USB Boot stuck on progress bar but same EFI on SSD ok?

[Gandalf1969]

Sorry guys not sure where to put this one. Been running Catalina successfully for the last 1yr on this same (untouched) platform and decided to upgrade to Monterey. Before doing anything I wanted to verify my USB boot in case anything goes wrong. My OpenCore is still v6.6 and works great from my internal SSD (again; no changes the last 12mths and has worked flawlessly). If I copy the contents to my USB EFI folder - the system boots to the apple logo and 10% of the progress bar then freezes. Where should I start? Happily provide more detail but for now thought just stating working config copied to USB fails might be a clue to point me in the right direction?

Thx!

 

[SAC12345]

First thing I would do is verify the USB stick is partitioned properly. Open terminal and.

MacUser2525:~$ diskutil list

snip...

/dev/disk6 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *8.1 GB     disk6
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk6s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OpenCoreBoot            7.7 GB     disk6s2

This is my boot USB I use on every upgrade of OC I do. Using the same method you do a simple copy of the EFI folder to its EFI partition, if the settings are correct it works every time. Next to ensure a proper boot do you use your boot menu key and chose the option that says EFI - name of usb or model some of the time, it can happen that a BIOS boot will be chosen if not done this way.

 

[P1LGRIM]

My OpenCore is still v6.6

You need 0.7.4 for Monterey.

 

[Gandalf1969]

You need 0.7.4 for Monterey.

Thanks P1lgrim but right now I'm just making sure I have a fool-proof fall-back method without updating anything. I do realize there's a lot of things to update to get to Monterey from where I'm at and I've downloaded a lot of the packages already (have done MB firmware upgrade and major KEXT updates to test on the current OS but that's it). Just getting the basics in place first. Cheers.

 

[Gandalf1969]

First thing I would do is verify the USB stick is partitioned properly. Open terminal and.

MacUser2525:~$ diskutil list

snip...

/dev/disk6 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *8.1 GB     disk6
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk6s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OpenCoreBoot            7.7 GB     disk6s2

This is my boot USB I use on every upgrade of OC I do. Using the same method you do a simple copy of the EFI folder to its EFI partition, if the settings are correct it works every time. Next to ensure a proper boot do you use your boot menu key and chose the option that says EFI - name of usb or model some of the time, it can happen that a BIOS boot will be chosen if not done this way.

Thanks. Here's mine - looks good to me?

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *31.0 GB disk2
1: EFI ⁨EFI⁩ 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS ⁨Hackintosh Boot USB⁩ 30.7 GB disk2s2

I've tried both boot methods at this point to see if there's any difference. None. Really odd to me given it is a literal copy of the System/internal/working EFI.

Does the (boot) device numbering change dynamically when booting from an external device and it looses a reference somewhere once OS starts to load?

 

[SAC12345]

Thanks. Here's mine - looks good to me?

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *31.0 GB disk2
1: EFI ⁨EFI⁩ 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS ⁨Hackintosh Boot USB⁩ 30.7 GB disk2s2

I've tried both boot methods at this point to see if there's any difference. None. Really odd to me given it is a literal copy of the System/internal/working EFI.

Does the (boot) device numbering change dynamically when booting from an external device and it looses a reference somewhere once OS starts to load?

No, the EFI partition is for the Open Core to load the files it needs to fool macOS into seeing Apple hardware to boot from. It tells the machine where to boot from on the disk as part of this process, it is done by UUID of the device and partition it boots from. Numbering is of no concern those do not change dynamically, strange as hell I am out of ideas here, never seen anything like it. When I do it with working copy it always boots without fail, only having a bad configuration will stop it from booting for me.

 

[Edhawk]

Add the -v Verbose text boot argument to your config and show us an image where the boot process kernel panics.

 

[Gandalf1969]

No, the EFI partition is for the Open Core to load the files it needs to fool macOS into seeing Apple hardware to boot from. It tells the machine where to boot from on the disk as part of this process, it is done by UUID of the device and partition it boots from. Numbering is of no concern those do not change dynamically, strange as hell I am out of ideas here, never seen anything like it. When I do it with working copy it always boots without fail, only having a bad configuration will stop it from booting for me.

Yes, I understand that concept. It is beyond me why this would not work when it is an exact copy of the EFI.

 

[Gandalf1969]

Add the -v Verbose text boot argument to your config and show us an image where the boot process kernel panics.

I will definitely do that next (see update below).

 

[Gandalf1969]

(BTW - my OC v0.6.1 not v0.6.6 as originally posted sorry guys).

I created a brand new USB boot and again copied the 6.1 install from the hard drive. No change but a clean start. I left the HDD 6.1 boot alone since it was working. I turned off HideAuxilliary, used the Built-in Picker instead of External. I also turned off a bunch of SATA entries in the bios and checked the boot order to look for the USB first. Now, as long as I manually select the boot device as the USB - it will boot into 0.6.1 and my existing Catalina install. Whew! I cannot say I really understand why at this point but I'm happy finally having something consistent and a "failsafe". Now to put that aside and on to upgrading the actual/live OC. I think its time to go through this config line by line (*tedious*) as I'm sure the excitement of a working config initially a year ago caused me to "just leave it the hell alone" and use it lol. I suspect there's plenty could be cleaned-up in there (I've already found stuff after looking at the notes for 0.7.5). I suspect that's better posted as a new thread?