Contribute
Register

My Hackintosh is a mess.. I need help doing a fresh install

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
64
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z170 Designare
CPU
Intel Core i7-6700 4.0GHz
Graphics
ASUS Strix GEFORCE® GTX 980
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
I built my first Hackintosh last week and it's a total mess. I installed Sierra and everything worked fine (the wifi included) but then I installed the NVIDIA Web Drivers and lost my Wifi and I spent nearly 4 hours trying to get it back by running MultiBeast again and again with different drivers so I think I have clogged it with many random files doing it. I also never got it to recognize my 2tb HDD but that's not the problem here.

My question is pretty straight forward. I just want to to a clean swipe of everything. I want to delete everything and start from scratch and I spent 3 hours yesterday trying just that but I wasn't even close to pulling it off.

I have my original Sierra USB stick and I tried maybe 50x times booting from it last night to do a clean install but I never got by the Apple Logo. I can boot from my SSD (Sierra original install) with no problems. I tried almost every settings in Clover, many bootflags but nothing worked.

* Is there any other way to do a clean install?
* What do I have to do to be able to boot from my USB?
* Can I delete all the Clover stuff I did inside Sierra? Could that be the problem? Wrong drivers and stuff?
* I did -v boot many times yesterday and I landed on this error before it freezes = '' ATHR: Unknown locale: 21 ''. I tried googling it and it says that it's related to my TP-WDN4800 wifi card and I can believe it because when my wifi went off for the first time I tried all sorts of things. I installed many drivers from MultiBeast, I copied some IOFamily ktext from my MBP and got some error pop-up sign but I just closed it. Yesterday I deleted that ktext but that didn't help.

Why is this so complicated? I just want to delete everything and start all over. Wipe my SSD clean. :(

I would seriously be willing to pay somebody to get my Hackintosh up and running. Isn't it possible to do a screen-sharing thing or something and I would donate some $ through PayPal for the help :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply. How do I change the boot device to USB installer? Through the Bios? When I went to the Bios yesterday to see the priority order of the boot-items I couldn't make any change to it. My SSD was nr 1 and my USB nr 2 but I couldn't switch the order.
 
when you boot press delete/f12 for boot options and choose to boot from uefi usb drive. also change your first boot device to usb installer. remove everything except mouse and keyboard.your clover is installed on efi partition which is hidden, leave it as it is and install sierra on your hdd.

Delete F12? That makes no sense. Its F12 at the BIOS slash screen.
 
Thanks for the reply. How do I change the boot device to USB installer? Through the Bios? When I went to the Bios yesterday to see the priority order of the boot-items I couldn't make any change to it. My SSD was nr 1 and my USB nr 2 but I couldn't switch the order.

Make sure that you plug you're USB installer into a USB 2 port instead of a USB 3 port then hit F12 on the keyboard when you first turn on the machine.
 
@VoiletDragon Thanks for the advice. I don't think I'm able to connect it straight to the USB 2.0 ports at the back because there seems to be some kind of bracket (little metal thing) in the way (like the port is closed). But I have 6x USB 3.0 ports available and when I first installed Sierra I stuck the USB dongle just in a random port and it worked like a charm. I also use my mouse and keybord with USB 3.0 ports with no problem.

But to make things clear. Holding down F12 at the beginning.. Will it give me the BIOS thing or will it just open up some ''Choose which drive to boot from'' ? Because if it just gives me the same old BIOS menu I've been 'working'' in during the past days I have no idea what to do in there.

And what is the difference to boot from the USB drive or going to the Clover menu and choosing '' boot from USB '' over there? Is it more likely to go through if I change it internally to '' boot from uefi usb drive '' ?
 
@VoiletDragon Thanks for the advice. I don't think I'm able to connect it straight to the USB 2.0 ports at the back because there seems to be some kind of bracket (little metal thing) in the way (like the port is closed). But I have 6x USB 3.0 ports available and when I first installed Sierra I stuck the USB dongle just in a random port and it worked like a charm. I also use my mouse and keybord with USB 3.0 ports with no problem.

But to make things clear. Holding down F12 at the beginning.. Will it give me the BIOS thing or will it just open up some ''Choose which drive to boot from'' ? Because if it just gives me the same old BIOS menu I've been 'working'' in during the past days I have no idea what to do in there.

And what is the difference to boot from the USB drive or going to the Clover menu and choosing '' boot from USB '' over there? Is it more likely to go through if I change it internally to '' boot from uefi usb drive '' ?

Thats not good can short the port out. Recommend fixing it.
 
@VoiletDragon Couldn't I just use a USB 2.0 Hub as a connector between the USB stick and the USB 3.0? The USB stick is 3.0 by the way.

Well you can but depends on wether USB 3 works in the installer without any ACPI patches.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top