Guide to fresh installing macOS Catalina on a Hackintosh (10.15 Update)

January 8, 2022

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For those without deep pockets or who don’t want to own a Mac, here’s how to install macOS Catalina 10.15 on any custom build desktop computer. This hackintosh guide will walk through installing Catalina step-by-step from start to finish bundled into an easy copy-paste guide. This means that the initial configuring that’s required to get macOS up and running have already been preconfigured and should work for most new desktop computers.

Catalina Hackintosh Install Full Guide

This guide should work on most newer computers that are less than 5 years old. If you need a new system thats hackintosh compatible check out our list of compatible parts or the build list for hackintosh friendly parts.

Completed Builds with macOS Catalina:

This is just a desktop guide if you are looking to install macOS Catalina on a laptop I suggest you search elsewhere for a guide for your specific laptop as . the steps can be more intricate and complicated than whats in this guide.

You will need a computer running macOS already to follow this guide. If you do not have a Mac you will need to spend some time setting up a virtual machine on your Windows/Linux PC first.

Step 1: Download – Get a copy of macOS Catalina

To begin the setup of a Hackintosh we first need a clean copy of Catalina, which can be downloaded from the App Store:

Step 2: Installer – Create the macOS Catalina flash drive

Now that we have a copy of macOS Catalina the next step is to convert it into a flash drive installer. That’s done by first making a GUID formatted flash drive, using Terminal to move the installer image onto the flash drive and then editing the hidden EFI Partition on the flash drive to contain the necessary EFI Folder to boot macOS on non-Mac hardware. How to make a macOS 10.15 Catalina flash drive installer

How to make a macOS 10.15 Catalina flash drive installer

Step 3: Catalina EFI Partition & Drop Files

Mount EFI Partition:
1. Download Clover Configurator
2. Open Clover Configurator
3. Select Mount EFI under TOOLS
4. Click Mount Partition for Install macOS….
5. Click Open Partition
Drop my EFI Folder in:
1. Delete the folder called EFI in the partition you mounted (If it exists)
2. Download Hackintosher-Catalina-10.15-EFI.zip
3. Unzip Hackintosher-Catalina-10.15-EFI
4. Copy the unzipped EFI folder
5. Paste the EFI folder downloaded from this website into your mounted EFI partition or /Volumes/EFI

Note: The EFI folder above if from a Z370/Z390 build and may require you to:

change the ig-platform-id,
enable a valid EC patch change or remove the EC rename
add kext or remove kexts you don’t need.

Step 4: Generating a DSDT table

Catalina requires an extra step to the install where we must spoof the EC device. To do that we must first prematurely boot into the Clover Menu then press F4 to generate a DSDT file map.

Restart or boot the computer you want to install Catalina on with the flash drive is plugged in
Boot from the UEFI partition of the flash drive by either selecting it as a temporary boot device or setting it as priority in BIOS settings.
You will be brought to the Clover Bootloader Menu
Press F4 and that will generate an DSDT onto the EFI partition of your flash drive located in /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/origin
Return to your other Mac or boot back into the virtual machine you were using.

Step 5: Catalina Desktop EC Spoofing

Spoof EC by turning off real one and setting a fake one up recommended for desktops, do not use for laptops

Download SSDT-Time and unzip the folder
1. Read the instructions
Open SSDTTime-master folder
Right-click open SSDTTime.command
This will open Terminal
Please make a selection: 2
Drag and drop a DSDT.aml or origin folder of mounted EFI partition folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/origin
SSDTTime will automatically open it’s own Results folder
Copy SSDT-EC.aml from the Results folder and place it in /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched of the flash drive
- Note: The patched folder not the origins folder

If you are unable to get SSDTTime work try this rename method instead. I’ve already included the rename patches in config.plist but they all set to disabled, just enable the one that’s right for you.

Step 6: Bootloader – Configuring Clover config.plist for Install

We now need to configure the file in our EFI folder called config.plist to work with our hardware by opening and modifying it with Clover Configurator.

Navigate to /Volumes/EFI/EFI/CLOVER/
Right-click config.plist
Select Open With Clover Configurator

Step 6.1: Configuring ig platform id

For graphics to work properly we need to manually tell macOS which way graphics is run by setting a property value to AAPL,ig-platform-id

AAPL,ig-platform-id can be found by Selecting Devices on the left-side column of Clover Configurator > Selecting the Properties tab > Clicking PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0) > Double clicking Properties Value*

The Property Value is determined by the generation of Intel CPU and whether your Display/PC Monitor cable is connected to integrated graphics (iGPU) or a dedicated graphics card (dGPU):
- Coffee Lake Intel UHD Graphics 630
  - iGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 07009B3E
  - dGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 0300923E
- Kaby Lake Intel HD Graphics 630
  - iGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 00001259
  - dGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 03001259
  Sky Lake Intel HD Graphics 530
  - iGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 00001219
  - dGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 01001219
  Haswell Intel HD Graphics 4600
  - iGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 0300220D
  - dGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 04001204
  Ivy Bridge Intel HD Graphics 4000
  - iGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 05006201
  - dGPU:
    - AAPL,ig-platform-id: 07006201
Save config.plist

Step 6.2: Setting a proper SMBIOS

The default config.plist is configured for a 8th or 9th Gen Intel CPU If you an older CPU older CPU then you will need to make changes to the SMBIOS section located in config.plist in order to boot macOS by mimicking the properties of an older Mac.

Click SMBIOS on left column
Select the Up-Down arrow in the bottom right corner of Clover Configurator to change the SMBIOS closest to your CPU, I recommend:
- Coffee Lake Refresh (9th Gen) iMac 19,1 or Mac mini 8,1 or Mac Pro 7,1
- Coffee Lake (8th Gen) Mac mini 8,1 or iMac 19,2
- Kaby Lake (8th Gen) iMac 18,1 or iMac 18,3
- Sky Lake (6th Gen) iMac 17,1 or iMac 14,2
- Haswell (4th Gen) iMac 14,2
- Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen) iMac 14,2
Save config.plist

Step 6.3 Extra Bootflags

Certain setups require extras boot flags only needed for Z390 motherboards and AMD Navi graphics cards.

Click Boot
Click the “+” near the button of Arguments box
- For Z390 Motherboard add: slide=0
- AMD Navi RX 5xxx XT graphics add: agdpmod=pikera
Save config.plist

Step 7: BIOS – Recommended Settings

Restart your computer and press the DEL key or required key to enter BIOS when computer posts the splash screen logo.

We’ll now need to change some BIOS settings that are macOS and hackintosh friendly 🙂

Recommendation: Check out the builds section and find a motherboard by the same manufacturer as you have. Then scroll down to it’s BIOS settings to find the exact location of each setting that needs to be changed if your having trouble.

You’re motherboard may not have all of these settings and that’s okay:

Change the following settings:

Virtualization : Enabled
VT-d : Disabled
XHCI Hand-Off : Enabled
Legacy USB Support: Auto/Enabled
IO SerialPort : Disabled
Network Stack : Disabled
XMP Profile : Auto / Profile 1/Enabled
UEFI Booting set to Enabled and set Priority over Legacy
Secure Boot : Disabled
Fast Boot : Disabled
OS Type: Other OS
Wake on LAN : Disabled

Based on the GPU you’re using change the following settings:

Dedicated Graphics + Integrated graphics card:

Integrated Graphics : Enabled
Primary Display Graphics: PEG/PCIe Slot 1
Initial Display Output : PCIe 1 Slot
DVMT Pre-Allocated : 128M or higher

Dedicated graphics card:

Integrated Graphics : Disabled
Primary Display Graphics: PEG/PCIe Slot 1
Initial Display Output : PCIe 1 Slot

Intel iGPU:

Integrated Graphics : Enabled
Primary Display Graphics: IGD/Integrated/iGPU/CPU Graphics
DVMT Pre-Allocated : 128M or higher

Note: If you set Primary Display to CPU Graphics and DVMT Pre-Allocated setting doesn’t show. Save and exit BIOS and reenter and it should be there

Setting Boot Device:

You’ll want to be using the USB Flash Drive as the primary boot device until your hard drive becomes bootable at the end of Step 6. There are two ways to go about doing this:

Option 1: Press F8/F11/F12 on startup each time to select a temporary boot device until the boot partition on the drive you install macOS is configured. If you want to do temporary booting you will select the version of your USB Drive starting with UEFI: in it’s name. (For example I used a SanDisk flash drive so I would select UEFI: Sandisk, Partition 1)

Option 2: Enter BIOS and set Boot → Boot Option #1: UEFI : XXX (For example I used a SanDisk flash drive so I would select UEFI: Sandisk, Partition 1) This is easier if you don’t want to spam F8 on startup every time to boot macOS.

This is where you would set the Boot Option in BIOS if you followed Option 2

Press F10 to Save and Exit the BIOS

Step 8: Install – macOS Catalina Hackintosh Installation Walkthrough

The next step is to install macOS and then after copy the EFI folder from your flash drive’s boot partition over to the boot partition of the drive macOS is installed on. If you need to walked through the install follow: Catalina Clover Walkthrough 10.15 Install

Mac OS Catalina Hackintosh Clover Walkthrough 10.15 Install

Catalina Hackintosh Post-Install Changes

Now that you have macOS up and running here are some post install steps to help you.

Test audio output if its not working you may need to change something called an audio layout-id which is a single number in your config.plist
All system files were moved to a read-only partition meaning /L/E or /S/L/E can’t be edited by you when adding or removing kexts.
- To get around this after Catalina is installed these folders need to be mounted with write privileges through the Terminal app with sudo mount -uw /
You should also be able to access the internet since I included kexts for four Ethernet chipsetes, there are four of them in EFI/Clover/kexts/Other you may delete the ones you don’t need.
darkwake=0 is set as a bootflag in config.plist by default. darkwake=8 might be better for waking up an ASRock or MSI motherboard.
If you have issues with restarting when trying to shutdown try changing FixShutdown in config.plist under Acpi > Fixes