<< Solved >> Catalina: UniBeast problems with video, storage... NOW SOLVED!

[BigBlockOfCheese]

Hi,

A few years ago I successfully built my first Hackintosh, running High Sierra on a Z170XP motherboard.

I've now built a new PC on a Z390 UD motherboard (full specs in signature below). I have an M2 NVMe drive to boot into Windows 10 Pro, and an SSD which I intend to use for my Hackintosh macOS Catalina drive, and a legacy HDD with old backup files.

I've followed the instructions to the letter to build my UniBeast USB drive, and this boots into Clover, where I choose the Install macOS Catalina drive to boot from. It then begins this boot process with the white Apple logo and the white progress bar below it...

...but it reaches around 40% (just below the left bottom tip of the Apple logo) before I run into problems.

At this point, the display flickers, then returns, but without any video being output to the display.

I surmise that at this point in the boot process the graphics drivers are being loaded, and handover to the dedicated graphics is intended, but I just get no output of video from that point onward, leaving me stumped.

I was initially connected to my display via DisplayPort, but have switched over to HDMI as that is a more built-in standard on Mac, but I still get the same issue, and am unsure how to proceed.

Theories thus far are:

1. Instructions specified to disable "CFG-Lock" and "IO Serial Port" but I could not find these settings in my BIOS (version F9).
2. Instructions specified to disable "Secure Boot Mode" but I only have two options in the BIOS, "Enabled" and "Custom" so I chose the latter.

Any suggestions for how to proceed next would be gratefully received!

Thank you.

 

[BigBlockOfCheese]

Updates:

Given I suspected the video card was being problematic, I re-enabled Integrated Graphics in the BIOS and also instructed the BIOS to use Integrated Graphics on first boot. This enabled me to complete booting from the UniBeast USB and reach the Install macOS Catalina screen.

However, once there, I cannot see the SSD drive that is installed in the system, and which I know is visible from my Windows 10 installation. The drive is not visible in Disk Utility, nor is it even visible from the Terminal, using diskutil list.

That command does show around 25 drives, the first being the USB stick, and the remaining ones being virtual disk image files. It does *not* show the Windows10 M2 NVMe drive, the Windows10 HDD, or the blank SSD I was intending to install Catalina on. The latter was originally unformatted, and subsequently formatted to ExFat in Windows, but neither Disk Utility nor Terminal could still not even see its presence.

So, I'm stuck for now.

 

[BigBlockOfCheese]

Okay, so nobody's jumped in to assist (which is fine) but I've been making progress towards solving the issue, so am posting here in case it helps people.

The first issue was that after using UniBeast to build the USB Drive, and rebooting the Hackintosh using this drive, which boots into Clover, and then choosing the "Install macOS Catalina" drive to boot from, it begins the Apple boot process with the white Apple logo and the white progress bar below it, but at around 40% the DISPLAY FLICKERS and I get a BLACK SCREEN.

My sense was this must related to the OS loading graphics drivers for the dedicated graphics card (5700 XT) and this was causing a problem.

Research indicated I might have luck using the latest versions of "Whatever Green" kext and "Lilu" kext. I consider myself technical but started feeling a bit out of my depth here but persisted!

I tried downloading these kexts (kernel extensions) but I couldn't figure out where to put them on the USB Drive that UniBeast had created. I subsequently discovered that there is a hidden EFI Partition on the USB Drive, which doesn't show up in Disk Utility, but it is nonetheless there.

To access this, I downloaded a tool called Clover Configurator on my Mac. Running this enabled me to Mount the EFI Partition on the USB Drive. Then, in Clover Configurator, I used the Kexts Installer option in the sidebar, and selected Lilu and WhateverGreen from the list of available kexts, and clicked the Download button. This inserted the Kexts into the EFI Partition on the USB Drive.

On restart, the problem STILL hadn't gone away, but further research online suggested I tried using a specific bootflag when trying to boot. So after another reboot into Clover, I selected Clover Options, and in the first line (bootflags) I added the specific bootflag "agdpmod=pikera"

Having added that, I selected Return to get back to the top level Clover screen, and used arrow keys to get over to the Install macOS Catalina option. I then hit SPACE to get options for that, and selected to Boot with Injected Kexts. I am unsure if this step is necessary to activate the two kexts I installed above, or whether they would be part of the boot process without my having selected this.

ANYWAY - long story short (too late) - this solved the graphics card issue. At the same point that previously the Apple boot logo disappeared and left a black screen, now I can see a flicker and then the graphics come back online, leading me through to the macOS Installer. Hooray!

NEXT UP:

I still have the issue withe the macOS Installer not being able to see/access the SSD drive that I want to install macOS onto. I haven't solved that yet, although one thing I thought may have been the cause is that when installing Windows 10 onto the M2 NVMe drive in my Hackintosh, the stupid Microsoft installer set up the EFI Partition for Windows onto the blank SSD I had intended to use for my macOS partition. This meant that I couldn't wipe the SSD, without making my Windows 10 partition unbootable. To get around this problem, I used Macrium Reflect (free) to take a clone of my C: partition from the M2 NVMe drive, and dumped it onto the SSD temporarily. I then shutdown the computer and disconnected all SATA drives, meaning there was only one drive accessible to the computer, the M2 NVME drive. I then booted and installed Windows 10 from a bootable Windows 10 Installer USB drive, which set up Windows correctly onto the M2 NVMe (including, this time, the required EFI partition). Once I had that achieved, I just had to copy my C: partition back onto that M2 drive. To achieve this I used Macrium Reflect Free to built a Rescue USB drive, from which I could boot, and clone the C: partition that I'd temporarily put onto the SSD back onto the M2 drive. Hooray, success, the M2 drive now boots Windows 10 exactly as it should, and there is no Windows mess on any other drives.

HOWEVER! The problem still remains that the macOS installer cannot see the now wiped and reformatted SSD drive onto which I want to install macOS Catalina.

I used the diskpart utility from the Windows 10 command line to select this disk and clean it, which wipes the drive and leaves the space unformatted. macOS installer could not see it. I then tried formatting the drive in Windows, as exFAT, which I know macOS can see. Still, the macOS installer could not see it. Even entering Terminal when booted to the macOS installer, and using the command diskutil list does not show the SSD drive, even though it is clearly visible from the Windows 10 side.

I read somewhere that I could try changing the SATA options in my BIOS to AHCI so I tried this, but it didn't work and in fact messed up my ability to boot into Windows, so I changed that back.

I also tried using Paragon Hard Disk Manager to format the SSD to Apple HFS - a process which completed successfully - but still, the macOS installer on the Unibeast USB was unable to see the drive... although interestingly, for the first time it *did* show the M2 NVMe drive upon which I have Windows 10 installed.

So I'm still stuck on how to get the SSD to show up to the macOS Installer (or Disk Utility).

One thing I read was that if the BIOS does not show a drive as being a valid option for booting in the booting priority list, then that drive will not show up as available to the macOS installer. I am unclear if this is correct, but in my situation the drive is NOT showing as a boot option in BIOS, as well as being unavailable in the macOS installer.

Any and all help appreciated. If you read this and it helped you, great! If it bored you to tears, my sincerest apologies.

 

[BigBlockOfCheese]

Okay, so due to numerous problems and being unable to solve them here, and no support, I decided to start FRESH and use OpenCore instead of the TonyMacx86 site and all-in-one utility.

Yes it was a little bit of learning, and I'm no programmer, but it was interesting and after a couple of hours of effort I now have my Hackintosh up and running perfectly. It genuinely worked FIRST TIME by following the OpenCore walkthrough carefully!

Here it is:

OpenCore Install Guide

Current supported version 0.9.1

dortania.github.io

I hope this helps somebody. No disrespect intended to the TonyMacx86 group, because their software did work for me back in 2016, but I just couldn't get it working right for me in 2020.

I get why a one-click installer sounds great, but when it doesn't work you are left in the dark and unclear of where things have gone wrong. The OpenCore guide takes you through building your own Hackintosh install software step by step, customised to your specification, and it is no doubt due to this that my subsequent install went without a hitch.