[Guide] Fanless mini Mojave: i5-8600 | Gigabyte Z370N WiFi | Intel HD630

[littlecreature]

I was initially trying with 10.14.3 but have been testing with a fresh 10.14.4

I have tried with the SSDT and EFI from your GitHub and it did not help.

I have just discovered a key element. The missing disks, are the four motherboard SATA ports.

There have now been two random occurrences when all the disks show up, but rebooting with the same config does not reveal them a second time.

Edit: On my High Sierra the disks are connected to "Intel 10 Series" but this does not show on my Mojave install, which shows "Intel 20 Series" and no disks attached.

Where do I go from here?

 

[littlecreature]

With your Z370N setup can you confirm which SATA controller shows up in System Report for you?

 

[xmark]

With your Z370N setup can you confirm which SATA controller shows up in System Report for you?

I have 2 SSDs, one windows, the other Mac. Both show as "20 series chipset" from Intel.
The system report shows total of 5 SATA slots, one must be the top M2 socket.
System is stable and no problems with the SATA ports being found.

 

[xmark]

After updating Clover, EFI and kexts to the current latest releases, the upgrade to 10.14.4 went with no problem.

My EFI & kexts are in the usual place.

Recommend follow B1's fix for 10.14.4 upgrade, i.e. in the Gigabyte m/b setup:

"You need to set BIOS ▸ Security option to Setup. After update you can set it back to System."

 

[littlecreature]

I have 2 SSDs, one windows, the other Mac. Both show as "20 series chipset" from Intel.

Damn. I really hoped that that would be the key... I am at a loss as to what to try next...

 

[xmark]

Damn. I really hoped that that would be the key... I am at a loss as to what to try next...

Maybe reset your BIOS. I'd follow these instructions to optimised defaults etc. In case you'd changed something.
Then set the flag as per B1's 10.14.4 fix "You need to set BIOS ▸ Security option to Setup. After update you can set it back to System." Leave it there until stable.
Then remove any devices except the 10.14.4 system/EFI disk.
Remove WiFi/BT if you can & have wired mouse and ethernet.
Booting by whatever means you have, update your EFI partition from my compressed file (my GitHub above).
Update your kexts in L/E making sure installed correctly (various ways on this site).

If you've done all that, and you have the same board Z370N WiFi ... and you have a simple SATA drive which has 10.14.4 successfully installed on it ... it must work.

If that doesn't work, I'd double check how you upgraded to 10.14.4. Maybe even go back and rebuilt the install disk.
With a clean BIOS settings, a good 10.14.4 install and my EFI/kexts it should work.

Once you have a stable bootable system with one drive then progressively add the others and also other devices.

 

[littlecreature]

Thanks for the suggestions. I thought you might have been onto something with the PCI-E card conflicting, but no dice.

Changing between Setup and System makes no difference. Nor do any other BIOS settings I have tried, which include all the recommended ones plus a few others. I have only tried F5 and F10 BIOS versions.

I don't have a spare SATA disk to load with Mojave - will see if I can rustle one up tomorrow.

I did experiment with removing all devices except the boot NVMe loaded with a fresh 10.14.4 install and your latest EFI and extensions from GitHub together with just one SATA disk with the same result. SATA would show up, and I'd reboot and it is gone, and will come back again after a few reboots.

The disks do show up under 'Intel 20 Series Chipset' when they are working.

I just don't know what would cause this intermittent behaviour in Mojave, while the setup works perfectly on High Sierra.

 

[xmark]

while the setup works perfectly on High Sierra

Sorry, but forget High Sierra! All that means the hardware is okay under HS. But since Mojave is not HS, it doesn't tell us anything more

What to do? Not sure. I'd reset and reflash the MB. I'd want to be confident the NVMe install is clean (I know you said, up to you). I'd use known EFI/kexts (again, you said already). I'd confirm the base system was stable.

Then I'd add the SATA drives. I can't see why they wouldn't work. Are they AFPS? How old are they? Do they need specific drivers (SATA means no, but anyway). Problem may be some compatibility?

I recommend you stick to the main thread you opened. So people can follow what others have said and your responses. I would post there detailing where you are now, including the full info dump they ask for. So people can see the contents of EFI etc etc.

There are wiser heads than me who'll pick up on the thread. You'll get there!

 

[littlecreature]

Thanks. Have uploaded info dump to the other thread and will hope someone takes notice.

For reference, the disks are 6 month old half seagate, half WD 8TB SATA disks. They are not APFS but zfs. The disks require no special drivers, though zfs uses a kext.

 

[littlecreature]

Hi Xmark. One issue I am having unrelated to my disks.

With your latest EFI/kexts from GitHub my boot process gets stuck on `ioconsoleusers gioscreenlockstate 3`

Any ideas why that may be? At the moment I am using b166ar's with a change to imac18,1 and `0x3e9b0007` which works fine, but I think yours was more suitable for an iGPU only setup. (I plan to use multiple monitors, though have not tested yet) and noticed yours would allocate 2GB of memory and recognised my 4K monitor correctly.

Edit: Actually - it does seem to be related. Your EFI/Extensions boot after a BIOS update! See my other message about how my disks now reliably show up - if I do a BIOS update first!