Help with update from Mavericks to El Capitan with clover

[BobGad]

Fellow hackers,

I have an older hackintosh build from 2013-14 exactly like tdw’s Haswell ATX build with bios settings from this thread:

tdw's Haswell ATX: GA-Z87X-UD5H - Core i7-4770K - GTX 770

tdw's Haswell ATX: GA-Z87X-UD5H - Core i7-4770K - GTX 770 Components Fractal Design DEFINE R4 Titanium Grey Window Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352023 Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm Fan (Case comes with 2 of these, I purchased 1 extra)...

www.tonymacx86.com

After copying my system drive with Time Machine to an internal ssd, I tried a direct update from App Store from Mavericks 10.9.5 to El Capitan 10.11 using clover boot in a usb drive Following this guide:

Direct Update to OS X El Capitan Using Clover

Direct Update to OS X El Capitan using Clover Established Clover users on OS X Yosemite who wish to update directly to OS X El Capitan can do so just like a regular Mac would. This fully native method requires no USB creation or preparation. Before you begin, we strongly recommend performing...

www.tonymacx86.com

Unfortunately I did not do enough research and failed to discover the need to test the update on the usb drive and testing the copied system drive before proceeding and of course now have install issues. I chose (incorrectly?) the legacy bios option settings while setting up clover but I’m sure I missed adding some kexts in the clover build process as I was unsure about how to add these.

Upon booting from usb I got the clover boot manager screen with options to boot os x install from Mavericks (system drive) or boot OS X from mavericks. I chose the install option and the Apple logo on black screen with the install progress bar came up. The install bar got to 75% or so and then the screen went black. I waited 15 minutes, nothing happened so I did a hard restart.
When the clover screen came back up I chose the other boot OS X from mavericks option and this time got a white apple screen and a never ending spinning wheel, again after 15 minute wait, did a hard restart. i tried each option several more times, each time getting the same results.
Now when selecting either option it goes directly to black screen where it hangs indefinitely until it’s unplugged or restarted.

Hoping there is someone out there who can advise me on a way out of this situation without having to reformat entire system drive.
Thanks in advance,
Bob Gadd

 

[Nodarkthings]

1) Boot in Verbose and see where it fails.
2) Try Safe Mode
But I'd be surprised if your board had still a legacy bios! In fact, here it says UEFI: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z87X-UD5H-rev-1x...
So, don't expect it to work.
As long as I remember, I had a hard time fixing it when I made that mistake myself years ago.
I guess you need cleaning your EFI and install the right Clover version but also rebuild the kernel... (which should be ok booting in Safe Mode, then rebooting normally)

EDIT: instead of fully cleaning your EFI, you may try ditching the file named "boot" and reinstall Clover UEFI above, just updating the bootloader.

 

[BobGad]

Thank you Nodarkthings for your reply.

Please excuse my inexperience, but are you suggesting taking my installer usb with clover on it to another Mac, deleting boot file and reinstalling clover with correct uefi bios selection onto usb? Then rebooting hackitosh with usb inserted?

If so, I see two boot files on usb. One boot file outside of the EFI folder at the top and one BOOTX64.efi file inside a BOOT folder.
Which should I delete?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Nodarkthings]

Thank you Nodarkthings for your reply.

Please excuse my inexperience, but are you suggesting taking my installer usb with clover on it to another Mac, deleting boot file and reinstalling clover with correct uefi bios selection onto usb? Then rebooting hackitosh with usb inserted?

If so, I see two boot files on usb. One boot file outside of the EFI folder at the top and one BOOTX64.efi file inside a BOOT folder.
Which should I delete?

Thanks,
Bob

BIOS legacy mode is a file called "boot" + EFI folder while UEFI mode is just the EFI folder (from the user perspective).
Don't touch /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi or /EFI/CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi — they are identical, by the way, one is used for UEFI the other one for Legacy.
If you don't see a file called "boot", check if it's not invisible (using the appropriate utility). If it's not there at all, it means you installed UEFI Clover not Legacy.
I'm a little bit rusty with Clover, though, as I've switched to OpenCore a long time ago now.
I won't have much time in the following week, so you'll have to dig on your own.
If you feel bold enough, it might be the time to switch to OpenCore. ;-)
Best wishes!

EDIT: I have a few minutes left today, so here's to answer a bit more to your question. If I understand well, your previously working EFI partition on your drive is untouched while you made your manoeuvres booting from usb key? In that case, you should be able to boot from your internal drive in safe mode, at least in 10.9. If it works, you'll have at least your old OS working and that's a good start. Other than that, I don't fully grasp what you did, but yes, if you can install Clover over your usb key from anywhere, that's the way to go, just as you did the first time (if indeed you installed Legacy and not UEFI).
If I suppose that your Clover EFI folder is all right, then the recipe is: boot from another drive/partition with the same OS version (or Recovery), go into Terminal and type
sudo kextcache -u "/Volumes/Name_of_your_drive" (-u is for 10.9, -i if you're doing this for 10.11) — of course, replace Name_of_your_drive with... the name of your drive.
N.B.: it won't work if you try to do it booting in 10.9 and treat a 10.11 partition or vice versa.
I'm sorry if it sounds complicated, but not knowing exactly the state of your system, this is the best I can think of...
If you think it's too complicated for you, then the simplest thing to do is start over from scratch, the way you installed things in 2013... then import your personal files with Migration Assistant.

 

[BobGad]

Thank you NoDarkthings for your time and efforts.

I tried booting in verbose mode with clover and though it hangs for a minute or so a few times, it does complete and then goes to white screen where it stops and hangs indefinitely requiring restart.
I also tried booting in safe mode with clover and I get a black screen with apple logo and progress bar. Progress bar gets to the end and just hangs indefinitely never booting and requires restart.
So I’m unable to get into Terminal and type the command you suggested.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[BobGad]

During my latest attempt to revive my hackintosh I was able to boot my Mavericks system drive in verbose mode with clover, see attached report picture. Seems it‘s hanging on :

”process AssetDeliverySer (77) caught causing excessive wakeups”

Anyone know what this means and how to fix it?

Thanks,
BobG

 

[Nodarkthings]

Hi! You didn't mentioned if you found out whether or not you installed Clover Legacy or UEFI: it should have been your starting point, if you don't clear this up, it's useless continuing...
If you don't see the file called "boot" at the root of your EFI partition, run this utility: https://www.tonymacx86.com/resources/showallfiles.142/
If you would have followed my advice to switch to OpenCore, you'd have a running computer, by now...
Believe you me: it makes things a lot easier than Clover as you have a vanilla OS without the need to add kexts so S/L/E or L/E.

 

[BobGad]

Hi,
Yes sorry I did find the boot file on the usb and deleted it. so I guess it was a legacy install.
But I wasn’t clear on what I needed to do from there with clover. Should I delete that same file on os system drive? Should I try a reinstall of clover uefi? Should I try to run the script you suggested in Terminal?
I have since been able to boot into my os with safe mode but still can’t boot into regular mode. I tried all of the other available boot flags in Clover when you hit the space bar, but just get the spinning wheel at white apple screen.
Thanks

 

[Nodarkthings]

Ok, I'll try to tell you things in a few days when I'll be free.
Give me a link from where you've got your Clover (check in particular version number).
If you can boot in Safe mode, it means that there are kexts that are blocking normal boot.
List all the kexts you have in L/E and try to locate additional kexts that you added in S/L/E — it would be a lot simpler to start with a clean OS, anyway... because now you have to spot any garbage that's installed and that you don't remember...

 

[BobGad]

Thanks NDT,
From the thread “Direct update to OS El Capitan using Clover” the link I used to Sourceforge is here:

Clover EFI bootloader

Download Clover EFI bootloader for free. Boot macOS, Windows, and Linux on Mac or PC with UEFI or BIOS firmware. Project has moved to https://github.com/CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader.

sourceforge.net

On that page above I used the green download button. In my downloads folder the Clover version is listed as: Clover_r5146.pkg

The first attachment is the list of kexts in L/E , the other attachments are for the huge list of kexts in S/L/E . The very last attachment is a picture of the Clover install log that is in the system EFI folder.

Any help you can give is very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob