Utility.
You can now continue to Reinstall macOS.
Pick the drive you just erased for installing macOS onto.
You’ll now have to be patient and let it do its thing, the installer do its thing.
Should you find it to be stuck at About 12 minutes remaining for too long, do check in on the CPU usage of the VM.
If the VMs CPU usage sticks to 100%, it’s probably frozen. Hard Reset the VM to reboot, and it’ll start over.
Once the VM has restarted after completing the first stage of the installing, you’ll notice it’s now saying macOS Installer.
Don’t pick the installer with the macOS version logo.
It will now enter the second part of the installation, be patience and let it do its thing once again.
Do keep an eye out with the CPU usage as mentioned earlier.
The VM will probably restart a few times during the installation. Once it’s done, it should now present you with the name of the disk you erased.
Enter it to start setting up your system settings and your user account.
Select your preferred region.
Skip this step.
Skip this step as well, you’ll be able to sign in later on once you’ve made some changes.
Better to leave this unchecked for now, and enable it later. Select your preferred location manually by clicking on the presented map.
Configuring your macOS
Once you’ve finally reached the desktop, you can start configuring the necessary steps for getting things properly working!
Now, click on Finder then Preferences…
Check the Hard disks option and close the window.
Open the HSVE disk on the desktop, and copy over the Get Started folder and the README pdf.
Do read the document.
Open the Tools folder inside the Get Started folder, and right-click -> Open on the python installer and install it.
When python is done installing, do the same for the MountEFI.zip file.
Install the MountEFI system extension.
The MountEFI extension allows you to easily mount EFI partitions by right-clicking a disk -> Quick Actions -> Mount EFI.
Once you’ve mounted the EFI partition, head into the Get Started folder -> EFIs.
Pick the EFI depending on the GPU you’re going to use along with the macOS VM.
Next step is to regenerate the SMBIOS, this is crucial for avoiding issues with online connectivity in general, updates and iCloud.
Follow each step.
Finishing up
Once you’ve completed all previous steps, it’s time to shut down the macOS VM, and make some changes on the Proxmox side.
Shut down, and head back into the Proxmox WebUI.
Go into the VMs Hardware tab and detach both ide0 and ide2, as you no longer need them.
ide0 = HSVE Disk
ide2 = macOS Installer ISO
Your VMs Hardware tab should be looking like this now.
Head into the VMs Options tab as well, and Edit the Boot Order. Make sure virtio0 is ticked and net0 remains unticked.
If you’ve done the EFI steps correctly, this is what you should now see when booting up the VM.
Should you end up in a UEFI boot screen, attach the ide0 disk again. Go back to the Boot Order in the VMs Options, tick and move ide0 to the top.
Repeat the EFI copying steps again.
Congratulations on your successful Hackintosh the New-Way!
Want to get more out of your VM?
Check out our PCI Passthrough Guide!
You should now have a fully working Hackintosh!
You can now sign into iCloud and start setting up the macOS as your own.
I would highly recommend you creating either a snapshot or a backup of the VM in its current state, should you mess something up.
Always snapshot/backup before messing around in the EFI partition.
Bonus tip;
Head into System Settings -> General -> Sharing and tick Screen Sharing.
Makes it easy to access your Hackintosh headless should you want to.