Installing osx on virtualbox from bootable USB

Originally Posted by iFunction Thanks, that explains an awful lot. As it happens I made the live usb stick of Mavericks quite a while ago, and to correct the info on this thread should anyone find it, I used this link and did it this way: https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/ap...s-x-mavericks/ So I still don't understand why I can't make a bootable ISO from this, but maybe someone with more technical knowledge than me can explain what I am missing, thanks.

Those instructions result in a USB flash drive that is bootable on compatible Apple Macintosh computers. Are you testing your USB drive on a Mavericks-compatible Apple computer? (Roughly speaking, Macs manufactured between 2008-2014.) That is the only hardware fully capable of booting a Mavericks USB installer prepared using the instructions in your link. If your hardware is not on that compatibility list, then you are heading into "hackintosh" territory that is way beyond my expertise, sorry.

No, the logic board on my mac died, I don't have a mac at the moment, that's why I was hoping I could get OSX working on virtualbox.

The tutorials for installing MacOS in VirtualBox on non-Apple hardware typically involve three basic steps: First, download a hacked MacOS disk image from a torrent site (one such popular hacked version of Mavericks was called "Niresh"). Second, create a new virtual machine, with the disk image from step 1 mounted in the storage options, and certain other settings configured just right to simulate Apple hardware. Third, start the virtual machine and run the installer; at this point the virtual machine thinks it's a "real Mac" and you're off to the races.