Installing Mac OSX 10.15 Catalina on HP EliteBook Folio 9740m

Installing Mac OSX 10.15 Catalina on HP EliteBook Folio 9740m


You need to create the Installation USB on a Mac (real or a VM).
You can find VM images for Mac OSX suitable for use with Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation on the Internet. In this research, I used the Mac OSX 10.13 High Sierra VM deployed on VirtualBox to create the Installation USB for Mac OSX Catalina (I had instability issues when I tried to use the Mojave/Catalina VMs). Please remember to follow the instructions associated with deploying the VM on VirtualBox/Workstation – e.g., there are “vboxmanage” commands you need to run otherwise the VM will be stuck in a continuous reboot loop.
Also I found out the hard way that the latest VirtualBox (6.1.4-136177) crashed my Windows laptop on which I deployed the Mac OSX VM consistently once I started the VM. I then tried the older VirtualBox version 6.0.18-136238 and that worked with no issues. Also note that on Linux, you must register the VM (“vboxmanage registervm “) before running the other vboxmanage commands specified in the procedure for deploying the VM. You also need to add the Linux user you are running VirtualBox as to the Linux group vboxusers otherwise you will not be able to attach a USB drive to the VM. Remmeber to install the VirtualBox extension pack as well.


  • Login to the mac OSX VM
  • Download “macoS Catalina Patcher” utility abd use it to download the macOS catalina installation files from Apple
  • Download https://github.com/chris1111/HP-Probook-EliteBook-Package-Creator
  • The instructions for running it to create the boot installation USB are on the same page. There is also an English walk-through video at https://www.hackintosh-montreal.com/t7559-hp-probook-elitebook-macos#111778
  • Summary:
    – run the “Gatekeeper” app (it is in the HP-ProBook-EliteBook-Package-Creator directory after you decompress the downloaded zip file);
    – run the Packager (needs Internet access) to create the “Create Install Media HP Laptop” app; attach a (minimum size 16GB) USB drive to the MAC oSX VM;
    – run the “Create Install Media HP Laptop” app which launches disk utility app where you need to erase the whole USB drive with “Format” set to “Mac OSX Extended (Journaled)”, “Scheme” set to “GUID Partition Map”.
    – once erase is completed, exit the disk utility and you will get a drive list from which you select the drive you just erased/formatted;
    – you then get a dialog box asking you to select the location of your “Install macOS Catalina.app” (either “10.9 to 10.12” OR “10.13.to 10.15”), then browse to where you downloaded the installation files and select the “Install macOS Catalina” installer; the HP Probook/EliteBook creator app will then copy files to the USB;
    – once completed, it will automatically launch the “Clover EFI” installation app, click the “continue” button, change the installation location to the USB drive that was just created (likely named “Install macOS Catalina”), click on the “Customize” button, the relevant selections for my laptop are below, then click “Install” button:

-> Install Clover in the ESP
-> Drivers off
-> Boot Sectors -> Install boot0af in MBR
-> Clover for BIOS (legacy) booting -> Clover EFI 64-bits SATA
-> BIOS Drivers, 64 bit -> Recommended drivers (all)
                                     -> File System drivers (all)
-> UEFI Drivers -> Recommended drivers (all)
                          -> File System drivers -> apfs, Fat, HFSPlus
                          -> Memory fix drivers -> OsxAptioFixDrv
                          -> Additional drivers -> OsxFatBinaryDrv, PartitionDxe
-> Themes (select all)
-> Drivers Kext -> FakeSMC, VoodooPS2Controller


  • Once done, copy the Gatekeeeper application and the HP-ProBook-EliteBook-macOS.pkg post-installation package to the USB drive volume “Install macOS Catalina”
  • Eject the USB drive and plug it to your target HP laptop
  • Power on your target laptop, press ESC key to interrupt the boot process, press F10 to enter BIOS setup – make the changes recommended on the “HP ProBook EliteBook Package Creator” web page then save and exit. For my laptop, the BIOS settings are: Deactivate Fast Boot, deactivate “SecureBoot”, set “Boot Mode” to “UEFI Hybrid (With CSM)”, deactivate LAN switching, deactivate Wake On LAN and Wake on USB, “SATA Device Mode” to “AHCI”, disable firewire/IEEE1394, disable “Trusted Execution Technology (TXT)”
  • Boot the target HP laptop with the USB drive, use disk utility to erase the laptop’s disk – if you only see volumes and not the disk devices, select “View -> Show All Devices” from the Disk Utility menu (if planning to multiboot, use disk utility to create all the partitions you need – in my example I erased the HDD using “GUID Partition Map” scheme, then created 3 partitions: OSXHDD, LINUXOS, WINOS. I set all the non-OSX partitions set to type ExFAT), install the macOS Catalina to your newly formatted OSX volume.
  • When completed, reboot with the USB in place, once started from the USB, select the option to boot from the OSX disk you just installed Catalina to – the install will continue – when it reboots again, select the option to boot from the OSX disk again, it may reboot again, select the OSX disk again, it will then boot to the GUI to complete the setup – go through the setup wizard to complete the configuration and create your login user account.
  • At the desktop, open the USB install drive (should be named “Install macOS Catalina”), copy the Gatekeeper and HP-ProBook-EliteBook-macOS.pkg to your Desktop.
  • Run gatekeeper and choose “Disable” to allow you to run software from any source
  • Run the Post-Installer “HP-ProBook-EliteBook-macOS.pkg”, change the installation target location to your laptop disk, select the customize button, and select all the options necessary for your specific laptop (see video on the creator web page), and complete the clover installation. My customized selection were as follows:

HP-ProBook-EliteBook-macOS
        -> HP Laptop Clover V2.5K r5103
                  -> 7 series macOS 10.12>10.15 -> Elitebook 9x70m
                  -> Intel HD 3000/4000 Graphics -> Intel HD 4000 -> Low screen 1366×768
                  -> HDMI -> HDMI Low screen
                  -> Fan Patch -> FanSmooth
        -> SSDT Generator
        -> Airport WIFI Fix -> AirportBrcmFixup (for Broadcom or Atheros for Atheros card)
        -> Bluetooth
        -> HWMonitor
        -> Applications

  • DO NOT reboot the laptop yet otherwise you will get kernel panics and it will be stuck in a loading/panic/reboot loop.
  • Open Terminal app:

# sudo su -
# mount -o rw /
# mkdir /tmp/efi
# df -h
# mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /tmp/efi (*see note below)
# cd /tmp/efi/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/
# rm DSDT.dsl DSDT.aml SSDT.aml origin.dsl

Note: the EFI partition on the HDD may already be mounted (usually under /Volumes/ESP) so this mount command will throw a “Resource busy” error. If it is already mounted as /Volumes/ESP then you should “cd /Volumes/ESP/EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ ” in order to delete the files indicated above.

  • Edit /tmp/efi/EFI/CLOVER/config.plist and set the DefaultVolume to your OSX volume name, and the ScreenResolution key to your actual resolution (1366×768 for my laptop) if necessary.

# cd /
# diskutil umount /tmp/efi

Fix Sound: To get sound to work properly (AppleALC kext that comes with the post installer enables the headphone jack but not the in-built speaker), you need to use the VoodHDA kext:

  • Download VoodooHDA 2.9.2 install package from https://github.com/chris1111/VoodooHDA-2.9.2-Clover-V15/releases
  • Unzip the downloaded file and open/run the package
  • Click the Continue button (x3), agree to the license terms, then click the Customize button -> Expand “VoodooHDA Clover UEFI/ESP” -> Select “macOS Catalina” -> “Install”

Eject the USB install drive, and reboot your “Mac” laptop, it should come up with WiFI, LAN, SD card, and Sound fully functional.

NOTE: the SSDT.aml was responsible was responsible for the continuous reboot “memory panic stackshot succeeded …” kernel panic that made my laptop continuously reboot. The only file you should have in the EFI/CLOVER/ACPI/patched/ directory in the EFI partition on your boot volume is the SSDT-FIXCAT.aml

Bootloader Setup: The easiest way to use CLOVER bootloader is to mount the EFI partition and copy EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.efi to EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.efi (yes, overwrite BOOTX64.efi if prompted). Note that if you are multi-booting and you installed Windows or Linux after installing Mac OSX, you may need to repeat the copy again afterwards if you still want to use CLOVER bootloader. Alternatively, you may setup your laptop (BIOS) to use CLOVER by setting up the BIOS: System Configuration -> Boot Options -> Define Customized Boot Option -> Add -> enter “EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.efi” -> in “UEFI Boot Order” (Move “Customized Boot to the top position) -> Save -> Exit. If you choose this alternative option, you should delete any other file that is in EFI/Boot/ directory.

Fun stuff: You can cast sound or video or your laptop desktop to a recent TV such as the Samsung series 8 that supports AirPlay. If I select my TV, I am prompted for the Airplay code which is displayed on my TV. You can even decide whether to just mirror your desktop to the TV or use the TV as a second screen (“As Separate Display”)!

Other: In Microsoft Windows, to mount the EFI partition on a O/S disk, run “mountvol <driveletter>: /s” from any admin cmd.exe session. To mount the EFI partition on a USB drive, run “mountvol” which will list all available volume, you can then run “mountvol <driveletter>: <\\?\volume-name-as-displayed-in-mountvol-output>”

Disclaimer: if you like Mac OSX buy a real Mac. This is for educational research purposes only.

Acknowledgement: chris1111

Refs:
https://github.com/chris1111/HP-Probook-EliteBook-Package-Creator
https://www.hackintosh-montreal.com/t7559-hp-probook-elitebook-macos#111778
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/129305/how-can-i-enable-access-to-usb-devices-within-virtualbox-guests