Hackintosh question

[IrishDunner]

I have an old imac that doesn't really work any and want to Frankenstein the hard drive out of it and put it in my pc.

2 questions can it be done and how if so

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, IrishDunner said:

I have an old imac that doesn't really work any and want to Frankenstein the hard drive out of it and put it in my pc.

2 questions can it be done and how if so

How old an iMac? That term was used from the g3 series onward

 

[Airdragonz]

Unlikely that it'll work straight out of the box. Your hardware in your pc will have to be exactly the same as the iMac's in order for the hard drive to boot up properly. 

If it's different, you'll need to modify the kexts files, drivers, etc

[IrishDunner]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

How old an iMac? That term was used from the g3 series onward

 

First or second gen intel, early 2006 model

[Radium_Angel]

12 minutes ago, IrishDunner said:

First or second gen intel, early 2006 model

Which, IIRC, ran on 32 bit CPUs. I strongly doubt you'll be able to drop it into your other system and just have it boot up.

You're welcome to try but the bootloader will be looking for something specific to the iMac and probably refuse to boot entirely.

 

If you want a hackintosh, and your hardware is modern enough, run it in a VM. It's easier to set up and the performance loss is minimal.

 

(EDIT) typo on 32bit...

[lieder1987]

3 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Which, IIRC, ran on 2 bit CPUs. I strongly doubt you'll be able to drop it into your other system and just have it boot up.

You're welcome to try but the bootloader will be looking for something specific to the iMac and probably refuse to boot entirely.

 

If you want a hackintosh, and your hardware is modern enough, run it in a VM. It's easier to set up and the performance loss is minimal.

Do this, and then use the hard drive from your mac as an external drive. You will need a legit copy of the most recent version of MacOS and either a paid or free VM solution.