Unusual El Capitan issue. Won't login.

[michaelcuneo]

Hey guys,

Followed the guides around here to get my El Capitan installed onto my Alienware 17R2, it all worked well, I managed to get it installed, and first login was fine, went through all the creating an account business, that all went well, then I rebooted... and now it won't log in. It just sits there doing nothing. Mouse and keyboard work, it allows me to type in my details... then does nothing.

 

[RehabMan]

Hey guys,

Followed the guides around here to get my El Capitan installed onto my Alienware 17R2, it all worked well, I managed to get it installed, and first login was fine, went through all the creating an account business, that all went well, then I rebooted... and now it won't log in. It just sits there doing nothing. Mouse and keyboard work, it allows me to type in my details... then does nothing.

Describe your installation procedures in detail.

Why does your profile say 10.10.3, but this post El Capitan?

 

[michaelcuneo]

Because I only just finished installing El Capitan, haven't got around to doing the update on the profile yet.

My entire installation procedure in detail is your installation procedure in detail. I just used that... Made the USB with Clover UEFI and El Capitan, installed it after I got it to boot, everything was successful... I even just made a new account by going into single user mode and deleting the .AppleSetupDone so I could go through the account creation process again, but it still won't let me login... now with both accounts. I'm using custom SSDT's and DSDT's the same ones I made for the Yosemite install, yet in this case this is actually working, mostly. I could';t get graphics to function on Yosemite no matter what I did, so I tried El Capitan and it worked straight up.

 

[RehabMan]

Because I only just finished installing El Capitan, haven't got around to doing the update on the profile yet.

My entire installation procedure in detail is your installation procedure in detail. I just used that... Made the USB with Clover UEFI and El Capitan, installed it after I got it to boot, everything was successful... I even just made a new account by going into single user mode and deleting the .AppleSetupDone so I could go through the account creation process again, but it still won't let me login... now with both accounts. I'm using custom SSDT's and DSDT's the same ones I made for the Yosemite install, yet in this case this is actually working, mostly. I could';t get graphics to function on Yosemite no matter what I did, so I tried El Capitan and it worked straight up.

From where did you download OS X? On what hardware did you create the USB installer?

No need to delete any .AppleSetupDone files. If you're needing to do that, you've done something wrong.

 

[michaelcuneo]

Downloaded from App Store, made with my working Yosemite Installation.

I only deleted .AppleSetupDone as a troubleshooting step, to allow myself to create a new account to see if the new account could be logged into... but it also failed to login that new account as well.

 

[RehabMan]

Downloaded from App Store, made with my working Yosemite Installation.

I only deleted .AppleSetupDone as a troubleshooting step, to allow myself to create a new account to see if the new account could be logged into... but it also failed to login that new account as well.

Start over... Not sure what went wrong, but something...

Note: Patched ACPI is a post-install process.

 

[michaelcuneo]

Well I've restarted the entire install process... but now when I get to Install OS X... it just sits there, with the X in a circle, blue loading bar, mouse pointer... won't transition to load the top menu, or allow me to get any further... tried sleep/wake, but it doesn't work, rebooted about a hundreds times now all with the same result.

The annoying thing is... I had a perfectly working hardware accelerated installation before... but after the initial login it would no longer allow further logins. Arrgh. This seems like the same kind of situation, but it's happening with the installer instead of the actual working install. It just seems to stop.

 

[michaelcuneo]

Disregard that... I have the menu back. SSD Trim enabled / disabled did the trick.

Since reinstalling last time and not being able to log in after the initial log in, I changed drives and this new drive isn't SSD... it was freaking out sorting out my Windows 10 / Spare drives situation with Trim. Turned it off and it booted straight to Menu.

 

[michaelcuneo]

Well it has happened again... I have finally got it all installed, booting from the USB to launch the initial boot, and set up an account... but when I try to login for the first time. Nothing happens.

 

[michaelcuneo]

Formatted the target drive with Windows 10 and prepared the drive as an uninitialised blank partition.


Downloaded Clover UEFI & El Capitan from AppStore on Yosemite 10.10.3


Prepared the USB
Made GPT with Single HFS+J.
Created installer using createinstallmedia method.


Installed Clover and set it up as follows… I used the following settings because this was the only way I could get the original existing install to boot.. so I figured why change anything and mess with it… dropping OEM SSDT works fine in my case to use while installing, full h/w and such all working during install. (extremely smooth installation… once I got a working boot)


Full DSDT in ACPI/patched.

DSDT/SSDT contains Brightness Fix for ACPIBacklight
Disable nVidia Discrete Graphics

kexts
ACPIBacklight
FakePCIID_Intel_HD_Graphics
FakePCIID
FakeSMC
VoodooPS2Controller


drivers64UEFI
EmuVariableUefi-64
FSInject-64
HFSPlus
OsxAptiFixDrv-64
OsxFatBinaryDrv-64


Config changes from rehabman originals
SSDT DropOem YES
InjectIntel YES
InjectEDID NO
Boot graphics glitch, 10.10.x/10.11.x (credit lisai9093, cecekpawon) Disabled NO


Boot Clover in UEFI Legacy mode.
Took a few tries to get into the install screen. Random seemingly inconsistent KP’s on each boot… I don’t know if this is a NVRam issue that is affected by adding or removing EmuVariableUefi but it appears to work way better with the driver, but I seem to have more success in any case if I leave the computer a considerably long time between boots to get to another successful boot? If I try a boot using straight up normal boot, then it KP’s… I try another boot straight away… it will KP. Sometimes if I turn it off and leave it for 1 minute, and try the exact same boot without any changes, it will get to the installer 100% perfectly fine. Is this NVRam? Caching? I always Boot without Cache every time I add or remove a kext while troubleshooting… but for it to magically fix itself just from waiting longer… seems odd.


After the install went smooth and I managed to get to the initial account creation screen, I entered all my details but when I press enter… I’m left with this screen.


The computer is still responsive and the mouse still works. if I hit backspace a few times the monitor will do the ‘You’ve hit a key that doesn’t do anything, flash.’


Sleep and Wake work 100%. I can put the computer to sleep and wake it up… Brightness Controls work 100%, I can use the brightness keys to turn the brightness up and down without a problem.
Volume controls work perfectly.’ Hitting the keys brings up the ‘You’ve got no sound to turn up or down UI.
Trackpad works 100%
Keyboard works 100%