- Joined
- Sep 14, 2012
- Messages
- 181
- Motherboard
- GA-Z97X Gaming 5
- CPU
- i7-4790K
- Graphics
- RX 580
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
If you like me, stuck with an older generation 9, 8 and 7 series mobo's then you may want to try this out.
Overview:
The purpose of this thread is to share my experience with the wider community (those still using older generation mobo 9,8 and 7 series). Booting the Samsung 960 EVO drive (NVME) can be achieved with the benefit that the bios of older PC's may see the drive (if you lucky).
Before I even decided to buy this expensive drive, my approach was to take as much time as I could collecting information from the internet. Some sites has indicated that this can't be done. Also the bios does not recognize the drive. Some forums did offer a ray of hope. This board come with a M.2 slot allowing you to use only x 2 PCI lanes. This means that your drive will NOT operate at maximum speed. The problem most guys seem to have was that the drive is not recognized by the bios making it not possible to boot.
After a few weeks of googling I came across @fernando site at Win-Raid where it did seem likely to boot the 960 EVO at (x4) full speed with the benefit that my bios may recognise the drive. I decided to take the change and bought the following 2 hardware components:
1. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FU9JS94/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
2. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYFKX41/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
NOTE: Shipping the Lycom DT 120 was not practical to my country.
When these components arrived, I install them into my machine and quickly found out that:
1. macOS Sierra by default will not see this drive.
2. My bios F5 did not recognised this drive.
@RehabMan came to the rescue when he adviced that a bios update might help to see this drive.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...efamily-using-class-code-spoof.210316/page-79
Follow these steps:
1. If you are using Gigabyte Z97X mobo then download the latest bios. On other system's you definitely want to ensure you have the latest bios.
2. You need to patch your bios using Fernando's method at Win-Raid forum : http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Gui...rt-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-BIOS.html.
Fernando explains in full how to patch you bios in order to boot from it. He was kind enough to validate my patched bios
file before I updated the bios.
3. I pencilled down all the important settings that relate to OSX and your hackintosh (in our world today we use camera's)
4. I used EFIflash tool to update my bios. Process was very simple. Just follow the prompts. The process will be different for your system. Just follow your mobo's manual (handbook)
5. Rebooting allowed me to select optimized defaults and resetting all the features that I noted in step 3. Low and behold, my bios did recognize the 960 EVO drive and I could select it ! (see attachment)
6. At this point I still booted of my old SSD drive with the 960 EVO drive in place, although macOS Sierra will not see it.
7. For ensuring that macOS Sierra recognize the 960 EVO drive, meticulously follow @RehabMan's thread : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...h-ionvmefamily-using-class-code-spoof.210316/. This meant that I had to :
- Determine my NVMe SSD ACPI path.
- Create SSDT_NVME-pcc.aml
- Create HackrNVMEFamily.kext
8. After step 7, macOS Sierra identified the 960 EVO drive.
9. CCC came to the rescue and allowed me to clone my drive to the 960 EVO. I also used this opportunity to install the latest version of clover.
10. I transferred my config.plist, api patch files, all the kext to the new SAMSUNG 960 EFI drive
Now my macOS Sierra is really flying at full speed (See attachment for tests)
Summary:
Although I was successful I cannot guarantee that this may also work for older generation mobo's (9, 8 and 7 series). @fernando is of the opinion that it should be possible to boot the NVME drives (950, 951, 960 pro etc) even if your bios does not see it.
I'm curious to see if that is the case. Making it possible for older generation pc's to run the faster drives available today.
Thanks:
Allow me to thanks @RehabMan and Fernando who shared there knowledge so freely and has put together excellent technical content that is easy enough to follow.
My old friend Dave who never gave up on me and continued to encourage me to update the bios. This is my second time since 1991 that I update the bios (last weekend was my first with a notebook)
Overview:
The purpose of this thread is to share my experience with the wider community (those still using older generation mobo 9,8 and 7 series). Booting the Samsung 960 EVO drive (NVME) can be achieved with the benefit that the bios of older PC's may see the drive (if you lucky).
Before I even decided to buy this expensive drive, my approach was to take as much time as I could collecting information from the internet. Some sites has indicated that this can't be done. Also the bios does not recognize the drive. Some forums did offer a ray of hope. This board come with a M.2 slot allowing you to use only x 2 PCI lanes. This means that your drive will NOT operate at maximum speed. The problem most guys seem to have was that the drive is not recognized by the bios making it not possible to boot.
After a few weeks of googling I came across @fernando site at Win-Raid where it did seem likely to boot the 960 EVO at (x4) full speed with the benefit that my bios may recognise the drive. I decided to take the change and bought the following 2 hardware components:
1. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FU9JS94/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
2. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYFKX41/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
NOTE: Shipping the Lycom DT 120 was not practical to my country.
When these components arrived, I install them into my machine and quickly found out that:
1. macOS Sierra by default will not see this drive.
2. My bios F5 did not recognised this drive.
@RehabMan came to the rescue when he adviced that a bios update might help to see this drive.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...efamily-using-class-code-spoof.210316/page-79
Follow these steps:
1. If you are using Gigabyte Z97X mobo then download the latest bios. On other system's you definitely want to ensure you have the latest bios.
2. You need to patch your bios using Fernando's method at Win-Raid forum : http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Gui...rt-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-BIOS.html.
Fernando explains in full how to patch you bios in order to boot from it. He was kind enough to validate my patched bios
file before I updated the bios.
3. I pencilled down all the important settings that relate to OSX and your hackintosh (in our world today we use camera's)
4. I used EFIflash tool to update my bios. Process was very simple. Just follow the prompts. The process will be different for your system. Just follow your mobo's manual (handbook)
5. Rebooting allowed me to select optimized defaults and resetting all the features that I noted in step 3. Low and behold, my bios did recognize the 960 EVO drive and I could select it ! (see attachment)
6. At this point I still booted of my old SSD drive with the 960 EVO drive in place, although macOS Sierra will not see it.
7. For ensuring that macOS Sierra recognize the 960 EVO drive, meticulously follow @RehabMan's thread : https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...h-ionvmefamily-using-class-code-spoof.210316/. This meant that I had to :
- Determine my NVMe SSD ACPI path.
- Create SSDT_NVME-pcc.aml
- Create HackrNVMEFamily.kext
8. After step 7, macOS Sierra identified the 960 EVO drive.
9. CCC came to the rescue and allowed me to clone my drive to the 960 EVO. I also used this opportunity to install the latest version of clover.
10. I transferred my config.plist, api patch files, all the kext to the new SAMSUNG 960 EFI drive
Now my macOS Sierra is really flying at full speed (See attachment for tests)
Summary:
Although I was successful I cannot guarantee that this may also work for older generation mobo's (9, 8 and 7 series). @fernando is of the opinion that it should be possible to boot the NVME drives (950, 951, 960 pro etc) even if your bios does not see it.
I'm curious to see if that is the case. Making it possible for older generation pc's to run the faster drives available today.
Thanks:
Allow me to thanks @RehabMan and Fernando who shared there knowledge so freely and has put together excellent technical content that is easy enough to follow.
My old friend Dave who never gave up on me and continued to encourage me to update the bios. This is my second time since 1991 that I update the bios (last weekend was my first with a notebook)
Attachments
Last edited:
