<< Solved >> Can't boot Catalina installer

[moisemust]

Hi.
I had a fully working hackintosh until macOS Monterey 12.4 came out. The update wouldn't install so people here asked me to update my kexts which killed all my USB ports. Long story short I was able to update but now I need to map my USB ports which can't apparently be done in any macOS newer than Catalina due to the XHCIPortLimit quirk that is broken in Big Sur and Monterey.

Problem is my hack doesn't want to boot my Catalina USB installer. If I enable XHCIPortLimit it seems to boot but my keyboards and mice aren't recognized and so I can't do much. If I disable XHCIPortLimit, it starts booting the Catalina installer but reboots and goes straight to the Monterey recovery instead. I even tried both after removing my Monterey NVMe SSD, with more or less the same result.

I think I'm doing something wrong but can't figure out what. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Feartech]

Hi.
I had a fully working hackintosh until macOS Monterey 12.4 came out. The update wouldn't install so people here asked me to update my kexts which killed all my USB ports. Long story short I was able to update but now I need to map my USB ports which can't apparently be done in any macOS newer than Catalina due to the XHCIPortLimit quirk that is broken in Big Sur and Monterey.

Problem is my hack doesn't want to boot my Catalina USB installer. If I enable XHCIPortLimit it seems to boot but my keyboards and mice aren't recognized and so I can't do much. If I disable XHCIPortLimit, it starts booting the Catalina installer but reboots and goes straight to the Monterey recovery instead. I even tried both after removing my Monterey NVMe SSD, with more or less the same result.

I think I'm doing something wrong but can't figure out what. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

best to zip and upload your EFI

 

[moisemust]

OMG I can't believe i forgot! Here it is.

Thanks!

 

[Feartech]

OMG I can't believe i forgot! Here it is.

Thanks!

best to set these both to -1

<key>MinDate</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>MinVersion</key>
            <integer>0</integer>

don't forget to reset nvram when you make any changes to your bios and your EFI

 

[moisemust]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately it changed nothing. I boot off the Catalina USB, select the Catalina installer it starts booting then reboots then fully boots something (I'm not even sure it's booting the Catalina installer because all I get is the screen below).

 

[Feartech]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately it changed nothing. I boot off the Catalina USB, select the Catalina installer it starts booting then reboots then fully boots something (I'm not even sure it's booting the Catalina installer because all I get is the screen below).

that is looking for a bluetooth mouse

use a wired keyboard and mouse and press space bar at that screen

 

[moisemust]

I just tried with a wired keyboard and mouse and couldn't do anything more. I'm usually using Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse usually recognized as wired because the dongle provided works that way.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I just tried with a wired keyboard and mouse and couldn't do anything more. I'm usually using Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse usually recognized as wired because the dongle provided works that way.

All a bit curious but it seems USB related.

So, disable USBInjectAll.kext AND the XhciPortLimit Quirk in your config.plist

Put your Catalina installer USB in one of the two Black USB2 ports on the back panel under the LAN socket ...

...and give booting another go.

If that doesn't work (should) then only disable the Quirk.

 

[moisemust]

All a bit curious but it seems USB related.

So, disable USBInjectAll.kext AND the XhciPortLimit Quirk in your config.plist

Put your Catalina installer USB in one of the two Black USB2 ports on the back panel under the LAN socket ...

...and give booting another go.

If that doesn't work (should) then only disable the Quirk.

Because I'm trying to boot from USB I'm not surprised it is USB related contrarily to the problem I experienced with my internal NVMe SSD.

So I disabled both the kext and quirk, it does the same thing with and without the kext: I boot off the flash drive, then select the installer, at which point the PC restarts, I reselect the USB, it shows me a black screen instead of the picker then it boots in verbose mode then shows the Apple logo with a mostly empty progress bar with the mouse cursor for a second (which I can move), then the cursor disappears and it hangs indefinitely with the Apple logo and the still mostly empty progress bar.

 

[moisemust]

I also tried emptying the NVRAM, without any difference.