- Joined
- Apr 20, 2014
- Messages
- 154
- Motherboard
- Acer 5755G, Acer 7750G
- CPU
- i7-2670QM, i7-2630QM
- Graphics
- Intel HD3000 1366x768 + NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M, AMD Radeon 6850M
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
I would like to share my success of installing Maverick (10.9.3) using Clover as the bootloader to triple boot Windows 7, Ubuntu 14 and Mac OS Maverick with owners of Acer Aspire 5755G. This is very similar to another guide of the forum for 5750G, and it was that post intrigued me to get started, but I eventually had some other tweaks due to difference of specification such as Nvidia 540M card and Bluetooth.
Special Thanks to:
RehabMan: Awesome guy. Patient, smart, precise, relevant, and diligent on helping and educating noob like me.
Slice: Clover creator and helped with temporary fix for booting my Insyde based UEFI reliably
Pene: Patched Clover for my BIOS UEFI implementation
T1hom7as: He wrote a much better guide for 5750G, which is very pretty close to my 5755G, and I started from his guide so you probably want to check his guide out.
Note:
1. This guide involves BIOS flash, hard drive partitioning etc., and it is more or less of experiment for killing your spare time, so I take no responsibility if you end up bricking your laptop or losing your data or failing to produce the result I described.
2. The information I provided is gathered from the Internet, and I have to be honest that I don’t understand half the stuff once go under the hood. I can only speak to my own experience, so try it at your own risk.
3. Having all that said, backup is your best friend, so my advice is to back up you data before you try it, and be patient and expect that you might have to spend (waste) a lot of time here.
Result:
1. Clover triple boot Windows 7, Ubuntu, and Mavericks
2. Almost 100% Vanilla Maverick installation, meaning no manual patching and modifying kexts in S/L/E etc., so you can upgrade anytime and apply patches like a real Mac without worrying about not being able to boot or something stop working after upgrade…etc.
3. Everything I can think of is working (I cannot get the FAN rpm and some of the system temperature readings using HWMontior and ACPIsensor and RehabMan Acer Fan DSDT patch), to name a few
· Native CPU power management and Speedstep
· Full audio using vanilla AppleHDA
· HDMI out with audio, VGA out
· Wireless (For this one, I have a swapped out Dell 1515)
· Bluetooth
· Sleep
· FN keys for screen backlight control
· SSDT Nvidia 540 disabled (Optional, can be done from BIOS)
Things required
1. 4 USB keys, the minimum sizes for them are 1 X 8G(Maverick), 1 X 4G (Windows 7), 1X2G(Ubuntu), 1X128M(Clover Boot USB)
2. Mavericks installation downloaded from Apple
3. Windows 7 SP1 64bit ISO. It has to be 64bit otherwise it won’t be UEFI bootable, and it has to be SP1 otherwise, it works initially but you will have blue screen of death when loading with proper Intel graphic driver
4. Ubuntu 14 64bit ISO or you won’t be able to UEFI boot it.
5. Rufus tool to create the bootable UEFI usb keys. http://rufus.akeo.ie/
Preparation Steps
1. Make Windows and Ubuntu bootable OS installation USB keys. Use the Rufus tool to point to the ISO images and create the bootable USB keys.
2. Make the bootable Maverick USB key, and here is the official Apple way:
· Connect the USB drive to your Mac. Backup any files that may be stored on it.
· Format it, using Disk Utility, as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive, named Mavericks. This can be done from the Erase tab within the app; make sure the USB drive does not have multiple partitions (that can happen, so turn to the Partition tab to verify and correct this).
· Open Terminal.
· Type (paste) the following command: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Mavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction.
· To kick off the process, type in your user password when requested.
3. Create Clover boot USB key. The USB key needs to be formatted as FAT(FAT 32 to be exact if it is formatted under windows).
· Download and install the most current Clover from a mac to your USB key.
· A default installation would do, and copy some the necessary kexts to the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.9 folder. Please look at what I have in my Clover bootable USB. You have to have fakeSMC in there, the rest of them are probably nice to have at this point of time.
· Or you should look at my Clover zas attachment here and uncompress it to the root of USB key.
Installation Steps
1. Backup your data please… Did I mention that you need backup your own data, and I am not responsible for anything you do? OK, we are good, move on.
2. Flash Anikar BIOS 1.21, this is unlocked BIOS with UEFI features that work great for our purpose. It allows us to use AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext without any patching.
3. Get into newly flashed BIOS, make sure you have the following settings
· Make sure hard drive is running AHCI mode
· Turn on the UEFI boot
· Make sure UEFI boot take priority over the BIOS boot
· I like to turn on the F12 for selecting boot device as well.
4. Partition the hard drive for tripple boot. To do this, my steps are as following
· UEFI boot your Ubuntu USB Key
· The UEFI boot loader from the BIOS we flashed should detect your UEFI bootable Ubuntu USB installation key; if not, something is not right, and you need figure it out.
· Someone only boots up the livecd and run partition manager from there, but I wanted Ubuntu anyway and find it is easier to have a copy on the hard drive so I did the full installation to hard drive. It does not take much space, but I give it 40G.
· If you are to install it, make sure choose “Something else” so you can manually create the partition table. The goal is to create a pure guid based partition table. The first partition should be an EFI partiton(FAT32) so we can install Clover to it later. The second one is for Windows installation. I have the three HFS partitions after that, then Linux and Linux SWAP, and finally a partition for data.
5. After a successful Ubuntu UEFI install, install Windows 7 SP1 using the UEFI bootable USB key as well. It has to be UEFI Windows 7 installation, or else this tripple UEFI boot thing is not going to be working.
6. Finally comes to Mavericks install.
· Insert boot the Clover USB key and the Marverick USB key
· From the UEFI boot manager select Clover USB key
· Once Clover loads up, it will detect the bootable Marverick USB key, and you should have an option to boot from the Mavericks USB key. It is called something like “Boot Install OS X Mavericks”
7. Once get to installation screen, from menu choose diskutil tool. We do not need format the target partition since we have done it in Ubuntu of step 4, so we just need to enable the journaling.
8. Install to Marvericks partition. The machine will reboot after the installation. Unplug the UEFI Mavericks bootable USB.
9. Boot up the Clover USB again, now you should have option to boot the newly installed Mavericks. Boot it up!
10. Load clover to EFI partition. You can do that by using the installer or coping the stuff from my attached Clover zip to EFI partition. It is FAT32 drive, so you can them easily.
11. Reboot to test your installation. Clover should be able to boot Windows, Ubuntu and Marvericks at this point of time.
Issues
1. DSDT patch
My DSDT has been fully patched and it should works with all Acer 5750G/5755G. If that does not work, you can dump your own DSDT and try the patches I listed here.
2. WIFI
I swapped my WIFI card to a Dell 1515, so it is recognized by default. If you have one of them Atheos 9825, you can try the DSDT patch attached.
3. Sound. Enabled by Clover kexts patching, but you need this activator package in S/L/E
4. Bluetooth: Work out of box as generic, but activated as the broadcom Bluetooth by kext### in Clover/kexts/10.9
5. HDMI and VGA out. Enabled by Clover kexts patching and DSDT patch.
View attachment Clover.zip
Special Thanks to:
RehabMan: Awesome guy. Patient, smart, precise, relevant, and diligent on helping and educating noob like me.
Slice: Clover creator and helped with temporary fix for booting my Insyde based UEFI reliably
Pene: Patched Clover for my BIOS UEFI implementation
T1hom7as: He wrote a much better guide for 5750G, which is very pretty close to my 5755G, and I started from his guide so you probably want to check his guide out.
Note:
1. This guide involves BIOS flash, hard drive partitioning etc., and it is more or less of experiment for killing your spare time, so I take no responsibility if you end up bricking your laptop or losing your data or failing to produce the result I described.
2. The information I provided is gathered from the Internet, and I have to be honest that I don’t understand half the stuff once go under the hood. I can only speak to my own experience, so try it at your own risk.
3. Having all that said, backup is your best friend, so my advice is to back up you data before you try it, and be patient and expect that you might have to spend (waste) a lot of time here.
Result:
1. Clover triple boot Windows 7, Ubuntu, and Mavericks
2. Almost 100% Vanilla Maverick installation, meaning no manual patching and modifying kexts in S/L/E etc., so you can upgrade anytime and apply patches like a real Mac without worrying about not being able to boot or something stop working after upgrade…etc.
3. Everything I can think of is working (I cannot get the FAN rpm and some of the system temperature readings using HWMontior and ACPIsensor and RehabMan Acer Fan DSDT patch), to name a few
· Native CPU power management and Speedstep
· Full audio using vanilla AppleHDA
· HDMI out with audio, VGA out
· Wireless (For this one, I have a swapped out Dell 1515)
· Bluetooth
· Sleep
· FN keys for screen backlight control
· SSDT Nvidia 540 disabled (Optional, can be done from BIOS)
Things required
1. 4 USB keys, the minimum sizes for them are 1 X 8G(Maverick), 1 X 4G (Windows 7), 1X2G(Ubuntu), 1X128M(Clover Boot USB)
2. Mavericks installation downloaded from Apple
3. Windows 7 SP1 64bit ISO. It has to be 64bit otherwise it won’t be UEFI bootable, and it has to be SP1 otherwise, it works initially but you will have blue screen of death when loading with proper Intel graphic driver
4. Ubuntu 14 64bit ISO or you won’t be able to UEFI boot it.
5. Rufus tool to create the bootable UEFI usb keys. http://rufus.akeo.ie/
Preparation Steps
1. Make Windows and Ubuntu bootable OS installation USB keys. Use the Rufus tool to point to the ISO images and create the bootable USB keys.
2. Make the bootable Maverick USB key, and here is the official Apple way:
· Connect the USB drive to your Mac. Backup any files that may be stored on it.
· Format it, using Disk Utility, as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive, named Mavericks. This can be done from the Erase tab within the app; make sure the USB drive does not have multiple partitions (that can happen, so turn to the Partition tab to verify and correct this).
· Open Terminal.
· Type (paste) the following command: sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Mavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction.
· To kick off the process, type in your user password when requested.
3. Create Clover boot USB key. The USB key needs to be formatted as FAT(FAT 32 to be exact if it is formatted under windows).
· Download and install the most current Clover from a mac to your USB key.
· A default installation would do, and copy some the necessary kexts to the EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.9 folder. Please look at what I have in my Clover bootable USB. You have to have fakeSMC in there, the rest of them are probably nice to have at this point of time.
· Or you should look at my Clover zas attachment here and uncompress it to the root of USB key.
Installation Steps
1. Backup your data please… Did I mention that you need backup your own data, and I am not responsible for anything you do? OK, we are good, move on.
2. Flash Anikar BIOS 1.21, this is unlocked BIOS with UEFI features that work great for our purpose. It allows us to use AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext without any patching.
3. Get into newly flashed BIOS, make sure you have the following settings
· Make sure hard drive is running AHCI mode
· Turn on the UEFI boot
· Make sure UEFI boot take priority over the BIOS boot
· I like to turn on the F12 for selecting boot device as well.
4. Partition the hard drive for tripple boot. To do this, my steps are as following
· UEFI boot your Ubuntu USB Key
· The UEFI boot loader from the BIOS we flashed should detect your UEFI bootable Ubuntu USB installation key; if not, something is not right, and you need figure it out.
· Someone only boots up the livecd and run partition manager from there, but I wanted Ubuntu anyway and find it is easier to have a copy on the hard drive so I did the full installation to hard drive. It does not take much space, but I give it 40G.
· If you are to install it, make sure choose “Something else” so you can manually create the partition table. The goal is to create a pure guid based partition table. The first partition should be an EFI partiton(FAT32) so we can install Clover to it later. The second one is for Windows installation. I have the three HFS partitions after that, then Linux and Linux SWAP, and finally a partition for data.
Code:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 83.9 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_HFS TimeMachine 56.7 GB disk0s3
4: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s4
5: Apple_HFS OSX 68.5 GB disk0s5
6: Linux Swap 8.5 GB disk0s6
7: 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4 41.9 GB disk0s7
8: Microsoft Basic Data Data 739.7 GB disk0s86. Finally comes to Mavericks install.
· Insert boot the Clover USB key and the Marverick USB key
· From the UEFI boot manager select Clover USB key
· Once Clover loads up, it will detect the bootable Marverick USB key, and you should have an option to boot from the Mavericks USB key. It is called something like “Boot Install OS X Mavericks”
7. Once get to installation screen, from menu choose diskutil tool. We do not need format the target partition since we have done it in Ubuntu of step 4, so we just need to enable the journaling.
8. Install to Marvericks partition. The machine will reboot after the installation. Unplug the UEFI Mavericks bootable USB.
9. Boot up the Clover USB again, now you should have option to boot the newly installed Mavericks. Boot it up!
10. Load clover to EFI partition. You can do that by using the installer or coping the stuff from my attached Clover zip to EFI partition. It is FAT32 drive, so you can them easily.
11. Reboot to test your installation. Clover should be able to boot Windows, Ubuntu and Marvericks at this point of time.
Issues
1. DSDT patch
My DSDT has been fully patched and it should works with all Acer 5750G/5755G. If that does not work, you can dump your own DSDT and try the patches I listed here.
2. WIFI
I swapped my WIFI card to a Dell 1515, so it is recognized by default. If you have one of them Atheos 9825, you can try the DSDT patch attached.
3. Sound. Enabled by Clover kexts patching, but you need this activator package in S/L/E
4. Bluetooth: Work out of box as generic, but activated as the broadcom Bluetooth by kext### in Clover/kexts/10.9
5. HDMI and VGA out. Enabled by Clover kexts patching and DSDT patch.
View attachment Clover.zip
when i use Your DSDT and SSDT nearly everything works.