Mojave re-install from recovery won't boot

[AndyHen]

Hi,
I previously had a working install on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, thanks to following the great work of @Errrneist Zysuper and others. Some kext cache issues and [possibly] a BIOS update killed its ability to boot. I think I successfully re-installed (without wiping the partition) but it still will not boot. I've tried everything I could think of and suggested here.
Thanks in advance for some advice.

EFI attached... and some pics of the boot progress.

 

[Errrneist]

Try Release v10.14.5.1.3 from my repo. It should work...I suppose. Make sure you turn off secure boot in BIOS.

 

[AndyHen]

Try Release v10.14.5.1.3 from my repo. It should work...I suppose. Make sure you turn off secure boot in BIOS.

Thanks! Secure boot is definitely OFF. I've tried some of your repos, but I'll try that one specifically, and report back how it goes. At this point I'm trying to re-install.
-A

 

[AndyHen]

In case anyone is following here (hi @Errrneist !) I have resolved the issue. The bios update wasn’t the issue... Because the hackintool kext tools hang (seems like a known issue) I used kextbeast and apparently had errant kext on the desktop and accidentally installed the VirtualSMC kext to /L/E which created a fatal conflict with FakeSMC. Since I was attempting to reinstall without wiping the drive that conflict and the stale kernel cache prevented reinstalls completing.
The good news is I have now become well versed in ACPI patching and and all the other things I tried... eventually using the terminal from the recovery partition to remove VirtualSMC and rebuild the cache worked!
Would love to see some commentary from any experts on the virtues of FakeSMC vs VirtualSMC. @headkaze seems to lean towards VirtualSMC in the hackintool, while @RehabMan guides is to the FakeSMC. There’s a few “6 of one, half dozen of the other” type comments around various threads, but i couldn’t discern any rational discriminator one way or the other.

onward!

 

[headkaze]

seems to lean towards VirtualSMC in the hackintool

IMHO OpenCore is the future along with VirtualSMC.

 

[Errrneist]

In case anyone is following here (hi @Errrneist !) I have resolved the issue. The bios update wasn’t the issue... Because the hackintool kext tools hang (seems like a known issue) I used kextbeast and apparently had errant kext on the desktop and accidentally installed the VirtualSMC kext to /L/E which created a fatal conflict with FakeSMC. Since I was attempting to reinstall without wiping the drive that conflict and the stale kernel cache prevented reinstalls completing.
The good news is I have now become well versed in ACPI patching and and all the other things I tried... eventually using the terminal from the recovery partition to remove VirtualSMC and rebuild the cache worked!
Would love to see some commentary from any experts on the virtues of FakeSMC vs VirtualSMC. @headkaze seems to lean towards VirtualSMC in the hackintool, while @RehabMan guides is to the FakeSMC. There’s a few “6 of one, half dozen of the other” type comments around various threads, but i couldn’t discern any rational discriminator one way or the other.

onward!

Good to hear. I also released Catalina support yesterday, if you wanna try and play with it. That said, I will no longer work on Mojave (10.14.6).