Stuck after (during?) Mojave upgrade directly from Sierra on Asus N752VX

[vualeks]

I had a working installation of Sierra on my Asus N752VX and wanted to upgrade to Mojave. I firstly updated Clover to latest 48xx version and added apfs.efi driver. I was able to boot to Sierra again and started Mojave installation. It rebooted once, I've selected "Install" boot option in Clover, installation continued for some 30~40min, rebooted again and the I had 3 boot options related to my drive (+ recovery):
Boot FileVault Prebooter from Preboot
Boot macOS Install Prebooter from Preboot
Boot macOS from Sierra (<- name of the partition)

I first tried to boot Install prebooter but it failed to start (screenshot attached). Then I tried booting the other two, and it kinda looks that they reach the same level, but then are just stuck (with verbose scr attached). Interesting thing is that Recovery boots ok, GUI starts and by version dates of the apps I can see that it is recovery from Mojave. Converting from hfs to afs went OK also and the main partition is mounted and accessible.

Now I'm wondering if the installation ever got completed since the Install Prebooter option is still there or there are some other reasons/problems why it doesn't want to start. Guys, do you have any suggestions what to do, if I can save this install?

If not, I guess I'll have to try a clean Mojave install..

 

[Feartech]

I had a working installation of Sierra on my Asus N752VX and wanted to upgrade to Mojave. I firstly updated Clover to latest 48xx version and added apfs.efi driver. I was able to boot to Sierra again and started Mojave installation. It rebooted once, I've selected "Install" boot option in Clover, installation continued for some 30~40min, rebooted again and the I had 3 boot options related to my drive (+ recovery):
Boot FileVault Prebooter from Preboot
Boot macOS Install Prebooter from Preboot
Boot macOS from Sierra (<- name of the partition)

I first tried to boot Install prebooter but it failed to start (screenshot attached). Then I tried booting the other two, and it kinda looks that they reach the same level, but then are just stuck (with verbose scr attached). Interesting thing is that Recovery boots ok, GUI starts and by version dates of the apps I can see that it is recovery from Mojave. Converting from hfs to afs went OK also and the main partition is mounted and accessible.

Now I'm wondering if the installation ever got completed since the Install Prebooter option is still there or there are some other reasons/problems why it doesn't want to start. Guys, do you have any suggestions what to do, if I can save this install?

If not, I guess I'll have to try a clean Mojave install..

nice to see someone with the same laptop as me

i had real issues in updating to High Sierra 10.13.6, previous ones worked fine though which was strange

after lots of work, i realised that the BIOS needed an update for the micro codes, but no update was available so i extracted my BIOS and added them in myself, after that, i was able to update to last version of High Sierra and now also Mojave

the job was quite intense to do but if you are interested, i can send you my updated BIOS and some instructions on how to install it?

 

[vualeks]

Sure, let's try. Shouldn't I be able to just install your prepared hacked BIOS now?
Anyway, go ahead, send what you've got.

 

[Feartech]

Sure, let's try. Shouldn't I be able to just install your prepared hacked BIOS now?
Anyway, go ahead, send what you've got.

yes, you can install it, you will need to format a usb stick using rufus for bootable dos

then extract zip attached

copy the folder files for usb bootable to usb

also a folder with 2 bios roms for you

one is standard (with updated microcodes) and the other has updated micro codes but also has the geforce disabled if you want that. after flashing the disable geforce rom, you will just need to re load bios defaults and then the geforce will be disabled, i am currently using that one at the moment.

also when you boot from the usb to make sure to enable legacy in bios to be able to boot

when you decide on bios to use, pop that into the usb and use AFUDOS command to write the BIOS:

afudos bios.rom /P /B /N

don't forget to set dvmt to 64mb or 128mb afterwards and disable fast boot and secure boot etc

you will find other options have been enabled in the BIOS as well, most of which i have kept as defaults on my machine

 

[vualeks]

Ok, updated with disabled Gforce bios(will I need the other one for gf to work properly on Windows? Wanna play games still ) and now I see lots of other bios options. Now I'm not sure should I try to boot Install Prebooter option or just that final installed macOS partition, what would you suggest?

 

[Feartech]

Ok, updated with disabled Gforce bios(will I need the other one for gf to work properly on Windows? Wanna play games still ) and now I see lots of other bios options. Now I'm not sure should I try to boot Install Prebooter option or just that final installed macOS partition, what would you suggest?

if you dual boot and need geforce then use the other BIOS i provided instead, you can disable geforce via patching in macOS

you can keep the other settings as is if you are not sure what they do (best bet )

try a clean install of mojave now and see how you get on

 

[vualeks]

Clean install, are you crazy ? I just started preboot option and voila, it worked, finished update in GUI and everything works. Audio is off, but I'll see about it later. Wifi works which is more important. I'll see about that patching for nvidia also, let it be this way for now.

Man, many thanks, there's no way I would be able to do that BIOS tinkering on my own probably, you're a saviour.

 

[Feartech]

Clean install, are you crazy ? I just started preboot option and voila, it worked, finished update in GUI and everything works. Audio is off, but I'll see about it later. Wifi works which is more important. I'll see about that patching for nvidia also, let it be this way for now.

Man, many thanks, there's no way I would be able to do that BIOS tinkering on my own probably, you're a saviour.

lol! glad you got it working

assumed you replaced the intel wifi?

let me know if you need patching files and kexts as i have everything working here

 

[vualeks]

Yeah, replaced with broadcom and installed AirportBrcmFixup.kext, but now I can't remember which audio patch/kext did I use in the first place and why it doesn't work now. Sure, if it's not a problem, share your clover folder and patches/kexts and I'll pick what I can.

Most important is that now I can install latest Xcode, that's great.

 

[Feartech]

Yeah, replaced with broadcom and installed AirportBrcmFixup.kext, but now I can't remember which audio patch/kext did I use in the first place and why it doesn't work now. Sure, if it's not a problem, share your clover folder and patches/kexts and I'll pick what I can.

Most important is that now I can install latest Xcode, that's great.

here ya go

full hotpatch system, working sdcard reader, trackpad, disabled nvidia, audio, hdmi out and hdmi audio, usb port setup

in the asuskeys folder, run the install_daemon after installing the kexts