virtualbox.org

I'm trying to install macOS Mojave on virtual box. My host is MacOS High Sierra.

1) I started from the Mojave Installer, downloaded from Applestore.

2) I have built an installation ISO file ( I have created the dmg with hdutil, then I have mounted it with hdiutil attach, then I have sudo createinstallmedia... at the and I have the .iso)

3) I have created a virtual box, with a 35G hard drive .vdi and also an optical disk, on controller SATA. On this optical disk I have connected my .iso image of the installer.

4) I have set the virtual box memory to 4G, disk memory to 128, removed the floppy, set 2 processors. I have also loaded the virtual box extended pack. I set USB3 in the ports, otherwise the mouse and keyboard were not working). Now mouse and keyboards are working

5) I have started the virtual box. I enter in a screen where I can select install or disk utility

6) I selected disk utility and I select EDIT/NEW on the virtual box disk. I use HFS+, but I tried also with APSF. No difference.

7) After disk utility I start the installation on the new disk, that now is properly recognized.

8) At the end of the process the system reboots but instead of proceeding it goes back to the same window for selection of disk util or installation. This means that it has rebooted from the same cdrom image and not from the hard disk.

9) I select Restart from the apple menu and I intercept the restart by Fn F12. In this way I enter a screen where I select the Boot Manteinance Manager.

10) On this page I select BootFromFile, and then select files down to the boot.efi.

11) I do continue

12) The second part of macOS installation now proceeds. It is longer than the 1st part but everything seems to go ahead properly.

13) At the end of this second part the system reboots but still the reboot is done on the CDROM. Here is the problem. I were expecting having a reboot from the new macOS installed on the hard disk. But instead it seems that the hard disk is no bootable.

14) Even if I remove the cdrom from the virtual box setting, I cannot boot. In this case, as there is no more boot disk ( the virtualbox hard disk is not recognized as a boot drive) it starts the EFI shell.

15) I exit from the EFI shell and I enter the boot manager, but now there is no .efi file to boot from.

16) If I set back the image of the cdrom and open the disk utilities, doing get_info on the hard disk I see that the hard disk is not set as bootable.

17) I tried also to select the hard disk as a starting disk, keeping both the cdrom image and the hard disk. At the startup it logs Boot Failed MACOS X, and then goes ahead with the boot from the CDROM.

In summary:
I think to have done all the proper steps.
I had the installation of the macOS both in phase1 and phase 2
At the end, anyway I end up by having a virtual hard disk that is not considered as bootable.
Everything is coherent to confirm this.
But basically I think to have done the proper installation.

Here I am stuck. No more ideas.

All the discussions I have found are focused on the preparation of the ISO installer and on the phase 2 of the installation.
On the other hand in my case the problem is AFTER the phase2 of the installation.

Thanks

10.14 is not yet supported as a guest. From the "macOS 10.14 Mojave Guest and APFS Support" thread:

socratis wrote:

ABotelho wrote:Has there been progress with Virtualbox and Mojave?

Nope. Nothing yet. Not a peep. Zilch. Nada. Niente. Null...

ABotelho wrote:APFS still appears to be the issue.

Absolutely true. The VirtualBox EFI part doesn't know how to parse an APFS volume so that it can point to, and continue the boot process. No ETA as of today.

You should read the whole thread, there are some workarounds proposed. Haven't tried them...

If I have well understood the problem, so the Mojave doesn't install anymore on HFS+ but now on APSF file system, and Virtualbox does not support the APSF file system.

But if the Mojave is installed upgrading the MACOS High Sierra, with the hard disk already full of data, will it switch the hard disk to APSF file system, preserving the old hard-disk content?

I made a trial in Virtualbox: starting from High Sierra and downloading the Mojave installer.

The installation starts and it seems to properly proceed, but at the end it restarts and after the restarting the High Sierra is still there.
No notifications of any failure. Just High Sierra is still there.

mp101 wrote:The installation starts and it seems to properly proceed

...but it actually doesn't.

Believe me, if there was a way to install OSX 10.14 natively, I'd know about it, I've being trying since the very first beta came out. Both looking around in the web as well as talking to the VirtualBox developers. And if there's a way, you'll find it in the top of the "OSX Guests" section, it's going to become a Sticky, I promise...

I understand and trust.

On the other hand I'm wondering why instead if I download a preinstalled Mojave virtual disk, in this case it works.
If I open the disk util and I ask for info on the disk, the preinstalled is not APSF but instead Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Somehow Mojave is now running on a Mac OS extended, while instead, by starting from an ISO file of the installer, it only creates an APSF disk.

mp101 wrote:if I download a preinstalled Mojave virtual disk, in this case it works.

Not sure what that means...