OS X compatible motherboard -> QUO

[IronManJFF]

The last MacOS you can get Nvidia Web Drivers for is High Sierra

[ntsmkfob]

Thanks to TypeThree, IronManJFF, elviejo and probably a load more unnamed hackers, the update from Mojave to Catalina 10.15.2 is pretty painless.

 

Whether all of the following is necessary, I can't say, but what I did after downloading Install MacOS Catalina app from the app store was:

 

Put new format Defaults.plist in EFI/Oz per IronManJFF's post with latest firmware info

Put updated KernextPatcher.plist in EFI (needs 10.15 patches)

 

Ozmosis-Catalina.rom from elviejo's post installed and configured with Internal GPU disabled and PEG selected instead of Auto, plus my usual profile1 for RAM and vt-d for Parallels. I have  an AMD RX560 video card.

 

Put latest Lulu.kext, WhatEverGreen.kext and FakeSMC.kext in /Library/Extensions

chmod -R 755 /Library/Extensions/*

chown -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions/*

touch /Library/Extensions

 

This should all boot into Mojave OK

 

Run the Install Catalina app. There comes a point where my screen went black, but with lots of disk activity, probably as it shifted stuff around to create the system and data volumes. Came back 20 minutes later to the login screen for Catalina!

 

Thanks again to the people who did all the hard work behind the scenes.

Edited December 14, 2019 by ntsmkfob

[ntsmkfob]

No, I have a QUO motherboard as the topic title indicates. 

[valiant]

On 12/12/2019 at 6:12 AM, IronManJFF said:

The last MacOS you can get Nvidia Web Drivers for is High Sierra

 

Thank you!

 

Unfortunately I needed a new USB stick, and accidentally bought a Radeon Vega 56 while I was at the store. Much more card than I really need, but it will run 2x4k monitors and work under Mojave and they were sold out of 570s and 580s...

 

But the store has a 7 day return policy on video cards so I have until Friday to get this working or return the card and stick with High Sierra (note to self: that's MacOS 10.13).

 

NOTE: The card is still in the box - I am running a 1080p monitor from the QUO video out - no video card installed until I get this working.

 

Is the uptick from High Sierra to Mojave worth the CAD$340 I paid for the card? Time will tell I guess.

 

So today I downloaded the Z77MXQUOAOS.H2O.167X-XMAX-E.ROM and installed it. I could not boot. Not a black screen or anything, just a progress bar that eventually stalled, and the same thing when I held down the shift key.

 

So I reinstalled the Z77MXQUOAOS.H2O.167X-MASS.ROM and it's running again.

 

Now.

 

What did I miss? Others are getting this to work, so I'm clearly overlooking something. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

Thanks!

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by valiant

[valiant]

Hmm...

 

My QUO thinks it's a MacPro. Could that have something to do with it? And if so, where do I change that?

 

 

[valiant]

OK. 

 

I'm trying to figure out how to change my Mac model. It looks like the "proper" setting for an i7-3770 is to be an iMac13,2.

 

So I'm googling how to change your hack model number.

 

Right now I'm going down a rabbit hole of Chameleon Wizard, Clover Configurator, generating new serial numbers, checking them at Apple's check coverage, rinse, repeat, rinse.

 

It occurred to me that maybe this isn't the right way to do it. Am I doing this wrong? Is there a way to do it within Ozmosis or something? 

 

I have 5 days left to get this working and decide whether or not to keep the Radeon Vega 56. Right now 5 days doesn't feel like enough time...

[ntsmkfob]

You need a Defaults.plist in the EFI/Oz folder of your boot device. Back in this topic there is a recent example of a plist with an iMac (13,2) configuration. Others here successfully use a MacMini setup. All you should need to do is insert a SystemSerial number and BaseBoardSerial number - probably ones you used previously. You should also put kernextpatcher.plist (below) in the EFI partition.

 

Hold down F12 during boot to get to the boot menu. When there press Cmd+Option+P+R simultaneously to get the BIOS to read the new Defaults.plist. You'll need to go into the UEFI shell to find the file system to boot. If all OK you can update the BIOS to XMAX-E and try again.

KernextPatcher.plist

[valiant]

On 12/12/2019 at 6:12 AM, IronManJFF said:

You need a Defaults.plist in the EFI/Oz folder of your boot device. 

 

Thanks!

 

I think I found the defaults.plist you referenced.

 

One of the weird things is that in the wiki it says that when I update the ROM to MASS or MASX it will automatically create an Oz directory. I assume that's in /EFI/ so the path is (boot-drive)/EFI/OZ.

 

That did not seem to happen in my case, so I created an OZ directory in /EFI/ manually. Is that a flag that something went wrong, or is it OK to do it that way?

 

My EFI directory also had /BOOT and /CLOVER folders in it. I removed them.

 

I also have an Extra directory which I renamed.

 

I copied my s/n and UUID from my System Profile into /EFI/OZ/defaults.plist and rebooted.

 

My hack still thinks it's a MacPro3,1.

 

Where else could it be pulling that setting from? My machine doesn't want to download any OS installers beyond El Capitan because it doesn't think it can install them.

 

Thanks.

 

 

[ntsmkfob]

5 hours ago, valiant said:

 

Thanks!

 

I think I found the defaults.plist you referenced.

 

One of the weird things is that in the wiki it says that when I update the ROM to MASS or MASX it will automatically create an Oz directory. I assume that's in /EFI/ so the path is (boot-drive)/EFI/OZ.

 

That did not seem to happen in my case, so I created an OZ directory in /EFI/ manually. Is that a flag that something went wrong, or is it OK to do it that way?

 

My EFI directory also had /BOOT and /CLOVER folders in it. I removed them.

 

I also have an Extra directory which I renamed.

 

I copied my s/n and UUID from my System Profile into /EFI/OZ/defaults.plist and rebooted.

 

My hack still thinks it's a MacPro3,1.

 

Where else could it be pulling that setting from? My machine doesn't want to download any OS installers beyond El Capitan because it doesn't think it can install them.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[ntsmkfob]

If it's not creating the Oz directory where you expect it to be, you should check any other disks you have for an EFI directory, which is being used as the boot device instead of the one you expect. Make sure the Mac drive is connected to SATA port 0 on the motherboard. That will then be the drive the BIOS goes to for the EFI.

Edited December 17, 2019 by ntsmkfob

[IronManJFF]

After creating or modifying Defaults.plist you have to reset nvram (Command-Option-P-R) for the changes to take effect

[valiant]

I haven’t had a chance to try the suggestions above, but last night I found an old 10.11 vanilla installer stick, and was pleased that when I selected it in the BIOS the QUO was able to boot to the installer. Unfortunately it wouldn’t actually work. I tried installing on an old SSD, and I tried installing an over an existing working 10.10, but no luck.Today I will buy a new SSD drive and disconnect all of the existing drives and put the SSD in SATA 0 and try again. 

 

I am encouraged that I was able to move one step forward and actually get it to boot, but at this slow pace I don’t know if I’ll feel confidant enough that I’ll ever get it working to keep the video card on Friday...

[elviejo]

On 12/17/2019 at 6:28 AM, ntsmkfob said:

 

Your system "thinks" is a Mac Pro 3,1 because you are using a rom with the default plist in it, what you need to do is to put the ssd in sata 0 ( disconnect all other drives you have ) then you have two options, insert  an OzmosisDefaults.plist within an iMac 13,2 or Mac mini 6,2 or 8,1 in the rom provided a few posts back or put the defaults plist on the directory Ozmosis create in the EFI partition ( you will probably will need to boot from an early system to do that or do it from the shell) if you do the first when you flash the new rom it will actualize the system, you will need to go to settings and load optimized defaults and then choose PEG in the video card default, IPEG could be disabled or let as auto; remember you can't boot with the onboard card on Mojave or Catalina, you need a card supported, remember that nvidia have no drivers for mojave or catalina.

Sorry, quoted ntsmkfob instead of valiant

[elviejo]

Would be a good idea to do what IronManJFF told you to read from page 160 forward.

[valiant]

Argh. Reading back, one of the things I saw recommended was to reset PRAM. So I did. On reboot got warning that my UEFI was corrupted and it was going to restore. So I did, and ROM went back to F2N. 
 

I then updated ROM to XMAX - as I mentioned above my intent was to get new ssd and start fresh. I had done that, and formatted it to macOS first. So no internal drive other than new ssd. Updated ROM. I assume it did things it needed to, but I cannot tell, because after I rebooted...
 

Will no longer boot the 10.11 installer USB. White Apple logo, no progress bar. 
 

So I reconnected the previous fusion drive and tried booting through the BIOS. 

 

That no longer boots either. 
 

Argh. 
 

I have regressed from a working 10.10 box to one that won’t boot. 
 

I’m taking tomorrow off from work to see if I can get this to work...

[IronManJFF]

You lost me ... you told us what you wanted, we told you what to do, you did something else, now are you trying to boot El Capitan with a Vega Card ? Minimum OS for Vega drivers in macOS is Mojave

 

Let’s take this from the top ... what do you want to do ?

[valiant]

On 5/21/2019 at 2:36 AM, Bynas said:

Hi! I used a preinstalled system 10.14.5 and could not proceed (blind screen after fruit logo)
Finally, succeeded by adding the following options to Defaults.plist (It is possible that only some of them are directly necessary).

 

Z77MX-QUO-AOS@167X-XMAX-E
i7-3770k
32GB RAM
RX580 Sapphire

 

Hi.

 

Where did you find that plist editor? Is it Windows only? I'm on a Mac....

 

 

[valiant]

Update on my progress:

 

So far complete failure. I've got about 20 hours into this so far, and no progress.

 

I had a glitch of some kind and had to restore from the secondary BIOS. Was that F2N?

 

I had forgotten how elegant that interface was.

 

Anyway, I restored 828 then confirmed I could still boot my Yosemite fusion working disk.

 

Then 894 and ditto.

 

Then 1479, then 1669, then MASS.

 

However when I updated to MAX-E the Yosemite wouldn't boot any more, so I downgraded to MASS.

 

Along the way I bought a new SSD and formatted it to blank/journaled/GUID. I put it on SATA 0. Apparently one of the ROM updates is supposed to create a EFI/Oz directory on the SATA 0 disk. That never happened. I don't know if that only works if you already have a working boot OS on the drive, which I don't. But no EFI folder, no Oz folder. Just the standard hidden files a disk has.

 

Also, I never got a vanilla installer to boot. At every stage I tried a 10.11, a 10.13 and a 10.14 installer. Using my laptop I confirmed that each of the installers actually worked to boot a real Mac, but not one of them would boot the QUO, no matter which ROM I had loaded.

 

So I am currently going through this thread from page 160 copying and pasting relevant posts into a notes file to try and reduce the noise (for instance I'm not interested in dual booting).

 

So many questions. Mostly about my sanity, at this point. 20 hours is a lot of time to put into something that hasn't moved forward an inch. I have nothing but respect for JFF and others who keep this project alive for the hours they must put in, but I just feel really confused and frustrated.

 

PS early on I found an old Clover 10.9 boot USB stick I made for another build, and it booted just fine (but really s-l-o-w).

 

[IronManJFF]

Can u post your Defaults.plist ?

 

So you want Mojave, RX580, MacOS only ?

 

Hi.

 

Where did you find that plist editor? Is it Windows only? I'm on a Mac....

 

 

Don’t use it , does not work properly

[IronManJFF]

 

Quote

Along the way I bought a new SSD and formatted it to blank/journaled/GUID. I put it on SATA 0. Apparently one of the ROM updates is supposed to create a EFI/Oz directory on the SATA 0 disk. That never happened. I don't know if that only works if you already have a working boot OS on the drive, which I don't. But no EFI folder, no Oz folder. Just the standard hidden files a disk has.

 

The EFI folder will be created in the ESP partition not the regular one ... this is not Clover.

Reformat the drive
Flash XMAX-E Firmware then boot to UEFI shell...
 

fs0:
ls

 

and you should see the EFI folder

cd EFI
ls

 

And you should see the Oz folder
This is where you should put Defaults.plist. After doing this, hit Command-Option-P-R
 

 Another thing you might not be aware of is that even tough Ozmosis can boot from APFS partitioned drive, it does not know how to detect them so you have to tell it ... I made a post some time ago about that ...

Edited December 23, 2019 by IronManJFF

[elviejo]

After this Christmas I'm going to make a tutorial to install Catalina in this board, so you people don't have to read all this posts. Wait for it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

[valiant]

 

You lost me ... you told us what you wanted, we told you what to do, you did something else, now are you trying to boot El Capitan with a Vega Card ? Minimum OS for Vega drivers in macOS is Mojave

 

Let’s take this from the top ... what do you want to do ?

Sorry, I was unclear. Right now I have no video card installed, I’m just using intel HD4000 - but I now own the Vega with no option to return. What I want to do is boot Mojave and use the Vega with two 4K monitors. I used to have a gti770 but it maxes out at two 2560x1600 monitors.

 

After much pain I got it to boot the Mojave installer, install to a blank internal ssd, boot, and create a user. But when I restarted after that it would not boot, and when I went to bios config I did not see the ssd. 
 

I rebooted to Yosemite, and it did not mount the ssd, so I opened Disk Utility which saw the ssd, but the formatted portion was greyed out with a generic name. I could not mount it or boot it or use it, so eventually I just erased it and started again. I have not been able to get even that far since.

 

Also Christmas happened so I wasn’t able to spend more than about 2 hours a day trying to get things to work. 
 

But I may have figured out why the Mac thinks it’s a Macpro3,1. Today I watched a Russian YouTube about putting Mojave on quo. I didn’t understand the Russian, and he didn't do a step-by-step, but at one point he downloaded the ROM on page 160 and opened it with some kind of utility. He showed a setting near the end that says the Mac is a macpro3,1. That model maxes out at El Capitan 10.11. Maybe that’s why I can’t install Mojave? MAXX is the ROM that I’m using since I couldn’t boot back into Yosemite with XMAX.

Edited December 29, 2019 by valiant
Additional info.

[valiant]

On 12/17/2019 at 4:34 AM, ntsmkfob said:

If it's not creating the Oz directory where you expect it to be, you should check any other disks you have for an EFI directory, which is being used as the boot device instead of the one you expect. Make sure the Mac drive is connected to SATA port 0 on the motherboard. That will then be the drive the BIOS goes to for the EFI.

I’m a dumb ass. I forgot that there’s a separate partition on the hard drive called EFI. I was seeing a folder in the working partition called EFI that must have been put there by a Clover attempt and looking for Oz in there. I finally found the EFI partition and sure enough there was an Oz directory in there. 
 

For my own future reference I write this here:

 

/EFI/* ≠ /boot/EFI/*

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT: I still haven’t figured out what /L/E stands for though...

Edited December 30, 2019 by valiant

[valiant]

Thanks @IronManJFF I’ll try what you posted on Dec 23 and let you know how it goes.
 

Along the way I tried upgrading my working Yosemite 10.10 install to El Capitan 10.11 and it no longer boots, so I’m flying a bit blind... or digging the ssd out of the computer, moving it to an external case, and plugging it into my laptop then reversing the procedure to use my changes. That slows things down...

[valiant]

Stream of consciousness…

 

One. Took out all drives. Took new SSD to laptop and reformatted it – as you said it was a APFS so the drive had a volume and a subvolume. I reformatted it to journaled/guid. 
 

Two. Took it out of the external case on the laptop and reinstall it into the Macintosh. Put in Oz thumb drive and upgraded UEFI to XMAX_E. On completion there was a logo flash of Hermit Crab and four progress words ending in “completed”. Then it restarted and I got the shell verbiage (unusually short because so few drives installed). 

 

Three. Typed “fs0:” (spelling matters). Got listing. Cd’d into “Efi” and listed. Sure enough there’s an APPLE, an Oz and a Quo directory. 
 

Four. Typed “exit”. Got an Apple progress bar that ended in a no entry sign. No surprise, there’s no OS on there.
 

Four: Removed the SSD from the hackintosh case again and put it back in the external case and put it back on the laptop and decided to do a clean vanilla install of Mojave. I did it that way rather than using a thumb drive because I read above somewhere somebody else had done it that way and it worked. Also I’ve had very little luck getting the quo to boot from thumb drives... 
 

Five: Several hours later and after much travail got Mojave to install on the ssd and booting the laptop. Clicked through and created user. Found defaults.plist on p161 and copied it to textwrangler and saved it to desktop. Got to the “insert your serial number here” section and had to chase down info on how to. Eventually got clover configurator to generate an unused imac13.2 s/n and board number. 

NOTE: THE SUPPLIED PLIST ON P162 HAS AN ERROR:
Line 16 ends with “ > ” — that’s “space closeanglebracket invisiblecharacter”.

I corrected that and inserted the s/ns (using the text editor, not clover configurator as per your observation above that it doesn’t work right).

 

I then went to put defaults.plist into /EFI/Oz/ and noticed the /EFI/ partition was empty. I double-checked using Terminal in case they were invisible for some reason but /EFI/ was empty. No APPLE, no Oz, no Quo. 
 

So I grabbed the QUOROM flash drive and copied the defaults.plist to it. 

 

Six: I took the SSD out of the portable case and re-mounted it back into the hackintosh. I then re-ran the flash bios procedure to reinstall XMAX-E. This time when I did the fs0: listings I saw that XMAX only created the Oz directory. There’s no APPLE directory, no Quo directory. Oz contains Darwin and ACPI directories which I did not investigate. 
 

QUESTION: are the /EFI/APPLE and /EFI/Quo directories necessary? If so can I put them back somehow or do I need to go back to Step One and this time try and figure out how to install from a thumb drive (that took me about 30 hours the last time before Christmas).

 

Seven: Used CP to copy defaults.plist from QUOROM thumb drive to the SSD /EFI/Oz/ directory. Rebooted to UEFI and... no sign of the SSD in the list of devices. And then I remembered:
 

On 12/23/2019 at 4:51 AM, IronManJFF said:

Another thing you might not be aware of is that even tough Ozmosis can boot from APFS partitioned drive, it does not know how to detect them so you have to tell it ... I made a post some time ago about that ...

 

I don’t suppose you remember how long ago? Or a keyword I could use for searching?

 

Thanks. 
 

Hmm. This forum doesn’t have very good search. I did a search by author on IronManJFF for APFS and got zero hits, not even the one above on this page... if someone could point me to that post I would be grateful...

 

PS Happy New Year to everyone!

Edited December 30, 2019 by valiant