[GUIDE] Install Clover Bootloader In USB or EFI Partition

We need a bootloader that makes it possible to boot OS X on x86 and x86_64 PCs.

There are 4 popular bootloaders to choose from.

• Clover
• Chameleon
• Chimera
• Opencore EFI

I went with Clover as it seems to be the most popular choice among other Hackintoshers, mostly for the following reasons:

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Clover is an open-source EFI-based bootloader created on Apr 4, 2011. It has a totally different approach from Chameleon and Chimera. It can emulate the EFI portion present on real Macs and boot the OS from there instead of using the regular legacy BIOS approach used by Chameleon and Chimera. For many, Clover is considered the next-gen bootloader and soon it will become the only choice since BIOS is being replaced by UEFI in every new motherboard. One big feature of Clover is that iMessage, iCloud, the Mac App Store works along with Find My Mac, Back To My Mac and FileVault since Clover can use the EFI partition.

Install Clover on Your USB Drive or EFI partition

Installing Clover on your USB drive is relatively easy. It involves running an installation wizard and selecting some options.

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Download the latest Clover installer from here.

1. Run the installer.
2. Click Continue twice.
3. Click Change Install Location and set it to your formatted USB drive.
4. Click Customize and check the following options:
   – check “Install for UEFI booting only”, “Install Clover in the ESP” will automatically select– check following from Drivers64UEFI
   Code:

   Drivers64UEFI->FSInject-64
   Drivers64UEFI->ApfsDriverLoader-64 -> This is the APFS file system driver
   Drivers64UEFI->AptioMemoryFix-64
   Drivers64UEFI->SMCHelper-64 (VirtualSMC.efi if using VirtualSMC.kext, SMCHelper-64.efi is not compatible with VirtualSMC.efi and must be removed)

   – select “Install RC scripts on target volume” and/or “Install all RC scripts on all other boot volumes”.

5. Click Install and wait for the installation to finish. It shouldn’t take more than a minute.

Copy Essential Kexts to the USB Drive

Next, we’ll need to copy some kexts (kernel extensions, similar to drivers on Windows) to the USB drive.

– FakeSMC.kext https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-fakesmc-kozlek/downloads/

–Lilu.kext https://github.com/acidanthera/Lilu/

– CPUFriend.kext https://github.com/acidanthera/CPUFriend/

– RealtekRTL8100.kext https://github.com/Mieze/RealtekRTL8100 (source)

– USBInjectAll.kext https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-usb-inject-all/

– VoodooPS2Controller.kext https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-voodoo-ps2-controller/

– WhateverGreen.kext https://github.com/acidanthera/WhateverGreen/

Download these files from given links and copy them to the EFI mounted volume at /EFI/Clover/kexts/others/

Clover is now ready to run.

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