What's Happening???? Boot disk gets moved into APFS Container by Mojave

[AlvinPenworth]

I have run into a problem that I can't find any references to in any of the guides and how-tos I have found so far. Today I have been trying to get Mojave running on a new Hackintosh (parts listed below). The installation runs smoothly until I get the OS installed and running.

Here's my problem: I install Mojave, and then I run it from my internal SSD, as expected. I use Multibeast to establish my EFI partition with Clover. Then I use Clover Configurator to open up the EFI partition on my drive. I add a theme, and I add some kexts into CLOVER/kexts/other. Then when restart, I go straight into "Prohibited sign" as if the OS is completely blocked up.

To troubleshoot, I take the boot drive out of the Hackintosh and open it in Disk Utility on my other computer. The boot drive should be called "Luke", or at least that's what I called it. But for some reason it shows up like this:

What happened? Somehow my boot drive was turned into a subpartition of "AppleAPFSMedia". I am baffled as to what is happening here. Anyone have any clue? I am not sure what additional information will help solve this because I am so baffled as to what's going on. Any help?

OS: Mojave
Motherboard: Asus Z390 Ultra
CPU: Intel i7-9700k

 

[AlvinPenworth]

Maybe someone can start by answering a simpler question:
When I reformat my boot SSD before installing Mac OS X, I format it as "Mac OS (Journaled)". After install, Disk Utility lists the drive as being formatted APFS and in a "container" of some kind.

Under Clover configurator, the EFI partition is listed as "EFI in APFS Container". All of this is unusual -- none of my boot drives have shown up like this before, and it seems to lead to the boot drive being inaccessible at startup, therefore giving me the "prohibited sign".

Is this sudden appearance of an APFS container normal or am I doing something wrong?

 

[itwas]

Mojave will automatically convert your HFS+ installation drive to APFS format

 

[AlvinPenworth]

Thanks for the answer. But what about the strange "container" scheme pictured above in Disk Utility? I am looking at a friend's laptop running Mojave right now. The internal drive "Macintosh HD" is in APFS format but not "contained" in an aesthetically unpleasant series of containers.

Also in the container there seem to be other hidden partitions, including a "preboot" partition. So when I launch Clover I see four options and booting Mojave from my SSD is the third option. I would like those to go away so I only see one boot option.

@itwas I appreciate your answer, but is there a way to make the ugliness of this partition/container scheme go away?

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for the answer. But what about the strange "container" scheme pictured above in Disk Utility? I am looking at a friend's laptop running Mojave right now. The internal drive "Macintosh HD" is in APFS format but not "contained" in an aesthetically unpleasant series of containers.

Also in the container there seem to be other hidden partitions, including a "preboot" partition. So when I launch Clover I see four options and booting Mojave from my SSD is the third option. I would like those to go away so I only see one boot option.

@itwas I appreciate your answer, but is there a way to make the ugliness of this partition/container scheme go away?

That's how APFS works. Luke will be in a container. You need to find the "container disk".

Enter the following in Terminal and post a screenshot of the output:

diskutil list

 

[AlvinPenworth]

Thanks for the help @pastrychef. Here is the result of "diskutil list". Still seems like something is fishy to me -- did I do something wrong during install that led to the creation of this "synthesized" disk?

 

[itwas]

Working with APFS Volume Groups

Working with APFS Volume Groups | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

bombich.com

Apple File System

Apple File System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AlvinPenworth]

Hey @itwas, thanks for the links. I see that APFS relies on a "container" model.

I still have a question, though. The APFS volume includes the "preboot" volume that shows up in Clover whenever I boot the computer -- is there a way to make that volume "invisible" to keep the boot process more tidy?

 

[pastrychef]

View attachment 430009
Thanks for the help @pastrychef. Here is the result of "diskutil list". Still seems like something is fishy to me -- did I do something wrong during install that led to the creation of this "synthesized" disk?

I don't see anything wrong. That's how it's supposed to look.

 

[maclinuxg4]

i agree with few anwers, that is how supposed to look. dont worrie