Warning/Report: Booting Clover on a real Mac can be dangerous

[aili]

Yeah, but that's not a solution.
a few guys were able to fix it, in this thread, on iMacs.
So there should be a solution for a MacBook too.

Buying a chip, with another serial number, is my last resort...

 

[Ploddles]

Your serial number does not change. It’s just an add on chip that clips into an empty slot on the motherboard.

 

[aili]

So, no real solution?
Only way to fix this is buying a separate chip?

But wtf... I mean, should Apple Macs brake this easy?
So I literally can brake any Mac with that flash drive...

 

[jimmyco2008]

This thread reads like a giant advertisement for this company that sells PRAM chips for Macs at inflated prices.

There is a solderless option mentioned at the very beginning of this thread, and I am surprised so few of you are going that route and yet will buy a new chip from "some company" for $50 and just leave that on your logic boards indefinitely.

As mentioned, if you somehow read this thread while in the middle of a macOS install, you seem to be able to get out of bricking by turning off the mac before it auto-reboots from the installation process, removing the HDD and deleting some files off the EFI partition that was just created by the installer. Good for the one guy who happened to be reading this or a similar thread during an install with a hackintosh USB installer.

I have been hackintoshing for ~6 years and never heard that I should not use a hackintosh USB installer on a legit mac. I had always kind of figured it wouldn't work, with all the modifications, but I didn't think it would permanently brick a mac. I mean holy ****.

To everyone saying they are idiots for doing this- you are not. How were we supposed to know? Similar 3rd party tools in the past make sure you are on the correct firmware, or at least have a pop up dialog to confirm you are not doing this on incorrect hardware (PS3 jailbreaks for example), and yet nowhere (at least as of a couple of years ago) does anyone say "oh hey by the way don't use this on a real Mac".

I'll probably be going the clip + raspberry pi route as the clip is like $10.

 

[Ploddles]

This thread reads like a giant advertisement for this company that sells PRAM chips for Macs at inflated prices.

There is a solderless option mentioned at the very beginning of this thread

To fix it, I had to fully disassemble it, remove the Logic Board and access a tiny SOIC8 chip (the chip containing the UEFI firmware) on the BACK of the LB using the POMONA 5250 clip and then dump the corrupted firmware (will explain why), then reprogram the EEPROM with a Raspberry Pi and 8 cables with a dumped original firmware I had downloaded. You cannot download every original dump for every Mac model, every dump came from forum users and I got lucky to even find one for my machine.

Then, I had to open the corrupted dump with a Hex Editor and find the Intel ME region and how long it is, copy it to the new downloaded dump (without a clean or original ME region your Mac will be unbearably slow) and also find the serial number and replace it with my own. Then I had to reprogram the chip with the new, modified ROM.

Also, the chip is so damn tiny the clip could not make proper contact and I had to physically remove plastic from the clip to further expose the contacts and hold it in place by a contraption of lego bricks and elastic bands. I had to try over an hour just to make stable contact.

All in all I spent countless hours researching and waited over a week for the damn clip ($25 btw + $4 for cables) to arrive.
8/10 experience cannot complain but wouldn't recommend.

But as per @random-name's post you have to fully disassemble your Macbook, find a tiny chip, perform surgery to remove excess plastic, find reliable firmware, edit it with a Hex editor, spend countless hours doing all that, buy a Raspberry Pi and cables and know what you are doing.

Far easier and cheaper to buy a new chip and install it, it takes a few minutes.
The chip is about $50 compared to $65 the hard way - $25 for your clip and cables plus $40 for the Pi.

Another poster says about removing the HDD and removing partitions etc - that isn't solderless either if your SSD is soldered onto the LB like most are nowadays.

Why make things difficult when there is an easier, cheaper solution? Unless of course you like doing that sort of thing.

I know which I, and probably the majority, prefer.

 

[jimmyco2008]

That's fair, I have the Pi, I just needed to drop $20 on the chip and $5 on some dupont cables, which I should have laying around anyway... I also have to flash a Mac mini, which is the easiest one to do, drive is removable, disassembly is easy...

 

[metrichalo77]

mmcubu1,

I have the same issue with a macbook pro 13" And indeed if I disconnect the screen the chime only goes once in stead off indefenately.

But I tried alt+cmd+p+r to reset pram. And also crtl+alt+p+r like you typed (I suppose crtl by mistake in stead of cmd). But it made no difference until now after connection the screen back in.

Did you do something else? And how long did you keep the keycombination? because my mac makes the chime once it starts but not after reset of the pram so without the screen I cannot see when it is rebooted.

Thanks,

Karel

Did you managed to unbrick your macbook pro 13" via mmcubu1's method? I accidentally bricked my 2015 macbook pro 15" while trying to install osx on my new 500gb evo ssd M.2 using EFI clover usb. Now it's starting up with infinite chime loop with dim grey screen. Will need to try the disconnect screen and pram reset first.

I just couldn't believe a small mistake like this could potentially ruin a person's big investment. Really loosing faith in Apple products.

 

[Ploddles]

Did you managed to unbrick your macbook pro 13" via mmcubu1's method? I accidentally bricked my 2015 macbook pro 15" while trying to install osx on my new 500gb evo ssd M.2 using EFI clover usb. Now it's starting up with infinite chime loop with dim grey screen. Will need to try the disconnect screen and pram reset first.

I just couldn't believe a small mistake like this could potentially ruin a person's big investment. Really loosing faith in Apple products.

I just bought the matt chip and plugged it in, very very easy on a MacBook, takes a matter of minutes.

 

[fanfzero]

So i was flashing clover on a usb stick for a hackintosh on my early 2015 macbook pro and accidentally installed it on the main drive, without rebooting I deleted the CLOVER folder, but left the boot folder, when rebooted it booted to the clover menu but I was able to boot the system (It started with a little apple logo and the progress bar, like if the resolution had been increased, then the standard size apple logo appeared and it booted to system) I deleted the BOOT folder and anything apart the apple folder. After rebooting the clover menu was gone, but the increased resolution/back to normal bug is still there and it takes more time to boot, this also happens when I boot from usb (both in the drive selection screen and when booting to an usb, I was trying with a mojave install usb drive and the same, it started with the little apple and then it went back to the standard sized one. As said, the macbook works, but I would like a solution for the bug

 

[P1LGRIM]

I deleted the CLOVER folder, but left the boot folder

Normal EFI looks like this :