[SOLVED] Boot from 2.5" SSD but not M2 SSD clone

[Connie Mac]

I have Mojave 10.14.6 installed on a conventional 1TB 2.5" SSD (named "MacSSD") and it boots fine with my Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X logic board. I installed a 2TB Western Digital M2 SSD (named "Blade"; not an NVMe drive) using Carbon Copy Cloner, followed by installation of the boot loader with Multibeast Mojave, then by copying the EFI folder of MacSSD to the EFI drive of Blade. However, Blade does not show up on my Gigabyte splash screen when I press F12 to select the boot drive. I suspect this is a BIOS setting of some kind to enable M2 drives?

At any rate, with MacSSD and Blade installed, the computer boots to Clover on MacSSD where I can choose the Mojave installation on the M2 Blade and the computer boots just fine. Blade also shows up as a SATA drive in System Information. What I want to do is remove the MacSSD from the computer and only have Blade inside for booting.

Any idea how to resolve this?

Here are my SATA connections:
SATA0 MacSSD
SATA1 Blade (M.2A slot on logic board)
SATA2 <Empty>
SATA3 Optiarc DVD burner
SATA4 <Empty>
SATA5 <Empty>

Attached is a page from the manual that suggests I have the Blade M.2 SSD installed correctly for the M.2A slot.

 

[CaseySJ]

Hello @Connie Mac

It is possible that the M.2 drive (Blade) lacks an EFI partition. Do you remember formatting the drive with Disk Utility and selecting Scheme = GUID Partition Map?

If unsure, please run Terminal and post the output of this command: diskutil list

 

[Connie Mac]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to mount the EFI Partition on Blade using Clover. Is that the correct thing to do to verify it is there?

Here's the result:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk2 2.0 TB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk3 1000.0 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +2.0 TB disk2
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Blade 257.6 GB disk2s1
2: APFS Volume PreBoot 45.2 MB disk2s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 519.6 MB disk2s3
4: APFS Volume VM 20.5 KB disk2s4

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +1000.0 GB disk3
Physical Store disk1s2
1: APFS Volume MacSSD 214.0 GB disk3s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 45.2 MB disk3s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 510.3 MB disk3s3
4: APFS Volume VM 2.1 GB disk3s4

 

[CaseySJ]

This shows that Blade (/dev/disk2) does, in fact, have an EFI partition (/dev/disk0).

• After mounting the EFI partition on Blade (with Clover Configurator) please open the EFI folder and check whether the following directories are present:
  • BOOT
    • There should be one file inside, called BOOTX64.efi
  • CLOVER
    • The entire Clover folder structure should be present.
    • There should also be a file here called CLOVERX64.efi

 

[Connie Mac]

Strangely enough, neither MacSSD nor Blade SSD EFIs have a BOOT folder. (Boots fine from MacSSD.)

Both have CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi.

 

[CaseySJ]

Strangely enough, neither MacSSD nor Blade SSD EFIs have a BOOT folder. (Boots fine from MacSSD.)

Both have CLOVER/CLOVERX64.efi.

They should have an EFI/BOOT folder (i.e. BOOT folder is located inside the EFI Folder), like this:

 

[Connie Mac]

Scratch that. The Blade DOES not have and EFI/BOOT folder. Not sure how that happened as I copied it from MacSSD to Blade. I am copying a bunch of files right now that I don't want to interrupt but I will copy the BOOT folder to Blade/EFI to see if that fixes it.

Thanks a million!

 

[Connie Mac]

Problem solved. I'm sorry for the trouble - I should have diagnosed that on my own.

 

[CaseySJ]

Problem solved. I'm sorry for the trouble - I should have diagnosed that on my own.

Glad to hear it!! No trouble.