Mojave Installation questions - Update only recognizing SSDs, not IHD or EHD

[MissCatD]

Heyyo.

[Edit] New issue. I got everything installed alright, but it's not recognizing my Internal HD (Housing Accounts) or External HD (Housing Time Machine Backups). It's only recognizing my Internal SSD (housing my OS) and an extra SSD (Housing my RAW Photography). Stuck without access to my backups and accounts other than my Troubleshoot.
Kinda hitting a wall here. Any suggestions?

Picture attached...

From left to right... 1. "Accounts" IHD and "Western Digital Passport" EHD not showing up under "Locations". 2. Neither are they showing up under Disk Utility. 3. Under Users, I should be able to select my external "Accounts" HD under "Home Directory," but again, no recognition. Suggestions? I honestly just want to be able to reinstall my backup, by this point. It won't show, however, on Startup Disc or my Troubleshoot Account's desktop. Shows under boot devices after clover boot, but doesn't seem to make any difference, considering I can't boot from it.



I'm also seeing two new options pop up in Clover that have never been there before. "Boot FileVault Probooter from Preboot" and "Boot macOS Install Prebooter from Preboot". Anyone familiar with these and where they came from?



Thank you.
Cat

 

[Adrian B]

macOS is looking for a mouse or trackpad. The power switch has a green background and the arrow is showing the direction to move the switch to power the mouse or trackpad.

You can skip past this or try clicking on your USB mouse to see what happens.

Mojave has no Nvidia drivers for your EVGA GTX1080!

 

[MissCatD]

Yup. So I managed to get past that screen, finished the install, obviously I have no graphics card now, but I can live without that for now.

What I can't live without is the fact that for some reason the updated system is recognizing my SSD's, but not my Hardrives. I have two SSD's in my computer, one for my OS and the other for my RAW Photography. I have one Internal HD, which houses my accounts, and one External which houses my Time Machine backups. Meaning, I can now only access my Troubleshooting account from my OS's SSD, cannot access my primary accounts off my IHD and cannot access my WD Passport Time Machine backups.

I've searched through the TonyMacX forums and am having no luck finding a thread where anyone else has experienced this issue. By this point I just want to abandon this update altogether, reinstall my backup and reattempt Mojave again later, after the graphics card driver is available. Need my WD External to do that, though, which doesn'y appear to be showing up.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm so tired, right now, I can hardly think straight, so forgive me if I'm missing something stupid.

Thank you.

 

[Adrian B]

Can you confirm if the external drive is connected by USB 2.0 or USB 3.0. Have you tried moving the drive around different USB ports to test if it shows up under another port? I am unclear if the HDD is showing in the UEFI/BIOS, can you clarify please

Can you also power down the computer (remove power socket and press power switch to kill all residual power) before then connecting the the internal HDD with your accounts to the Sata cable that at present connects in to the SSD for your RAW Photography and boot up the computer. This is to test if the drive is seen on another motherboard Sata port.

You may also find that the following app could be a useful tool for you:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/mountefi-v1-1-7-menu-bar-utility.272976/

Preboot messages solution:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-boot-filevault-prebooter-from-preboot.233345/

 

[MissCatD]

You have enlightened me, Adrian. Thank you. When you suggested plugging my HDD into the SATA that my Photo SSD was connected to, it occurred to me that Mojave may not initially be suited to recognize more than one additional Drive. I just outright unplugged my Photo SSD (It's honestly not that important anyway), and now the HD is showing. Simple as that. They're all on the same string, so I assume Mojave was just picking up the first one it saw - had to move things around when installing my Photo SSD, silly me for not considering that it might mess up boot order. My bad.

Just got home, but now I'm going to mess more with my External, since it still seems to be having issues showing. I'll update you with the additional information you requested shortly.

Thank you sincerely.

 

[MissCatD]

Yeah, you got me, I didn't act soon enough. My External is showing after plugging it into a USB2.0. Wasn't working on 3.0. Silly mistake. Sad as it may be with all the effort I put into getting Mojave working, guess I'm gonna try and go back to Sierra, then. At least I now have a nice USB all ready to go for when I can upgrade. Hopefully Apple doesn't completely shut down NVIDIA updates. Been reading that it already might be that way. Super disappointing. Oh well.

Than you so much for your help! Will return with more details if I have any problems with Time Machine.

 

[Adrian B]

Its easy to not not consider the simple stuff when you are very tired and trying to figure out why something isn't quite working out right.

Hope that going back to High Sierra is a smooth experience.

 

[MissCatD]

Yeah, Time Machine was being difficult with me while logged into the desktop, but after completely re-wiping my OS SSD from Safe-Mode Disc Utility and going through the process in Recovery-Mode off my Boot USB, everything was just fine. Computer's all back to normal now, just to how it was before. Guess I'll just hold off with everyone else on NVIDIA, then. This was all a good refresher though, I haven't done any of this in at least a year. Gotta stay fresh.

Thank you for your help!

 

[Adrian B]

For test purposes there are plenty of known brand 120GB - 240GB SSDs available for very little money.

I always conduct these without connecting directly to the internet so that macOS doesn't try contacting Apple servers with requests for checking for software updates or anything else. It keeps my valsi Apple hardware that is registered as the only 'install' that Apple is able to see.

Having a correctly working SSDT fot proper USB implementation is becoming ever more vital with each macOS update - this is best performed on a working test installation and then can be moved across to a functioning working build that is used every day.

There are several guides available, but the RehabMan's guide one is probably the best, yet appears very technical to mere mortals. MacMan has a good Asus Guide and is trying to find time to write and test his Gigabyte guide. The Asus version is below for reference;

RehabMan guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-creating-a-custom-ssdt-for-usbinjectall-kext.211311/

MacMan guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...custom-ssdt-for-xhci-usb-port-control.253981/

Hackintool helps with many things including USB SSDT:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/release-hackintool-v2-0-4.254559/#post-1764779

Simple USB SSDT guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/a-beginners-guide-to-creating-a-custom-usb-ssdt.272505/

 

[trs96]

I just received a Sandisk SSD Plus, 480 GB from Newegg for $49.99. When i bought my first SSD in 2012 it cost about $120 for the 64GB size by Crucial. Do the math there. Almost 8x as much faster storage for less than half the price. Wow ! Huge decline in the cost of an SSD. The SSD Plus is also one of the Faster models that WD/Sandisk sells. WD bought out Sandisk a little over 3 years ago. If you only need the 240 GB size that sells for 37 dollars shipped from Newegg.

SanDisk SSD Plus 240GB Internal SSD - SATA III - Newegg.com

Buy SanDisk SSD Plus 240GB Internal SSD - SATA III 6Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm - SDSSDA-240G-G26 with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com