Snow Leopard, Apple’s next OS in their lineup after Leopard, was recently released. Thanks to the widespread hackintosh development of Leopard, Snow Leopard can also be installed on your PC. Fortunately, this OS is quite easy to install (much easier than Leopard) and, for the first time on the 1525, we will be booting a retail copy of OS X. This means better overall stability and easier software updates.
We will be running Snow Leopard in 32-bit. The following chart details the working status of Inspiron 1525 hardware in Snow Leopard. Just remember that you need a working Leopard install prior to installing Snow Leopard.
1. For installation, we need a .DMG of the install disc. You can learn how to make one from your Snow Leopard Install DVD here.
a) 10.6 install disk ONLY- If you want to install Snow Leopard onto a HDD formated as MBR Disk, download this (thanks to The Edge3000) and place it in /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages (Source: Infinitemac.com).
2. Launch Terminal and type
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
3. Mount the Snow Leopard DMG from step 1.
4. From the mounted DMG, go to System –> Installation –> Packages and double click on OSInstall.mpkg. If you receive a message telling you your computer is incompatible, simply close the Installer and launch it again.
5. Click continue through the License Agreement until you arrive at the install options. Then click “Change Install Location” and select the drive you want to install Snow Leopard on (It cannot be the drive/partition you’re currently booted to).
6. Click on Customize and select which components you would like to install. Then complete the install, but don’t restart yet.
7. Download the kexts pack and unzip it to your desktop. Note: if you are installing a version of Snow Leopard other than 10.6 (no updates) then do not install SleepEnabler.kext.
8. Open the unzipped folder and go to the Needed Kexts folder. Copy the 5 kexts from the folder to /System/Library/Extensions/ located in your Snow Leopard partition.
9. Follow this guide to install the Chameleon Bootloader so that you can boot Snow Leopard.
10. Copy the dsdt.aml from your Leopard partition to the root of your Snow Leopard partition. If you do not already have a dsdt.aml, you can make one with DSDT Patcher GUI. Just check “Darwin/ Mac OS X” and hit Run DSDT Patcher.
11. Create a folder named Extra in the root of your Snow Leopard partition and, inside that folder, create another folder named Extensions. Then copy the kexts from “Extra Folder” to the new Extensions folder.
12. Open the unzipped folder from step 9 and unzip VoodooPS2Controller-0.98-installer.pkg.zip. Then run the .pkg and check the Trackpad option on the Installation Type step. Change the Install Location to your Snow Leopard partition and install.
13. Now you can boot to your Snow Leopard partition. Boot with the -f arch=i386 flags and go through the process of setting up your User Account. When you get to your desktop, WiFi should already be working (if you have the Broadcom 1395 chipset).
14. Copy the Kexts folder in step 7 from your Leopard partition to your Snow Leopard Desktop.
15. Download and run Kext Helper from your Snow Leopard partition. Drag and drop the kexts in the “Kext Helper” folder onto the Kext Helper screen and install them. Upon rebooting, Audio, Battery Meter, and SD Card Reader should now be working.
16. Unzip the Trackpad Preference Pane (also found in the Kexts folder) and install it with the included instructions.
17. Mount your Snow Leopard Install DVD DMG and navigate to /System/Installation/Packages/ (run the two terminal commands from step 2 if you don’t see the folder). Then run BSD.pkg and install it to your Snow Leopard partition (while booted to your Snow Leopard Partition). 9 times out of 10 you will get a Kernel Panic during the install process and will be forced to restart. This is OK. I had to install BSD.pkg 8 times before it had one successful install. Eventually, the package will install without a KP. When it does, hit OK on the install screen and then restart. Boot back to Snow Leopard and you will notice two things: 1) The system will be much more stable and you should stop receiving those damn Kernel Panics and 2) you can now repair permission in Disk Utility without getting an error.
18. Update to 10.6.1! (Just install the update and reboot)
24. Enable your Media Keys for iTunes control!
Upon completion of this guide, you will be running Snow Leopard 10.6.7 and will have a nearly perfect system. If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation. Any amount truly does help.
January 3rd, 2013 at 9:21 PM
Hi, so I’m trying to get os x on my pc (obviously). but isn’t it true that you have to have Leopard and then update to snow leopard for this to work? I’m trying to use the previous guide to do that first (i’m posting this comment on this page so some one will more likely see it). So what I did was i downloaded the Kalyway 10.5.3 thing using my other computer that is actually a mac, and I burned the iso to a dvd. and right now, im trying to boot my pc from that disc and i don’t think it is working. It’s has about 5 lines that say theyre loading different HFS+ files and one that says loading darwin/x86 and one that says loaddrivers:… but below all that it just keeps blinking between / – \ : and it won’t do anything else.
Alright and then i left it like that to go eat dinner and when i came back and it was on my normal windows desktop screen. so i tried booting from the disc again and now it just says “system config file not found”
December 21st, 2012 at 5:43 PM
Hi, I just installed the Snow Leopard in my Dell, but I’m facing a KP about the HDAEnabler.kext as you guys can see in the picture.
http://tinypic.com/r/m781le/6
I tried to remove this kext from the System.Library.Extensions folder and reboot, but it didn’t work.
Do you guys have any idea about how can I get it to work?
Thanks in advance!
P.S.: I’ve seen many posts on some blogs of people that had this same problem, but none of their advice worked for me.
December 23rd, 2012 at 5:11 PM
Ok, I’ve reinstalled the “Needed Kexts” from the zip file and the KP is no longer happening. Now I get this problem while booting the SO:
“Kext com.taoeffect.lspy.kext not found for unload request”
http://tinypic.com/r/2mcu3xt/6
Any idea?
December 28th, 2012 at 10:56 PM
Ok again…
I’ve uninstalled Espionage app and I no longer get the error “Kext com.taoeffect.lspy.kext not found for unload request”. Now, while booting, it gets stuck in this screen:
http://tinypic.com/r/2s9vblu/6
If someone know how to solve it, I’ll be very glad
May 11th, 2012 at 4:09 AM
@Nathan
Because im following the guide which doesnt say anything about a clean install. i want everything to work exactly hence why im following this guide also my specs are:
2GB RAM
120GB HDD
Intel celron dual core 1.87ghz
Intel chipset GMA X3100
need anymore info just ask
May 11th, 2012 at 4:15 AM
DDR2 RAM just to say
May 10th, 2012 at 9:04 AM
this is my kernel panic
http://i1077.photobucket.com/albums/w470/Joshparrish95/KernelPanic.jpg
someone tell me what to do :(
May 10th, 2012 at 9:16 PM
Please post a higher resolution image so that I can see what’s wrong with the system.
May 11th, 2012 at 4:04 AM
http://i1077.photobucket.com/albums/w470/Joshparrish95/KP.png
thats the highest resolution i can have without it being unreadable, my camera is broke so i had to use my 5mp phone camera
May 12th, 2012 at 4:10 PM
Are AppleDecrypt.kext and Disabler.kext present in either /System/Library/Extensions/ or /Extra/Extensions/? If so delete them and try booting.
May 12th, 2012 at 4:50 PM
none of them are there at all, what should i do?
May 9th, 2012 at 12:30 PM
Hey i know this is an old post but when i click OSInstall.pkg and it gets about 80% finished and says “The installer could not install some files in “/Volumes/SnowLeopard HD”. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Please help me i want to get this up and running ASAP!!
May 9th, 2012 at 12:35 PM
OSInstall.mpkg**
May 9th, 2012 at 12:56 PM
nevermind about that but i have another question, is it possible to get rid of the leopard partition and just have the one snow leopard partition??
May 9th, 2012 at 4:01 PM
right new problem, i followed all the instructions exactly however when i reboot to load snow leopard i get kernel panic :( so i tried with -v -f arch=i386 and then it just hangs, can anyone help me at all?? :(
May 9th, 2012 at 8:13 PM
You can use GParted to erase your Leopard partition and expand your Snow Leopard partition to the blank space. Just be sure to disable journaling on both partitions first. As for your kernel panic, which version of Snow Leopard are you running? My initial thoughts are that the KP is caused by SleepEnabler.kext and you need to include the pmVersion boot flag.
May 10th, 2012 at 3:33 AM
okay thanks, im a bit of a noob to mac as im a windows guy so how would i disable journaling?
May 10th, 2012 at 3:35 AM
im also running 10.6.0 i tried to get everything exactly for this guide
May 10th, 2012 at 3:38 AM
my plan is to do a clean install of leopard and then install snow leopard after i’ve done the basic updates on leopard, hopefully it will work
May 10th, 2012 at 6:06 AM
okay made sure i followed the whole guide word for word and when i boot SL with -f arch=i386 for the first time it comes onto the apple loading screen then just get a kernel panic, im stumped for ideas any help please?
May 10th, 2012 at 6:49 AM
Exact specs of your laptop please. Why aren’t you performing a clean install of SL?
April 11th, 2012 at 12:21 AM
Hi Thomas,
I know this post is old, but I was wondering if you had any idea what’s happening here. I followed you walkthough (thanks a lot for this by the way) with a 10.6.3 retail disk. I used a OSInstall/OSInstall.mpgk for 10.6.3 (found here: http://www.osx86.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=360).
Snow Leopard installed fine, but when I try to boot from Darwin with the -f arch=i386 flag, I just get a blinking cursor. I did an attempt with “-v -f arch=i386″, and this is what I got:
—-
Loading kernel mach_kernel
Loading HFS+ file: [mach_kernel] from 422d700
Loading HFS+ file: [mach_kernel] from 422d700
—-
On the next line is the blinking cursor and everything freezes. No keyboard.
Any ideas as to what might be happening here? I’d greatly appreciate any input you could provide.
(P.S. I’m not sure if it’s relevant, but the Chameleon bootloader stuff didn’t work for me. When I rebooted at setp 13, I couldn’t boot into anything. I was getting a “..failed to start.. File: \NST\nst_mac.mbr” error. The info section said “could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.” I had to use Windows 7 with the bcdedit command to get into Windows. I then used EasyBCD to allow myself back into Leopard, but Snow Leopard still doesn’t work.)
Great guide though, and thank you so much for all of this! I know you’re likely very busy, but if you have any ideas at all on what might be the problem with loading SL from darwin, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
April 8th, 2012 at 11:40 AM
Hi,
I purchased a retail 10.6.3 disk. Will this guide work with 10.6.3, or do I need 10.6.0?
Is there anything I should watch out for when installing from 10.6.3 (if it will work)?
Thanks,
Ron
March 9th, 2012 at 1:13 AM
Hi, First off I’d like to thank you for this guide, it has brought life to my dell! I had followed your guide and all was working great until I installed the wrong thing and ruined the system, I ended up re-installing everything from scratch. I followed the guide all the way through installing the 10.6.7 update also using the legacy kernel. inserted the “-v -f pmVersion=21 arch=i386″ into the com.apple.boot.plist in both locations. all is working well except for the sleep. with the charger unplugged, it will go to sleep just fine with the power led blinking, but when I press the power button it wont wake up! the power led comes on and the hdd led blinks but the screen stays black. holding down the power button to restart, brings up a message on boot that there is a sleep image that can’t load, says press any key to boot normally! what did I do wrong?
September 19th, 2011 at 8:05 AM
Hello, has any one come across a fix for the VGA port yet. I do quite a bit of photoshop work and would like to get my 1525 displaying on an external monitor as opposed to the 15inch screen. I would like it to mirror the laptop screen and not just extend the screen. Thanks Neal
July 7th, 2011 at 3:48 AM
So, I’ve got a good one for ya. I disabled Auto-login and before I could apply the fix I shut down my laptop….sigh… Is there a way to enable auto-login from Terminal or su mode?
July 7th, 2011 at 4:05 AM
Nevermind… all I did was type in my password because I thought… hey what if the OS is at the login screen but I just can’t see it…
July 7th, 2011 at 4:06 AM
Mind you I had booted into safe mode…
July 2nd, 2011 at 7:57 PM
Alright guys/gals,
Found an easier way to update to S.L. 10.6.8…
First, you’ll need to download the update independently of the Update Software Server, So I would go to Apple’s website, and download it from there… There is varied successes with either the Combo Update or the standard update (non-combo)… I used the standard update, simply because I thought it would add items from previous updates that weren’t compatible with the 1525… I just wanted the package from 10.6.8, and nothing else.
You’ll need a Chameleon installer package, because this update reconfigures the boot package. I used RC5
And you’ll need to save certain kexts from 10.6.7… I would just copy the entire file (System/Library/Extensions) to a Flash-Drive or another partition.
Now, once you have all of these in order, go ahead and update BUT DO NOT RESTART!!!!
Once the update is finished just minimize the Installer Window.
Now reinstall Chameleon and close Chameleon Installer window.
Now reinstall the following Kexts with KextHelper or some other program.
These must be from a previously working (10.6.7) Snow Leopard install:
AppleHPET.kext
AppleACPIPlatfrom.kext
IOVideoFamily.kext
IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
IOUSBFamily.kext
IOPCIFamily.kext
You may not need all of these but installing EVERYONE of these kexts led me to a successful install.
Now restart, and if you don’t see the booting wheel within 6-8 seconds, you went wrong somewhere…
Good luck, everyone and I hope you have the same outcome I did… 99% working install. :) Minus HDMI
Edit: And don’t forget your IO80211Family.kext for AirPort… Of course from your previously working OS X.
July 3rd, 2011 at 9:17 AM
I’ll try this out later today and let you know how it works for me. Thanks!
July 3rd, 2011 at 4:37 PM
Any luck? One issue I’ve had so far is that the CPU fan seems to operate at too low of a speed. I left my laptop on over night and found it REALLY warm this morning.
I know there is an app out there that lets you control the fan speed but it concerns me. Could the 1525 have a CPU temp chip that the OS isn’t seeing?
July 4th, 2011 at 12:44 AM
I followed your instructions and it worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, 10.6.8 seems to be a bit slower than 10.6.7, though it does boot quicker. I’m going to post the update guide shortly, giving you full credit for the instructions. Thanks so much for your help!
For accurate temperature readings, install Temperature Monitor. I don’t believe there are any applications that allow you to control the 1525′s fan speed as it is not supported by the kexts we use. 10.6.8 also shouldn’t affect fan speed and cause it to run slower than 10.6.7 did.
Edit: My WLAN card isn’t working in 10.6.8, even though it has native support in OS X (it’s the same card used in the older macbooks). I tried installing the 10.6.7 IO80211Family.kext, though that didn’t fix it.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Interesting…. if you wana try mine, lmk. Or you can check out http://www.kexts.com
I know that if I have the WLAN turned off and switch WLAN back to “on”, it requires a reboot to turn it on…
July 6th, 2011 at 2:24 PM
I’m going to reinstall 10.6.8 now and see if that helps. Changing the state of the switch from off to on does require a reboot, though mine is on. Besides, I changed my BIOS settings so that the switch doesn’t control the WLAN card.
July 6th, 2011 at 5:05 PM
After reinstalling, WiFi still isn’t working (WLAN card isn’t even recognized) and 10.6.8 is extremely slow. How’s the speed for you compared to 10.6.7?
July 6th, 2011 at 11:18 PM
I haven’t noticed a decrease in performance. I’m curious, though, as to why this update is a necessity for Lion, as claimed by the rumor mills.
And one thing I was thinking of is the if your OS isn’t seeing your card after reinstalling the working wifi kext, you may have to change the IOPCIFamily.kext as well, from a previous version. Alot of patch work for this update… Sigh.
But check this out. I found it while browsing. Worth a shot, I guess.
http://www.kexts.com/view/892-iopcifamily_for_broadcom_wireless_10.6.6.html
July 6th, 2011 at 11:24 PM
And now that you mention it, I am noticing intermittent performance drops. I’ve been paying attention to a few things and they’re seems to be some sort of Process that kicks on every now and then and eats up a ton of Ram, which would explain the laggy performance.
July 6th, 2011 at 11:51 PM
I face performance issues directly after boot. It takes ~15 seconds from when the Chameleon boot screen disappears for the login screen to appear. After logging in, it takes another ~25 seconds before my desktop loads. I’ll try the kext you linked to, though I’m baffled that the card is having any trouble given its native support.
July 7th, 2011 at 4:47 PM
Meh… My boot times have always been lengthy… and even worse because I was still using the old sleep hack. Was just able to extract and use a DSDT last night, so at least now I don’t have to wait for “sleep”
July 7th, 2011 at 9:15 PM
Booting usually takes just over a minute for me, though on 10.6.8 it takes ~2 minutes.
July 8th, 2011 at 1:28 PM
Have you checked your boot logs? I just noticed that there is a process that is crashing repeatedly name “(ipo/mig)” and its causing massive CPU draw… I tailed it for a bit but the logs weren’t showing anything which was confusing.
And another thing. I noticed that I had saved my DSDT file while my wifi was switched to off. While 10.6.7 didn’t seem to mind this, 10.6.8 does.
July 8th, 2011 at 10:43 PM
And I assume you’ve seen this link concerning Broadcom wifi cards… But if you haven’t…
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=51725
June 29th, 2011 at 1:58 AM
I installed iAtkos V7 on my Dell 1525. It installed iOS 10.5.7. After the install and first boot, the laptop’s display was black. I had plugged in a regular LCD monitor which worked fine; I could see the wallpaper and cursor. This indicates that there is something slightly wrong with the display driver. I mean slightly, as if the driver was totally bad, the external monitor wouldn’t work. So what could be wrong with the built-in monitor? Incorrect or out of bounds resolution?
/System/Library/Preferences has all the kext’s. Deleting AppleIntelGMA950* has no effect as the Dell 1525 has a X3100 chipset. Deleting / moving AppleIntelGMAX3100* let’s me boot to VESA mode but in low res only without external monitor support.
I’ve downloaded a bunch of kext’s for the X3100 but all of them give a blank screen. Actually, one kext fixed everything but I had f***ed up the system and had to reinstall and now can’t find that one again.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
June 29th, 2011 at 10:17 AM
My suggestion: actually follow the guide you’re posting on.
July 6th, 2011 at 11:21 PM
And one thing I found out was that the OS will support the Graphics Driver, natively. You can’t have ANY of the additional support kexts installed or you’ll have errors, like the one you’re describing…
June 24th, 2011 at 1:19 PM
Hey Thomas. So Apple just released their latest (last?) update 10.6.8. I backed up my OS and all of my kexts, and proceeded to update.
First issue thus far: Upon boot, the boot sequence stalls at the Apple loading screen…
Any ideas? Have you attempted this update yet?
Thanks again for all your hard work.
June 24th, 2011 at 1:25 PM
I’ve attempted the update several times and face the same issue every time. I’m currently exploring all the options and kext combinations to see if I can get this working. A guide will be up as soon as I resolve the issue.
June 24th, 2011 at 1:28 PM
Awesome. If I make any head way, I’ll update here as well… Good luck, as you’ll PROOOBABLY get there before me ;).
June 24th, 2011 at 1:46 PM
Thanks. I now have it booting though it freezes immediately before the login screen is displayed.
June 28th, 2011 at 6:01 AM
Did you use the Combo update or fixed update? Also, have you checked this out?
https://sites.google.com/site/nozyczek/home/hackintosh/how-to-install-snow-leopard-10-6-8-on-dell-inspiron-1525
June 28th, 2011 at 3:35 PM
I’ve tried both and had more success with the combo update. I did see that guide though I haven’t yet tried it out.
June 17th, 2011 at 2:58 AM
Hi, I desperately need some help! I’ve got Leopard installed on Disk 2 and using this guide I have Snow Leopard installed on disk 3. Everything was going smoothly until it came to the chameleon terminal commands. The first 2 commands are find, but when it comes to the “sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdiskX” part it all goes wrong! I get a message saying “No such file or directory” or “Could not open MBR boot0″ (link to a pic – http://i54.tinypic.com/148hovn.jpg) I’ve tried putting rdiskX, ridsk3, rdisk0s3 but it doesn’t work.
To clarify as much as possible, I’ve got the Chameleon folder on the Leopard partition desktop, using terminal in Leopard.
Please help! Thanks!
June 20th, 2011 at 1:17 AM
Follow the instructions in this guide.