How to Install Android Marshmallow on a Laptop or PC

Android x86 - Installation

1. Download Android-x86 from Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/android-x86/)

This will take a while for some, so I recommend doing it first.
The official downloads link to Sourceforge unfortunately

2. Format your USB drive to FAT32 



3. Download UNetbootin. (http://unetbootin.github.io/)

Looks straight out of the 90's!
4. Search partition on the start menu and open "Create and format hard drive partitions"


5. Right click the drive you want to put Android Marshmallow onto and click Shrink Volume...


6. Choose the size of the drive in MB. 64000 MB is about 64 GB, just add 3 zeros after the amount of gigabytes you want available. Now click Shrink.


7. You've now created a hard drive partition! Now time to download GParted. (http://gparted.org/download.php)


The name may be different, but it ends in .iso
8. Run UNetbootin. Choose Disk image, click the three dots and navigate to the .iso you downloaded titled gparted-live-0.xx.x.x.i686.iso. Choose your USB drive and click OK.


If a pop-up appears, press yes.


9. Enter your boot menu. (If you are not sure how, read below)
  1. Restart the computer.
  2. Repeatedly press F12 until a menu displaying devices appears
  3. Use the arrow keys to move up and down, and select the device you want to boot into.
  4. Press the Enter key.

Suggested Guide: HOW TO ACCESS THE BOOT MENU

10. Use your arrow keys to navigate the menus from now on. Select your flash drive with the arrow keys and press enter to click it.

Enter/Return is to click and the arrow keys navigate the menus
The name of the flash drive corresponds to the flash drive manufacturer
Boot menu on a Lenovo laptop rather than a desktop PC

11. After seeing some text, this menu should appear. Hit enter when GParted Live is selected. If anything else pops up, keep pressing enter until you see a window open.


12. GParted should pop-up in a window.

I had to go to the GParted menu, Devices, and select the drive I wanted to install Android on.
You should probably not have to do this.
On your unallocated partition, right click and then press new.

Make sure the file system is ext4, and then press Add.

Now press Apply to make the change.

Press Apply once again, remove the USB, then reboot. 

13. Run UNetbootin. Choose Disk image, click the three dots and navigate to the .iso file you downloaded titled android-x86-6.0-20151202.iso. Choose your USB drive and click OK.

Android should be ready to boot after this!

14. Once again, go into the boot menu and select the flash drive. UEFI if possible.

Boot menu on a Lenovo laptop rather than a desktop PC
The name of the flash drive corresponds to the flash drive manufacturer.
15.  The Android-x86 menu will appear!

Select Installation with your arrow keys and press enter
First choose the ext4 partition
Press Do not format. If you don't, you could mess it up.
Choose Yes
Choose Yes
Choose Yes
VERY IMPORTANT: Choose NO
Choose Yes
Allow it to write, this could take a minute
Remove the USB drive and reboot
16. Congratulations! You have installed Android alongside Windows!

You can choose which system you want to boot into with your arrow keys and enter!
Set it up!

Comments

  1. Could you also have a guide to uninstall it? I want to try this out on my Surface but if I find that I don't like it I want to be able to remove it and retain the hard drive space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Usually the workflow goes like this:

      - With GParted, delete the partition where you installed Android, then resize the Windows partition to reclaim the space
      - This will not uninstall GRUB yet. Enter Windows once again, then run the Recovery Drive utility (Start menu > type recoverydrive.exe), insert a spare USB drive and create the aforementioned drive
      - Reboot the computer, boot to the recovery USB drive, select "Repair your computer", "Troubleshoot", "Advanced options", and "Command prompt"; finally type bootrec.exe /fixmbr which will overwrite GRUB with the default Windows bootloader

      Delete
    2. I have a nano Pc (Nettop nt-I1200 with an Intel wifi module inside & 2GB ram upgradable to 4GB. I was going put a SSD in and load windows on it however this might be better since I'm hardware limited with this. My question before I take on this project is 1. Can I use driod 6.0 on this and it has drivers for my wifi or USB ports to add an usb wifi dongle if need be? 2. If it's a clean hard drive following the guide here which steps can I eliminate all together since I won't be using Windows?

      Delete
    3. I have a nano Pc (Nettop nt-I1200 with an Intel wifi module inside & 2GB ram upgradable to 4GB. I was going put a SSD in and load windows on it however this might be better since I'm hardware limited with this. My question before I take on this project is 1. Can I use driod 6.0 on this and it has drivers for my wifi or USB ports to add an usb wifi dongle if need be? 2. If it's a clean hard drive following the guide here which steps can I eliminate all together since I won't be using Windows?

      Delete
    4. i will not recomend you to android it, but... if you want to anyway, drivers will be ok , wifi and usb , skip the partitions part, format the harddrive during install, follow the guide for evrything else

      Delete
  2. Instead of going through the hassle of installing right to the hardware, I'd recommend running all this in a virtual machine. Touch input is also passed through so you can full screen the VM and have the exact same experience and you just delete the VM after if you don't like it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree in some cases. Some people who attempt this are trying to revitalize old hardware that may not support virtualization. Running it off the hardware can make it much faster, but if you don't plan to use it a lot, virtualization may be the way to go.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow super cool!
    I'm having trouble getting my wifi to find anything once I'm booted into the android os. Any help on that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. If you have a Mac or use a Broadcom wifi chip, you need to use Android 5.1r1 from Sourceforge instead. The drivers aren't integrated yet.

      Delete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. What about a bootable Android flash drive or CD, like Knoppix Linux has put out for over a decade? Then people can try it on their hardware before making the decision to physically install it there.

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  7. Hello i have a problem, when i finish the android installation when i reboot my surface i can't select android... (the installation is go right, im sure) ps: sorry for my low english :p

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hey how did u manage to install this on your surface? i cant seem to find the partition that i created in windows for the android installation. It only shows my usb drive and i cant install android there cuz it's only 4gb

      Delete
  8. Forgive my ignorance, but why would one want Android on PC?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I have a windows hybrid, and it is great for work and all but windows really isn't the best tablet OS tbh, and therefore i'll install android on it so I can use all the optimized apps. I am also forced to use a windows phone with a huge lack of apps, and I can kind of compensate for that with an android tablet :P

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. Should I make a partition on my windows hardrive? Because I made a partition on a second hard drive that has no windows installation and is completely blank. And it is not showing the partition in the Android x86 bootloader.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only thing it is showing is my USB. Nothing else. I have tried to detect drives but that didn't work

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. If your secondary drive isn't working, I would put a 16 GB partition on your Windows drive. Android does not use much space anyway, so try that! I'll look into your issue

      Delete
    4. hi, i've installed and it is running fine. only problem i have is the internal storage appears to be 1.7gig only (memory is 7.7gig). i've made the partition to be 20 gig. what's wrong with it? how do i increase the internal storage?

      Delete
  10. Try a USB keyboard and select android with the arrow keys and enter. If that doesn't work, reply and I can help you!

    ReplyDelete
  11. All is perfect but WiFi not working. WiFi not connecting help please

    ReplyDelete
  12. Help, after installation finished, i cant go to windows because windows boot not found, i was tried to instal up to 5x, but nope

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did you choose to wipe your Windows drive (sda1) during setup? You will have to reinstall Windows if you did that.

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  13. I have been stuck at the android splash screen for around thirty minutes. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try booting with the debug mode option. Reply and I'll see if I can help you out!

      Delete
  14. I am trying to boot up the usb drive with the Android iso image and it does a lot on command lines and than it stops with the following words: ANDROID . Is this suppose to happen.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I am trying to boot up the usb drive with the Android iso image and it does a lot on command lines and than it stops with the following words: ANDROID . Is this suppose to happen.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Installation was flawless except for the fact that there is no option to boot into android in the boot menu. I was able to run android the first time after installing because it gave me the option to reboot or run android so I chose to run it. But after rebooting I am only able to boot to windows 10. During installation I did not get the prompt for the following...

    The installer found a windows partition in /dev/sda. Do you want to create a boot item for windows?

    Could this be why it won't boot to Android and if so what would you recommend I do? Iv'e tried reinstalling and still didn't get the prompt. Thank you.

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  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  18. Got it. Formatted usb and started from step 13 after downloading android X86 file again. ( previously downloaded android file was like half size ( corrupted-not completed)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Got it. Formatted usb and started from step 13 after downloading android X86 file again. ( previously downloaded android file was like half size ( corrupted-not completed)

    ReplyDelete
  20. i got same thing. it stucks on ANDROID.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hi There, thanks for instruction of installing marshmallow on my pc. I did it and it works, except it can't detect Wi-Fi, since my computer is direct wired to internet.
    Do I need to install some kind of Modem , so android can detect Wi-Fi?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi There, thanks for instruction of installing marshmallow on my pc. I did it and it works, except it can't detect Wi-Fi, since my computer is direct wired to internet.
    Do I need to install some kind of Modem , so android can detect Wi-Fi?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Use the Android 5.1 image instead. 6.0 is still in testing.

      Delete
  23. awesome, everything works, my XPS 12 has turned into Android Tablet :P But didn't try all the tutorial, installed Android on USB and it runs!
    Now will try with my HP Stream 7, as after installing Windows 10 on it, it became unusable

    ReplyDelete
  24. This is because you formatted the partition NTFS. Android-x86 only allows you to use 2GB of space on an NTFS partition. You have to format with GParted and use the ext4 filesystem to allow Android more space.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I have followed all the instructions from installing the Gparted to the Android installation. everything worked fine. after rebooting and selecting the android from boot list, it goes black screen. I've waited for several minutes and it's not turning on. I'm stuck and don't know what to do.

    ReplyDelete
  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. Hi,
    I've installed everything correctly, Android is running good as far as I know, except for the play store. Every time I try to launch it he is "Checking info" and after that closing with this message : Unfortunately, Google Play services has stopped
    Any idea ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you formatted the partition ext3 or NTFS, this can happen. If you're sure it is ext4, message back and I can see what the problem is. Try restarting the computer or installing the Google Play store again through an .apk file. Good luck!

      Delete
    2. i have the same problem: everytime i try to link device with my google acount (google play, gmail etc.) it says Google play services has stopped or the device just stops doing anything even when i move mouse, cursor does not move. i tried your advice to reboot davice and it does not work for me. and i cant even go to browser because it crashes immediately... can you help me?

      Delete
  29. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure what you're asking. If you used Gparted and made an ext4 partition, then installed Android on it, it should boot correctly. Wifi and other drivers I can't help with, but I would recommend trying Android x86 4.4 or 5.1 for better compatibility with a broader range of devices.

      Delete
    2. (2/2) I also am not a developed of Gparted and the issues you have may be unique to your device. If that is what you are having trouble with, contact a member of their team or search your issue. Sorry if I cannot help!

      Delete
  30. I have followed your instruction but when I try to reboot from the USB, I get the following message: Secure boot violation. Invalid signature detected. Check Secure Boot Policy in Setup. [OK]. All that in a grey narrow window with red writting and black background. Have you got any suggestion? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  31. how do ammend the boot menu to boot to windows first?
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In Ubuntu linux system there is file called defaults where it is possible to change default system. What file should I edit in android system?

      Delete
  32. I installed android lollypop on my laptop alongwith windows
    When I turn on my laptop and select android a black screen apears on which android x86 is written.
    This screen remains and android does not start
    Please give me solution of this problem

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Give it a few minutes, and comment back! It can take a while for the first boot.

      Delete
  33. Several times after using gpart
    Andriod marshmallow does not show partition only creat partition option comes
    What i have to do

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure what you're asking. Could you elaborate?

      Delete
  34. I installed along side windows 10, everything seemed to go good, but I never get an option to boot to Android when I reboot, automatically goes to windows, now how to fix this?

    ReplyDelete
  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  36. Didnt work for me. tried it twice, would not offer boot option, and when I tried to just run android it failed

    ReplyDelete
  37. Finally got it to work.. sort of, but asked me to turn wifi on, wifi button doesnt work under android

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try the Android 5.1rc1 IMG instead if the wifi isn't working. Marshmallow is a test build.

      Delete
  38. Sound is not working what can I do to solve this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try Android 5.1r1 from sourceforge as opposed to Android 6.0. More drivers are baked into it, so I recommend trying that.

      Delete
  39. Replies
    1. I don't know what could cause this. Are you using a device with a UEFI boot setup?

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    2. also tried to run as a live USB and got the same result, a black screen. this was on a laptop with a AMD Turion 64x2. But when a tried it as a live USB on my desk top with a Intel i7 it worked ok. But its the laptop that I want it ot work on.

      Delete
  40. Installation was all correct.
    Upon rebooting, there is no option to select OS.
    Windows boots by default, no option shown as in multi OS PCs.
    Please help.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Installation was all correct.
    Upon rebooting, there is no option to select OS.
    Windows boots by default, no option shown as in multi OS PCs.
    Please help.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I’m excited to uncover this page. I need to to thank you for ones time for this particularly fantastic read!! I definitely really liked every part of it and i also have you saved to fav to look at new information in your site.!! laptop finder

    ReplyDelete
  43. Hi im going to do this plz help. after installing android how to switch os plz help tell me!!!! do we need to use grub or some otherthing??? plz give me a detailed help descrioption

    ReplyDelete
  44. Hi,
    Im installed the latest version rc1 on my desktop, previous version didnt work well during installation. The android now working well only no sound, try to manage all setting but no avail, currently im using 3rd party soundcard, could it be the caused of it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Finally manage to get the sound from my onboard soundcard. So the issue there was no driver detected my maya soundcard. Next project, will try this os on my p4 system.

      Delete
  45. PLEASE HELP! Everything boots up fine but whenever anything boots up they cant seem to find my disk partitions. For example G-parted only sees my USB drive, the Android image also only gives me one partition to install Android on, that's also the USB drive. I cant seem to find the partition that i made for this Android installation
    (16gb, ext4). The only thing it ever sees is my 4gb USB drive.
    Device: Surface 3
    Ram: 4GB
    Space: 128GB

    ReplyDelete
  46. Hi, does this one supports touchscreen? Im sorry Im newbie to this. I have tried the remixOS on my Acer one 10, powered by Intel Atom Z3735F it was successfuly installed. games runs faster. however the touchscreen wont work. I want to try this to see if its better. I also want to know whats the difference between the android-x86 and the remixOS? RemixOS wont be installed on my AMD X2 pc, it was installed on my Intel i3 2nd gen as well however simple clash of clans has issue booting up. maybe with the hardware not recognized. Any help will do or any experience wit the acer one 10 to share with me. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If it does not work on Remix OS it will most likely not work there. You could look online for solutions, however!

      Delete
  47. All ok with my laptop.but i cant turn on wifi..plz help me anyone does know how to fix it... :'(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That means that your WiFi card is not supported. For broader support, use the Android Lollipop image instead.

      Delete
    2. I have a nano Pc (Nettop nt-I1200 with an Intel wifi module inside & 2GB ram upgradable to 4GB. I was going put a SSD in and load windows on it however this might be better since I'm hardware limited with this. My question before I take on this project is 1. Can I use driod 6.0 on this and it has drivers for my wifi or USB ports to add an usb wifi dongle if need be? 2. If it's a clean hard drive following the guide here which steps can I eliminate all together since I won't be using Windows?

      Delete
    3. I have a nano Pc (Nettop nt-I1200 with an Intel wifi module inside & 2GB ram upgradable to 4GB. I was going put a SSD in and load windows on it however this might be better since I'm hardware limited with this. My question before I take on this project is 1. Can I use driod 6.0 on this and it has drivers for my wifi or USB ports to add an usb wifi dongle if need be? 2. If it's a clean hard drive following the guide here which steps can I eliminate all together since I won't be using Windows?

      Delete
  48. All I am getting (after a successful installation) when I boot into Android OS is a blank screen with a little white dash '-' line in the top left-hand screen.

    I have left it like it for over 10 minutes to see if it is because it is a first install boot, but the screen still remains the same.

    Any advice would be welcome - thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  49. Hi All,
    I have a Asus Transformer T100chi with Windows 10 and I would like to install Android 6.
    I followed all the steps, but when I get to 15, 2nd slide I can not go onto the next step, the keyboard connected via USB does not respond and none of the buttons (sound keys, windows key or power key) also respond. Has anyone had the same problem? Any suggestion? Thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  50. I have done this 3 times now, following the directions very carefully. All seems to work until reboot at the end.
    I get:

    tGRUB Loading stage1.5

    GRUB loading, please wait...
    Error 5
    _

    Ideas? This is 3rd time... Only fix I've got so far is to re-load windows 10 image becasue i cannot access android or windows

    ReplyDelete
  51. Ive rebooted a couple times, and now all the same error, except Error 17

    ReplyDelete
  52. It is very in testing mode... don't work on hp 6530b , after you choose the boot seqvence it show only a black screen, nothing's hapen. I try also in debug mode or running from usb direcly, the same story :(

    ReplyDelete
  53. It is very in testing mode... don't work on hp 6530b , after you choose the boot seqvence it show only a black screen, nothing's hapen. I try also in debug mode or running from usb direcly, the same story :(

    ReplyDelete
  54. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  55. At step 12 only the usb stick is listed in gparted. Any suggestions? Thanks for your precious work

    ReplyDelete
  56. Sir i have dell 3148 and successfully installed 6.0 but due to wifi problems, installed android 5.1 rc1 through .iso and .img both but wifi didn't open up on any of them. Wifi is not starting, what should i do? Should i install 4.4? Please help.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Interesting. Hope community can supply wide range of driver. This is wonderful brake through

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  58. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  59. thanks for this guide! ... but... with my ASUS T100TAL sim card is not working (and no detected); wi-fi works correctly.
    I tryed v 6.0 and 5.1 both "live", maybe have I to install it?
    any suggestion? bye

    ReplyDelete
  60. how using wifi with os android installed on laptop

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  61. Pokemon go is not working on this ....Please help !

    ReplyDelete
  62. I installed is to my win10 pc, but there isn't any boot menu where I can choose wich op system would i start.
    Any idea?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. reboot your device then press boot menu F12 or F10
      choose second hard drive it's will work

      Delete
  63. Everything seems to have installed well but when trying to boot into the newly created Android drive, I get a blue box with the command line under it: ANDROID root@x86_64:/#

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  64. Yeah! It worked perfectly! But I can no longer boot windows. My Laptop(Lenovo G400) keeps restarting itself each time I choose to load windows. Only Android now works. Any solution?

    ReplyDelete
  65. i have instilled 6.0 on my computer did all the steps and now when im in android it says im out of storage space

    ReplyDelete
  66. i have install android in ext3 format . then after i can't access my windows. how to recover my windows please help me.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Hello,

    It work awesome to me and able to run android / windows.
    The only issue i encounter is " unfortunately the stop..... " whenever i open Google play store, Browser and youtube.
    I manage to load youtube, but when i click play on the youtube it just crash.

    I read, it says could be not a stable version yet and do you reckon to downgrade to " lollipop5.1x86 "

    OR is the " Unfortunately xxxxxx stop " could be solve with the current version that you recommend?

    Please guide.

    Regards,
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  68. I'm working with a Lenovo Flex 3-1580 with intel dual band wireless-ac 3165 and I can't get the wifi to work while in Android mode, can anyone offer a solution?
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  69. hp 1303 au not android logo detect 30 min. how to get logo to start android on my pc. pls tell me

    ReplyDelete
  70. all went well with the installation, but now i'm having trouble with setup.
    get to 'if you have...' i click on either go next and get 'unfortunately, google play services has stopped' and kicks my back to select Wi-Fi network.
    any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  71. Great article, your instruction is very clear and valuable post. Thanks for sharing with us.
    Laptop Service in Chennai

    ReplyDelete
  72. Thanks for the post. Unfortunately I've not managed to get this to work. After boot loader issues, finally managed to get Android 6.0 to boot on my ASUS UX360CA, only for wifi not to work! As per suggestions, tried previous versions. 4.4 installed, but the touch screen doesn't work. 5.1 won't install (installer or Live version of Android won't load - "linuxefi not found") and the 5.1_64 option won't load onto the USB stick using UNetbootin! Now at a dead end :-(

    ReplyDelete
  73. All working fine except it wont play video,it just says the usual "app has unfortunately stopped" would an earlier os work with video

    ReplyDelete

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