GPU died - please help me back up my files!

Hi all,

Just to preface that I have a very basic understanding of how to set up/run a Hackintosh as a friend helped me get started when I first built it. Apologies if this is quite a basic request but I’m in a panic and Googling solutions has me feeling overwhelmed...

Specs -

MOBO: Gigabyte Intel H270-HD3 LGA 1151

CPU: Intel i7-7700K 4.2 GHz

GPU (dead): Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB OC

RAM: Crucial CT2K8G4DFD8213 16GB (8GB x2)

SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5 inch

OS: High Sierra 10.13.4

Anyway, my GPU decided to completely up and die on me earlier today and I now cannot boot into Mac to perform a backup of my files before I go through the process of buying/installing a new card.

I’ve enabled the integrated GPU and set it to highest priority in the BIOS, but my Mac doesn’t get past the black Apple logo loading screen before crashing and rebooting.

I’m able to get into Clover’s boot options at startup (I don’t have the original installation USB) and I understand that the next suggested step would be to disable my GPU with nv_disable=1, however I can see that there are already two boot arguments entered (and ticked in another options screen) here: ‘dart=0’ and ‘nvda_drv=1’.

Should I just remove the nvda_drv=1 argument and replace it with nv_disable=1? Would this be temporary or have a lasting effect on my setup in any way? I don’t want to cause more problems. The other thing I can think to do is physically remove the GPU and attempt to boot up without adding any boot flags. Would this work?

Side question: if I’m unable to get the Hackintosh to boot, does anyone know if I can access and transfer the files from the internal SSD to perform a back up that way?

My anxiety is through the roof right now, so thanks so much for any and all help.