[Guide] Booting The USB Installer Using OpenCore

[Feartech]

Despite this guide is in Big Sur Section, I highly recommend at this time to install Catalina so you can perform proper USB discovery using this guide:

The New Beginner's Guide to USB Port Configuration

Important: January 2023 Update It's been a while since this guide was written and Apple has changed their USB sub-system in several significant ways. So please bear in mind: 1) From Big Sur 11.3 onwards the OpenCore XhciPortLimit Quirk stopped working. It hasn't been fixed yet. So generally we...

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after installation, reason being is that XhciPortLimit is broken in Big Sur and Monterey and is required for USB port discovery.

Once you have Catalina installed and the above USBPorts.kext correctly configured, then you can update to latest OpenCore and kexts and then upgrade to Big Sur or Monterey

A guide in setting up your USB installer using OpenCore. You must have either a built-in ethernet or compatible Broadcom Wifi in your laptop for this guide to work.

Built-in Intel Wifi can also work if set correctly:

Wifi and ethernet issues with OpenCore

Following the guide to install with recovery Catalina USB from @Feartech here Have got as far as booting from the USB and being ready to install. But an Internet connection is required to proceed. Oddly I seem to have succeeded with itlwm.kext. A faked ethernet connection appears, but I can't...

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To start:
A USB stick / flash drive or whatever you want to call them, USB2.0 16GB is preferred, possibly a USB3.0 *may* work. Sandisk makes a good USB installer, no I don’t have shares in them, they just seem to work well.

Creating the USB installer

If using a mac to create your installer, a nice video can be found here:

gibMacOS Tutorial ~ How to Download macOS Directly from Apple

When your Mac is ineligible to download Catalina or Newer macOS versions If your Intel Mac is from approximately 2011/12 or older (see post #2) you won't be able to download Catalina from the Mac App Store. Follow the instructions in these videos to enable the download of Catalina or newer...

www.tonymacx86.com

As we will be using Windows to create the installer, we are going to need to download and install Python before we start the USB installation:

Download Python

The official home of the Python Programming Language

www.python.org

After installing Python, we will be using gibMacOS. A nice handy tool that can create your USB installer using Windows or a Mac machine. Head over to https://github.com/corpnewt/gibMacOS and click the green "Clone or download" button and then choose Download as Zip.

We will be using Windows for this tutorial, only the recovery will be installed to the USB stick, this means that when you boot to the installation, it will require internet access to be able to download and install macOS

Open up the gibMacOS-master folder and find gibMacOS batch file, right click and Run As Administrator

This will download a 6mb or so file and you will be presented with the following:

We will be downloading the Recovery, so press r and then enter and you should see something like this:

Now, this is important, we will be needing to find the latest Catalina that ends with FULL install, in this case it is option 4. In later versions of macOS, this number may change. So choose 4 and then press enter and wait for the download to complete, depending on your internet speed, this could take awhile. After the download has finished, press enter and you will be back to the main menu.

As we have finished with this command, we can now close this window.

Now we have the files we need, we can now create the USB, right click Makeinstall and Run as Administrator. This will download a small file and you will be presented with the following:

This is important, do not format your wrong drive!

As above, the program has detected the USB stick as drive 2 (your machine may list this as drive 1 or 3 etc) As we are going to be installing OpenCore, we will type in 2o
2: being the selected USB stick
o: being OpenCore boot loader

Then you will see this:

Yes! we will continue. This will now format the USB installer for us and then ask us:

Now we navigate back to our gibMacOS-master folder and go to the macOS Downloads folder that was generated when we downloaded the recovery above. Navigate through the folders until you find RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg file.

Hold shift button and right click the file and choose "copy as path" Then right click in the cmd windows and the full path to the file will be populated:

Then press enter and wait for the files to be copied to your USB. We have now finished with this tool and now close it.

Under Windows Explorer, you should have a new drive called BOOT with a folder called EFI

Now, important, delete the EFI folder and use the one attached in this post instead.

This setup if for a Skylake system, you will need to change a few details if you do not own a Skylake

You will need to download a copy of ProperTree from here:

GitHub - corpnewt/ProperTree: Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python.

Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python. - GitHub - corpnewt/ProperTree: Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python.

github.com

Click the Clone or Download green button and Download ZIP, extract and then run ProperTree

Click File -> Open and find your config.plist and scroll down to DeviceProperties:

You will be wanting to change:
AAPL,ig-platform-id
device-id
model

Read post 2 for configurations

Next, you may need to change the network kext, scroll down to Kernel and change name of the ExecutablePath to the name of your network kext:

(Making sure you have the correct kext in your kexts folder)

Then scroll further down until you find SystemProductName. This is currently set to MacBookPro13,1 which is for a Skylake laptop, read post 2 for configurations

Once you have made those changes, save your config.plist and reboot your machine into your BIOS.

You will want to make some changes here, if you can change these options:

Disable:
Fast Boot
Secure Boot
Serial/COM Port
Parallel Port
VT-d (can be enabled if you set DisableIoMapper to YES)
CSM
Thunderbolt(For initial install, as Thunderbolt can cause issues if not setup correctly)
Intel SGX
Intel Platform Trust
CFG Lock (MSR 0xE2 write protection)(This must be off, if you can't find the option then enable AppleXcpmCfgLock under Kernel -> Quirks. Your hack will not boot with CFG-Lock enabled)

Enable:
VT-x
Above 4G decoding
Hyper-Threading
Execute Disable Bit
EHCI/XHCI Hand-off
OS type: Windows 8.1/10 UEFI Mode
DVMT Pre-Allocated(iGPU Memory): 64MB or 128MB
SATA Mode: AHCI

Booting

Now, boot with your USB stick, the config.plist has verbose enabled so you can see what is going on. It may look like it has frozen in some places, but boot from USB can be slow, so please be patient.

Once you have reached the installer, choose Disk Utility and then click on view and then show all devices

Then you want to erase the drive and start the installation

Leave the USB plugged in as you will need to reboot from this a few times while macOS is installing

Once you have reached the macOS desktop, you will need to mount your EFI partition to then copy over your EFI folder from your USB disk.

Download and run Hackintool:

https://github.com/headkaze/Hackintool/releases/latest/download/Hackintool.zip

and navigate to Disks and click the icon to mount your EFI partition:

Once the EFI has been mounted, delete the EFI folder within and then copy your EFI folder from your USB installer.

Reboot your laptop..... Done......

 

[Feartech]

Laptop Configurations

Important

For HP user's, you must set the following to true in your config.plist:
LapicKernelPanic
UnblockFsConnect

For Dell user's (Skylake and newer), you must set:
CustomSMBIOSGuid -> true
UpdateSMBIOSMode -> custom

If you have a SkyLake system then you can ignore the rest of this section as post 1 config is already set up for you

It may be easier to edit the config.plist from post 1 and make your changes below. You will notice in my config.plist attached in post 1 under PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0) a model name of HD530, don't forget to edit that section with your own graphics

You can use Propertree available here:

GitHub - corpnewt/ProperTree: Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python.

Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python. - GitHub - corpnewt/ProperTree: Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python.

github.com

to edit your config.plist in Windows or Mac

Ivy Bridge
Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 03006601 (To be used with 1366 by 768 displays or lower)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 04006601 (To be used with 1600 by 900 displays or higher)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 09006601 To be used with some devices that have eDP connected monitor (contrary to classical LVDS), must be tested with 03006601 and 04006601 first before trying this.

If you are using 04006601 AAPL,ig-platform-id:
framebuffer-patch-enable -> Number -> 1
framebuffer-memorycount -> Number -> 2
framebuffer-pipecount -> Number -> 2
framebuffer-portcount -> Number -> 4
framebuffer-stolenmem -> Data -> 00000004
framebuffer-con1-enable -> Number -> 1
framebuffer-con1-alldata -> Data -> 02050000 00040000 07040000 03040000 00040000 81000000 04060000 00040000 81000000

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

SystemProductName:
MacBookAir5,1
MacBookAir5,2
MacBookPro10,1
MacBookPro10,2

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
IgnoreInvalidFlexRatio
ReleaseUsbOwnership


Haswell
Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 0500260A (for HD5000, HD5100 and HD5200)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 0600260A (for HD4200, HD4400 and HD4600)
device-id -> 12040000 (for HD4200, HD4400 and HD4600 ONLY)

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

SystemProductName:
MacBookPro11,1

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
IgnoreInvalidFlexRatio
ReleaseUsbOwnership

Broadwell
Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 06002616

For HD5600 you need device-id faked to 16260000:
device-id -> 26160000

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump

SystemProductName:
Depends on your graphics:

HD 5300 -> MacBook8,1
HD 5500 -> MacBookPro11,1 or MacBookPro11,2
HD 6000 -> MacBookAir7,1 or MacBookAir7,2
Iris 6100 -> MacBookPro12,1
Iris Pro 5200 -> MacBookPro11,1

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
IgnoreInvalidFlexRatio
ReleaseUsbOwnership

Kaby Lake
Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 00001B59

For UHD620 users (Kaby Lake-R), you'll need a device-id spoof:
device-id -> 16590000

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

SystemProductName:
MacBookPro14,1

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
ReleaseUsbOwnership

Coffee Lake and Whisky Lake
Booter Quirks:

enable:
RebuildAppleMemoryMap
SyncRuntimePermissions

disable:
EnableWriteUnprotector

Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 0900A53E (for UHD630)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 00009B3E (for UHD620)

may also need a:
device-id -> 9B3E0000

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

SystemProductName:
MacBookPro15,2

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
ReleaseUsbOwnership

Coffee Lake Plus and Comet Lake
will require SSDT-AWAC.aml and SSDT-PMC.aml (don't use SSDT-PMC on Comet Lake)

Booter Quirks:

enable:
DevirtualiseMmio
ProtectUefiServices
RebuildAppleMemoryMap
SyncRuntimePermissions

disable:
EnableWriteUnprotector

Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 0900A53E (for UHD630)
AAPL,ig-platform-id -> 00009B3E (for UHD620)

may also need:
dpcd-max-link-rate -> 1E000000
enable-cdclk-frequency-fix -> 01000000
enable-dpcd-max-link-rate-fix -> 01000000
enable-max-pixel-clock-override -> 01000000

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

SystemProductName:
MacBookPro16,1, or MacBookPro16,3, or MacBookPro16,4

UEFI -> Quirks:
enable:
ReleaseUsbOwnership

Ice Lake
will require SSDT-AWAC.aml and SSDT-RHUB.aml

enable:
DevirtualiseMmio
ProtectUefiServices
RebuildAppleMemoryMap
SyncRuntimePermissions

Device Properties - Add - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)
AAPL,ig-platform-id 0000528A
device-id 5C8A0000 if needed
change - framebuffer-unifiedmem 000000C0

kernel - quirks:
enable:
DisableIoMapper
PanicNoKextDump
PowerTimeoutKernelPanic

Boot Arguments:
add:
-igfxcdc -igfxdvmt

SystemProductName:
MacBookAir9,1 or MacBookPro16,2

For Coffee Lake Plus and Comet Lake and Ice Lake extra aml files are required that are attached, don't forget to add them to your config.plist, ie from this:

<key>Add</key>
        <array>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-EC.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-EC.aml</string>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-PLUG.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-PLUG.aml</string>
            </dict>

to this:

<key>Add</key>
        <array>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-EC.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-EC.aml</string>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-PLUG.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-PLUG.aml</string>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-AWAC.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-AWAC.aml</string>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-PMC.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-PMC.aml</string>
            </dict>
             <dict>
                <key>Comment</key>
                <string>SSDT-RHUB.aml</string>
                <key>Enabled</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Path</key>
                <string>SSDT-RHUB.aml</string>
            </dict>

It may also be useful to also add in -wegnoegpu as an extra boot argument for those with unsupported dual gpu's

 

[Feartech]

Reserved 2

 

[alespardo]

ExecutablePath

Next, you may need to change the network kext, scroll down to Kernel and change name of the ExecutablePath to the name of your network kext:

(Making sure you have the correct kext in your kexts folder)

On the plist created doesn't apear this ExecutablePath

 

[Feartech]

ExecutablePath


On the plist created doesn't apear this ExecutablePath

because that config.plist is for clover, try the one attached in Post 1

 

[alespardo]

because that config.plist is for clover, try the one attached in Post 1

ok, so i need to use this one and change there the configs. Thanks.

Sorry i miss this part :S

Now, important, delete the EFI folder and use the one attached in this post instead.

This setup if for a Skylake system, you will need to change a few details if you do not own a Skylake

You will need to download a copy of ProperTree from here:

 

[alespardo]

Stops there and broke

 

[Feartech]

Stops there and broke

what is the make and model of your hard drive/NVME?

 

[alespardo]

what is the make and model of your hard drive/NVME?

A Kingston sm2280s3120G

Kingston SM2280S3/120G - Disco Duro sólido (120 GB SSDNow M.2 SATA, 6 GBPS) https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00KPZM9AY/?tag=tonymacx86c03-21

The usb is 2.0 and tryed to boot it from 2.0 port and 3.0 ports, same fail.

 

[photoin]

Hi Feartech , I 'm try this method , by El Captain mac OS X on my laptop (asus) and when I open (BuildmacOSInstallApp.command)
I don't have the same shoot that you have post, but another one windows that ask me:
to drag and drop folder from gibMacOS .
I don't understand the exactly procedure .
Could you help me more?
tnk's

edit: I also have the installMacosCatalina.app, inside the gibMacOs-Master, because Yesterday have make this one procedure for download it

gibMacOS Tutorial ~ How to Download macOS Directly from Apple

When your Mac is ineligible to download Catalina or Newer macOS versions If your Intel Mac is from approximately 2011/12 or older (see post #2) you won't be able to download Catalina from the Mac App Store. Follow the instructions in these videos to enable the download of Catalina or newer...

www.tonymacx86.com