Clover Mountain Lion EFI Partition switch from Chimera

[cdahl7]

Currently running 10.8.5 ML. Want to upgrade to 10.11 so trying to switch to clover. Followed the El Capitan Install Guide
http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html
I'm using the most current version of clover as of about a week ago.

I can successfully boot to USB and get to El Capitan Installer from USB driver, but when I try to boot from my MAC (10.8.5) from Clover I get bluetooth transport error.

I am unsure what exactly I am supposed to do at this point. I never loaded any kexts or put any files in the EFI partition when I made the USB, I only followed the above guide exactly. From what I am reading, it sounds like you have to add the right kexts,etc… to get to boot, but when I try to mount the EFI partition on my current install I cannot mount in any possible way. Tried command line, disk utility, clover configurator. the disk2s1 partition will not mount.

I don't even know if I am on the right track here. Been pouring hours into this and I am about ready to just use the USB disk to wipe current drive and start with a fresh El Capitan install as I only have a handful of applications to reinstall...

Any advice would be helpful

 

[P1LGRIM]

Profiles need to contain at least your primary system to assist others with helping you

.

 

[Going Bald]

Currently running 10.8.5 ML. Want to upgrade to 10.11 so trying to switch to clover. Followed the El Capitan Install Guide
http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...-el-capitan-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html
I'm using the most current version of clover as of about a week ago.

I can successfully boot to USB and get to El Capitan Installer from USB driver, but when I try to boot from my MAC (10.8.5) from Clover I get bluetooth transport error.

I am unsure what exactly I am supposed to do at this point. I never loaded any kexts or put any files in the EFI partition when I made the USB, I only followed the above guide exactly. From what I am reading, it sounds like you have to add the right kexts,etc… to get to boot, but when I try to mount the EFI partition on my current install I cannot mount in any possible way. Tried command line, disk utility, clover configurator. the disk2s1 partition will not mount.

I don't even know if I am on the right track here. Been pouring hours into this and I am about ready to just use the USB disk to wipe current drive and start with a fresh El Capitan install as I only have a handful of applications to reinstall...

Any advice would be helpful

The Unibeast app installs everything you need to the USB when you create it. When you created the USB did you select UEFI or Legacy mode USB?

When you reached the desktop after installation booting from the USB did you run MultiBeast and select to install the boot loader, your audio and networking kexts? If yes, did you select to install boot loader UEFI or Legacy mode?

 

[cdahl7]

I selected UEFI mode and selected NVIDIA graphics injection (although I tried disabling this in Clover boot options with same result). I never ran the installer for El Capitan from USB, I verified that I could boot to USB to install it, but didn't install it.

From what I understand, I don't want to run installer from USB, I just want to verify that clover can boot my current 10.8 install, then I can upgrade to 10.11 from my existing 10.8 install?

What I tried to do unsuccessfully was use clover (on USB) as the boot loader for my current OS install (Mountain Lion). Beyond steps 1-18 in the guide from previous link, I have done nothing with multi beast, kexts, smbios, etc… for the USB/El Capitan install (only done these things on my running 10.8 system).

I don't think I am fully understanding this process.

1. Should I be able to boot my current MAC install from my SSD using the Clover boot loader on the USB drive?
2. If the answer is yes, What additional steps do I take to make this work? Do I need to modify the EFI partition with KExts,etc… and if so, how can I get to this partition, it doesn't seem to want to let me mount it.
3. If no, what are the next steps to take? Do I need to run installer? Won't that force me to wipe my current partitions or install OS on a new partition/drive?
4. Once I verify my current install can boot from Clover on USB drive, how do I move the boot loader from USB drive to currently installed partition? I don't remember doing that with my fresh install, but that was 3 yrs ago, so I probably don't remember even if I did.
5. IF everything else is good, will my current nvidia graphics card work with El Capitan and metal? I heard nvidia is not supported? Should I consider an upgrade? MY graphics card was cheap anyways, it was only like $40 like 3 yrs ago.

 

[Going Bald]

I selected UEFI mode and selected NVIDIA graphics injection (although I tried disabling this in Clover boot options with same result). I never ran the installer for El Capitan from USB, I verified that I could boot to USB to install it, but didn't install it.

From what I understand, I don't want to run installer from USB, I just want to verify that clover can boot my current 10.8 install, then I can upgrade to 10.11 from my existing 10.8 install?

What I tried to do unsuccessfully was use clover (on USB) as the boot loader for my current OS install (Mountain Lion). Beyond steps 1-18 in the guide from previous link, I have done nothing with multi beast, kexts, smbios, etc… for the USB/El Capitan install (only done these things on my running 10.8 system).

I don't think I am fully understanding this process.

1. Should I be able to boot my current MAC install from my SSD using the Clover boot loader on the USB drive?
2. If the answer is yes, What additional steps do I take to make this work? Do I need to modify the EFI partition with KExts,etc… and if so, how can I get to this partition, it doesn't seem to want to let me mount it.
3. If no, what are the next steps to take? Do I need to run installer? Won't that force me to wipe my current partitions or install OS on a new partition/drive?
4. Once I verify my current install can boot from Clover on USB drive, how do I move the boot loader from USB drive to currently installed partition? I don't remember doing that with my fresh install, but that was 3 yrs ago, so I probably don't remember even if I did.
5. IF everything else is good, will my current nvidia graphics card work with El Capitan and metal? I heard nvidia is not supported? Should I consider an upgrade? MY graphics card was cheap anyways, it was only like $40 like 3 yrs ago.

1&2 - yes, you should be able to boot with the Clover Unibeast USB.
Compare your config.plist on the Clover UniBeast USB to your org.chameleon.boot.plist.
If using GE=No set inject nVidia = false; if GE=Yes set inject nVidia=true
look at the boot section of both and duplicate your boot-args from o.c.b.plist into your Clover config.plist
Are you using a DSDT? If yes, copy it into the Clover/ACPI/Patched folder on the USB
Have you set a system definition in your current build? If yes, run Clover configurator and wave the magic wand and give it the same system definition you are currently using, then edit the config.plist to give yourself the same build date and serial number as your current sysdef. Since you are adding a bootloader to a finished build, delete everything in the Clover/kexts folders - you do not need any additional kexts. (remember to put them back when you use the UniBeast USB to run your install for El Capitan)

4. Once you verify the USB works with the config.plist on the USB and boots/runs same as normal, compress your /Extra folder and save for future reference. Then delete the original. Download the Clover installer from Sourceforge, run the package. At the end it should mount your EFI partition. Replace the EFI folder with the one on the UniBeast USB. Eject the EFI partition, eject the UniBeast USB, reboot.

5. If you must install Alternate nVidia web drivers to run your GPU in your current install, you will need to download the drivers for the revision of El Capitan you install. Until you get the driver installed use nv_disable=1 as one of your boot-args. Metal I do not know about if it will still work.

Report problems.

 

[cdahl7]

See below for what I have done (no success; same bluetooth transport error). Am I editing wrong plist? There are 3 plists in EFI folder that show up in Configurator. one in CLOVER/, CLOVER/OEM/SystemProductName, and CLOVER/OEM/SystemProductName/UEFI. It appears that each plist has different selections that have been filled in when I load them in configurator. Also, I found it strange that once I edited things as below, the Clover boot loader GUI changed from a more modern looking one (before edits) to a older msdos looking GUI.

Off the topic of troubleshooting, you said, once I verify I can boot current install with Clover USB, then I am going to want to put kexts back on to USB when I run my El Capitan Installer? I thought once I am successfully able to boot ML from Clover, I can copy clover to desired partition to boot from and then just run the El Capitan installer from my current ML install? I still want to run USB installer? Won't that prompt me to wipe my current partitions?

For followup:
Was able to mount using this:
"mkdir /Volumes/efi" (this gives a place to mount your EFI partition).
4) Run "sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/efi" which mounts your EFI partition identified (in my case its actually disk2s1)


1. No DSDTs used.
2. GE=Yes on org.chameleon.Boot.plist and so have injectnividia checked in clover.
3.Below is boot args on both. I had not modified this yet. Now, I unchecked dart=0 on config.plist. I wasn't sure what to do with boot value/legacy stuff. There were not values in my o.c.b.plist. The name of my current boot volume is "MAC" so I left that as is.
View attachment 186528
4.Yes, to my knowledge I have set my system def, but had not copied to USB. So, I went to SMBIOS on EFI/CLOVER. waved wand,set to same Mac version, edited serial string to match current, and saved config.plist to desktop. Copied config.plist back to EFI/CLOVER overwriting existing plist. I could not find a build date in config,smbios,or o.c.b plists, so I didn't do anything with this. Help on this if needed?

5. I copied EFI/CLOVER/kexts to desktop and then deleted all sub folders in this destination
Same results at boot after above.

 

[Going Bald]

See http://www.tonymacx86.com/basics/
There are several "how-to" threads involving switching from Chimera to Clover you should read.

 

[cdahl7]

First, off, feel free to skim this. Skip down to my questions if you would like. I am just trying to provide a detail to anyone this may help in future.

Well, I have reviewed most of the basics articles as well as a handful of other forums and I hate to admit it, but I found out this was the same thing that bit me in the butt a couple years ago. Don't know how (or even why this affected my clover boot), but the appleintel kexts that I deleted at some point made their way back into my SLE folder. It seemed to not affect my current install, but once I deleted them out of my S/L/E folder and then booting from USB (clover) to my MAC install then worked. After that, I proceed with your instructions to get Clover installed on my MAC partition and then I was booting Clover on my Mac from my Mac partition successfully.

Fast forward...next step was to upgrade. However, I think at some point I broke or changed some settings in the USB installer because now I could not boot from USB installer to get to the El Capitan upgrade installer. This part is still a little unclear to me. I thought one of the pros of clover is that once installed, I could do a direct update to El Capitan and not need USB installer. From, what I can see, it looks like you can do it either way, but I was trying to figure out why you would do it one way or the other. So, was trying to clarify this and did some reading. One thing I was reading was that certain SIP settings needed to be configured in config.plist in order to successfully boot el capitan. Well, when I went to review my config.plist that I was currently using to boot ML, and it didn't even have an RTVariables entry. In fact, the config.plist I was using to boot my ML was MUCH smaller than the one I recently downloaded from sourceforge. Not sure why, at some point using clover configurator maybe I deleted out a bunch of stuff??? Anywyas, when I downloaded Clover boot installer from sourceforge, I copied the fresh EFI folder (including the plist) to my desktop (for future reference) and I then replaced it with the one I had previously revised. So up until this point. Everything was happy except trying to boot into USB El Capitan installer.

Anyways, long story short, in an attempt to fix the usb and boot into El Capitan installer, I decided I would copy the fresh config.plist I got from sourceforge onto the usb drive (with my system info)

So, I used the wand in clover configurator to add system data and manually copied over serial to the fresh plist from sourceforge and then I copied and overwrote this config.plist on the USB EFI/CLOVER with this one. Once I did that, I think I screwed something up, because at this point, I could no longer boot from either USB or MAC. Thankfully, it was just the nividia graphics injection that somehow disappeared of my plist? Somehow this setting magically changed. So, I revised my MAC EFI/clover to include graphics injection and I was back in business. I also added graphics injection to the config.plist on the USB. After monkeying around a little bit, I am able to use both the USB EFI partition and MAC EFI clover partition to boot into my ML install, but can't use either to get to the USB.

I don't know what changed in the USB, but this leads me to my questions.

1. If I choose my USB as first in boot order, but chose to boot to mac from clover, it still uses the plist on the USB, correct?
2. If that's the case, since I can boot from both USB and MAC EFI partitions, if I copy the more complete plist on my usb into my MAC EFI/clover partition that shouldn't affect my ability to boot from MAC?
3. Once I confirm my RTvariables are set to disable SIP with the new plist on my ML partition, shouldn't I be able to run upgrade without USB?
4. If I need USB or its safer to do upgrade with USB, should I recreate USB from scratch and then copy the modified plist with my system info back onto the USB installer since it currently seems to be broken (or at least behaving differently than it initially was)?