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Having trouble setting my Samsung 950 Pro M.2 as a boot drive for El Capitan

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RockLee

RockLee

Joined
Jun 6, 2016
Messages
37
Motherboard
Gigabyte LGA 1151 Z170
CPU
Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K
Graphics
EVGA GeForce GTX 970
Mac
  1. iMac
Hello,

I am completely new to building my own PC. A beginner to Hackintosh and a white belt to software installation. After hours of struggling to get past the frozen Apple logo on the installation process, I ran into another ordeal.

I recently purchased a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 (512g) after doing extensive research, with the intention of setting it as my boot drive. I know I installed it correctly because it shows up in my BIOS (GA-Z170xp SLI Motherboard).

After using Clover in a USB (UNIBEAST), I get to the "select language tab" on El Capitan. I choose English and then I am directed into the next screen where I click disk utility.

HERE'S where I run into the issue:

When selecting which drive I would like to install El Capitan on, my M.2 drive doesn't show up as an option. Only the USB and my 3 terabyte seagate hard drive I got so save files on.

Can anyone help me (in the simplest/most detailed way possible) on how to go about setting my 950 pro as a boot drive for El Capitan on my PC? Or any alternatives as to how to go about getting El Capitan on the m.2 drive?

Thanks
 
As far as I know, the only M.2 SSDs that can be used as a boot drive with OS X are the ones that are AHCI. The reason the NVMe ones can't be used as a boot drive is because the driver for it doesn't load until after OS X has been loaded. AHCI does not need the driver.
 
pastrychef said:
As far as I know, the only M.2 SSDs that can be used as a boot drive with OS X are the ones that are AHCI. The reason the NVMe ones can't be used as a boot drive is because the driver for it doesn't load until after OS X has been loaded. AHCI does not need the driver.
Click to expand...
Is there anyway I can make it AHCI? Or maybe load the NVMe driver after I install El Capitan from my flashdrive and then somehow copy it over if the m.2 appears as an option?
 
Ah. I stand corrected. Thanks for the info and sorry for misinforming you, RockLee.

"We've tested using the M.2 Samsung 950 Pro and the SM951 NVMe drives with success in OS X. To run the new drivers, install the NVMeGeneric.kext in Clover's EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.11 folder and boot. The results show NVMe drives are some of the fastest SSDs available."
 
pastrychef said:
Ah. I stand corrected. Thanks for the info and sorry for misinforming you, RockLee.

"We've tested using the M.2 Samsung 950 Pro and the SM951 NVMe drives with success in OS X. To run the new drivers, install the NVMeGeneric.kext in Clover's EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.11 folder and boot. The results show NVMe drives are some of the fastest SSDs available."
Click to expand...
It's all good! I'm still learning. Thank you so much pastry chef and thank you Ash27
 
I, too, am using the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD as a boot drive in my Gene system. See my signature block for I used the NVMeGeneric.kext to make that happened.

Be advised that, after you complete your installation, you will get a shutdown/reboot when you attempt to shutdown your system. I use the case's power on/off button to turn off the system when it reboots to the Clover boot screen. Then when I start up the system, I get the shutdown error message which I just tap the keyboard's SpaceBar or click the mouse to move on. Once reaching the Desktop, you'll get another shutdown error message with an option to report the incident to Apple. Click Ignore and everything then works as normal.

This is a minor PITA, but I can put up with it as the author of the NVMeGeneric.kext wrote the kext to have the M.2 NVMe drives work as data drives for Mac Pros. Small price to pay for a working M.2 MVMe SSD boot drive.
 
Stork said:
I, too, am using the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD as a boot drive in my Gene system. See my signature block for I used the NVMeGeneric.kext to make that happened.

Be advised that, after you complete your installation, you will get a shutdown/reboot when you attempt to shutdown your system. I use the case's power on/off button to turn off the system when it reboots to the Clover boot screen. Then when I start up the system, I get the shutdown error message which I just tap the keyboard's SpaceBar or click the mouse to move on. Once reaching the Desktop, you'll get another shutdown error message with an option to report the incident to Apple. Click Ignore and everything then works as normal.

This is a minor PITA, but I can put up with it as the author of the NVMeGeneric.kext wrote the kext to have the M.2 NVMe drives work as data drives for Mac Pros. Small price to pay for a working M.2 MVMe SSD boot drive.
Click to expand...

Thank you Stork
 
Stork said:
I, too, am using the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD as a boot drive in my Gene system. See my signature block for I used the NVMeGeneric.kext to make that happened.

Be advised that, after you complete your installation, you will get a shutdown/reboot when you attempt to shutdown your system. I use the case's power on/off button to turn off the system when it reboots to the Clover boot screen. Then when I start up the system, I get the shutdown error message which I just tap the keyboard's SpaceBar or click the mouse to move on. Once reaching the Desktop, you'll get another shutdown error message with an option to report the incident to Apple. Click Ignore and everything then works as normal.

This is a minor PITA, but I can put up with it as the author of the NVMeGeneric.kext wrote the kext to have the M.2 NVMe drives work as data drives for Mac Pros. Small price to pay for a working M.2 MVMe SSD boot drive.
Click to expand...

I was able to do all those steps on my mac with the flash drive connected, but when I went to eject, only the USB ejected and not the EFI partition. When I went to eject the EFI, it said "the disk "EFI" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it" but that's not the case because no apps are open at all. Would you by any chance have a solution to that as well?
 
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