My Hackintosh (Catalina) — 20 March, 2020
Since I started working on my new job, in which I was given a MacBook, I started to struggle when switching between computers with other operating systems, mostly because of different key shortcuts (looking at you IntelliJ). Also I enjoy using macOS, so I decided to replace my Linux distro for macOS on my home machine.
Hardware
- Motherboard: MSI Bazooka H370M
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-8400
- Disk (NVMe): Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB
- Graphics: Sapphire Radeon RX 580 NITRO+ 4GB OC
- Memory: 32GB 4x8GB Aegis DDR4-3000MHz CL16-18-18-38 1.35V
- PSU: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 600W 80 PLUS
Requirements
The latest BIOS versions aren't working (at least for the installation). I get it to work with the version 7B24v10. You can dowload it here.
The NVMe memory does not work well with some older firmware, I needed to get the firmware version 2B2QEXM7 to be able to, install macOS. You can get that firmware here, or here.
EFI folder with required drivers and kernel extensions. You can get it here.
Access to a device running macOS. If you don't have on you can install it in a virtual machine using Linux. More information here.
Unibeast for creating the flash drive. You can download it here.
How to proceed
Create a Bootable USB
- Download macOS Catalina from AppStore
- Format your USB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility
- Create a UEFI bootable disk with Unibeast
- Replace the EFI folder with the one you downloaded.
Disconnect all unneded peripherals from the computer
This included external disks, other flashdrives, wifi and bluetooth dongles, etc.
BIOS Setup
Settings -> Advanced
- Super IO Configuration: Disabled
- USB Configuration: Enable all
- Integrated Graphics Configuration
- Initiate Graphic Adapter: PEG
- IGD Multi-Monitor: Disabled
Settings -> Boot
- Boot configuration
- Boot mode select: UEFI
- Fixed boot order
- Boot option #1: UEFI USB Key
OC SET-UP
- Overclocking
- Extreme Memory Profile (XMP): Enabled
- CPU Features
- LIMIT CPUID Maximum: Disabled
- Intel VT-D Tech: Disabled
- C1E Support: Disabled
Installation
- Format your hard drive as APFS and use GUID Partition Map.
- Your computer will reboot, when it boots to Clover select 'Boot macOS Install Prebooter from Preboot'.
- Your computer will reboot again, now you can select 'Boot macOS from "your hard disk name"'.
- If all goes well you will boot into macOS.
- Download Clover Configurator here.
- Open Clover Convigurator, mount EFI, and mount the EFI partition on from your hard drive and from your USB stick.
- Copy your hard drives's EFI folder to your disk's EFI partition.
- Turn off your computer, unplug the USB drive and boot from your disk!
- Enjoy!
The information for this article was based on the following guides: