Installing MacOS Catalina on Legion Y540 Step 2 - USB Installer

Now we will proceed in creating the USB macOS Catalina bootable installer.

Click here to go back to Step 2 - BIOS Settings.

Click here to go back to Step 1 - Specs and What Works

What you will need:

• An Apple computer capable of downloading the macOS Catalina installation package.
• A USB stick of at least 16GB of storage capacity.
• The EFI for the Lenovo Legion Y series, latest release here:  https://github.com/xiaoMGitHub/LEGION_Y7000Series_Hackintosh/releases
• You can either make the bootable USB Installer through a command on the Terminal or Unibeast, download from here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/resources/unibeast-10-1-0-catalina.469/   I recommend Unibeast for simplicity (and because that's the method I used and worked for me).
• A USB mouse for connecting to the laptop for installation (touchpad doesn't work well during installation).
• The latest Clover Configurator from here.

Disable SIP on the Mac where Catalina Installer app resides

Whether you will create the bootable Installer through Unibeast or a Terminal command, you're gonna need to disable SIP on the Mac. To do so:

1. Restart your Mac and press (and hold) Command + R to boot into Recovery.
2. Navigate to Utilities menu and select the Terminal option.
3. Type csrutil disable and press Enter to disable SIP. When you are done with creating the Installer (including installing Clover in the EFI partition), then you should re-enable SIP by going to Recovery again, and type csrutil enable on the Terminal this time.

Formatting the USB drive

1. Your USB drive must have at least 16GB free space. (If you're using Unibeast to make your your bootable Installer, then the partition created must be 16GB, no more, no less).
2. Open Disk Utility.
3. Navigate to the View menu and ensure the Show All Devices is enabled.
4. From the External list of devices on the left, select your USB drive and click the Erase button.
5. If you're using Unibeast, name it USB. If you're using the Terminal, remember the name you gave it to be used in the command later.
6. The Format should be MacOS Extended (Journaled).
7. The Scheme should be GUID Partition Map.
8. Click Erase. 
9. If your USB drive is bigger than 16GB and you're using Unibeast, you need to shrink it to 16GB by using the Partition tool before running Unibeast.

Creating the Installer with Unibeast

1. Download and run the latest Catalina Unibeast from the tonymacx86 website (as provided above).
2. If your USB drive's volume is 16GB and named USB, and the macOS Catalina Installer is in the Applications folder, then this should be straight forward for you. 
3. Select UEFI Boot Mode.
4. Don't select any options in the Graphics Configuration window.
5. Be patient as this will take a while.

Creating the Installer through the Terminal

1. Open the Terminal.
2. Type sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/VolumeName where VolumeName is the name of the partition to make the bootable Installer. So if you named your newly created partition USB, then the command should read sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB. 
3. Press Enter and type your password at the prompt (password characters are not visible).
4. Press Enter and Y at the prompt.
5. Again, this will take a while, so be patient.

Clover and the Legion Y series EFI Folder

Whether you used Unibeast or the Terminal, you will need to mount the EFI folder of the installer and copy the Legion Y Series EFI folder.

1. Download and run the latest Clover Configurator.
2. From the Tools list on the left side, click on Mount EFI.
3. From the EFI partitions list on the right, find your external USB drive and click Mount Partition and then Open Partition.
4. If you used Unibeast, then skip this step and move to Step 7. From the Tools list on the left side, click on Install / Update Clover. From the right side, click Check and then Install or Update.
5. Click Continue until you see the Change Install Location. Click on that and ensure you're installing on the USB drive.
6. Do the Standard Install.
7. Now this step is for both methods (Terminal or Unibeast). Download and unzip the Legion Hackintosh EFI folder from the link listed above. (When I hackintoshed the laptop, I used the latest version at the time, 3.0.1. If you're having problems with any newer versions of the EFI folder, then download the 3.0.1 version.)
8. Copy the entire EFI folder to the EFI partition of the USB drive (window opened by the Open Partition from step 3).

Now you can proceed with installation

Notes before installing:

1. Press F12 on the laptop to open the Boot Option list and select your USB drive.
2. Make sure you have a USB mouse connected for installation (touchpad may or may not work well during installation).
3. You will need Internet after the installation for further post-installation steps, so either connect a cable to the Ethernet port, or have a USB WiFi (and its driver) ready, or have a compatible WiFi adapter that works natively in macOS Catalina.
4. You may set the default startup drive in BIOS Settings to your new Hackintosh drive, as from Clover you can dual boot both macOS and Windows 10.
5. Proceed with installation as normal.
   

Click here for the post-installation steps.

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