[Guide] Booting The USB Installer Using OpenCore

[Feartech]

Post 1 has been updated with version 0.7.0 OpenCore and updated kexts

 

[keys3429]

A guide in setting up your USB installer using OpenCore,

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.

Kexts Required
These are just going to be the basic kexts to get your machine up and running, you can add your audio and any other kexts after installation

VirutalSMC:
https://github.com/acidanthera/VirtualSMC/releases

Lilu:
https://github.com/acidanthera/Lilu/releases

Whatevergreen:
https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/releases

VoodooPS2Controller:
https://github.com/acidanthera/VoodooPS2/releases

Network card:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/resources/categories/kexts.11/

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

No mention of the ACPI files need to boot USB anywhere. I got stuck with opencore not booting using this guide because I read this first rather than the dortania guide (dortania are the makers of OpenCore)

Without the required AML files, OpenCore will not boot.
Read this first before attempting creating an OpenCore boot USB!

Getting started with ACPI | Getting Started With ACPI

dortania.github.io

 

[trs96]

No mention of the ACPI files need to boot USB anywhere. I got stuck with opencore not booting using this guide because I read this first rather than the dortania guide (dortania are the makers of OpenCore)

The guide was written for laptops, not desktops. Everyone's hardware will require different .aml files to create a bootable usb installer on their system. I really doubt that @Feartech could provide all the specific files for the thousands of different hardware configurations in use. The guide is primarily about making the OpenCore USB installer using Windows and not about customizing it for specific desktops such as the GA-B365M. That being said it might be a good idea to add a note on further customization with specific .aml files to make the drive bootable. Each individual needs to do that for their specific hardware.

 

[keys3429]

The guide was written for laptops, not desktops. Everyone's hardware will require different .aml files to create a bootable usb installer on their system. I really doubt that @Feartech could provide all the specific files for the thousands of different hardware configurations in use. The guide is primarily about making the OpenCore USB installer using Windows and not about customizing it for specific desktops such as the GA-B365M. That being said it might be a good idea to add a note on further customization with specific .aml files to make the drive bootable. Each individual needs to do that for their specific hardware.

Yeah, I was using this for my NUC hardware which is laptop based (Build 2 in my signature). I've got 4 PC's that are hackintoshes. I didn't mean to say in any way that @Feartech hasn't done a fantastic job... because he absolutely has. I just meant that I got stuck because this was the piece of the puzzle I was missing. I've stuck with clover for a long time and stayed with High Sierra because it all worked and didn't want to break anything. This was my first delve into opencore and without knowing all the requirements, I wasn't able to boot the USB drive at first using this guide. It wasn't until I looked at the Dortania guide that I understood why. And the Dortania guide covers all hardware types too, not just for laptops. It's actually a really good guide. I think reading both guides together covers everything you need to know. And of course, the support here from Feartech is awesome

Just sharing my experience in case someone else has also had trouble like me. I was so used to clover, that I just didn't get it for several weeks. I resorted back to clover to install Catalina instead.
I can now say that I have 3 systems all working nicely using opencore on Big Sur. I still have 1 left that's on clover, running Mojave but it's much older hardware that I don't use as much so haven't bothered.

I guess I didn't word my post very well. It was late at night and I didn't put that much thought into it, and I absolutely neglected all the hard work Feartech has done and did not give him the credit he deserves. Digital platforms are not always the best for conveying what we really mean to say. Lesson learnt on my part.
Thanks for calling me out on that @trs96

 

[Feartech]

Yeah, I was using this for my NUC hardware which is laptop based (Build 2 in my signature). I've got 4 PC's that are hackintoshes. I didn't mean to say in any way that @Feartech hasn't done a fantastic job... because he absolutely has. I just meant that I got stuck because this was the piece of the puzzle I was missing. I've stuck with clover for a long time and stayed with High Sierra because it all worked and didn't want to break anything. This was my first delve into opencore and without knowing all the requirements, I wasn't able to boot the USB drive at first using this guide. It wasn't until I looked at the Dortania guide that I understood why. And the Dortania guide covers all hardware types too, not just for laptops. It's actually a really good guide. I think reading both guides together covers everything you need to know. And of course, the support here from Feartech is awesome

Just sharing my experience in case someone else has also had trouble like me. I was so used to clover, that I just didn't get it for several weeks. I resorted back to clover to install Catalina instead.
I can now say that I have 3 systems all working nicely using opencore on Big Sur. I still have 1 left that's on clover, running Mojave but it's much older hardware that I don't use as much so haven't bothered.

I guess I didn't word my post very well. It was late at night and I didn't put that much thought into it, and I absolutely neglected all the hard work Feartech has done and did not give him the credit he deserves. Digital platforms are not always the best for conveying what we really mean to say. Lesson learnt on my part.
Thanks for calling me out on that @trs96

hey, no worries!

yes, this is a basic guide to just to make the installer on windows to boot from, with basic aml files already in the EFI, post 2 mentions a couple more for newer hardware to boot from

 

[trs96]

I can now say that I have 3 systems all working nicely using opencore on Big Sur. I still have 1 left that's on clover, running Mojave but it's much older hardware that I don't use as much so haven't bothered.

Congrats on that. It takes some time to make the OC transition and there is a lot to learn in the process. As Feartech stated his OC guide only meant to be a basic guide to build an installer. We'd like that this site (tmx86) has more OC guides for specific systems in User/Golden builds but it's taking some time for that to happen. Most will study Dortania's guide first and then apply what they learn there. It's another big transition for this community as it was going from Chimera to Clover about 6 years ago. In conclusion, I wasn't offended to hear about your experience at all. Just wanted to emphasize to anyone reading this that they will need to do more research on what their system needs beyond what this USB installer creation guide offers.

 

[Jeffray]

Hey, i cant find configs for ivy cpu :/

I have an old lenovo z580
i5 3210m
Gt 630m (i would use the integrated hd4000 if it isnt supported)

Do i have to install an older MacOS and then upgrade?

I always get to the apple logo with endless loading (the installmenu doesnt show up)

Thanks for your help!

 

[trs96]

Hey, i cant find configs for ivy cpu :/

I have an old lenovo z580
i5 3210m
Gt 630m (i would use the integrated hd4000 if it isnt supported)

Do i have to install an older MacOS and then upgrade?

I always get to the apple logo with endless loading (the install menu doesnt show up)

Thanks for your help!

Yes, use the HD4000 graphics not the GT 630m. Disable it with boot arg -wegnoegpu

 

[Jeffray]

Thanks bro, i will try it when i'm at home

 

[Dayo]

Hi All,

Trying to build my very first Hack and everything works getting to the installer using the EFI in Post 1 except that when i click select the Reinstall MacOS which seems the only viable option there, I get a message saying The recovery server could not be contacted.

Seems this is because I don't have internet (I checked Safari) although I have this connected by Ethernet.

I am on a Dell Inspiron 15 5559 and did make some edits to the config file but only to remove some disabled items.
Attached if anyone can help cast an eye on why it wouldn't be working. I presume the Realtek kext is supposed to sort this out.