First contact

Some people can't just get the Vanilla guide from /r/Hackintosh working just right. Reasons can differ: can't set up the VM for whatever reason, can't access a real mac (although this guide works on macOS too), download corruptions, small USB disks (at this time and age? shame on you), 4GB of RAM (seriously?)... or just pure laziness.

It happens that real macs can re-install macOS directly from the internet, without the need for a disk or installer support, and they do that through "Internet Recovery". When a mac finds no OS or recovery partition, it will try to load a recovery system from Apple's servers and then boot it then install macOS through the internet to the mac. And following the same idea, we can, as hackintoshers, do the same (sort of). Btw, did I tell you this guide will work on any OS?

If you're here from gitbook, I'm moving this guide to Github Pages, use this LINK for the new layout (has dark theme, so you know it's 10/10).

How does it work?

So this procedure goes mainly like this

  1. Download macOS recovery system (as we can't do that directly from clover, yet)

  2. Restore the macOS recovery system to the USB

  3. Install Clover to the USB

  4. Configure Clover (config, Kexts and UEFI Drivers)

  5. Boot macOS Recovery Environment

  6. Format and whatever you like to do in the macOS installer

  7. Install macOS

  8. BOOM! We're done.

What will this guide cover?

  • Requirements

  • macOS recovery downloading

  • USB device partitioning and macOS recovery image restoring

  • Clover configuration

    • Kexts

    • UEFI drivers

    • config.plist (configuration file)

      • For laptops

      • For desktops

  • Firmware/BIOS general settings advice

  • Booting and Installing macOS

This guide will *probably* not contain any post-install guide, as it's documented on the Vanilla Guide. This guide is for Pre-install preparation and Install, you will need to go to the Vanilla Guide to finish the rest for Desktop users, and for laptop users you'll have to continue here. This will be brought up at the end of this guide.

Before you even start:

If you don't know your own hw, and have no clue how to find it, hackintosh might not be for you.

​ ~ Everyone

This is not a very welcoming community for people who do not want to do some self-study and learn from other's findings and instead wait for someone to spoon-feed them information and make things work for them. Read The Fucking Manual and work your way through it and do some intense googling.

READ THE GUIDE FULLY TWICE BEFORE ASKING. Most probably your question has already been answered, and if not, someone did ask it and it's on the net somewhere.

Credits:

  • Apple (for their OS and the recovery images)

  • /u/CorpNewt (for his tool and hard work on making those scripts)

  • Rehabman (for his drivers, configs, guides and other hack related stuff)

  • acidanthera team (for all the driver and tools that made hackintoshing 10x easier than 5 years ago)

  • Clover team (for the boot manager)

  • cVad (for his BDU tool in my previous guide and idea)

  • kylon (for CCE)

  • And other people that helped directly or indirectly into making this happen (remind me if I forget yo)

Good luck :)...

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