I've done something very stupid.

Hi Reddit hivemind, I'm hoping you can help me out here.
I've been running a dual boot hackintosh since about 2017. It was my first and only computer build, and today I finally borked it.

I did The Stupid Thing. Attempted to update macOS (Sierra -> Mojave) without backing up first.

Now, with that being said, all is not lost. All my data is still there, most of which was not on the same physical disk as the OS. I'm able to see it from Windows with the Paragon HFS driver, so I could transfer all my data to my NAS and do a full nuke and rebuild of the machine, but before I do something drastic - I wanted to see if there was any hope for getting my old machine booting again.

Here's where I'm up to.

As of rebooting after running the Mojave installer on Sierra, Clover on the hackintosh no longer sees any macOS installations. I did manage to build a new Clover on a live USB, and this one does - but can't actually boot it. My process right now is:
- Turn machine on
- Allow it to run the local (SSD) Clover
- F3 to show all volumes, and select my live USB
- In the live USB's Clover, both the install mojave and the sierra options are seen
- Attempting to actually start either of them results in a black screen and no response

---

Currently, my only lead for a next step is that this was initially put together with the whole tonymacx86 route (which I'm only just now finding out is generally frowned upon) and I have an Nvidia GTX 950 GPU installed. I wonder if there might be something to do with the graphics drivers not being present if some macOS system takes over at that point, since it's coming from the Clover on the live USB? If that were the case, it would indicate that the installer is in fact starting but it's lost all graphics output?

I have no idea how the driver injection stuff works, so I'm prepared to sound like a bumbling idiot here.

​

Do you have any suggestions for where to go next for recovering this machine? Or am I wasting my time and the nuclear option of starting fresh really is the best course?

Thank you so much!