In-OSX fix for the M.2 NVMe disk not visible in DiskUtility

[droptical]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is already well known, or where to put it, so I'll pop it here for now.

I'm just installing High Sierra on a new build (i7 8700+RoG Strix-G, EVO960 M2 NVMe), and hit the snag where the (previously unused) M2 drive was not showing in Disk Utility so I couldn't partition it. I've seen various suggestions for how to get the drive to appear, but they mostly seem to involve installing another OS which can see it, partition there, reboot into OSX installer and re-partition etc.

However, it turns out that the OS can see the drive, but that it's not shown in Disk Utility.
I discovered that if you quit the Disk Utility, select Utility>Terminal from the OSX menu bar, you can do an initial partition from using the command-line diskutil which will then allow the drive to be seen from the graphical Disk Utility app.

In Terminal, you can run "diskutil list" to see all the drives the kernel knows about, and "diskutil info <drive>" to show more detailed info on the device itself (e.g. "diskutil info disk0"). Using these commands you can figure out which of the listed devices is your "invisible" M2 drive.

Once you've identified your "invisible" drive, and are quite, quite, sure you've got the right device, you can then run:
diskutil partitionDrive disk0 GPT JHFS+ "My Volume" 100
and it'll create a GUID partition table and a formatted Journaled HFS+ Volume (called "My Volume") on the drive.

If you then close the terminal window and quit the Terminal app you'll be taken back to the main install menu, and if you click on the Disk Utility app you should then see your previously invisible drive (and newly created volume, which you can fiddle with to your heart's desire).

Hope this is useful for someone, and apologies if this is already widely known!

Cheers,
Drop.

 

[sekro]

Thanks! <3

I had to use the command:
diskutil partitionDisk disk0 GPT JHFS+ "My Volume" 100

Instead of partitionDrive. Otherwise diskutil complained:
diskutil: did not recognize verb "partitionDrive"; type "diskutil" for a list

 

[bocaman06]

Thanks for this info. Mine also was "diskutil partitionDisk disk0 GPT JHFS+ "My Volume" 100"

 

[grootbatavia]

My nvme just doesn't show... It does in my bios so I know it's there and installed properly. Guess that only leaves me the option to run another OS and format it first?

 

[JamesKI]

Here is the fix that should work as its the preferred block size that is hindering it from showing up.

Name: com.apple.iokit.IONVMeFamily
Find: F6C1100F 85410100 00
Replace: F6C1080F 85410100 00
Comment: IONVMeFamily Preferred Block Size 0x10 -> 0x08, credit RehabMan based on 10.12 patch (c) Pike R. Alpha

 

[grootbatavia]

@JamesKI, thanks for that. I've pretty much given up on installing my new hackintosh for various reasons. That said, I did get the disk to display correctly and managed to get a mojave package on there by flashing the latest bios update to my motherboard (asrock gaming itx z270). Might help others. Not sure about other brands, but asrock also has updated usb 3 drivers in the new package, which helps as the motherboard only has usb 3 ports, which can lead to boot usb sticks not being read. Anyway, hope this helps others, I'll stick with linux for now.

 

[JamesKI]

@grootbatavia updating the microcode is needed and can be done easily with Asrock. I highly doubt usb3 was causing your installation issues, as I have no problems with USB3 and USB3 device. Which leads me to believe your clover setup was not correct based on your hardware and/or uefi configuration.