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Lenovo P50: Hackintosh Mojave/Catalina/BigSur/Monterey Guide (Clover and OC)


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Hello all fellow Hackintoshers,

 

In this guide, I'll be hackintoshing a Lenovo ThinkPad P50 Mobile-Workstation.

Thinkpad_P50.jpg   Thinkpad_P50_sides.jpg

 

From its time period, it's one of the better built systems that has an inner magnesium-alloy inside. I think that this particular workstation is a step above some of its competitors from 2016 and also, for me, was a better choice for a few reasons:

  • Intel Core i7-6700hq or up to an Intel Xeon E3-1505m CPU with ECC memory.
  • Up to 120hz (optional) 1920x1080p display IPS or a 4k UHD 3840x2160 IPS display
  • Up 64gb DDR4 2133MHz RAM
  • Up to 2 SATA SSD's or 2 NVME SSD's and 1 SATA SSD (HDD OR SSD)
  • Fully supported trackpad (mac-like trackpad)
  • Intel 8260ngw WIFI and Bluetooth supported (Airdrop, etc..)
  • Hot swappable battery (6 cell, 90wh)

 

So, the current specs of my machine are as follows:

 

1. Intel Quad-Core Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz-3.5GHz with a TDP of 45 watts with 6MB of L3 cache 

2. 32GB 2133MHz of DDR4 RAM

3. 512GB NVME Samsung OEM from Lenovo (OEM Lenovo Windows 10 Install)

4. 1TB 5400RPM WD Mechanical Drive (Currently macOS Catalina 10.15.7)

5. Intel WIFI/Bluetooth 7260NGW combo card

6. 1920x1080P IPS 60Hz display

 

As you can see, this Hackintosh from 2016 is still capable up to 10.15.7 macOS Catalina. My machine is running 10.4.6 macOS Mojave. I will note that with the Clover EFI being posted, I'm not sure if it'll have everything working under Catalina, but mostly everything works under macOS Mojave. Now, with the specs out of the way, let's dig into this Hackintosh guide:

 

1/ BIOS Configuration:
In order to have a working and bootable macOS USB, we need to change some setting in the Lenovo BIOS. To do that, press the F1 key to enter the BIOS setup. The settings that need to are UEFI support and CSM support to no. To access those settings, go under the boot section, set the boot mode to UEFI only boot and change the CSM support to no. Also, make the Mac drive (HDD/SSD) as the main boot drive. I did change other settings but ended up causing a kernel panick. Now, with the setting out of the way, time to install macOS. 

 

2/ Creating the macOS Mojave USB: 
For me this was the easiest step as I already had the USB premade on a drive but I will paste the command that I used into this guide. In order to make this Hackintosh 99%, you will either need a Mac. In order to make the bootable USB disk, open up Terminal and copy + paste this command: 

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

 

Once the USB command is then copied into Terminal, you'll want to wait 10-15 minutes, or however long it'll take depending on the USB drive. Once that is done, let's move onto the next step. 

 

3/ Putting the EFI folder into the EFI partition of the USB:
Now, this step is quite simple. All you want to do is mount the EFI partition using a program called ESP Mounter Pro. Once mounted, then simply copy and paste the Clover EFI folder into the EFI partition of the USB drive. Once that is done, now it's time to boot, change some settings in the BIOS and install macOS Mojave.


4/ Installing macOS Mojave:

For me, to get a fully bootable Clover setup took me a long time to get working with all of the stuff that I wanted to have working. To boot the macOS USB drive, press F12 to have access to the boot menu. Once done, use the arrow key to select the USB drive (mine was a SanDisk 128gb Ultra drive), and boot to the Clover menu then into the installer. From here, go to disk utility, erase your HDD or SSD, then install Mojave. Once that's done, the actual time to install macOS will take anything from 16-30 minutes, depending on your HDD or SSD drive. After the install, setup the OS like a real Mac and then, we'll make the HDD/SSD bootable.

 

5/ Making the HDD/SSD bootable:

Making this bootable is pretty much the same as making the USB bootable. Use ESP Mounter Pro to mount the EFI partition of the HDD/SSD. Once EFI is mounted, reboot and enjoy a fully working "BlackBook Pro!"

 

In conclusion, I really like this laptop as it has a fantastic keyboard and great storage options. For me, running macOS Mojave on a WD Black HDD is not the worst of experience. I find it quite fast and stable but only time will tell. I will try to have this guide kept open if there's any issues that occur. Other than that, happy Hackintoshing your Lenovo ThinkPad P50 Mobile-Workstation!

 

I want to give credits to Jake Lo for helping me create a working EFI folder and making my system bootable.

Latest Lenovo P50 BP.zip

 

You want to the Intel Bluetooth and WIFI kexts into EFI/Clover/KextsOther. I wouldn't modify the actual kext files that are installed with macOS unless you've got experience.

IO80211Family.kext.zip

Intel Bluetooth.zip

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A few things to bear in mind to avoid all possible confusion:

  • in section #3, the EFI partition may not exist on the USB key selected to make the USB installer and Clover may not be installed on that USB key either.
  • to cater for this, section #2 should have stipulated the important step of installing Clover on the USB installer. This is done by running the (previously downloaded) Clover installation package and targeting the USB key. It's an absolutely mandatory pre-requisite. Clover installation settings/options should ideally be provided here too.
  • in the same respect, section #5 completely missed 2 x essential steps to make the HDD/SSD bootable:
    • install Clover on it (kind of obvious but it's not even mentioned)
    • copy the contents of the provided Clover pack into the Clover EFI folder of the HDD/SSD's EFI mounted partition (also kind of obvious but missing)

Without those key steps, neither the USB installer, not the target HDD/SSD will be able to boot Clover and the macOS installer or the installed macOS partition.

 

Also note that (hidden) EFI partitions can be mounted through other tools or methods such as:

  • Clover Configurator tool
  • Terminal command sudo diskutil mount <diskNsM> where <diskNsM> is the identifier of the EFI partition shown by command diskutil list
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Hello all,


I'd like to share that I was able to successfully install Catalina with Clover and Big Sur with OC! Thanks to Jake Lo, I was able to install both of these versions of macOS without any issues! Both OC and Clover will be posted below. Having this awesome machine being such a cool hackintosh really shows the potential of this machine!

For the Kext files, put them in EFI/OC/Kexts. This is for Big Sur. The EFI.zip file is the one that is meant for Catalina. 

Big Sur P50 2.zip AirportItlwm.kext.zip

Intel Bluetooth.zip

EFI.zip

You are going to want to use the same Intel Bluetooth Kext files for Clover but use the IO80211Family.kext that'll be posted. For that, those file will be stored in EFI/Clover/Kexts/Other.

 

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Hello, 

 

I'm back to Hackintoshing my ThinkPad P50 and with all the help from Jake Lo, I was able to have macOS Monterey with OC 0.7.5! I was able to also improve the battery life. This newer OC file also work inconjunction with macOS BS as well! I'll be uploading the OC file along with the WIFI kext that works in macOS Monterey. You will still need to use the bluetooth kext files posted above in order for it to fully work.

EFI.zip AirportItlwm_Monterey.kext.zip

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