Create Clover & Chameleon Boot USB Flash Disk
under Windows XP and above.

Full (partial-format-only) installation of Clover bootloader on USB Flash drive:

On the menu Options->Configuration choose:

1. Boot data set (set of bootloader files):

• built-in (embedded revisions " Clover&Chameleon«),
• External (external) - downloads a zip archive with a folder and file structure similar to the installed bootloader,
• Not Install (do not install) - only formatting with the installation of boot sectors.

2. format options (formatting options):

• boot records (boot sectors) -> clover ,
• Align to sectors: 8192 (default)
• Align to sectors: 63 (if some strange/old BIOSes can't see flash drive
• Rest default.

3. Multi Partitioning (breakdown into volumes):

• Boot Partition Size (boot volume size - to your taste) - uncheck if we do not plan to create a second volume on the same disk (for example, for the MACOSX distribution).

4. Enable Fixed Disk (activation of work with non-USB drives) - warning -> " at one's own risk«!
5. Press the button " OK «.
6. In the main program window -> Destination Disk (destination disk) - select the required object (USB Flash Drive) for installation.
7. Press the button " format disk «.
8. We are waiting and enjoying the result of the program.

Editing (if necessary) configuration files of loaders

We extract the image of the HFS (HFS +) partition from the distribution kit, to deploy it on a USB Flash drive:

Image 10.9 Mavericks is not bootable! Therefore, we use the converted image from here

For use:
Unpack the .zip archive, and the 5.hfs file contained in it can be immediately deployed to a USB flash drive via BDU.

Uploading the MACOSX distribution to the second volume of the bootable USB Flash drive:

1. We carry out a complete installation of Clover bootloader on a USB Flash Drive with a checkmark on Boot Partition Size.
2. We get USB flash drive , broken into two volumes . (Note Unfortunately, by default, OS Windows does not support multi-volume USB Flash Drive, so only one partition will be available under Windows.)
3. Download the MACOSX distribution selected for installation. This distribution, of course, must meet all the necessary requirements for installation on a PC
4. We extract the image from the distribution kit HFS(HFS+) partition (this will be a file with the extension hfs )
The way to get the desired HFS image will depend on the degree of nativeness of your source distribution:

• For various distro builds, you can try to extract via the menu: Tools -> Extract HFS(HFS+) partition from DMG-files .
• What you are using may not be the original InstallESD.dmg taken from the retail package InstallOSXMountainLion.app/Contents/SharedSupport/ but the original image repackaged into a different image and with a different name, for example OSXMountainLion.dmg. InstallESD.dmg from the repackaged archive is easier to find and extract using the 7zFM.exe program. And only then, from it, get the HFS image we need.

5. In the main program window -> Destination Disk - choose our USB flash drive -> part2 .
6. Press the button " Restore Partition «.
7. In the explorer window that opens, select the unpacked file with *. hfs . The file must be no larger than part2 .
8. We are waiting and enjoying the result of the program

Note!!!

When installing OS X from this flash drive, the Recovery HD partition is automatically created - it is not created!

If you really need a Recovery HD partition, then download a separate package from the Apple website:
RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg
Using this package, the link creates a full-fledged Recovery HD partition for OS X Mavericks

The most common work with the computer and the system is copying, moving and other work with folders. This is sometimes inconvenient, especially when you need to work with multiple folders. Usually open several desired folders and collapse them. Then they switch between them, which also causes some inconvenience.
Some install third-party file managers and somehow solve it this way.
But in this article I will show you a program that will simply replace the conductor and make the work much more familiar and convenient.

Many of us spend most of our computer time on the Internet. We are sitting through different, but browsers based on the Chrominium engine (not necessarily Google) are gaining more and more popularity. Therefore, its interface is most familiar to us, as in other browsers.

In general, EJIE Technology has developed a program that replaces Windows Explorer and makes it look like a browser. A sort of Chrome Explorer turns out =)

Take a look and you will immediately understand what I mean:

note that right-clicking on a tab opens the same context menu that is present in browsers:

And here it is, just in case. list of hotkeys for working with tabs in this Explorer:

Open in new window.
- Open a new tab.
Hold down a key while clicking on a folder - Open a folder in a new tab in the background.
- Open the last closed tab.
- Switch to the tab with the specified position number on the tab.
- Switch to the last tab.
- Move to the next tab.
- Move to the previous tab.
- Close the current window.
- Close the current tab or popup window.
- Open and close the bookmarks bar.
- Save the current tab as a bookmark in the bookmarks folder.
- Save all tabs as bookmarks in your bookmarks folder.

The screenshot above shows the settings. Everything is clear there, but regarding the topic, I would like to clarify that themes from Google Chrome are used with .crx. So you can download your favorite theme from the browser and install it yourself.

Other features of the program:

Greetings, I would like to consider in more detail the installation and configuration of the Clover bootloader on the HDD. Every second Mac OS user on a hackintosh faces problems setting up Clover on their hard drive. And to put it simply, there are not many settings in Clover itself, but where we have to dig is config.plist. The slightest mistake or extra entry can prevent the Mac OS X operating system from starting on a PC, passing incorrect values.

It often turns out that the system flies in an elementary way, even without tambourines - this is possible when an image was created created for a more or less similar PC configuration. But when we install Clover on a hard drive, it does not want to start the system in any way. And you always have to use a flash drive to boot the system. Why go far, for the first months myself, I used it until I figured out what and why.

By the way, this improves security very well, did not think about it. In this case, the flash drive is the key to the system!

In 80%, copying the contents of the EFI partition from the flash drive to the EFI hard drive will not help either.

Why is this happening?

The answer is very simple - config.plist is not configured for your hardware. For an installation flash drive, they do not always use a full-fledged configuration file, more often they use a truncated one with a minimum number of patches, blocking the OS X installer from detecting hardware - this is quite enough for the system to install.

Even if you are lucky and transferring EFI from a flash drive to an HDD will still start the system, it is not realistic to make predictions about performance and stability indicators. It is not known what values ​​Clover set automatically.

Once properly configured, EFI and Config.plist should ideally support any version. In my case, I can run and install Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra with the same bootloader. Therefore, my EFI partition is the same for the installation flash drive and for the HDD.

Installing the Clover bootloader on your hard drive

I recommend everyone to download it, so it will already be finalized for newer OS X operating systems. For example, my EFI, which I did 3 years ago, will launch Mavericks wonderfully, but does not want to run El Capitan in any way, but the latest version also launches sets any of them. But it is worth noting right away that the latest versions of Clover 2.40 no longer support some older versions of Mac OS X, .

This may be due to the fact that each version of the bootloader has its own flaws that were fixed in the future and this may not be in your version, but in any case it will not be worse. What errors and shortcomings were corrected, and a hundred supplemented, you can read. By the way, using the old Clover and SMBIOS IMac, the front USB ports did not work for me, after I installed the latest version of the bootloader, the ports worked, draw your own conclusions.

Today, for the sake of interest, I installed several versions and checked on El Capitan. The boot time and operation of Mac OS X is exactly the same. I wanted to test the words of a popular hackintosh video blogger who claims that with each update of Clover, the load time is getting longer, which is complete nonsense. The download time depends on many factors, which I described in .

1. Download Clover EFI Bootloader.

2. Run the installer.

3. Set up CLOVER

In my case Clover_v2.4k_r4012 but currently available Clover_v2.4k_r4035.Kak times and I will be updated))).

Click to continue...

Changing the installation location to your system drive...

Click Continue and select "Configure"

Now we will consider the settings for UEFI boot, which is supported by almost all BIOS versions on motherboards of the last decade, and it seems to me that the previous one too.

Leave the top two marked points. In this case, there will be some relief for us in choosing additional drivers that are designed for older BIOS versions, additional drivers for NTFS, PS2 Mouse, FAT, and so on.

Some items become inaccessible to us, and for the most part they are not needed. The only one of these items that can be useful is the choice of the theme of the CLOVER menu. But when choosing, it should be taken into account that a beautiful theme requires more time to download and install an additional driver for normal display on the same HD and FULL HD monitors and on monitors with a higher resolution. There is a desire to bother.

Go straight to Driver64UEFI

Celebrating EmuVariableUefi-64, OsxAptioFix2Drv-64, OsxAptioFixDrv-64, PartitionDxe-64 is a required set of drivers to run OS X on a PC. In some cases, you can not check PartitionDxe-64 if you have a blank disk formatted during installation, but sometimes the system may not start without it.

CsmVideoDxe-64- this is just the driver you need to display on HD, Full HD and high resolution monitors. This driver will stretch the theme to fit your screen resolution so that there is no distortion, and it will also show a neat little apple, just like on real macs. But with this driver, the operating system does not always start and a forced reboot is required. And it can show up anytime. You can boot for a month without problems, and then you will see a prohibition sign. And after a few reboots, restart the system. There is a desire to install, I still suffered with it using Mavericks, in recent years I have refused it on the hard drive, I put it only on bootable flash drives, and even then not always.

And click install ... Enter the password and close the Clover window after installation.

Configuring an EFI Partition

After installation, you will have an icon on your desktop when the EFI partition is mounted, which is created automatically by the bootloader. If you set the settings, as I did, then when you open it, you will have the same files on the disk.

Immediately go to EFI -> CLOVER -> kexts

We delete folders that we do not need and which we are not going to use. I remove everything except 10.9, 10.11, 10.12, Other. Other - must remain mandatory.

In each of the remaining folders we place FakeSMC.kext- this is mandatory for everyone or the system will not start.

Radeon card owners will need Verde.kext, when installing and booting Mavericks with an ATI AMD Radeon7xxx video card, Verde is not needed, it works like a native one. In all versions above 10.9, the video card will not start without it, you will see a black screen after the system boots.

Many people recommend throwing network kexts here, but I don’t do this, so that it would be possible to install and reinstall OS X if necessary, using the EFI partition of the hard disk, I don’t need to put CLOVER on a flash drive in this case. I install the network and sound kext directly on the system.

Did you know that when you format the system partition through disk utility during installation, EFI is not formatted, which makes it possible to use it all the time. If you are not sure, put CLOVER on a flash drive, it will not be worse, but it will help to avoid unpleasant situations.

By the way, if you have a lot of EFI partitions, this can be seen from the long list of bootloaders in the BIOS, in .

If you have a ready DSDT, then we put it in EFI -> ACPI -> patched. If you don't have it, skip it...

Pay attention to how it should be displayed. If you just upload an uncompiled file with errors, it will be displayed as a regular text file. In this case, most likely CLOVER will generate data automatically, without paying attention to your file.

Setting config.plist in CLOVER

To configure config.plist I use Clover configurator . Perhaps in another version it will have a slightly different interface, but after the update it will be like in the screenshots.

Most often, CLOVER automatically generates a pretty good config.plist, but still it may contain inaccuracies that you will have to correct, and you will definitely need to supplement it.

I am attaching an example:

Automatically generated Clover:

My config.plist:

But still, these settings in most cases are quite capable of starting the system.

If you have a ready-made DSDT, enter the name in the DSDT name field. Min and Max multiplier can be specified, but not always. This item can slow down the system, because the BIOS data, DSDT will not match, which will lead to a conflict and a noticeable slowdown of Mac OS.

In point BOOT, you specify boot arguments, CLOVER automatic system start timer, main disk to boot the system.

Arguments:

npci=0x3000 - used for installing with Radeon cards, npci=0x2000 for NVidia. When installing the system, the kext-dev-mode=1 argument may be required. I will not list them all, according to the description of the arguments, there are enough articles. In my case, no argument is needed when downloading and installing any version of the system, in your case one or more of the above may be needed.

CPU is more for cosmetics, what value will you set here in the first field:

This value will be displayed in the About This Mac window.

The next important point Graphics

It includes support for Nvidia and ATI cards, but these items do not always need to be included, they are very different for each series of video cards. If you turn on the wrong item, the video card will not start after the system boots, the screen will simply turn off and go into standby mode.

A very important SMBIOS item, without it the system will not boot.

SMBIOS is the serial number and configuration of a real Apple computer. Press the magic wand and select the model that is most similar in configuration. It is important to consider when choosing a model that the version must be supported by your operating system. For example, you should not install IMac 8.1 if you have El Capitan installed - 99% that it will not start. If you make a mistake, boot from the flash drive and change the data to the appropriate ones. If there is no flash drive, go to the menu CLOVER -> Options -> SMBIOS and impudently change IMac 8.1 to IMac 14.1, for example, in 95% of cases this is enough to install and run the OS X system.

But here, too, there are small nuances, since SMBIOS also imitates some of the processes taking place on Apple computers. For example, on my computer, when the IMac is installed, it turns off for a long time - it goes out, but the fans are spinning for some time, and everything is fine with the specified Mac PRO.

In the last paragraph of System Parameters, it is important to set Inject Kext -> Yes, Inject System ID.

Very often, it is enough to simply add SMBIOS to the automatically generated config.plist, but as I already wrote, everything depends only on your hardware.

Important! If, when setting up the configuration file, for some reason, without making sure that it works, you turned on fast boot "Fast" or timer "0", and you need to get into the Clover panel, then immediately after loading the BIOS, press the " Space". This will bring up a bootloader selection and bootloader configuration window.

If the first time you didn’t succeed, then you can mount the EFI partition using EFI Mounter. In Sierra only using the command in the terminal:

1. diskutil list- will show the entire list of disks
2. diskutil mount disk0s1- Where disk0s1 number EFI section

In order not to be unfounded, I placed the configured config when writing it in EFI and rebooted remarkably. That is, for my hardware, it is quite enough to simply add SMBIOS to the automatic config.plist created by CLOVER.

Try it, do not be afraid if the first time you do not succeed, everyone goes through this. Remember that a properly configured config is not only suitable for Mavericks or El Capitan - it is suitable for both Sierra and Yosemite.