Probook 4530s won't boot after ... well, things just happened!

[FranzWerfel]

This is a long story. My spouse and I have 4530s's that are identical save that hers has the fingerprint scanner and it's a little older. But identical. I can boot both machines up from their respective backups. My wife's 4530s has had some spotty wifi issues. After examining her machine, I found that antenna wire 1 golden jack suffers from metal fatigue. Recently, I upgraded the RAM in my 4530s to 16GB. Everything worked fine.
This is the circumstantial evidence. Then, yesterday, I tried to swap her SSD with my SSD so that she could use my more reliable 4530s and I could replace the antenna wire. But after doing so, my 4530s took a long time to boot into a black screen. Thus far, no amount of tweaking Clover will help. I even put back in 8 GB of RAM. I refreshed the BIOS. Tried older versions of Clover. What is strange is that I can boot Windows 7 on my 4530s with a separate HDD.

So, I have no files to show yet, no logs per se. The two SSDs that seem to be just fine will boot in my wife's machine with the flakey WiFi issue (it is somewhat minimized with duct tape for now). So, my question is, why won't the other 4530s boot?

 

[RehabMan]

This is a long story. My spouse and I have 4530s's that are identical save that hers has the fingerprint scanner and it's a little older. But identical. I can boot both machines up from their respective backups. My wife's 4530s has had some spotty wifi issues. After examining her machine, I found that antenna wire 1 golden jack suffers from metal fatigue. Recently, I upgraded the RAM in my 4530s to 16GB. Everything worked fine.
This is the circumstantial evidence. Then, yesterday, I tried to swap her SSD with my SSD so that she could use my more reliable 4530s and I could replace the antenna wire. But after doing so, my 4530s took a long time to boot into a black screen. Thus far, no amount of tweaking Clover will help. I even put back in 8 GB of RAM. I refreshed the BIOS. Tried older versions of Clover. What is strange is that I can boot Windows 7 on my 4530s with a separate HDD.

So, I have no files to show yet, no logs per se. The two SSDs that seem to be just fine will boot in my wife's machine with the flakey WiFi issue (it is somewhat minimized with duct tape for now). So, my question is, why won't the other 4530s boot?

No "Problem Reporting" files attached.
Read FAQ, "Problem Reporting" again. Carefully. Attach all requested files/output.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/
Use the gen_debug.sh tool mentioned in the FAQ, that way it is less likely you'll omit something.

 

[FranzWerfel]

No "Problem Reporting" files attached.
Read FAQ, "Problem Reporting" again. Carefully. Attach all requested files/output.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/faq-read-first-laptop-frequent-questions.164990/
Use the gen_debug.sh tool mentioned in the FAQ, that way it is less likely you'll omit something.

I rather doubt this will suffice. I can only remove the SSD and extract the EFI on another Mac. It looks like I will have to reinstall and hope for the best. But right now, for the cluster F of reasons above in my first post, it is something of a mystery. Maybe there is some point in a Verbose boot where I should look for something and photograph it?

P.S. I also should mention that I put a new battery into the unbootable 4530s.

 

[RehabMan]

I rather doubt this will suffice. I can only remove the SSD and extract the EFI on another Mac. It looks like I will have to reinstall and hope for the best. But right now, for the cluster F of reasons above in my first post, it is something of a mystery. Maybe there is some point in a Verbose boot where I should look for something and photograph it?

P.S. I also should mention that I put a new battery into the unbootable 4530s.

EFI not requested.
Verbose boot photo is missing.
Attach only EFI/Clover (without themes) and verbose boot photo.

 

[FranzWerfel]

EFI not requested.
Verbose boot photo is missing.
Attach only EFI/Clover (without themes) and verbose boot photo.

The autoreplies are not so helpful. There is a very long verbose output that takes up to ten minutes. I would need to film it for you. The efi/clover file was attached without the themes. I don't think there is anything wrong with the software per se because the SSDs boot in our other 4530s. They won't boot in the other one and there is no precedent that I can find. Is there specific part of the verbose readout that I should focus on and photograph?

 

[Gigamaxx]

The autoreplies are not so helpful. There is a very long verbose output that takes up to ten minutes. I would need to film it for you. The efi/clover file was attached without the themes. I don't think there is anything wrong with the software per se because the SSDs boot in our other 4530s. They won't boot in the other one and there is no precedent that I can find. Is there specific part of the verbose readout that I should focus on and photograph?

Did you check bios versions and bios settings and compare them to the other 4530s?

 

[FranzWerfel]

Did you check bios versions and bios settings and compare them to the other 4530s?

They were the same at the time before this anomoly occurred. During the course of my attempts to fix the problem (ensuring BIOS was at the right settings, etc.), I did try the latest BIOS from HP. Nothing really changed. I currently have a Windows 7 SSD running in the 4530s that won't boot into 10.13.6.

During a verbose boot, there is a long pause at WindowServer[174] triggered unnest etc. But that's a Chrome thing, I believe.

Then AppleKeyStore fails ... etc ... then CodecCommander does it's evaluations ... then AppleKeyStore fails with unexpected session ... the photo attached reveals a very long pause at AppleRunTime and then the boot process ends with a black screen.

I cannot see a cursor, but I can tell that the keyboard is responsive. If I try the brightness controls, the laptop will even emit a blip-blip sound as it "complains."

BIOS. I have noticed that if I swap out the Windows 7 SSD and put the 10.13.6 SSD back, the UEFI disk seems to automatically change the BIOS to UEFI! That's weird. Maybe a photograph earlier in a verbose boot will reveal something.

P.S. There does seem to be an ACPI error that might be the culprit. If you look at my original post, there was a new battery that I tried with the 4530s. That might have caused the problem.

 

[RehabMan]

The autoreplies are not so helpful. There is a very long verbose output that takes up to ten minutes. I would need to film it for you. The efi/clover file was attached without the themes. I don't think there is anything wrong with the software per se because the SSDs boot in our other 4530s. They won't boot in the other one and there is no precedent that I can find. Is there specific part of the verbose readout that I should focus on and photograph?

You attached EFI, not EFI/Clover. EFI/Clover will be much smaller than EFI.
The FAQ is very clear about not attaching the entire EFI, yet you failed to read it or ignored what was written.

 

[FranzWerfel]

You attached EFI, not EFI/Clover. EFI/Clover will be much smaller than EFI.
The FAQ is very clear about not attaching the entire EFI, yet you failed to read it or ignored what was written.

Okay, I downloaded the EFI.zip and rezipped just the Clover folder. Thanks.

 

[RehabMan]

Okay, I downloaded the EFI.zip and rezipped just the Clover folder. Thanks.

misc/preboot.log is missing (you forgot to press F2)
OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi not recommended.
See guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-booting-the-os-x-installer-on-laptops-with-clover.148093/
(should be using OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi or AptioMemoryFix-64.efi)
EmuVariableUefi-64.efi not needed on the 4530s.
apfs.efi should not be in drivers64UEFI. Guide recommends using ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi.

Make sure your SSDT.aml is regenerated specifically for the 4530s you're trying to boot.
Not valid to use SSDT.aml generated for one CPU on a different CPU.
Also, keep in mind guide advice regarding alternate DropTables for certain CPUs.

All directories under Clover/kexts except for Other should be removed.

Your config.plist is not up-to-date with respect to the ProBook guide/github. I didn't check your ACPI/patched,... it could be those are old too.

Make sure BIOS is flashed with the latest from HP.com.