Installing an OS X Lion guest VM on a Yosemite host using VirtualBox

lion_on_yosemite_virtualbox.md

Getting the right file

1. Obtain Install Mac OS X Lion.app.
2. Open it using Show Package Contents.
3. Go to Contents/SharedSupport/ and copy InstallESD.dmg somewhere where you can later locate it.

Setting up the VM (instructions work on late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina)

1. Start VirtualBox.
2. Create a new VM with a hard drive, guest OS Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (64-bit). Remember the name you give to the VM and do not start it after creation.
3. Go to VM Settings, in System change chipset to PIIX3. In Display change video memory to 128MB. Click OK to save settings.
4. Exit VirtualBox.
5. Run VBoxManage modifyvm <nameofvm> --cpuidset 00000001 000006fb 00000800 80000209 078bfbff from a terminal.

Installing OS X Lion

1. Start VirtualBox.
2. Start the newly created VM.
3. VirtualBox will offer you the option to select a CD image file. Use InstallESD.dmg.
4. It should now boot into the OS X install and give you a menu with options (after selecting your preferred language). Start Disk Utility.
5. Partition the VBOX hard drive as 1 partition, MacOS Extended (journaled).
6. Exit Disk Utility.
7. Start OS X install, proceed as normal.

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