How to "Create Clean install Catalina/Mojave 10.15.2 bootable USB for Hackintosh"
Super important. Page one of this guide by Rehabman is out of date and will no longer work for creating a bootable Hackintosh.
READ THIS PARAGRAPH BEFORE PRECEDING.
Short version. All you need to do is make a bootable Catalina install drive. Follow my guide or even apple's support site even. When you format a USB it will create an empty EFI partition. This guide will point you to a FINISHED EFI FOLDER which has everything done for you. Clover is already installed and your usb will boot and install Catalina so don't mess it up by installing something. After you follow this guide the only things left to do is to copy the EFI folder from your USB to your Hard Drive/SSD EFI partition so you can boot into your Mac without the USB. One more thing is a good idea to do and that is to give your Hackintosh a unique serial number so that icloud, imessage, facetime and appstore all work and apple think your computer is a real mac.
TWO DAYS AGO THIS TREAD AND IT'S LINKS ALL GOT MESSED UP. POST NUMBER AND PAGES WITH INPORTANT INFO CHANGED. 4/11/2019.
I have updated WORKING LINKS to the EFI folders for NUC8 and NUC7. The latest bios versions are supported in these EFI folders.
NUC8 EFI download location by @Leesureone. Scroll to bottom of his post #894 to download .zip
The latest bios seems to be 79 for the Nuc7. I'm on 72, but I also haven't tried a new one like 78 oder 79. I'm curious to know if someone is on a higher bios version. Greetings schlotterp I have 79 bios. Installed last Clover. I do not use ssdt tables. Just a small change in the standard...
www.tonymacx86.com
Works for upgrade from Mojave 10.14 to Catalina 10.15 and newer too. I own Intel Nuc8i7BEH. Read Note at bottom of post about in place upgrade from Mojave to Catalina.
NUC7 download location by Sevift uploaded by BenMiller here: Post #1,819. Works for both Mojave and Catalina.
I guess you are running GeekBench 5, which changed the scoring base and reports scores 75% lower than GeekBench 4 :) I was going crazy too, just download GeekBench 4. Search https://www.tonymacx86.com/members/hedgehog2k.2300330/ Hedgehog2k posted lots of logs both GeekBench 4 and 5 and...
www.tonymacx86.com
This assumes you have downloaded "Install macOS Catalina" app in your Applications folder. If you have only
Windows 10 I'm sorry I cannot help you. I have a macbook Air 2013 and cannot help you. Find a friend that will allow you to download Catalina and make the USB on their computer. It will NOT change anything on their computer at all. Just be careful when you mount the EFI partition you mount the USB and not their internal hard drive.
All I did was create a
normal Catalina USB install bootable drive. It has a Mojave terminal command as well. used to install on a normal Mac. I used
"Apple Support's" Guide https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201372 I like this as it is a simple format.
Format USB using "Disk Utility" This formats the disk and most importantly
CREATES AN EMPTY EFI FOLDER. Search Disk Utility in spotlight search. Look at attachment bottom of Post.
"Disk Utility Format USB" picture. This makes two partitions an EFI folder and a partition which we can install Mac OS to as well.
The format should have renamed your USB to MyVolume. Now copy and and paste the command for Catalina into TERMINAL which is below in BOLD. Make sure to name for the USB is "MyVolume" for the below terminal Command to find the correct volume.
This will copy the Catalina install app from your Application folder to the USB.
PASTE Catalina Terminal Command below to create bootable USB into TERMINAL UTILITY:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume
Hit Enter then type your PASSWORD. You wont see the letters on the screen just hit ENTER and the copy process will start. Wait until you see that the process has finished.
NUC8 EFI download location by @Leesureone. Scroll to bottom of his post #894 to download .zip
The latest bios seems to be 79 for the Nuc7. I'm on 72, but I also haven't tried a new one like 78 oder 79. I'm curious to know if someone is on a higher bios version. Greetings schlotterp I have 79 bios. Installed last Clover. I do not use ssdt tables. Just a small change in the standard...
www.tonymacx86.com
Scroll to the bottom of post #894 on page 90 and download his attachment at the bottom of his post named "EFINUC8Cat.zip"
USE LINK TOP OF PAGE: NUC7 Link Below: All credit for EFI folder goes to @Sevift Again his hard work and sharing has helped the NUC7 builds.
I guess you are running GeekBench 5, which changed the scoring base and reports scores 75% lower than GeekBench 4 :) I was going crazy too, just download GeekBench 4. Search https://www.tonymacx86.com/members/hedgehog2k.2300330/ Hedgehog2k posted lots of logs both GeekBench 4 and 5 and...
www.tonymacx86.com
Download EFI_Nuc7_latest_sevift.zip at bottom of link.
CLOVER CONFIGURATOR: This is essential for mounting EFI partition
Unzip EFINUC8Cat.zip or EFI.zip. Use Clover Configurator
https://mackie100projects.altervista.org/download-clover-configurator/ (See Clover mount pic bottom of this post)
Mount your USB EFI partition using Clover Configurator and copy Leesureone's or Servift's EFI folder in finder to the USB EFI Partition.
That is it. You now have a CLEAN CATALINA 10.15 install USB if you ever just want to start again. Also it will work to boot into your Catalina install in the event you update clover incorrectly and your OS is not bootable.
To be clear after I CLEAN INSTALLED Catalina yesterday
I installed nothing extra.
No Clover Bootloader as Clover 5070 is already installed. No Rehabman scripts. No Multibeast post install etc etc.
POST INSTALL IMPORTANT: To make your
Hackintosh hard drive bootable WITHOUT YOUR USB you need to again use Config Configurator to copy the EFI from the USB drive to your MacOS hard drive. Mount both USB and internal hard drive in Clover Configurator and copy and past the EFI from USB to internal hard drive.
(see Clover Config Mount pic bottom of this post)
Make unique SERIAL NUMBER. The ONLY thing needed to be done if not done already was to use
"Clover Configurator" To make a unique serial number open Clover Configurator and on left menu choose SMBIOS. See pic attached to bottom of post. Hit generate new for both "serial number" and "smUUID" and on the right check coverage. Look up the many guides on this. Here is one guide but skip down to "Choose your intended System Definition from the list" do a search and it has all the steps to take. This unique serial makes sure iCloud, iMessage, Facetime etc works properly.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/an-idiots-guide-to-imessage.196827/
(See Clover Config Serial Number change pic bottom of this post)
The only thing if you are new to Nuc Hackintosh's is to follow
Rehabman's BIOS SETTINGS part of the guide page 1. Search
Bios Settings as it is down the page a bit.
Again Thanks so much to Leesureone and Servift for ALL their hard work in posting a working and updated EFI folder for Mojave and Catalina. All the magic and why the above is so simple is due to their hard work and experience.
NOTE IN PLACE UPGRADE FROM CATALINA NOT CLEAN INSTALL COMMENT: If you have Mojave running on your Hackintosh already and want to upgrade to Catalina just mount your Mojave EFI partition using Clover Configurator and DELETE YOUR EFI FOLDER COMPLETLY and copy and paste in finder Leesureone's EFI OR Sevift's folder and REPLACE YOUR EXISTING EFI. (Note you will have to change config.plist serial to your existing build. Then download and run the Catalina Final upgrade and from within Mojave like you own a "Real Mac". It works for both EFI builds currently.
I already had already successfully upgraded Mojave to Catalina as in place upgrade.
The REASON I wanted to do a clean install of Catalina was to test what was the bear minimum steps required to get a working NUC Hackintosh. As post 901 states the start of this guide is no longer up to date and following it will no longer work. Like many I followed the guide and was ready to throw my NUC out the window until I read the end of this guide and found many posts referring to post 901. I hope this has helped other novices like me to get a NUC Hackintosh up and running with very few steps to follow.
EDIT: 31st Oct 2019 added links to EFI zip files for both Nuc7 and Nuc8. Added extra instructions to help make things clear for those new to Hackintosh. Also added link to serial number using Clover Configurator. Added Pics for some things to make it clear what to do.
THIS IS TONYMACX86 in place upgrade guide which might have some extra info that might help. We don't need to do much of it because we have EFI folders with clover, config.plist and kexts/drivers etc all tweaked for us. But worth a look for in place upgrades.
Established users of macOS Mojave who wish to update directly to macOS Catalina can do so just like a regular Mac would. This fully native method requires no USB creation or preparation and allows you to keep all of your files and settings. Before you begin, we strongly recommend performing a...
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