[Solved] I've Got Lost

[Alanthemallows]

I have carefully followed the process for making a boot disk for El Capitan, and then found that my BIOS doesn't offer the "other OS" option. When I boot from the USB stick, it only offers Windows and it shows a row of HDDs and nothing to indicate which is which.

Where did I go wrong? Should I update my BIOS to get the necessary options? Is there something wrong with my boot USB?

I think I'll stop playing until I know the next step.

Ace

 

[Alanthemallows]

I have carefully followed the process for making a boot disk for El Capitan, and then found that my BIOS doesn't offer the "other OS" option. When I boot from the USB stick, it only offers Windows and it shows a row of HDDs and nothing to indicate which is which.

Where did I go wrong? Should I update my BIOS to get the necessary options? Is there something wrong with my boot USB?

I think I'll stop playing until I know the next step.

Ace

Well, I've made some progress. I looked at the BIOS date and it was 2012, so I updated it using @BIOS, and the options are now as expected. However, when I get to the Disk Utility, it cannot find any of the hard disks, it just goes "loading disks" indefinitely.

Ace

 

[Alanthemallows]

Even more progress. I found a disk drive setting that was wrong and now I've got to the OSX screen where I create a computer account, but the screen flashes off and on so that I can't see what I'm doing. More soon.

Ace

 

[Alanthemallows]

I consulted a friend who is very experienced in BIOS &c. and he went with my settings with me and found AHCI not set. He said that no HHDs would be found while that was wrong. So now I have a Hackintosh that immediately upgraded Itself to Mohave, and appears to be faster and smoother than my old 2008 iMac.

So, now I need to set up sound and buttons for volume, and learn how to boot into the old win 8.1 and I will be happy. I hope that this helps others. Let me know.

Ace

 

[Alanthemallows]

Well, I was wrong. I have since found out that disabling Vt-d prevents my Windows disk from booting, so I could have OSX only, which was no good. I've dismembered the PC and set up the UEFI with only one HDD present and this allows me to have both OSX and win 8.1, but it is very inconvenient, and requires me to have the case open and select OSs by plugging/unplugging HDD power connectors.

I'll plug on and try to find a solution.

And, by the way;
OSX El Capitan on my mackintosh PC offers me an upgrade to Mojave, but the installation fails when there is the possibility of another boot option. I suspect that I will have to do the upgrade with the Win 8.1 HDD off, and then re-enable it.

Ace