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[Guide] Avoid APFS conversion on High Sierra update or fresh install

Thanks for all the information on this topic - I was able to sucessfully install HS 10.13.6 on a Samsung 840 EVO SSD with the .xml tweak.
The system seems to work well bar some driver issues BUT I can only boot off the installer USB. Further investigation revealed that the SSD only has the single partition and no EFI boot partition. Previously I had installed using APFS, also succesfully, and noticed that there were FOUR partitions created by the installer including EFI, Recovery, the main system and a preinstaller (I forget the details).

Has the xml hack resulted in the installer not creating the necessary boot partition?

Many thanks,
Frog
As per rules, please update your hardware profile to allow others to help you easier
https://www.tonymacx86.com/account/

please read the faq for proper hardware profile setup:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/
 
Thanks for all the information on this topic - I was able to sucessfully install HS 10.13.6 on a Samsung 840 EVO SSD with the .xml tweak.
The system seems to work well bar some driver issues BUT I can only boot off the installer USB. Further investigation revealed that the SSD only has the single partition and no EFI boot partition. Previously I had installed using APFS, also succesfully, and noticed that there were FOUR partitions created by the installer including EFI, Recovery, the main system and a preinstaller (I forget the details).

Has the xml hack resulted in the installer not creating the necessary boot partition?

Many thanks,
Frog

You must install Clover to the EFI partition. No expectation that Apple's software will install Clover for you...
 
You must install Clover to the EFI partition. No expectation that Apple's software will install Clover for you...

I'm using a clover installer on USB in conjunction with the HS Install app. I'm a bit confused about the EFI partition and whether that it is a bit of necessary code that is always present and created by the Apple installer or purely a Clover created hack that fools Apple software into booting on a non Apple machine.

I've done several installs from El Cap onwards and the EFI partition was always created as part of the process of using UniBeast so I was wondering if the hack to disable APFS was disrupting the install. I've followed your instructions but only the one big volume is being created:

Create bootable USB using UniBeast and boot from it choosing the external file on the USB
Open Disk Utility and wipe SSD with HFS Journaled (creating large partition that fills SSD)
Click install to add files to SSD
Reboot with USB and choose USB installer to boot from again
Run Terminal and do the xml change
Reboot from USB and boot from (modified) installer on SSD
Keep choosing SSD installer after reboots until complete

This results in a working system and the file system being correct but just one partition on the SSD and no EFI or other partitions.

Thanks for your help and any guidance is most appreciated.
 
Tried another install same result. Screen grab of Disk Utility:

uJBMHQW.jpg


Is this what you would see on a real Mac - IE no other partitions as the hardware is capable of natively recognising and booting from a Mac partition? I note that Windows installs routinely create several invisible partitions as part of a normal install.
 
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I'm using a clover installer on USB in conjunction with the HS Install app. I'm a bit confused about the EFI partition and whether that it is a bit of necessary code that is always present and created by the Apple installer or purely a Clover created hack that fools Apple software into booting on a non Apple machine.

I've done several installs from El Cap onwards and the EFI partition was always created as part of the process of using UniBeast so I was wondering if the hack to disable APFS was disrupting the install. I've followed your instructions but only the one big volume is being created:

Create bootable USB using UniBeast and boot from it choosing the external file on the USB
Open Disk Utility and wipe SSD with HFS Journaled (creating large partition that fills SSD)
Click install to add files to SSD
Reboot with USB and choose USB installer to boot from again
Run Terminal and do the xml change
Reboot from USB and boot from (modified) installer on SSD
Keep choosing SSD installer after reboots until complete

This results in a working system and the file system being correct but just one partition on the SSD and no EFI or other partitions.

Thanks for your help and any guidance is most appreciated.

EFI partition is always created by Disk Utility when you partition a disk as GPT.
You should not expect Clover to be automatically installed to it, nor for the EFI partition to be automatically mounted.
You can read about how to mount EFI in the laptop FAQ:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capita...faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.html

Also, the EFI partition is always hidden in Disk Utility, so don't expect to see it there.
 
Is there any hope of disabling TRIM on APFS drives in the future with a kext or something or is it too low level? Ideally I could have the speed of an NVME, the niceties of APFS, but skip the boot time required for TRIM
 
Is there any hope of disabling TRIM on APFS drives in the future with a kext or something or is it too low level? Ideally I could have the speed of an NVME, the niceties of APFS, but skip the boot time required for TRIM

It is probably possible to create such a patch. I haven't read about anyone doing it though. And the TRIM issue is not the only NVMe issue anyway.
 
i tried to do first method and then i got error no such file or directory
then i said let's try the second method i get same error when using cd command
 
i tried to do first method and then i got error no such file or directory
then i said let's try the second method i get same error when using cd command

You will need to provide images that show exactly what you're doing.
 
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