[Guide] Install High Sierra on the HP 8300 Elite / 6300 Pro Desktop PC

[oskars]

Watch this video to see the complete start to finish process

High Sierra Install starts at: 6:21 Timestamp

High Sierra Post Install starts at 10:40 Timestamp
​

I've made this High Sierra video tutorial because I know that many in this community don't speak English as their primary language, much less the language of the Hackintosh ! So if you learn better by seeing rather than reading guides, this is for you.

Prior to watching the most recent in depth video posted on YT, I tried to cobble together a list of steps to transform my HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT to a Hackintosh. I think my mistake was upgrading the firmware to 3.0.4, I believe I need to downgrade the firmware, from 3.0.4 to 2.99.
With a lot of help from a friend, I got my hands on a USB thumb drive that was created based upon your video. I am still having problems with SSD showing up in the list of UEFI boot devices.
The reason I say that is that, the SSD I have been trying to use, and I have tried two different SSD's, 1) Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2) Crucial BX300 120GB, and neither one shows up in UEFI BOOT choices.

My question, is there anywhere I can get a DOS based firmware 2.99 that is not OS 7 or 8 based to complete the downgrade of the firmware on my machine? The firmware from HP is only OS specific.
The only alternative is to temporarily reinstall Win 7 on a HDD to complete the downgrade. I attempted this but I got a message about the UEFI not compatible with MBR on the HDD.
I would appreciate some direction if you could help me.
Thank you.
OS

 

[trs96]

Prior to watching the most recent in depth video posted on YT, I tried to cobble together a list of steps to transform my HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT to a Hackintosh. I think my mistake was upgrading the firmware to 3.0.4, I believe I need to downgrade the firmware, from 3.0.4 to 2.99.
With a lot of help from a friend, I got my hands on a USB thumb drive that was created based upon your video. I am still having problems with SSD showing up in the list of UEFI boot devices.
The reason I say that is that, the SSD I have been trying to use, and I have tried two different SSD's, 1) Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2) Crucial BX300 120GB, and neither one shows up in UEFI BOOT choices.

My question, is there anywhere I can get a DOS based firmware 2.99 that is not OS 7 or 8 based to complete the downgrade of the firmware on my machine? The firmware from HP is only OS specific.
The only alternative is to temporarily reinstall Win 7 on a HDD to complete the downgrade. I attempted this but I got a message about the UEFI not compatible with MBR on the HDD.
I would appreciate some direction if you could help me.
Thank you.
OS

I don't see any reason that the 3.04 BIOS would create the problem you are having. Anyone who is using the newer 3.04 version with success can confirm this for you.

I don't believe it is even possible to downgrade back to 02.99.

The only time in the install you are booting UEFI from the SSD is after Clover is installed to it and then you select it at the CBM. You don't need to see any SSD in the HP UEFI boot menu choices. Not sure why that is a problem.

 

[oskars]

Thank you for the clarification and the advice.

 

[karoli9]

Prior to watching the most recent in depth video posted on YT, I tried to cobble together a list of steps to transform my HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT to a Hackintosh. I think my mistake was upgrading the firmware to 3.0.4, I believe I need to downgrade the firmware, from 3.0.4 to 2.99.
With a lot of help from a friend, I got my hands on a USB thumb drive that was created based upon your video. I am still having problems with SSD showing up in the list of UEFI boot devices.
The reason I say that is that, the SSD I have been trying to use, and I have tried two different SSD's, 1) Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2) Crucial BX300 120GB, and neither one shows up in UEFI BOOT choices.

My question, is there anywhere I can get a DOS based firmware 2.99 that is not OS 7 or 8 based to complete the downgrade of the firmware on my machine? The firmware from HP is only OS specific.
The only alternative is to temporarily reinstall Win 7 on a HDD to complete the downgrade. I attempted this but I got a message about the UEFI not compatible with MBR on the HDD.
I would appreciate some direction if you could help me.
Thank you.
OS

You don't need to downgrade, my rig runs on 3.04 with a Samsung 850 EVO 256GB. In your place I would format the SSD to unformatted or FAT32 filesystem and GPT (partition table option) with a live linux distribution, like Lubuntu or Linux Mint (Gparted is the tool, it has a graphical user interface). Sometimes this is needed. Windows 7 didn't have success, because it was written to the USB with MBR, and if you don't use Legacy mode, it will not work. In order to install Windows in GPT mode, you have to write the .iso imagefile to the USB in GPT with (for example) Rufus.

 

[Micalllee]

Has anyone done a firmware upgrade after installing MacOS? If so, other than making sure the firmware settings are correct is there anything else to do?

I'm mainly thinking ahead, as I imagine many of us will want to upgrade our firmwares if/when HP releases a new version to address Spectre/Meltdown. I had posted a link to their support page a few weeks ago which at the time had an estimated date, but now ALL models show TBD (but the 8300 is still on the list.)

 

[BobBobster]

Minor annoyance hot plugging the second monitor, isn't it?

With Sierra I didn't have any trouble with the dual setup.

EDIT: Yesterday I tried to boot High Sierra with dual setup, no luck. I will try the setting on the link above.

That's the fix that I used. Didn't add the VRAM line though.

 

[HomerHasAHatch]

I'm running into a wall with my build here: HP 6300 Microtower, Core i5, it has the HD2500 on board graphics, so I put in an nVidia GT 710. I've followed the instructions exactly for this specific build (granted the instructions are for Sierra not High Sierra) yet I'm getting the black screen with white Apple logo, loads to about 50-60% then locks up and I'm getting the spinning wheel, when booting into the install within Unibeast. No new added hardware besides the video card, otherwise everything else is stock, connected via an HDMI cable to monitor.

My High Sierra Unibeast was done on my home 27" 2017 iMac with High Sierra, everything went fine there.

My Clover boot options are set as follows:
"Boot Args:dart=0 nv_disable=1"

Not sure what I need to do, to get this working, any ideas?

Great news, the Sierra install worked perfectly! Now, can I upgrade to High Sierra right within Sierra? Or how would I go about doing that?

I'm having the same exact issues. HP 6300 i5-3470 with a GT 710 on the 3.04 BIOS. I followed the guide but am getting stuck 50-60% while trying to install the OS. I've tried multiple USBs and even different machines to create the USB.

 

[trs96]

I'm having the same exact issues. HP 6300 i5-3470 with a GT 710 on the 3.04 BIOS. I followed the guide but am getting stuck 50-60% while trying to install the OS. I've tried multiple USBs and even different machines to create the USB.

Do what Phatty did. Create a Sierra installer and after that is installed and working, do an in place upgrade to High Sierra.

 

[HomerHasAHatch]

Do what Phatty did. Create a Sierra installer and after that is installed and working, do an in place upgrade to High Sierra.

Going to try that now. Luckily I have the installer saved on my nas lol.

Edit: Unibeast 7.1.1 will not let me use the Mac OS Sierra installer from my nas



Edit #2 : I just put the installer in the applications folder and it works. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[HomerHasAHatch]

Was able to get everything working in Mac OS Sierra 10.2.4 and even upgraded to 10.2.6. Tried the inlace upgrade that but didn't seem to work. I have another option in my Bootloader and when I try to boot to it it just stays at the Apple logo.