How to Install Snow Leopard on Asus G51J & Asus G51Jx Laptop

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Asus G51J & Asus G51Jx is two best selling laptops. It is an bit old model today, but there are many users who are still using it. I found some informative stuff which can allow you to convert your regular Asus laptop to an Mac PC. But there are limitations and this is only possible after doing major modification to the system. I am not talking about dual boot here. Dual boot of different operating system like Mac, Windows & Linux are more complicated. You can even Triple Boot Mac, Windows & Linux. But the process is a bit difficult and you just need the right files and drivers. Also remember the architecture of each operating system differs from each other. They also differ in the way of responding to the hardware. The reason to choose Asus G51Jx is, I found some working kext file for the same. Kext files are used by Mac operating system to control the hardware. In simple words you can assume they are drivers. And for those system which does not have kext support, Mac system can only be virtually run on them.

Asus G51Jx features Intel Core i7 processor with Intel HM55 chipset. And Asus G51J has Intel PM55 chipset. The first requirement is to get appropriate bios update for the same. Asus G51Jx is a gaming laptop, designed to give maximum performance and render better graphics. It can handle many operations of Snow Leopard. You have got pre-installed operating system in this, so it is your choice to keep or entirely format it. I prefer to keep a recovery disk ready for you. Because Snow Leopard installation not only changes the file partitions but also the file system which is unreadable in Windows. So if accidently you loose the recovery partition, it will be a lost of genuine Windows 7. So keep a backup of your operating system ready in case you do not like you can restore stuff back. Talking about Asus G51Jx, it is a nice portable gaming notebook and surely for Snow Leopard it is a nice choice. I had tested the same for some while where it performed well. But as you know many hardware support will not respond on it. Somewhere I really find trouble in fixing the same out. Equipped with Intel Core i7-720QM 1.6Ghz processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M 1GB GDDR3 memory, the laptop is correct choice for this purpose.

Note: Some of Mac updates modify the system bios. If did not performed correctly can cause permanent system failure. Collect all appropriate resources before doing this and then only make changes. Entire modification to the operating system hardware is on your own risk.

There are some guides which might interest you. This guides are base don install similar Mac operating system on different non-Apple hardware. You can go through the below guides before reading my below steps just to find out how this entire stuff works. I had also linked a triple boot guide in the first paragraph for those who are interesting in installing on 3 operating system on a single pc.

1. Mac OS X iDeneb Installation Guide for HP Mini
2. How to install Snow Leopard on Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H

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Install Snow Leopard on Asus G51Jx

Pre-Requirements on Install Snow Leopard on Asus G51Jx :

Pre-Requirements are necessary to read before running up the setup. This are those needed files which are important to collect on usb/cd drive and needed at the time of running setup. I am really a fan of Apple operating system, but like Windows or Linux they are not so friendly with every hardware. There are some requirements and hacks that are needed to be performed before installing them. If you need all the requirements then your half job is done. The only things that remain pending is setup.
Snow Leopard Retail DVD : You can buy an Snow Leopard Retail DVD from Apple Store. It will cost you $29 which is really not bad for such an nice operating system.

Storage Space : You need enough storage space to run Snow Leopard. I prefer to install the same on my secondary hard drive. You can also create an additional partition only for Snow Leopard. Remember that I am not writing the methods of Dual Boot. It is like completely formatting and installing new operating system. You will need to prepare partition which is readable by Mac Operating system. You can use Disk Utility for that. In the above guides I had explained that method in detail. You can use any bootable disk like EFI for the same or use any working Mac system to format your drives.

EFI Boot Disk : EFI boot disk is the most common and easiest way to install Mac OS X. It is an bootable disc which aims to run the setup of Snow Leopard. You can download this from anywhere, burn that on a disk and boot the system. When you boot, you have to remove this disc and insert Snow Leopard disk to initiate the setup. This disk also contains disk utility support which can be used to create Mac partitions.

Mac OS X 10.6.2 Combo Update : This update is very important once when you are done with the setup of Snow Leopard. It gives more stability to your system and may bugs are fixed here. I will mention that in detail. The update consists of al general fixes for the operating system which directly influence the system stability, compatibility and security.

What this update would fix (As mentioned on the official site ) :

• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
• a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
• a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
• issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
• the reliability of menu extras
• an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
• an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
• Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
• a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
• an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
• Safari plug-in reliability
• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio

Download Mac OS X 10.6.2 Combo Update

Kext Update - Nivdia & Multi GPU Support Kext: Many of you might be wondering what is this. It is an Snow Leopard Kext to fix the graphic issue. It will improve your system resolution. I had attached the same to this post. Download it and keep it ready in a usb. You will need to provide this kext file after setup. If you can found the updated version of this then much better. I got this which will help you to run Nvidia and Multiple Ati support on the single system. But as for laptop is enough strong to give you 1920x1080 resolution.

* To install Mac OS X need GUID partitions system on your hard drive. The current hard drive format used by Asus laptop and other regular system is mbr. This is the file partition container which a carries information on the partition size. Mac system cannot read mbr based drive. You need to convert the same to GUID. There a ample of guide for the same you find only to convert an regular disk to GUID partition.

Installing Snow Leopard on mbr based Hard drives :

It is possible to run Snow Leopard on mbr based drives. You do not need to entirely remove your data and format the drive to GUID. There is a separate disk provided for the same. There is some of the Mac version provided by Hackintosh community. But they are hacked version of operating system and I will recommend not going for. But if you want to just test the same then do that on your own risk.

• First to run the operating system you have to create Journaled file system on your drive. This are common file system used by Linux/Mac system. And for that you have to use Disk Utility. That can be done via EFI boot disk or you can simply run the Snowloader from a usb drive.
  
• Keep an usb drive ready for this process. You must have more sticks in additional which contain the patches and Kext file. I recommend to keep 2x8Gb usb drives with you.
  
• Using Snowloder you can run Snow Leopard setup on mbr partition by booting from usb drive. The tool which can be used for this is called as Matsca09's SnowLoader. It is freely available on web. Stability of the operating system is not guaranteed here.

Installing Snow Leopard on Asus G51Jx Laptop

Boot the laptop from EFI boot disk. When the system is booted removes the disc and inserts your Snow Leopard Retail DVD. You can use Disk Utility to create an appropriate partition. Once you boot from EFI the detailed process for the same is mentioned on the above guides.

Quick Steps :

• Boot from Efi
• Remove Efi disk and insert Snow Leopard Retail DVD
• Run Disk Utility to format your partition
• Use the Disk Utility tool to create Journaled File system
• Choose the Snow Leopard destination drive
• When installation is done you have to run Kext file updates. You will need usb disk for the same.

I will recommend you to view the above two guides. Maximum process to run Snow Leopard Installation is similar. Refer to the second guide linked above : How to install Snow Leopard on Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H. There are possibilities that some of your hardware will not respond on Snow Leopard. There is hacked patched version of the entire operating system on web. But they are not legal to use. If you can find the proper kext file with bios update for the chipset you have in your system, then your work becomes much easier. Apple officially does not provide any support for such modified installation. So you need to really mostly on the independent testers you generates the kext file and share on web.