HFS+ Drives Stop Working After Screen Lock (maybe?)

[greenfrog5]

Sometimes when I boot up my Catalina build, I cannot write to any internal HFS+ partitions. I get an error "This operation cannot be completed, Error -50." I cannot find anything online about this error. Most of the time when I boot up my Catalina build, the disks work correctly and I can red/write properly. However, I have noticed that even when things are working correctly, over time, eventually the problem occurs and the HFS+ partitions cannot be written to, with the same error.

I have used the computer for hours without issue. I have the computer set NOT to sleep (since I cannot wake it from sleep currently), and NOT to sleep the HDs. I suspect that it may be related to the screen lock that was set to "5 mins after screen saver" as I return to the computer after a while and often unlock the screen to discover the HDs aren't working. I have disabled screen lock to see if I can pinpoint what is triggering this.

Any ideas for what might be causing this, or what troubleshooting steps I should take to identify the issue?

 

[Edhawk]

Which HFS+ driver are you using with your Sandy Bridge system - HFSPlus.efi, HFSPlusLegacy.efi, VBoxHfs.efi or VBoxHfsLegacy.efi?

Which bootloader are you using, Clover or OpenCore?

 

[greenfrog5]

I am using Clover v5127 (latest as-of a few weeks ago when I started all of this). I am using HFSPlus.efi, not sure where I got it from. I am not familiar with the different HFS drivers, or the differences between them.

 

[greenfrog5]

As I continue to troubleshoot, I have had this occur on just some of my partitions, while others continue to function correctly. I have also noticed that unzipping large files is slower than I recall, and it has a huge performance on overall computer performance (slowing down web browsing and other stuff). Should I be using a different HFSPlus driver?

 

[greenfrog5]

This appears to reoccur more often on the same 3 partitions which are on the same physical disk. But I'm not sure how consistent that is (I recall more randomness at times). I can't really pin it down to any event, usually after a while when I need to save to these drives, I get the error and cannot. Disk Utility cannot access them, or unmount them either. See attached images of errors. Disk repair reports no errors.

A separate(?) issue I have had is that my SSD experiences random freezes with Catalina, so I cannot currently use it as as my system drive. Booting an identical system from HDD (non-SSD) partition has no freezes.

What else can I check or try to fix this HDD becoming unavailable issue? I really need to fix this, as rebooting every few hours is not sustainable for a usable computer.

 

[Edhawk]

You might want to downgrade your Clover bootloader to Clover_r5119 or Clover_r5120, as these two versions have not been messed up by the Clover developers. A Copy of Clover_r5119 is attached for you to use.

In the more recent versions of Clover, the developers have tried to import some of the features from OpenCore. They have not implemented these additions correctly, such that they have introduced a number of unnecessary issues.

Reverting to one of the two versions listed above will likely help clear up some of these issues you are seeing.

 

[greenfrog5]

To clarify, I actually think I have currently have v5119 installed on the main EFI (from MultiBeast, because I could not get Clover itself to install there in Legacy mode). This experiences the "double boot screen" issue where the first Clover boot screen shows no boot drives, and I have to exit clover, and it reloads showing my boot drives. While not ideal, this is the least of my problems at the moment, as I had issues where it wouldn't show all 3 boot drives at all, or other more serious issues; so I'm fine with this for now.

I have a USB stick with the newer Clover on it. I believe the hard disk issue occurs with both versions of Clover, but I will do some more testing (and revert) and see if that helps. What is so strange is how inconsistent it is. Sometimes is occurs on startup, other times, randomly over time as I use the system, and not for all of the partitions.

I also tried booting without HFSPlus.efi (which I could do, and could access HFS+ drives; I guess the driver is just the boot from HFS drives? Once I'm done with Yosemite, do I even need this anymore? I also downloaded a fresh copy of HFSPlus, but doesn't seem to have changed anything.

Are there any Clover settings I should play around with that might affect this? Something else that occurred to me, there are some SATA and eSATA drivers in Clover or MultiBeast that I did not install. Not sure if these might help?

Thanks so much for your help and responses in my threads. I really just don't know where to go with this issue, as I cannot find anything online about it.

 

[Edhawk]

You probably don't need the SATA and eSATA drivers, not for booting the system anyway. I would leave them for another day to see what they offer.

Not being able to install Clover is what's caught my attention in the post above.

Are you selecting the correct customisations when you run the Clover installer, so you end up with a Legacy mode installation? If not you will not see the bootloader screen.

These are the steps I just took to install Clover_r5119 in Legacy Mode, on a USB pen drive with the name 'Clover':

The first thing I did was 'Erase' the USB pen drive using Disk Utility, with the settings shown below in the first screenshot.



This screenshot shows the Erase process in action.


This Screenshot shows the process completed successfully.


Next I opened the Clover_r5119 installation package.


I selected Continue


I selected Continue, again.


I selected Continue, again.


I selected 'Change Install Location' button


I selected the 'Clover' USB pen drive and Continue.


I selected the 'Customise' button.


I selected the option 2nd from the top, 'Install Clover in the ESP' so Clover is installed to the EFI Partition.
As this is a Legacy system you want to make sure the 1st option is not selected.
I then selected Boot Sectors > Install boot0af in MBR, this is essential if you are booting in Legacy mode.
The other customisations I left as they were, and selected the 'Install' button.


If you want you can go through the other customisations and select the drivers you need, or the 'Drivers Off' customisation, so you obtain a set of the latest drivers available with this Clover installer.

I entered my password when requested and then hit the 'Install Software' button.


Selected 'Close' button once the installation was completed.


The end result was I had two partition icons on my desktop, the important one being the EFI Partition, where Clover had just been installed.


Upon opening the EFI Partition I was faced with two items. The boot file and an EFI Partition.
The boot file is what will be used by your non-UEFI system to boot in to Clover, this was the item installed by the selection of Boot Sectors > Install boot0af in MBR during the customisation stage. Without this your system won't boot to the Clover boot screen.


Upon opening the EFI Folder, these three items were visible. The txt file is not important.
The Boot folder contains 'Bootx64.efi', which Clover uses when booting our systems.
The Clover folder holds an unusable boot setup.


The contents of the CLOVER folder should be seen as place holders. This folder would not boot any system. But can easily be replaced/overwritten with a working CLOVER folder, or adapted to meet your needs given the correct tools, kexts, SSDTs, drivers and themes.



I hope this walk through helps.

 

[greenfrog5]

Thanks for the detailed walk-through. I am somewhat familiar with the Clover installation settings, and have successfully installed Clover several times onto USB drives, as well as at least once onto a freshly installed OS on a hard drive. Recently, when attempting to "start fresh" with Clover, and see if I had better success, I tried emptying my EFI partition (I didn't format it, just deleted contents), and tried to re-install the latest Clover. With similar settings, Clover gave a generic error something like "Clover has experienced an error" without any details to look into. I assume it was a disk permission error, or something. Instead of troubleshooting, I tried Multibeast, which successfully installed v5119 (which it sounds is what I want anyway).

One oddity I noticed is that Clover installed Legacy on my USB is located in an EFI folder on the root of the USB (not within the EFI partition itself, which is empty). When I install Clover Legacy to my HDD, it goes into the actual EFI partition. I have also, on occasion, found an EFI folder on my HDD root with a copy of Clover stuff in it. I presume this is likely from an incorrect installation where I accidetally didn't check the "Install to ESP". Testing, I think moving the USB files into the EFI partition did not work. And, vice-versa with the HDD installation (placing files only in \root\EFI\ folder did not work).

Do you think my HDD issues are related to my Clover setup (config, kexts, drivers)? Hardware incompatibility/failure? Or my OS installation?

 

[Edhawk]

It isn't an oddity, it is just another way to install Clover in Legacy Mode. Not selecting the 'Install Clover to the ESP' customisation option will result in the EFI Folder being created on the Root of the drive, whether that is a USB or SSD/NVME/HDD drive.

I don't like using this option, as editing the CLOVER folder when it is installed to the Root of the drive requires constantly having to enter an admin password, each time you make an edit to the CLOVER folder contents.

On a couple of my Sandy Bridge systems, I have no choice but to install the EFI Folder to the Root of the USB, otherwise the system won't boot to the Clover boot screen. Strangely enough once macOS has been installed the system will boot from the EFI Partition.

Just emptying the EFI Folder can cause issues as you may have an old 'boot' record still attached to the EFI Folder. Changing the contents of the EFI folder without changing the 'Boot' record may be what caused the error you have encountered. Instead fo emptying the EFI Folder you can simply overwrite the EFI Folder and Boot record by reinstalling the same version or a new version of Clover to the same location. That way the Bootx64.efi and 'boot' record will match and are less likely to cause any errors.

No I don't think your HDD issues are related to your Clover setup. More likely to be a Hardware issue, not sure if this is the early stages of failure of a component.

It is less likely to be an OS installation issue, as you are using a Catalina compatible SMBIOS.

Are you also using the '-no_compat_check' boot argument in your config.plist?