How to: Install Snow Leopard on your PC



          

Top

With a Hackintosh PC, it’s possible to have the better of two worlds. But with the recent launch of Snow Leopard, the new flavor Mac OS X operating system, how do you upgrade the Hackintosh with a quick and easy install? This installation guide details the building of a Hackintosh system with a Snow Leopard OS from the ground up.

This how-to guides you through a simple click and run installer for Snow Leopard.

Essentials:

  1. USB thumb drive (minimum size 8GB)
  2. A copy of the Snow Leopard Install DVD (Optionally use the use the $29 ‘Upgrade’ disc).
  3. A Mac system to create the Snow Leopard DVD image on the thumb drive.
  4. The EP45UD3P Snow Leopard installer package.

The installer package makes it relatively easy to setup Snow Leopard as you get to skip the Terminal in favor of a normal install.

The guide details the three steps (and two post-install tweaks) required with easy to follow instructions and videos. The brief steps are –

Step 1: Prepare the thumb drive

A process where you need to format the thumb drive and create the Snow Leopard DVD image on it. The steps are detailed in the earlier Lifehacker post.

Step 2: Configure the BIOS
Some BIOS settings are modified to boot-up the new OS. These screenshots illustrate.

Step 3: Install Snow Leopard

Format the hard drive partition which will hold the installed OS. Installation is dead simple with the thumb drive and the installer package.


Post-Install Tweaks
Follow the Snow Leopard setup with a simple change in preferences for the sound output. A second tweak involves an installation of a custom bootloader which makes the OS boot from the HD instead of the thumb drive.

The installer based setup of Snow Leopard on Hackintosh makes it easy for the beginner. It’s also a swifter streamlined approach. Quite apt for an OS named for a big cat.

If you love computer hacks in general and Mac’s in particular, check out our gallery of topics.

Comment:
 
net

September 18th, 2009

Hi!! nice tutorial..I install it in an acer aspire 9110 and when it boots up cant find keyboard and mouse..Any idea on this problem?Thanks a lot..keep up the good job guyz..

Alex

September 24th, 2009

Sorry net, obviously a driver problem, either you installed “Leopard” not “Snow Leopard” or you have not downloaded the driver for the usb motherboard drive :/ good luck finding it.

Oscar

September 27th, 2009

Is there a universal DVD with snow leopard just like the previous leopards install cd’s that will just install and done. ???? :)

HardAttack

October 4th, 2009

The mouse and keyboard have to be USB. They can’t be PS2.

jay

November 10th, 2009

I’m sure I can configure the bios to boot up on usb but the other options you’ve posted(screen shots) in the bios I don’t have. Is this a problem?

Joe L

November 10th, 2009

Hmm…perhaps they are accessable in a different part of the system configuration settings.

Sam

February 8th, 2010

i dont think making it boot from the usb will be that simple, because the usb only holds the installing opperations leading to the full operating system…