Hello all,
I started my OSX install last night and could use some help/guidance. Please bear with me, I'm new to OSX and could use some answers to the "why" we're doing some of the things we are. I'm also including extra info to help others to see how I overcame an issue in case it helps someone else.
I decided to use Sierra, instead of High Sierra as it seems to be more stable and all the kinks have been worked out. However, this was based on posts from last year and many of that may have been ironed out. Please correct me if I'm wrong. My main purpose is to learn Swift via Xcode.
My hardware: Dell Latitude 5480, i5-7440HQ (Kaby Lake), Intel HD630, 16GB DDR4 and 500GB Samsung SSD.
Other OSes: Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. No compatible WiFi card yet.
I followed the following guide to get to where I am now. Thank you Jake Lo!
My first attempt, I did not install any of the KEXT files and I wasn't able to get past the start up. Black screen with Apple logo, no status load bar. After a few seconds, it would then have a circle with a strike throughout. What is this and why does this occur? I'm sorry for my ignorance, I'm not an OSX user at all.
I re-read the instructions and replaced, not merged, the EFI folder with the one created with Clover. I then installed the patch(?) file provided in the below post specifically for Kaby Lake and HD620 (though I have a HD630).
I found in a thread and noticed the files they we're suggesting to use had the same modification date as the one produced by Clover. Is that correct? I opened the config file in Coda and copied and pasted the FakeID- FakeCPUID, FakeID- IntelGfX as well as IntelGfx code for the "Skylake Glitch Fix" as suggested in the link. Should I have included the latter even though I have Kaby Lake and not Sky Lake?
Once done, I saw the Apple load screen again. However, it changed from black background/white Apple logo to grab background/black Apple logo. Why did it change? Once it loads and the status bar disappears, I noticed it now takes a little longer to get to the select Language screen, compared to the black background/white Apple logo which was near instant. Somewhere along the lines, I switched to Safe Mode via hitting space bar in Clover and selecting the item. Could that be the reason?
I proceeded with the install and realized I didn't make a partition and couldn't make one through Disk Utility. Doh! I logged in through Windows, created another volume and Simple Partition (exFAT) from my existing Windows partition. I reloaded all the install stuff, selected the drive, erased and formatted to OSX Extended (Journaled). I then got an indicating I could not continue with the installation due to an "Undefined error." Turns out I didn't copy the two files in step 1.19 (BaseSystem.dmg and BaseSystem.chunklist).
I copied them over and viola, was able to successfully complete the install after 12 agonizing minutes of watching the status bar to see if it would finish.
I pulled the drive and restarted my computer, and was excited to see the OSX install in my boot manager, however, it was not there (just my normal Windows and Ubuntu options).
With that being said, can someone point out the wrong steps I took along the way? I'm sure there were many missteps as well as incorrect assumptions. Also, I've successfully installed it to the partition, but why can't I see OSX in my boot options?
Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post!