[Solved] New Motherboard, Sierra drive from previous build only boots as USB HDD

[joliv999]

Hi,

My old build based on a GB X58 served me well for many years, from Snow Leopard to Sierra, from Chameleon to Clover.

A few weeks ago, after a improper shutdown, none of my Clover disks and USB installer would boot anymore, always getting stuck at bf1 : init6. Read all the guides, possible solutions, spent many days testing, nothing worked.

My old build still boots an old Chameleon/Mavericks disk, works also fine booting from Win7 and Win10 disks, will keep it this way.

For my new build, using always recommended components, I bought new a Bitfenix Phenom mATX case, new Coolermaster 550 W PSU, new Gigabyte GA Z170MX Gaming5 board, i3-6100 CPU and new DDR4 RAM. Removed the TPI PCI-E wifi card that was working out of the box on my old build and installed it on my new build. Using an old XFX ATI HD 5570 for GPU.

introduced all the correct BIOS settings and booted with a newly my previous booting clover SSD from an external USB enclosure. I did re-install Clover as UEFI, since my old build was Legacy. Booted ok, proof for me that my old X58 was the problem for some unknown reason. Run Multibeast again to install the remaining options, re-booted.

Result: Sound ok, but no WIFI or networking, no HD530 graphics. My ATI card works but not at full resolution and speed. Repeated the process several times, selected the correct options, no dice.

These are all issues that I need to solve, but I realized that first of all I need to find out why internal drives are not recognized. I connected my SSD internally, shows in BIOS, gets to the boot screen, starts booting but halfway through it stops.

For testing purposes, I connected an newly formatted and empty HDD and tried to make a fresh install from my USB installer. It wasn't recognized. For some reason, I can boot externally through USB, but no internal drives are recognized, not in finder, not in Disk Utility.

Just ti check if there was some issue with internal cables, I switched off, connected a WIN10 HDD, pressed F12, booted from this drive, no problem at all, worked fine.

Perhaps I'm having tunnel vision now. There are several issues that I need to solve, but for starters, can't see the reason why internal drives are not recognized with my Sierra system.

I would appreciate some feedback.

 

[P1LGRIM]

I connected my SSD internally, shows in BIOS, gets to the boot screen, starts booting but halfway through it stops.

Boot in verbose mode and post a picture of the screen when it stops.

 

[joliv999]

Hi P1LGRIM,

Thank you for your reply, please see pictures attached.

Booted internally and it stopped. Can't quite comprehend all the different messages on screen. Then after perhaps 1-2, I get the second scree with the "sign" on, it says at the bottom waiting for boot device.

What I also find very confusing is that with the USB installer for Sierra/Unibeast, once I boot into the Sierra installation, it also does not show any internal drive in disk utilities, even with a blank drive inside.

This board is compatible for sure, might there be something else in the BIOS settings, apart from the installation guide lines, that is messing this up?

I thought that this could be DSDT related, since my Sierra SSD was for a X58 board. But since this also occurs with the USB installer, there must be something else wrong here. Look forward to further advice.

 

[P1LGRIM]

"Still waiting for root device".
When installing this means that your USB flash drive cannot be found.
This is usually because the flash drive is in a USB3 port.
If this is the case move it to a USB2 port, if it is already in a USB2 port move it to another and try again.
Repeat until you have tried all USB ports.

If it still doesn't work you could try another flash drive.
You might also try enabling Legacy on your USB3 ports in your BIOS settings.

 

[joliv999]

Stumbled across a solution. With nothing else coming to mind, decided to erase my USB installer and remake it, using my Macbook. To my great surprise, graphics came up to full resolution and my internal drive was suddenly visible. Mounted EFI partitions on both installer and internal SSD, copied complete EFI folder from installer to SSD, boom, now it boots fine. Only sound does not work yet, despite several Multibeast installs. Should be able to work it out eventually, everything else seems to be fine, networking and WIFI, Thanks again for all your suggestions.

 

[oldsam]

OK guys... Spent HUGE (1 day, LOL - that's BIG for me, I am old, need to hurry) amount of time with the same problem.
Succeeded after downgrading BIOS revision of my mobo from F8e (BETA, damn it, don't really remember, how did it sneak in) to F7.