New Hacintosh on Dell Optiplex 9020

I had started this build last summer when I bought the Dell Optiplex 9020.  And a few months ago I got MacOS 10.9 running on it in a manner similar to my past Hacintosh builds.  But my plan all along was to wait for MacOS 10.10 and start with that.  Historically, I know that upgrading a Hacintosh can be a risky proposition.  Why make it harder on myself to build the Hacintosh, then try to do the upgrade right away?  Or build the Hacintosh with 10.9 when 10.10 was coming up soon?  I figured I’d practice with 10.9 and then do the final build at 10.10.  Good plan.

As it turned out, the setting up the Hacintosh to run 10.10 the same way I had done 10.9 didn’t work out for me.  My prior Hacintoshes were set up using my past build methodology which is built on the Chameleon bootloader and now it wasn’t working.  Well, time to learn a new way, I guess.

The new way turned out to be Clover.  I followed instructions at Rampage Dev.  Using those instructions and others and my own tweaking based on the computer, my instructions are below. I’m also including a bootpack here for the Optiplex 9020.  Mine isn’t much different from the standard Clover install but I did find some changes were useful.  Although, some of the changes may be for the specific configuration of my 9020 and therefore may not be helpful.  So give them a try and if they don’t work for you, stick with the stock.  Also, of course, I’ve cleaned out the config.plist file of any sensitive information.  So you’ll need to add in model number, serial number, etc..

bootpack-for-9020

On the computer you’ll be using to create the installer (which needs to be running Mac OS 10.7.5 or later), do the following:

1. go to app store and download Yosemite; when it finishes downloading, leave it in the Applications folder
2. insert empty USB drive (or if not empty, okay to be wiped) – should be at least 8 Gb (and exactly 8 Gb if you want to burn a DVD-DL of the device later)
3. open disk utility from utilities
4. click on the USB drive
5. select Partition tab
6. change Partition Layout to “1 Partition”
7. click Options and select GUID Partition Table, if not already selected; click OK
8. ensure Format is set to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”
9. change the Name to “Clover”
10. click Apply and then click “Partition” and wait for it to complete (should take less than a minute)
11. quit Disk Utility
12. download latest clover install package
13. run the Clover install package
14. click continue two times
15. do not click on install!; click on Change Install Location instead
16. ensure you select the USB drive as target destination; click continue
17. do not click install! click on customize instead
18. select “Install for UEFI booting only”; it will deselect others which is good and it should select “Install Clover in the ESP” (manually select that if it did not do it for you)
19. expand “Drivers64UEFI” and select “EmuVariableUefi-64” (for NVRAM emulation) and “OsxAptioFixDrv-64” (boots to black screen without it)
20. expand “Themes” and select “BootCamp”
21. now click on Install; enter password when prompted; install should take less than a minute; close the installer
22. after Clover installs, the EFI partition should be mounted for you and visible on the desktop
23. open finder window and open disk EFI (or double click on desktop icon) , then go to /EFI/CLOVER folder
24. copy your config.plist (or the one from my bootpack) into this folder overwriting the one there
25. then go to folder /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10
26. copy your kexts (or the one from my bootpack) into this folder
27. optionally copy a DSDT.aml file to /EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ (there’s one included in my bootpack)
28. open a terminal window and copy and paste the following command:
    sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Clover --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --no interaction
29. enter password when prompted; erasing percentage goes 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 100%; then changes to “copying installer files to disk”; this could take a while – maybe 20 minutes with a slow USB drive
30. when the terminal command finishes, copy the install bundle folder (used to make the USB drive) to the USB drive
31. the installer is now ready

Optionally, if you’d like to burn a DVD of the installer:

1. open disk utility
2. click on the usb drive (not the partition)
3. click “New Image” in toolbar
4. enter name, select location, change format to “CD/DVD Master”, and click save; will take about 5 minutes
5. select image in left column
6. click burn in toolbar
7. insert blank DVD-DL
8. click burn

Now, on the target computer that will get the new install of MacOS 10.10:

1. boot to BIOS
2. enable UEFI booting
3. Boot from USB – use F12 to make sure
4. when clover boot screen loads, select the USB drive to boot from (likely the one in orange)
5. MacOS install will load; select disk utility
6. select the drive to install MacOS on
7. select the partition tab
8. change Partition Layout to “1 Partition” (or 2?)
9. click Options and select GUID Partition Table, if not already selected; click OK
10. ensure Format is set to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”
11. change the Name to “MacOS 10.10” or any name you want
12. click Apply and then click Partition
13. exit Disk Utility
14. select Install OS X
15. Continue
16. Agree; agree
17. select disk; continue
18. install time remaining = 5 minutes the first time; hang on “about a second remaining” for a few minutes, it will reboot; leave the USB drive in and boot from the USB drive again; this time, it will resume installing and take another 10 minutes or so
19. installer will complete and reboot; leave the USB drive in again but this time boot from the partition you just installed to
20. select the partition you installed to; MacOS should now boot from the hard drive
21. select country, continue
22. select keyboard, continue
23. select network, continue twice
24. if it fails, continue
25. don’t transfer now, continue
26. agree, agree
27. enter account info, continue
28. deselect send diagnostics, continue
29. desktop!
30. open the install folder from the USB drive
31. run the Clover install package
32. click continue two times
33. do not click on install!; click on Change Install Location instead
34. ensure you select the hard drive as target destination; click continue
35. do not click install!  click on customize instead
36. select “Install for UEFI booting only”, “Install Clover in the ESP”
37. expand “Drivers64UEFI” and select “EmuVariableUefi-64” (for NVRAM emulation) and “OsxAptioFixDrv-64” (boots to black screen without it)
38. expand “Themes” and select “BootCamp”
39. select “install RC scripts on target volume”
40. now click on Install; install will be quick
41. after Clover installs, the EFI partition should be mounted for you
42. open a new finder window and open disk EFI, then go to /EFI/CLOVER folder
43. copy your config.plist (or the one from my bootpack)into this folder overwriting the one there
44. then go to folder /EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.10
45. copy your kexts (or the one from my bootpack) into this folder
46. optionally copy a DSDT.aml file to /EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ (there’s one included in my bootpack)
47. copy clover configurator to /applications/utilities
48. eject the USB drive and reboot with the USB drive removed
49. select hard drive again – move arrows left or right, computer should boot up
50. do keyboard wizard if it comes up
51. reboot again; this time shouldn’t need to select drive – nvram should remember it
52. install should now be complete!

For the future access to the EFI partition, I ran this command to allow EFI partition to be mounted in Disk Utility:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

After install, I followed instructions at Skyline OSX to get iCloud and iMessage working.  I actually bought an old Mac Mini from eBay for $200 so I could get the board ID from it.  It’s a helluva premium to get iCloud and iMessage working correctly but I’m really trying to get a fully functional Mac system, just without the restrictions that come from buying only Apple hardware.  There are ways that you can make up a board ID but that seems like stealing to me – I’d rather do it the “right” way by paying for the board.  (I did consider finding a parts Mac that I could use to get the board ID but the only way to get the board ID is with a functioning Mac.)

In addition to the aforementioned Rampage Dev guide, thanks to Jake at OSXLatitude for his helpful collection of Yosemite Bootpacks for Dell Desktops and for pioneering the Optiplex 9020 Hacintosh install.