Computer boots to black desktop where I can see the mouse and push notifications

[inglesworth]

So I had a 10.12.2 system working just fine. I decided it was finally time for me to switch over to make this my main work machine, so i pulled a hard drive out of the old machine and threw it in this one and it booted up perfectly fine.

I did a little work on the machine this morning with no issues. I walked away for a few minutes, and the computer went to sleep. It would not wake. I have already fixed my sleep problems for the most part - my audio still doesn't come back after sleep, but I haven't gotten into that quite yet. The point being that the computer normally does wake up. But I had to hard boot.

Upon rebooting, the computer booted to a black screen. I can see my mouse cursor, and I can see push notifications in the upper right hand corner of the screen. But the desktop is completely black and there is no task bar at the top. Additionally, my second display will not turn on. and there is no way out of this except to hard boot. My backup copy boots just fine. Like I said, the only change is I added another hard drive physically into the computer. But I was using the computer after that just fine.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[cmn699]

so i pulled a hard drive out of the old machine and threw it in this one and it booted up perfectly fine.

Is this a macOS Sierra System disk installed on a different MoBO/CPU/Video card or just a data disk without any OS on it?
Details about that disk might be able to narrow down the possible causes of your current boot problem.

From your description of your booting problem after the HDD installation, it looks like some corruption has occurred to the files relating to your Video kext in your original System disk or BIOS options relating to graphics controller.

You may try to shut down the PC, Remove Power cable, discharge any residual current on the system and then Reset CMOS , Reboot and load Optimized Default BIOS > BIOS Setup> make BIOS menu selections for MacOS-Sierra booting> F10>Exit>Reboot with MacOS Sierra System disk and see if that solves the issue from any bad BIOS related issues.

If problem persists, boot with -x (safe mode) added to current Boot Args: in Clover Boot Menu>Options and boot and see if you can enter the Desktop and reinstall the Video kext.

 

[inglesworth]

Thanks for your reply!

The disk I inserted indeed has no OS on it at all. It is just a data storage drive. It did come out of an Old Mac Pro tower that was running 10.9.5 on it, but that computer is still intact with the system drive in it still functioning.

I have a backup boot drive in the hackintosh. However, I was did the 10.12.2 update yesterday and got it all working and was planning to reclone it tonight... So the back up boot volume is not quite where I need it to be to do the work I need to

Anyways, the back up boot volume boots up to 10.12.1 just fine. I assume this would mean that the BIOS options have not become corrupted, but the video kext is a good look. I attempted to boot with safe mode on the problematic disk, and I was indeed able to see the log in screen to enter my password, and both monitors lit up. However, once I entered the password, I ended up back at the black screen with the mouse cursor.

 

[inglesworth]

I think I am going to just reclone the bootable disk over to the toher one again tonight and do the 10.12.2 upgrade again. It's not a whole lot of work, especially now that I've gone through it and know the exact step-by=step process now. Thanks for the help, though.