Apple announced that macOS Big Sur will not be supported on most of the PCs. They are called the unsupported mac, where the is macBook Pro and Air 2012 along with the 2013 Early MacBook Pro are included.
I don’t know if you have tried, but on these system if you run the macOS Big Sur installer you will face the below error.
macOS Big Sur Patches:
Supported Macs with Metal Graphics Acceleration
- 2012 MacBook Air
- 2012 MacBook Pro
- 2013 Early MacBook Pro
- 2012 Mac Mini
- 2012 iMac
- 2013 iMac
For this Guide I will use the Patched Sur, which is easy and it has Graphic user interface. All you have to do is prepare a 16 GB USB Flash Drive to copy the macOS Installer inside it.
Time Machine Backup
Before continuing with installing macOS Big Sur on your unsupported mac, I recommend you to take a backup of your files. Something may wrong and you will end up losing everything.
Install macOS Big Sur on unsupported mac
Step 1. Download and Install the Patched Sur
Download and Install the Patched Sur on Your mac (Please keep in mind that Patched Sur only works on macOS Catalina, if you are using an older version like mojave you have to find another Patcher.)
Right click on the Patched Sur and choose Open, then macOS Warns you that the software is downloaded from Github which means it is not from a verified company. You need to choose Open.
Welcome to the Patched Sur window, where the developer has mentioned a full explanation about the Patched Sur and what it do. You will have to choose start to move to the next step.
The next step is the macOS compatibility, which I have already mentioned which makes should be updated. However if you have a 2009, 2010 or 2011, you can give it try but the problem is, that it will work too slow. So, I recommend not to try and install macOS Big Sur on those macs.
In the next window a full detail explanation of the Patched Sur is explained, if you wish you can read it, if not click continue.
Set the update track, it is the window where you will specify that which version of the mac you want to install. There is the released version, Beta version and finally Developer option. I want you to choose the release because it is save and there won’t be any data lose.
Clean Install or update the macOS, for now only update is available may be in the future the developers of the Patched Sur will add the clean option. Update is basically an upgrade which is updating the macOS Catalina to macOS big Sur.
Wait until the required files are downloaded for the macOS big Sur.
Here you have to attach the macOS Big Sur, basically it is recommended to download the Assistant package or if you have downloaded it before just locate it. I will choose view other versions which allows us to locate the assistant package I have already downloaded.
Choose Find an Installer.
Once the macOS big Sur assistant package it located, choose use pre downloaded Assistant Package.
Enter your login password to continue.
Attach a 16 GB of USB Flash drive so the files of the macOS Big Sur should be copied their. Once you attached the USB Flash Drive choose refresh and go to the next step.
Now choose the USB Flash drive and choose continue.
Patched Sur warns you that all the files within the USB will be erased.
Wait until the Install media of the macOS Big Sur should be created.
Once the installer media is created, restart the system and hold the Alt to the boot.
Step 2. Install macOS big Sur
Hold Alt key after the system restarts, from the boot options choose the green color boxed. Don’t choose EFI which is highlighted in red color.
Now you are on the recovery window, where you will have to choose Install macOS big Sur. As I said before Patched Sur is upgrading your system to macOS 11.0.1 Big Sur.
Click continue.
Agree to the terms and conditions of Apple.
Then choose the Hard disk which contains the macOS Catalina, once you select it. The macOS Big Sur will start installing itself in it.
Once everything is installed and you are accessing the macOS Big Sur interface. If you notice that the Wifi, Sound etc… are not working.
To fix them open the main HDD which contains the macOS, in my case it is Macintosh.
open the Patched Sur, just click open if you face any warning.