Starting up Mac OS X for the first time on your Hackintosh can be a very tricky process, which often requires you to set special boot options through the use of boot flags. For those of you who don't know, boot flags are 'arguments' (pieces of data that you enter) to change the way that your bootloader runs. The bootloader is the program that boots Mac OS X.

1. Clover Boot El Capitan
2. Clover El Capitan 10.11.6

While we've already previously discussed how to use boot flags on the Chameleon and Chimera bootloaders, which were formally the two most popular bootloaders for PCs running Mac OS X, the release of OS X El Capitan has now shifted attention onto the new and upcoming Clover bootloader. All Hackintosh installation methods for El Capitan, including tonymacx86's ever-popular Unibeast method, now use Clover. Unfortunately, using boot flags on Clover requires a slightly different technique than on Chameleon/Chimera (although most of the boot flags themselves remain the same). That's what this guide is here for.
How to use temporary boot flags on Clover

Bootloader; Clover V2.3K r3215 El Capitan Supported. Although official OS X 10.11 'El Capitan' hardware compatibility is the same, you may want to have your Hackintosh run OS X 10.10 'Yosemite' for compatibility with specific third-party hardware or software. Download El Capitan Post-Install Tools. Install Cloverv2.3kr3320-UEFI.pkg (all default settings) Install CustoMac Essentials.pkg. Restart the computer. Download and run Clover Configurator. Click the Mount EFI partition button. Open EFI:EFI/CLOVER/Config.plist. SMBIOS 'Magic. I went with Clover as it seems to be the most popular choice among other El Capitan installers, mostly for the following reasons: Clover is an open-source EFI-based bootloader created on Apr 4, 2011. It has a totally different approach from Chameleon and Chimera.

On Chameleon/Chimera, you could enter a temporary boot flag by simply typing it directly into your computer's bootloader menu. In contrast, the process is slightly more involved with Clover.

• El Capitan Clover (Hackintosh) Login Theme. Contribute to jrnewell/el-capitan-login development by creating an account on GitHub.
• The latest Hackintosh OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 Mac operating system is now available for Microsoft Windows device users to experience the all new features and functionalities of OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 (Build: 15F34) on Windows PCs and Laptops powered by AMD and Intel based hardware.

To enter a temporary boot flag into Clover, first start your computer and wait until you reach the Clover bootloader menu, which will look something like this (aka the Unibeast menu, assuming you installed OS X that way):
Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select the 'Options' button at the bottom of the menu (if you used Unibeast, it'll probably be the button with the picture of gears).
NOTE: There are technically two different options buttons-- one is for 'Clover Options', while the other is just 'Options.' You want to choose 'Options.'
Open up the Options by press Enter on your keyboard (or Return, or the spacebar). From here, use your arrow keys to select the 'Boot Args' line.
Press your spacebar, and then you'll be able to start typing the necessary boot flags. Press Enter when you're done. From here, return to the original Clover boot menu (you can press the 'Esc' key on your keyboard to do this), and boot OS X again. Voila!
If you need help finding the right boot flags for your Hackintosh, check out our list of common boot flags (this list is tailored for Chameleon/Chimera, but Clover supports many of the same flags).
How to use permanent boot flags on Clover
Once you've managed to boot into your Hackintosh, you'll probably want to make those boot flags permanent, so that they'll automatically be entered into the bootloader every time you start Mac OS X. This process is also a bit more involved in Clover, compared to Chameleon/Chimera.
Traditionally, you could permanently enable certain boot flags by adding them to the text file 'org.Chameleon.boot.plist,' which was essentially the settings file for Chameleon/Chimera. Clover's settings rely on a similar text file called 'config.plist.'

Clover Boot El Capitan

However, Clover's file may be a little bit harder to work with, depending on your particular setup. So instead of editing the file directly, like we did with Chameleon/Chimera, we recommend that you download the free Clover Configurator app instead.
DOWNLOAD: Clover Configurator
Once you've downloaded it, open up the Clover Configurator app (which comes in a ZIP file). The home page of the app will display some number of seemingly identical files named 'config.plist,' with the exact number depending on how many hard drives your computer has.
Your actual 'config.plist' file will be on your computer's EFI partition. To modify it, you first have to mount the EFI partition, which is usually hidden when you boot OS X.
To do this, click on the 'Mount EFI' button on the left column. Then, in the page that comes up, click 'Mount EFI partition.' If you have multiple hard drives, choose the hard drive that OS X is currently booting from. In the screenshot below, Clover Configurator tells me that I'm currently booting from disk0s2, so I choose disk0s1 (because it's part of 'disk0').
Once that's done, return to the homepage for Clover Configurator (by clicking the house icon on the bottom left), and click the 'config.plist' icon that goes EFI -> EFI -> CLOVER -> config.plist.

Clover El Capitan 10.11.6

Once you've selected the appropriate config.plist, a new Clover Configurator window may pop up. Click on the 'Boot' tab of that new window. From here, you can select and de-select common boot flags, as well as add your own!
That's all you need to do to apply a boot flag for your Hackintosh. (Any changes made in Clover Configurator usually save automatically.) Once again, if you need help finding the right boot flags for your Hackintosh, check out our list of common boot flags.
SEE ALSO: Common boot options for Chimera, Chameleon, Unibeast, Niresh
SEE ALSO: Hackintosh won't boot? Here's how to use verbose mode to fix it.

Dec 10, 2016 This is complete tutorial how to install OS X El Capitan on the Hackintosh Machine. All knowledge of this film can be used for MacOS Sierra installation. There has been used a Clover Installer. Feb 23, 2016 Hi. I have some issues with two displays (one HDMI and one DisplayPort). When I start the system with two displays, I have a dark screen. I must connect the second display after osx boot. I'hve read that the NVCAP settings is the solution and I search for this. Anybody can help me? Download the OS X Yosemite (or El Capitan‎) Application from the Mac App Store; Prepare a UEFI Installer USB flash drive; ASUS 87-A BIOS setup; Install Clover into USB; Modify Clover bootloader's configuration file; Install OS X Yosemite; Install the bootloader and drivers to system drive; Install Sound card driver and fix wake up no sound issue. Mar 06, 2017 Clover EFI Bootloader; In this tutorial we will be creating the bootloader that will allow you to run the macOS installer that will also be created in this guide onto your to-be Hackintosh. This will be created using a flash drive that needs to be 8GB or larger in size so that it has enough space ton hold the Sierra or El Capitan installer files.

Here is a theme for Clover Bootloader with the High Sierra background.
This is just an edit I did to the original Yosemite by xenatt/ El Capitan by: CosmosCJ/宇宙
Here is the link for the El Capitan theme: https://github.com/jrnewell/el-capitan-login (Credits to the Yosemite Author)
My High Sierra Theme:

Clover Efi V2 El Capitan

How To Install:

1. Extract High Sierra.zip
2. Copy the 'High Sierra' Folder to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/themes
3. Go back to the clover folder and open config.plist in TextEdit
4. Find:

5. And Replace the *theme* with High Sierra
Like this: (Note that where '*theme*' is there would be the name of your previous theme not '*theme*
6. Save and you are done.

Warning: Please follow these instructions at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage or information loss that could result from following this guide. Also, note that installing OS X on PC is illegal. Please buy a real Mac if you're satisfied with your Hackintosh. This guide is for evaluation purposes only.

Requirements

• An Intel-based PC with UEFI bios
• A USB flash drive with at least 16GB capacity
• A dedicated hard drive (SSD highly recommended)
• A computer running OS X (10.9 or later) for preparing the installation USB flash drive

I chose to avoid the UniBeast installer (by Tonymacx86) because of its commercialized nature, as described here. Here is a vanilla guide to installing El Capitan on your PC!

Preparing the USB Installation Drive

/office-2016-for-el-capitan/. First things first. We need to prepare a USB thumb drive that will contain the installation files as well as the bootloader and custom kexts for our specific Hackintosh build.

Download El Capitan from the Mac App Store

Head over to your existing OS X environment running 10.9 or later and open the Mac App Store.

Search for 'El Capitan' and click Download. The download is completely free if you're running OS X 10.9+.

Wait for the download to finish (this could take some time).

Format the USB Drive

Open Disk Utility in Applications/Utilities and locate your USB device. Make sure you've backed up anything important on that drive as it will be erased forever.

Select it, and then on the right, click the partition tab.

1. Click Curent Layout and change it to 1 Partition.
2. Set the Name to USB.
3. Set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
4. Click Options and select GUID Partition Table.

Click Apply to format the drive.

Copy the Installation Files to the USB Drive

Now that we've downloaded the installation files from the Mac App Store and formatted our USB drive, let's copy the installation files to it.

Run the following command in the Terminal (Applications/Utilities):

The command will run a script inside the Install OS X El Capitan application that will copy the installation files to the USB drive.

This process takes about 15 minutes. Go out for a quick run, or a hamburger, or both. When you come back, it should have finished.

Installing a Bootloader

If you tried to boot from the USB drive as is after the previous step on a PC, it wouldn't work. We need a bootloader that makes it possible to boot OS X on x86 and x86_64 PCs.

There are 3 popular bootloaders to choose from.

• Clover
• Chameleon
• Chimera

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

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 in 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. (Read more)

Install Clover on Your USB Drive

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

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:
   
   • [x] Install for UEFI booting only
   • [x] Install Clover in the ESP
   • [ ] Drivers64UEFI
     • [x] OsxAptioFixDrv-64 - fixes memory map created by AMI Aptio EFI. Booting OS X is impossible otherwise.

1. 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 (kernal extensions, similar to drivers on Windows) to the USB drive.

• FakeSMC.kext - open source SMC device driver/emulator developed by netkas. Tricks OS X into thinking it's installed on Apple hardware. Absolutely required for Hackintosh installation.
• NullCPUPowerManagement.kext - disables AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext which may cause kernel panics when you try to boot from the USB drive. It's optional, copy it only if you get an AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement-related kernel panic.
• ApplePS2Controller.kext and AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext - adds support for PS2 devices (such as PS2 keyboard/mouse). They're optional, copy them only if you still use PS2 devices.

Download these files from here and copy them to the EFI mounted volume at /EFI/Clover/kexts/10.11/.

Now that the installation USB drive is ready, let's install OS X El Capitan!

Boot from the USB Drive

Restart your computer and boot from the USB drive (Press Esc/F8/Del to access the boot selection menu).

Use the arrow keys to select Boot OS X Install from Install OS X El Capitan (It should be selected by default). Press the spacebar and select Boot Mac OS X in verbose mode. Verbose mode means that you'll be able to see exactly what's going on under the hood as OS X attempts to boot up its installer. You'll be able to see the exact error message if booting fails.

Press Enter and cross your fingers. Clover will now boot the installer from your USB drive. This could take some time, in my case, it takes around 5 minutes (Don't worry -- the startup time is around 5 seconds after installing on an SSD).

Did it fail?

It's more than likely that the boot will fail. Don't panic (ha-ha), as kernel panics usually mean that you forgot to copy an essential kext to the EFI partition. Look up the exact error you're getting before the boot log comes to an end and search Google for a solution.

Once you find an additional kext that your system needs, you'd attempt to copy it to the EFI volume, only to discover that it's gone! Not to worry, it's just unmounted and hidden. Follow this guide to mount the hidden partition, and then, follow the Copy Essential Kexts section above to copy it to the USB drive's EFI partition.

Format the Target Hard Drive

Once the installation wizard boots, the next step is to prepare the hard drive that you want to install OS X on.

Click Continue, followed by Disk Utility.

Select the target drive to install to (not the USB drive!) and click the Erase button. Make sure to back up anything important on that drive, as it will be deleted forever.

1. Set the Name to El Capitan.
2. Set the Format to OS X Extended (Journaled).
3. Set the Scheme to GUID Partition Map.

Click Erase to format the drive.

Install OS X to the Target Drive

Exit the Disk Utility and click Install OS X.

Click Show All Disks and select the drive you just formatted to install OS X on it. Finally, click Install.

The process takes about 25 minutes. Be patient. For me, it hung at the end ('1 second remaining') for around 5 minutes. Don't be tempted to reset or cancel the installation.

When that's done, the system will reboot. Make sure to boot from the USB device again, and select Boot OS X Install from Install OS X El Capitan once again, in verbose mode. The installation is a two-part process that continues once you re-boot into the USB drive.

Finally, after about 25 more minutes, OS X El Capitan should be successfully installed on the target drive.

Boot into El Capitan via the USB Device

After the second reboot, boot from the USB device once again, but this time, select Boot OS X from El Capitan, and select verbose mode.

Press Enter and cross your fingers again. If all goes well, you'll be presented with the setup wizard:

Take a minute to set up your new Hackintosh. Once you're done, there are a few things you need to do to finish off the installation.

Reinstall Clover on the Hackintosh Drive

In the previous step, we used Clover on our USB drive to boot our Hackintosh. This is fine, but most of us aren't going to keep that USB drive plugged in forever. Let's make it possible to boot El Capitan independently by reinstalling Clover on it.

Go back up to the Install Clover on Your USB Drive section and follow the steps again, but this time, select your El Capitan volume instead of the USB drive.

Once again, copy the essential kexts to the EFI partition that shows up after installing Clover.

Finally, make sure to add Clover EFI boot options which is possible by pressing Clover Boot Options in the Clover boot window (if there are 2 boot options -- find the one for your SATA drive). I literally spent 3 hours figuring out why Clover would not boot when I disconnected the USB drive before I figured out that I need to manually add the EFI boot options.

Now you'll be able to boot directly from the El Capitan hard drive, as it should be!

Audio and Networking

If you're lucky, audio and networking will work right out of the box. If not, you're on your own from here. You'll need to research your exact hardware (by using System Information in Applications/Utilities) and searching Google to find the right kext or installer to make it work on El Capitan.

Clover Themes

The default Clover theme is pretty ugly (no offense). Check out this theme database to improve Clover's appearance.

This is YosemiteLogin by xenatt:

Enjoy!

That's it! Enjoy your new Hackintosh, and if you absolutely love it, consider buying a Mac!