[Guide] Intel NUC7/NUC8 using Clover UEFI (NUC7i7Bxx,NUC8i7Bxx,etc)

[firepandem]

It may be that the bios is not recognizing any of the usb drive. I have tried booting from 4 different usb drives, some that I know worked in the past. I even tried a windows 10 usb boot drive. In all the trials, I always ended up with the Clover 5098 boot loader screen. Is there a way to choose a different bootloader from the clover bootloader startup screen?

I'm not sure what else I need to do to get the usb working again. I also set the bios settings according to @konsti github page, but no change so far.

What does the "Add Clover boot option for all entries" do?
What does "Remove all Clover boot options" do?

would any of the options help?

Thanks

 

[konsti]

At some point, I had faced an issue too with booting from USB, even the NVMe installed, and had contacted Intel after managing to solve it... It's a hard thing to explain but will try to summarise it, @firepandem you may need to do some research.

a) use a different USB flash disk, format it in Windows with FAT32 and not Ex-FAT!

b) in the Clover's UEFI SHELL you need to check (and delete) possible remaining boot entries (carefully!) using the command bcfg boot dump -v to list them and then bcfg boot rm X (where X is the entry you see). PLEASE SEARCH first for some relevant article, as I have no time to search for you, apologies. A quick search for "bcfg boot dump" will provide results, so do search further!

c) I had an issue where the above procedure always showed some stupid error like "Unable to read from Boot0000" so this forced me to create an Ubuntu Live USB stick, boot from that and run a special command in Terminal, namely efibootmgr. With it, I completely removed all UEFI boot entries then I shut down the NUC; restarted the NUC. Now finally the Boot Menu screen (F10) shows the boot drive(s). Again PLEASE SEARCH on this command so you know what you are doing. Try finding the man page (help) for this command on Ubuntu's site.

After that, with a clean NVRAM from boot drive entries, both my internal NVME and USB were recognised BUT the USB was working fine on other hackintoshes. Does yours work OK? Thus just see point #a. Hope all this can troubleshoot. Cheers.

P.S. "Add/Remove Clover boot options" involve writing to NVRAM the details of the boot drive... you will see it in BIOS as boot drive entries.

 

[Leesureone]

It may be that the bios is not recognizing any of the usb drive. I have tried booting from 4 different usb drives, some that I know worked in the past. I even tried a windows 10 usb boot drive. In all the trials, I always ended up with the Clover 5098 boot loader screen. Is there a way to choose a different bootloader from the clover bootloader startup screen?

I'm not sure what else I need to do to get the usb working again. I also set the bios settings according to @konsti github page, but no change so far.

What does the "Add Clover boot option for all entries" do?
What does "Remove all Clover boot options" do?

would any of the options help?

Thanks

Can you please describe how you are creating the USB drive(s)?

 

[firepandem]

@konsti
Thanks. I was actually considering contacting intel last night. I figured, since it still under warranty, they should be able to help. I will try them first and if I don't get through, I'll try the suggestions you gave. But my bios does see the NVME drive and at the clover screen from the NVME, I see options to choose to boot from the os installer from the USB drive. The problem is, I can't seem to startup from the usb drive to use the OC or latest Clover version from the USB drive. It sounds like the option to add clover boot options might help.

@Leesureone
The usb boot drives I have and have tried are for Yosemite, Mojave (clover 50xx), Windows 10, Mojave (Clover 5131), Mojave (OC 6.7 from your files on pg 90)

The first three form the list above were created a while back and I dont remember the exact steps but I used Unibeast for the mac os drives.

For the Mojave (Clover 5131):
1. I formated the USB drive using Disk Uitility (mac os extended journaled)
2. Ran this code in terminal to write the macos installer to the usb drive:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app --nointeraction

3. Ran Clover 5131 to install clover to the USB
4. Replaced the EFI folder n the USB drive with the one you had on page 90 named "NUC8CloverEFI"

For the Mojave (OC 6.7):
Did the same steps 1-3 from above. Then replace the EFI folder with your "EFINUC8i7OC6.7"

I remember that the first time I inserted the usb of Mojave (Clover 5131), I did get to the installer but did not continue because I wanted to boot into the os on the internal NVMe drive instead. When I tried the second time to start up from USB, It only went straight to the old bootloader from NVMe drive

 

[Leesureone]

@konsti
Thanks. I was actually considering contacting intel last night. I figured, since it still under warranty, they should be able to help. I will try them first and if I don't get through, I'll try the suggestions you gave. But my bios does see the NVME drive and at the clover screen from the NVME, I see options to choose to boot from the os installer from the USB drive. The problem is, I can't seem to startup from the usb drive to use the OC or latest Clover version from the USB drive. It sounds like the option to add clover boot options might help.

@Leesureone
The usb boot drives I have and have tried are for Yosemite, Mojave (clover 50xx), Windows 10, Mojave (Clover 5131), Mojave (OC 6.7 from your files on pg 90)

The first three form the list above were created a while back and I dont remember the exact steps but I used Unibeast for the mac os drives.

For the Mojave (Clover 5131):
1. I formated the USB drive using Disk Uitility (mac os extended journaled)
2. Ran this code in terminal to write the macos installer to the usb drive:

3. Ran Clover 5131 to install clover to the USB
4. Replaced the EFI folder n the USB drive with the one you had on page 90 named "NUC8CloverEFI"

For the Mojave (OC 6.7):
Did the same steps 1-3 from above. Then replace the EFI folder with your "EFINUC8i7OC6.7"

I remember that the first time I inserted the usb of Mojave (Clover 5131), I did get to the installer but did not continue because I wanted to boot into the os on the internal NVMe drive instead. When I tried the second time to start up from USB, It only went straight to the old bootloader from NVMe drive

Do any of those USB drives show in your bios as bootable (in the boot menu)? If not I would start fresh again using steps 1-3 and use one of my open core EFI folders (the clover version is very, very old, no idea if its relevant anymore). Once it boots you should see your hard drive and can select it to boot from. You may need to clear the NVRAM.

 

[Leesureone]

Do any of those USB drives show in your bios as bootable (in the boot menu)? If not I would start fresh again using steps 1 and 2 (skip step 3) and then use one of my open core EFI folders (the clover version is very, very old, no idea if its relevant anymore). Once it boots you should see your hard drive and can select it to boot from. You may need to clear the NVRAM.

 

[firepandem]

Update:

I decided to try plugging in all the usb drives and see what shows up in the bios:

I then reordered the list so that all the usb drives go first:

Then I restarted and saw this:

At this point, selecting "Mojave OS" (which is the os on the internal NVMe drive) did nothing, just went blank for a moment and showed the list again. But selecting the Windows USB installer drive, did begin the loading windows. So I turned off the NUC

Then I remove all the usb except the one with OC and started up again. I got this but the mojave OS still did nothing, just went blank for a moment and show the bootloader again.

So I decided to give an external SATA backup of my internal os a try, and got this:

At this point, still selecting mojave OS from internal NVMe did nothing but when I selected the external backup drive "LANSATA250-MOJAVE" it actually loaded and I was able to get into the system and see and access the internal drives and files.

I replaced the EFI folder that was in the Internal NVMe drive with the EFI folder from the OC bootdrive and restarted.

Now when the NUC boots without the USB, I do get the OC bootloader but I still cannot get the "Mojave OS" option to work.

When I connect the external backup drive of Mojave, it works.

One thing I did notice is that the external SATA backup drive does not have anything in the EFI partition, no EFI folder.

Right now I'm not sure what next step to take. I'm thinking of theses options :

Option 1: try using a different EFI from page 90 on the internal NVMe
Option 2: try restoring the os from the external drive to the NVMe
Option 3 (I'm trying to avoid): doing a clean install of mojave from the OC boot Mojave Installer

Please let me know your thoughts and/or recommendations

Thanks

 

[Leesureone]

Update:

I decided to try plugging in all the usb drives and see what shows up in the bios:
View attachment 513309



I then reordered the list so that all the usb drives go first:
View attachment 513310

Then I restarted and saw this:
View attachment 513311


At this point, selecting "Mojave OS" (which is the os on the internal NVMe drive) did nothing, just went blank for a moment and showed the list again. But selecting the Windows USB installer drive, did begin the loading windows. So I turned off the NUC

Then I remove all the usb except the one with OC and started up again. I got this but the mojave OS still did nothing, just went blank for a moment and show the bootloader again.
View attachment 513312

So I decided to give an external SATA backup of my internal os a try, and got this:
View attachment 513313

At this point, still selecting mojave OS from internal NVMe did nothing but when I selected the external backup drive "LANSATA250-MOJAVE" it actually loaded and I was able to get into the system and see and access the internal drives and files.

I replaced the EFI folder that was in the Internal NVMe drive with the EFI folder from the OC bootdrive and restarted.

Now when the NUC boots without the USB, I do get the OC bootloader but I still cannot get the "Mojave OS" option to work.

When I connect the external backup drive of Mojave, it works.

One thing I did notice is that the external SATA backup drive does not have anything in the EFI partition, no EFI folder.

Right now I'm not sure what next step to take. I'm thinking of theses options :

Option 1: try using a different EFI from page 90 on the internal NVMe
Option 2: try restoring the os from the external drive to the NVMe
Option 3 (I'm trying to avoid): doing a clean install of mojave from the OC boot Mojave Installer

Please let me know your thoughts and/or recommendations

Thanks

Good job staying with it and getting this far. You should be able to see all your original files on your internal drive booting off the external drive (right?) Might be prudent to back up what’s important to you before going any farther. Up to you.

I think the reason the internal drive won’t boot is because there are remnants of clover on it. This page describes how to successfully remove those traces and migrate over to OC. See if it helps and let us know.

OpenCore-Install-Guide/clover-conversion at master · dortania/OpenCore-Install-Guide

Repo for the OpenCore Install Guide. Contribute to dortania/OpenCore-Install-Guide development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[firepandem]

Thanks @Leesureone! That sound like it could be the case.

I have been in the process of copying some important files over to my NAS. Once those are finished transferring, I'll go through the process of clearing out the remnants of clover.

I really appreciate all the help

 

[firepandem]

I got to delete the files listed under "Cleaning the Clover Junk in macOS" but did not do the steps under “Removing kexts from macOS(S/L/E and L/E)” and “Cleaning the Clover Junk in your hardware” because those commands seem like I would need to be booted into the os on the NVMe drive to do so. I did not want to take the chance or running it will using the external drive and it applies the process to the external drive instead of the NVMe drive.

I restarted the NUC and reset the NVRAM but still could not get the Mojave OS to go.

Do you know if I can apply the commands listed under “Removing kexts from macOS(S/L/E and L/E)” and “Cleaning the Clover Junk in your hardware” to the NNMe drive while still running off of the external SATA drive? If so, how can I do that?