Etcher not working on Firewolf OSX PE 9

Hey guys,

So i’m trying to create a bootable USB stick of Firewolf OSX PE 9 (https://pe.firewolf.app) and it doesn’t appear as a boot option by any means. Etcher is mentioned as the preferred method in Firewolfs manual. (https://pe.firewolf.app/manual/en/chapter2/restorediskimage.html)

Does anyone have any idea what may be the issue?

Thanks in advance.

ps. i do have SIP disabled

Hey there,
can I ask you what are the steps you are trying to do ? we would like to try to reproduce the same situation
In any case I would suggest you to try this approach : https://support.avira.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003038074-How-do-I-disable-UEFI-Secure-Boot-

I’m on a Macbook Pro (also trying to boot from the same mac) but i do have System Integrity Protection disabled, like mentioned in Firewolf OSX PE guide.

  1. Downloaded the image from Firewolf OSX PE 9
  2. Ran balenaEtcher last version
  3. choose dmg and usb stick and that’s pretty much it

I would like to ask you if you can try to follow the second point of this guide that I link to you: (2) Restore FireWolf OS X PE under OS X. of this guide please

Tried that, no luck either. I had done that before on previous versions of OSX and it worked. For some reason now it doesn’t (Mojave/Catalina). My hope was Etcher would do it!

Hi @substance44,

I’ve just tried this myself under Mojave following the instructions from Firewolf (using the version of the image including the Clover bootloader), and when I boot up my Macbook I do see the option to boot from the USB stick.

Have you tried an alternative USB stick, to ensure that it’s not a problem with the particular stick you’re using?

Best regards,

Heds

Sorry for the ultra late reply guys, yeah i tried pretty much everything besides creating the stick in Windows. Tried creating with Etcher and diskutility under Yosemite and Catalina, tried disabling SIP, tried more than 3 different sticks…it won’t show up. Really weird…any other ideas?

I have an update, tried with the version that has the clover bootloader and it shows as EFI not as Firewolf. When i boot into it, it just boots into a black screen and stays there. Maybe this helps figuring out what’s happening cause i am completely clueless, been using Firewolf for years and this is the first time this is happening.

Hey there! That’s indeed very weird. Just to confirm, have you tried multiple USB sticks? Have you also tried to plug them in different USB ports? Are you using some sort of USB adapter that might be interfering with Firewolf?

Do you have another MacBook at hand that you can test it on?

Just tried on a PC and i cannot boot to it either. It returns the following error. Will try it on a different mac as well. Did any of you guys managed to boot into it?

ps. yes, tried multiple sticks, multiple ports and also creating the sticks on Yosemite, Catalina and Windows. No adapter. Always the same result.

Keep in mind that I don’t think Firewolf will ever boot on a PC, just on a Mac. A colleague of mine was able to boot it fine on a MacBook Air, so lets try on a different Mac and see what happens

Just tried on a different Mac, no luck. Same result…w/clover shows an EFI Boot partition and boots to a black screen. Without clover it doesn’t show up. Which OS is your friend running and did he use Etcher to create the stick?

You sure it wont boot on a PC? Although i haven’t tried it before today i’ve read people used it to boot in hackintoshes. Still, maybe you are correct. I’ve only used it in macs throughout the years.

edit: the other mac i’ve used is the same model as mine Macbook Pro 2015 15".

Yeah, we flashed Firewolf on macOS using Etcher.

You sure it wont boot on a PC? Although i haven’t tried it before today i’ve read people used it to boot in hackintoshes. Still, maybe you are correct. I’ve only used it in macs throughout the years.

Hackintoshs are a thing, and you can indeed get macOS running on those, but not any PC will work. You would have to have a PC that only contains hardware supported by macOS, and people doing this hand-pick the components they build their PC with in order to make it work.

Given what you are seeing so far, are you sure that the image you downloaded is complete and not potentially corrupted? What is the file name, the size, and maybe a checksum we can compare?

I found the official checksums for the latest version at the bottom of this page: https://pe.firewolf.app/manual/en/downloads/thankyou.html

Yes i know that, i do own two hackintoshes and it doesn’t boot on them either. I haven’t tried checking Clover folders for potential driver issues though but i might if you think it’s worth it. Anyway, it should boot on a mac. I’ve downloaded the dmgs in different computers many times, checked checksums which are correct.

Boot.FireWolf.OS.X.PE.9.wClover.ProPlus-Zlib.dmg returns c1f71316ba0831a8c01b8b6ed4c0a65ad6e5ab74e3889a4198af680ec6d89de4 /Users/andrevi/Downloads/Boot.FireWolf.OS.X.PE.9.wClover.ProPlus-Zlib.dmg and filesize is 824.6MB

Boot.FireWolf.OS.X.PE.9.ProPlus-Zlib returns 4a4667246c12ab855a0dd12f351a73f25123b9bf386d537d7c65f994264780e9 /Users/andrevi/Downloads/Boot.FireWolf.OS.X.PE.9.ProPlus-Zlib.dmg and filesize is 819MB

Ok little update, tried booting the non clover version with my OC hackintosh bootloader on one of my completely working hackintoshes, it shows as Boot Firewolf but returns the following error.

The DMG signature error message is a bit alarming. As a final thing, can you check flashing and booting the previous released version of FireWolf? Could it be that their latest releases images are broken for some reason?

Can’t seem to find older versions anywhere, you have a link?

It looks like they published various releases here: https://www.firewolf.science/category/os-x/

That’s the old site and yes those versions were working, i’ve used them before, sometime ago. Still cant seem to find any download of Firewolf older version there, besides other unrelated utilities used mostly on hackintoshes. Maybe i’m completely missing it and need another coffee? :slight_smile:

The usual download page for the images says it has been moved to the new site which only has the new version as far as i can see.

ps. i might have the older versions stored in some old drive, but the ones i might have i know for sure are working. They are a bit outdated though, that was the reason i was trying this new version in the first place.