<< Solved >> Stuck on "No Entry" on boot after brain fail

[Yoshimune]

Hi all,
I have had a stable Mojave clover boot the last 6 months, and decided to get a new graphics card (rx580).

In the process of tinkering around trying to get that up & running, I downloaded some kext updates. (Whatever green, lilu, and a couple of the Apple ones). I added these updates to the clover directory, but was still unable to get the radeon card working. Anyway fast forward to the brain fail. I was reading that installing kext updates into Library / Extensions had helped some people with the RX 580. Had a bad night of sleep and ended up copying the updated Kexts via finder into Library / extensions by mistake instead of installing them.
This has led to a situation where the machine freezes at the "no entry" logo on boot, with the verbose text USBMSC Identifier. Screenshot attached.

i recently moved interstate and can no longer find the USB installer I made originally, so I am out of ideas. I tried a wide range of Clover boot options, but nothing is helping. Feels pretty broken.

Is my only option to buy another copy of Mojave / Catalina and make a new USB install, or does anyone have a bright idea
?

ps - i am a true fool

 

[P1LGRIM]

new graphics card (rx580).

Please update your profile as per the site rules.

You may be able to boot in safe mode or with the boot argument -liluoff.

 

[Yoshimune]

Please update your profile as per the site rules.

You may be able to boot in safe mode or with the boot argument -liluoff.

Appreciate the reply. Whoops! Have updated the profile to reflect the new graphics card, plus added some more info on chipset.

-liluoff wasn't a success unfortunately.

I've tried booting to safemode, blocking a range of Kexts, etc.

I can now see the error it actually crashed on is "Still waiting for root device". I understand from other threads this is usually an issue on installation, when the system is unable to find a flash drive. In this instance, as I have said, I don't have a flash drive, and am not upgrading an existing install.

Completely stuck at this point.

 

[Yoshimune]

Just providing a bit more info. The 4 x kexts I managed to stupidly copy via finder into Library / Extensions were: Lilu, WhateverGreen, AppleALC, & USBInjectAll.

They are correctly installed in the EFI Clover\kexts\other directory, but incorrectly copied to Library/Extensions. Is there any way to install these kexts correctly into Library / Extensions without being able to boot into Mojave, or to force clover to use kexts from EFI\clover\kexts\other ?

Or AM I way off base here?

 

[jaymonkey]

Is there any way to install these kexts correctly into Library / Extensions without being able to boot into Mojave

@Yoshimune,

Best bet would be to boot into single user mode with the boot argument "-S" or use the Clover sub menu by pressing <SPACE> on your MacOS boot entry and selecting "Single User mode" this will drop you straight into a command line only terminal session.

From there you can mount your system drive for read write and run a file system check .. the commands to do this will be shown in the terminal session. Once you have mounted the drive and run the check you can then repair the permissions of the incorrectly installed kexts and rebuild the kext cache with the following commands, execute them one at a time :-

sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -i /

Then reboot the system with the command :-

reboot

Guide to correctly installing kext's in /L/E for future reference :-

[GUIDE] Installing 3rd Party Kexts - El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina

Installing 3rd Party Kexts in /Library/Extensions Note: This guide was originally written to support MacOS Mojave and older versions (< r5200) of the Clover boot-loader. The methods detailed here are now considered legacy methods and should only used with older versions of MacOS as detailed...

www.tonymacx86.com

Cheers
Jay

 

[Yoshimune]

@Yoshimune,

Best bet would be to boot into single user mode with the boot argument "-S" or use the Clover sub menu by pressing <SPACE> on your MacOS boot entry and selecting "Single User mode" this will drop you straight into a command line only terminal session.

From there you can mount your system drive for read write and run a file system check .. the commands to do this will be shown in the terminal session. Once you have mounted the drive and run the check you can then repair the permissions of the incorrectly installed kexts and rebuild the kext cache with the following commands, execute them one at a time :-

sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -i /

Then reboot the system with the command :-

reboot

Guide to correctly installing kext's in /L/E for future reference :-

[GUIDE] Installing 3rd Party Kexts - El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina

Installing 3rd Party Kexts in /Library/Extensions Note: This guide was originally written to support MacOS Mojave and older versions (< r5200) of the Clover boot-loader. The methods detailed here are now considered legacy methods and should only used with older versions of MacOS as detailed...

www.tonymacx86.com

Cheers
Jay

Hi Jay,

Appreciate this very promising solution.

For some strange reason I cant get Single user mode to function out of Clover Bootloader. Its a glitch where selecting -s seems to initiate -v mode instead, and does not allow any terminal input. The machine boots as per usual in Verbose mode, until it hits the usual glitch "waiting for root device" no entry sign & Crash.

I was really hoping to be able to access terminal as it seems a lot can be done there.


I guess my next port of call will be trawling the forum for single user mode solutions.

 

[jaymonkey]

@Yoshimune,

Booting into single user mode will also enable verbose mode as both boot modes use the console.

If you can't boot into single mode user mode directly from your installed system then the next option would be to boot into MacOS Recovery which should have been created when you installed MacOS.

Once booted into Recovery you can run Terminal from the Utilities Menu and try to repair the file system from there, you will need to first mount the appropriate drive for read and write, you you can use "diskutil list" to list your drives and "ls /Volumes" to list your Volumes.

Once you have mounted the appropriate drive as R/W you can run the repair commands, you will need to add "/Volumes/XXX" to the path of each of the repair commands :-

sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Volumes/XXX/System/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Volumes/XXX/System/Library/Extensions
sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -i /Volumes/XXX/

Where "XXX" is the Volume name of your MacOS drive.

With all that said i'm not sure that incorrectly installed kext's in /L/E is the only issue you have as usually it is possible to boot straight into single user mode even with incorrectly installed kext's as it does not use the kernel cache and thus incorrectly installed kext's would normally not stop access to single user mode.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Yoshimune]

@Yoshimune,

Booting into single user mode will also enable verbose mode as both boot modes use the console.

If you can't boot into single mode user mode directly from your installed system then the next option would be to boot into MacOS Recovery which should have been created when you installed MacOS.

Once booted into Recovery you can run Terminal from the Utilities Menu and try to repair the file system from there, you will need to first mount the appropriate drive for read and write, you you can use "diskutil list" to list your drives and "ls /Volumes" to list your Volumes.

Once you have mounted the appropriate drive as R/W you can run the repair commands, you will need to add "/Volumes/XXX" to the path of each of the repair commands :-

sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Volumes/XXX/System/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Volumes/XXX/System/Library/Extensions
sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Volumes/XXX/Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -i /Volumes/XXX/

Where "XXX" is the Volume name of your MacOS drive.

With all that said i'm not sure that incorrectly installed kext's in /L/E is the only issue you have as usually it is possible to boot straight into single user mode even with incorrectly installed kext's as it does not use the kernel cache and thus incorrectly installed kext's would normally not stop access to single user mode.

Cheers
Jay

SUCCESS!

I was unable to boot from Recovery either, but I finally found the source of my angst.

Turns out SATA Aggressive Link Power Management being enable under Bios was the thing preventing the boot from happening, and blocking access to single user mode.

So assuming the error I was getting was due to the bootloader being unable to access the drives.

Once I was able to boot I repaired permissions as you suggested, fixed up my USB ports which were being glitchy and we're back in business!

Appreciate the supportive advice and wealth of info here on the forums. I would have been nursing an expensive brick without it.

 

[jaymonkey]

Once I was able to boot I repaired permissions as you suggested, fixed up my USB ports which were being glitchy and we're back in business!

@Yoshimune,

Glad your back up and running ....

Cheers
Jay