Installing macOS Big Sur on a Windows PC (Hackintosh Guide)

A step-by-step guide to installing macOS on non-Apple hardware (Hackintosh), tested on a Dell OptiPlex 7020.

📺 Watch the full video walkthrough: YouTube — created by Spec Tech (@Spectechofficiall)

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Hardware Used

Component	Spec
Device	Dell OptiPlex 7020
CPU	Intel i5-4590 @ 3.30GHz
RAM	8 GB DDR3

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1. Check Hardware Compatibility

Before doing anything, scan your hardware to see which macOS versions are supported, using OpCore-Simplify — a tool built by the Hackintosh community that scans your system and lists compatible macOS versions.

On this hardware, compatibility went up to Monterey, but this guide uses Big Sur for stability.

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2. Create the EFI

macOS isn't built to run on standard PCs. To bridge that gap, we need an EFI — essentially an interpreter that lets macOS understand non-Apple hardware.

• In OpCore-Simplify, select Option 6 to generate the EFI folder for your specific hardware.

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3. Download macOS (Recovery Image)

We'll use OpenCorePkg to fetch the macOS recovery image.

1. Download the full repo ZIP from OpenCorePkg.
2. Inside the tools, locate macrecovery and open a Command Prompt in that folder.
3. To download the correct Big Sur build, you need its recovery product code. Find it in the official list: recovery_urls.txt
4. Paste the Big Sur code into CMD — remove the ./ prefix before running it.
5. Wait for the download to finish. You'll get a com.apple.recovery.boot folder.

At this point you should have:

• An EFI folder (from step 2)
• A com.apple.recovery.boot folder (from step 3)

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4. Prepare the USB Installer

1. Get a USB drive with at least 8GB of storage.
2. Use Rufus to format it with:
   • Partition scheme: GPT
   • File system: FAT32
3. Copy the EFI folder and the com.apple.recovery.boot folder onto the USB drive.

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5. BIOS Settings

Before booting into the installer, go into your BIOS and disable Secure Boot.

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6. Install macOS

1. Boot from the USB drive.
2. When prompted, open Disk Utility and format your target hard drive as:
   • Format: APFS
   • Scheme: GUID Partition Map
   • Give the drive a name.
3. Choose Reinstall macOS Big Sur and proceed with the installation.
4. Complete the standard macOS initial setup.

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7. Final Step — Install EFI on the Internal Drive

Your macOS install on the internal drive doesn't have an EFI yet, so the final step is copying it over.

1. Download MountEFI (by CorpNewt).
2. Run mountEFI.cmd.
3. Select the hard drive macOS is installed on.
4. Copy the EFI folder from your USB drive into the EFI partition of your macOS drive.

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8. Done

Shut down, remove the USB drive, and boot into your fully installed Hackintosh.

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Bonus: Minecraft Java Edition

To run Minecraft Java Edition on this setup, use Legacy Launcher.

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Disclaimer

This guide documents a personal hardware experiment. Hackintosh installs are unsupported by Apple, may violate macOS's EULA depending on your jurisdiction and use case, and carry risk of data loss — back up your drive first. Hardware compatibility (Wi-Fi, audio, sleep, etc.) varies and may require additional kexts/tuning not covered here.

Credits

• Spec Tech (@Spectechofficiall) — creator of the original video walkthrough this guide is based on
• OpCore-Simplify — lzhoang2801
• OpenCorePkg — Acidanthera
• MountEFI — CorpNewt
• Rufus
• Legacy Launcher