[Solved] Failing Clover at boot

[singularityq]

Specs:

• Supermicro X8DTL-i
  
  
• L5640 x2
  
  
• 40GB DDR3 RAM
  

History:

Been running it as my server rock solid for the last 4 months (never an issue)

If you are wondering why the setup and not just use a Mac Pro from the same era there are a few things

• Docker wont run without EPT, the the Mac Pro CPUs have the feature the apple firmware turns it off
  
  
• Mac Pro can only hold 4 2.5" Hard drives + Blu Ray and 4 3.5" drives. My current setup has 7 3.5" drives 5 2.5" 15mm drives 3 SSDs and a spare laptop hard drive for scratch. All in the same dimensions as the Mac Pro
  

Problem:

The other night I added a breakout cable to my other SAS port to add the 5th 2.5" drive. I normally have my boot volume(s) on 1 PCIe SAS to SATA (does 4 max) and have my storage on the other card (4 x 4). I did nothing with partitioning updating editing the Boot volume and its back up (delayed by a week). I pop in the drive plug it in.

I boot it all I get is a black screen... not entirely (take every line as a flash instance on the screen):

1. --
   
   
2. --
   
   
3. --
   
   
4. 6
   
   
5. 6
   
   
6. 6
   
   
7. (stalls)
   
   
8. __
   
   
9. __
   
   
10. __
    
    
11. __
    
    
12. __
    

Then it just restarts, never goes to Clover splash screen.



I have tried my back up SSD samething.

I tried a another SSD freshly formatted with install done from my Mac Mini (external) then ran Multibeast

• Multibeast with my usual checked items
  
  
• Multibeast minimal options
  

I tried doing a direct Clover install, no multibeast.

Tried with a normal hard drive

I tried an installer Flash drive created with Unibeast which only yields the clover version number on screen then indicates testing hardware then scanning after which it too does not load clover or the installer and reboots.



I have checked my BIOS I have rest it 3 times now. I have left out PCI cards. Nothing makes a difference.



I've tried all the above booting from:

• USB 2
  
  
• USB 3
  
  
• SATA (onboard)
  
  
• SATA (PCI)
  

every time same thing, like it refuses to load the Clover EFI.



Booting into a Windows To Go is successful and shows me a CSM property for EFI is recognized and boots

Loaded ESXi 6.0, it works (but not what I need).



As a reminder nothing was done

• Shutdown
  
  
• installed new drive to different unrelated PCI card
  
  
• Power on
  

Thats all that was done.



I am at a loss. I cant access my data ( I was in the process of duplicating it externally), before anyone says to pull and mount to another system ( I have nothing that can hold all the drives) or to boot from another OS. My Data is in ZFS would not want to endanger it by trying ZFS on linux or FreeNas for fear of it upgrading the volumes and no longer being accessible under macOS.





Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[singularityq]

Thanks all for the responses and inquiries /s
Issue fixed, apparently a finicky drive would throw clover's hardware test off and cause it to reboot.
Not until I removed the drive or put it behind a raid card (concealing SMART from Clover) did not boot normally.

Everything works as before