This informative article will demonstrate the comprehensive guide to fix VirtualBox mistakes while installing Mac OS X. There are many devices and various types of errors. So, in this article, we will take a look at all of them one by one.

Minimum System Requirements to install MacOS X on Virtualbox:

Minimum system requirements to install MacOS X on Virtualbox are: (It will help run macOS High Sierra or later versions without any problem.)

  • Minimum 2 GB memory (Recommended 8GB or higher)
  • Minimum 2 cores of processors (Recommended 4 cores or higher)
  • Hard disk free space 40 GB (Recommended 100GB or higher)
  • Your system should support Intel or AMD VT (Virtualization Technology)
  • Intel/AMD VT (Virtualization Technology) Should be enabled from BIOS setup. Use this guide: How to Enable Virtualization in Windows 11? Easy Guide

For fast performance, try installing macOS X on SSD rather than HDD.

Required: Enable Virtualization Technology (aka Intel VT or AMD-V). See the video below.

Some key points to remember before Installing Mac OS X:

1) Intel CPU works better than AMD

2) Turn OFF Antivirus programs (Windows Defender) and Windows Firewall before starting the install

3) Set Video RAM to between 64-128MB

4) Use no spaces in VM name (ex: “MACOSX” not “MAC OSX”). Also, no punctuation. Also, re-verify:

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 VM Type: Mac OS X and Version: Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan (64-bit)

 (These are in Virtualbox Settings->General)

5) Use wired Internet, not WiFi, for initial download/updates.

6) Run the CMD window as Administrator when entering command-line commands. Use this guide: How to “Run as Administrator” an application on Windows: 3 Easy Methods

7) You May need to start Virtualbox as Administrator. Use this guide: How to “Run as Administrator” an application on Windows: 3 Easy Methods

8) Be patient during the initial boot-up. It runs disk checks and other repairs… and can reboot several times.

9) Be sure your HD or SSD has >80GB of free space. All the updates after initial installation gobble space.

10) Black Screen? Try video RAM > 64MB and Chipset = PIIX3

11) Do not install Virtual Box Extensions “CD”

12) Before adding commands on CMD, make sure you have quit your Virtualbox.

Unkown option –cpuidset

If you get this error “VBoxManage.exe: error: Unknown option. –cpuidset. The VM hangs on boot” while adding the first code in the Command Prompt. It’s because of the double hyphen. Use Double hyphen “- – “before cpuidset.

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

VBoxManage error: Could not find a registered machine named Your VM Name

If you get this error “VBoxManage error: Could not find a registered machine named Your VM Name“, it is because you haven’t used the correct name of your virtual machine when adding the codes on CMD.

You need to use the same VM Name you used when creating the virtual disk.

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

Missing Bluetooth Controller

If you get this error, close the virtual machine before adding the CMD codes.

Guru Meditation error or Black Screen

This error is majorly seen because of two issues-

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The critical error happens due to the guest operating system. It is trying to switch to the PAE mode, which is currently disabled by default in VirtualBox. PAE support can be enabled using the VM settings (System/Processor)”.

  1. Open VM VirtualBox
  2. File -> Settings -> System -> Processor
  3. Check Extended Features: Enable PAE/NX
Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

OR,

For people with the black screen problem or Guro Meditation error, change the operating system version from macOS 10.13 High Sierra (64-bit) or macOS 10.12 Sierra (64-bit) to just the Mac OS X (64-bit). If the error persists, switch the Video Memory Size to 128 MB from the Virtual machine settings. This is a significant issue with most of the users.

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

This version of Mac OS X is not supported on this platform Reason: Iloveapple

Make sure Virtualization Technology (VT) is enabled from BIOS.

error: VBoxManage setextradata “OSX” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/DeviceKey” “ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc” and you are stuck at appleKeyStore: operation failed (pid:30 sel:7 ret:e00002c2 ‘-536870206’)

Exit VirtualBox before adding codes to CMD.

Yhal Htet Aung

Try to change the inverted commons throughout the virtual codes. Since you are copying the codes, you might be using the wrong inverted commas.

So, copy the codes in your notepad file, replace all the inverted commas via your keyboard, and try again.

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

Invalid Virtualbox Version

Make sure you add the right virtual codes. You can download the correct version codes here-

Stuck in an infinite loop on Black Screen

Try using this command as the last command on CMD-

VBoxManage modifyvm “VM_name” –cpu-profile “Intel Core i7-6700K”

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

Or,

Try Motherboards Chipset – both PIIX3 and ICH9 one by one

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

install.nsh is not recognized as an internal command

1st method:
If you get ‘install.nsh’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or script file. You have not attached the Virtualbox Boot Image.

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See, https://www.geekrar.com/fix-macos-catalina-install-nsh-isnt-recognized-as-an-internal-error/

2nd method:
If you then get messages along the lines of ‘\macOS Install Data\Locked Files\Boot Files\boot.efi’ missing or not recognized:

run setup.nsh

now run, fs0:\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi

and all should now spring into life.

3rd method:

  1. At UEFI prompt: Type exit
  2. You’ll be brought into an EFI text-mode GUI.
  3. Select Boot Maintenance Manager and click.
  4. Select Boot From File and click

You should see two entries in a list (they are cryptic looking PCI bus paths).

The first PCI path in the list is probably the boot partition that doesn’t contain bootable firmware. The second PCI path is probably to the recovery partition, the one you need to boot from. If the 2nd partition isn’t the recovery partition, look under the paths in the list to see if one of them is it. If the recovery partition isn’t present and valid, these instructions won’t work.

Click the 2nd entry, you should see (and then click):

macOS Install Data

Then click:

Locked Files

Then (if present), click

Boot Files

And finally click:

boot.efi

The installation will continue, or you will boot into the OS or get the Recovery utility menu (where macOS can be reinstalled from or Disk Utilities run). The ambiguity of that last statement is I did that awhile before writing this comment, and I don’t recall what I booted into first, only that it worked and was not hard to figure out what to do at that point. If you have a recovery partition, to boot directly into the Recovery Mode, turn on the Mac and immediately press and hold (⌘)-R

Set screen resolution

Use the following command- 

cd “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox”

VBoxManage setextradata “VM Name” VBoxInternal2/EfiGraphicsResolution 1440×900

Complete Guide to Fix VirtualBox Errors While Installing Mac OS X

If you are still facing some issues, try using VMWare to install macOS on your Windows. When your current PC does not support Virtualbox and its configurations, try switching to VMWare. The process for it is relatively painless.

Share files and folders between Windows and MAC on Virtual Machines

You can go through this complete guide- How to share folders on VirtualBox & Vmware? (Windows-MAC) Step by Step Guide

I tried installing macOS Catalina on Virtual on Windows 10 on a low configuration system. You can watch the video tutorial here-

Author

Ruby has been a writer and author for a while, and her content appears all across the tech world, from within ReadWrite, BusinessMagazine, ThriveGlobal, etc.

6 Comments

  1. Just keeps running the code lines in VM Box. Any known solution?

  2. macOS VM boot fails on power up.

    Failed to query SMC value from the host (VERR_INVALID_HANDLE).
    Result Code: E_FAIL (0X80004005)Component: ConsoleWrap
    Interface IConsole {6ac83d89-6ee7-45e3 3-8ae6-b257b2e81be8}
    ViirtualBox 7.0.6-155176, Windows 11

    Is ther a missing parameter in the VB code?

    Any ideas for fix?

    • For those getting the “Failed to query SMC . . . “ error:

      Change the value for the CMD command that ends with “GetKeyFromRealSMC” from 1 to 0. So if your Mac VM was named macOS 13, your final line should actually be:

      VBoxManage setextradata “macOS 13” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC” “0”

      Close your VirtualBox window (mine was not open while I did this), start VirtualBox back up, hit run, and it should boot up with no problem. This was done on a laptop running an intel processor if that matters. Cheers

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