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Enabling NVMe / m.2 Samsung 950 Pro on AsRock H170M Pro- The really long novice way

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Dec 22, 2016
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Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z370N-Wifi
CPU
i3-8100
Graphics
UHD 630
Classic Mac
  1. Power Mac
  2. PowerBook
  3. Quadra
  4. SE/30
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
I'm working on my first Hackintosh build, thanks to this website and forum. Its been a pretty awesome experience so far. When I was a kid I wanted to build robots and play with laser beams. Building my own computer comes sort of close this. Sort of. Anyway....

I put together an i7 skylake on a Asrock H170MPro4 Mobo in a Bitfenix case. Using integrated Graphics. I really wanted the speed from an m.2 SSD and bought a Samsung 950 Pro for it. This has become a source of pain. After about an hour of fuzting around, reading, tinkering, and no luck, I put that on hold installed a Samsung 850 EVO. After that, I followed the how to guide and used Unibeast & Multibeast to give me a working Hackintosh.

So then, I returned to the Samsung 950.

At first, the UEFI wasn't even listing the Samsung under Storage Configuration, but a UEFI update took care of that and the device then appeared there.

I've searched these forums and others to try to figure this out and have come to the conclusion that this is REALLY hard for someone at my stage of hackintoshing. Some resources I have found:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...g-nvme-under-macos-sierra-is-ready/?p=2246306
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...e-drives-released.181387/page-34#post-1282959
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...-gigabyte-gtx-950.181272/page-53#post-1283085

Looking at how the installation process works, I reasoned (this shows just how little I know about what I'm really doing here, so bear with me if this sounds dumb) that Multibeast basically puts kext files for your machine's hardware into a hidden EFI partition on your boot drive. Things like audio, the network card, graphics card, etc. Reading the posts above, it seemed that a kext file is needed to recognize the m.2 drive, but also reading those posts it sounded like getting that working was a real PITA.

So, I figure I'm pretty much screwed here.

But I kept trying.

What I ended up doing (this is the series of steps that worked, I'll omit the 9 pages of steps and stumbles and foibles that were total failures) wa:
1. Use Unibeast to make my Sierra installer
2. Copy IONVMeFamily.kext to that USB Drive
3. Make a text file that has the config.plist changes noted in http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...g-nvme-under-macos-sierra-is-ready/?p=2246306
4. Put Multibeast on that USB Drive
5. Start my Hackintosh from USB
6. Re-installed Sierra onto my 850 EVO
7. When it restarted, I created my user account and ran Multibeast. After running Multibeast, I edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover
8. Restart.
9. Samsung 950 is now visible! Sweet. I partitioned and formatted it
10. So now what? I tried cloning the 850EVO to the 950 with CCC and then ran multibeast on the 950 to create an EFI, edited the config.plist and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover. Fail. I don't know why, but that did NOT work. So nuts.
11. I rebooted from the 850 EVO, reformatted the 950 and tried to run the Sierra installer from the USB drive Unibeast made. Fail. It reported some issue with apple store. So that wasn't going to work. So, I figured I needed to get IONVMeFamily.kext onto my USB drive.
12. Using some applescript I found on the internets, I mounted the EFI from the USB drive, edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover
13. I then restarted from the USB drive, was able to run the Sierra Installer, used Drive setup to repartition/reformat my 950, ran the Sierra Installer, restarted, created my user, ran multibeast, edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover. This is probably what all of you would have done from the beginning.
14. Crossed Fingers.
15. Rebooted.
16. Its working.

I then tried to use CCC to migrate everything from my old computer. Big mistake. Hackintoshes don't seem to like CCC. I presume that when I do a full clone that doesn't preserve items on the target, something needed by clover is getting wiped out.

So, back to step 13. Oopsies!

After getting the hackintosh breathing again, I used Migration Assistant to move my apps and user accounts over. So, now I'm running.

Its fast. Really nice and fast. A few little glitchy things. When it sleeps, it restarts, so i'll just turn sleep off. It looks like I have to figure out some issues with messages and bluetooth, but there are good resources on this site for those problems. I've got no freaking sound. My case doesn't have an internal speaker. However, I'll be hooking it up to my monitor which has speakers and will see how that works.

So thank you all. Lots of good resources here. Building one of these beasts is a pretty sophisticated task, from hardware selection to install to troubleshooting and I think the fact that I was able to take a box of parts and get a working mac in a day is really a testament to how good the guides are.

My questions:
1. It seems that there is more than one kext for these m.2 drives: I've come across IONVMeFamily.kext. Might be others. Am I using the correct, best one?
2. From some of the posts on these drives, I get the impression that the 950 has been a miserable experience for many hackintoshers. I'm probably going to make another hackintosh and wonder if it would be better to choose a different m.2 drive?
 
I'm working on my first Hackintosh build, thanks to this website and forum. Its been a pretty awesome experience so far. When I was a kid I wanted to build robots and play with laser beams. Building my own computer comes sort of close this. Sort of. Anyway....

I put together an i7 skylake on a Asrock H170MPro4 Mobo in a Bitfenix case. Using integrated Graphics. I really wanted the speed from an m.2 SSD and bought a Samsung 950 Pro for it. This has become a source of pain. After about an hour of fuzting around, reading, tinkering, and no luck, I put that on hold installed a Samsung 850 EVO. After that, I followed the how to guide and used Unibeast & Multibeast to give me a working Hackintosh.

So then, I returned to the Samsung 950.

At first, the UEFI wasn't even listing the Samsung under Storage Configuration, but a UEFI update took care of that and the device then appeared there.

I've searched these forums and others to try to figure this out and have come to the conclusion that this is REALLY hard for someone at my stage of hackintoshing. Some resources I have found:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...g-nvme-under-macos-sierra-is-ready/?p=2246306
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...e-drives-released.181387/page-34#post-1282959
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...-gigabyte-gtx-950.181272/page-53#post-1283085

Looking at how the installation process works, I reasoned (this shows just how little I know about what I'm really doing here, so bear with me if this sounds dumb) that Multibeast basically puts kext files for your machine's hardware into a hidden EFI partition on your boot drive. Things like audio, the network card, graphics card, etc. Reading the posts above, it seemed that a kext file is needed to recognize the m.2 drive, but also reading those posts it sounded like getting that working was a real PITA.

So, I figure I'm pretty much screwed here.

But I kept trying.

What I ended up doing (this is the series of steps that worked, I'll omit the 9 pages of steps and stumbles and foibles that were total failures) wa:
1. Use Unibeast to make my Sierra installer
2. Copy IONVMeFamily.kext to that USB Drive
3. Make a text file that has the config.plist changes noted in http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...g-nvme-under-macos-sierra-is-ready/?p=2246306
4. Put Multibeast on that USB Drive
5. Start my Hackintosh from USB
6. Re-installed Sierra onto my 850 EVO
7. When it restarted, I created my user account and ran Multibeast. After running Multibeast, I edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover
8. Restart.
9. Samsung 950 is now visible! Sweet. I partitioned and formatted it
10. So now what? I tried cloning the 850EVO to the 950 with CCC and then ran multibeast on the 950 to create an EFI, edited the config.plist and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover. Fail. I don't know why, but that did NOT work. So nuts.
11. I rebooted from the 850 EVO, reformatted the 950 and tried to run the Sierra installer from the USB drive Unibeast made. Fail. It reported some issue with apple store. So that wasn't going to work. So, I figured I needed to get IONVMeFamily.kext onto my USB drive.
12. Using some applescript I found on the internets, I mounted the EFI from the USB drive, edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover
13. I then restarted from the USB drive, was able to run the Sierra Installer, used Drive setup to repartition/reformat my 950, ran the Sierra Installer, restarted, created my user, ran multibeast, edited the config.plist on the EFI partition and added IONVMeFamily.kext to Clover. This is probably what all of you would have done from the beginning.
14. Crossed Fingers.
15. Rebooted.
16. Its working.

I then tried to use CCC to migrate everything from my old computer. Big mistake. Hackintoshes don't seem to like CCC. I presume that when I do a full clone that doesn't preserve items on the target, something needed by clover is getting wiped out.

So, back to step 13. Oopsies!

After getting the hackintosh breathing again, I used Migration Assistant to move my apps and user accounts over. So, now I'm running.

Its fast. Really nice and fast. A few little glitchy things. When it sleeps, it restarts, so i'll just turn sleep off. It looks like I have to figure out some issues with messages and bluetooth, but there are good resources on this site for those problems. I've got no freaking sound. My case doesn't have an internal speaker. However, I'll be hooking it up to my monitor which has speakers and will see how that works.

So thank you all. Lots of good resources here. Building one of these beasts is a pretty sophisticated task, from hardware selection to install to troubleshooting and I think the fact that I was able to take a box of parts and get a working mac in a day is really a testament to how good the guides are.

My questions:
1. It seems that there is more than one kext for these m.2 drives: I've come across IONVMeFamily.kext. Might be others. Am I using the correct, best one?
2. From some of the posts on these drives, I get the impression that the 950 has been a miserable experience for many hackintoshers. I'm probably going to make another hackintosh and wonder if it would be better to choose a different m.2 drive?

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...h-ionvmefamily-using-class-code-spoof.210316/
 
Another question. I'm thinking of building another Hackintosh. Is this NVMe problem ubiquitous, or are there drives/motherboards that don't require this extra effort? My next build is going to be an ultracompact machine, cheaper build, so I'm contemplating just using a regular SSD since getting that part working on this current build was really easy.
 
Another question. I'm thinking of building another Hackintosh. Is this NVMe problem ubiquitous, or are there drives/motherboards that don't require this extra effort? My next build is going to be an ultracompact machine, cheaper build, so I'm contemplating just using a regular SSD since getting that part working on this current build was really easy.

Most NVMe drives use 512 byte block size. IONVMeFamily assumes 4096.
Some drives can, in theory, be changed to 4096. Barring other compatibility issues, that might enable such drives to work with the unpatched IONVMeFamily.
 
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