Not seeing partition 1

[Jase-NZ]

Created usb installer, Ran package installer which was successful (check box for patching osx)

Nuc can see the usb stick but only shows one partition to boot from and you cannot boot from that partition. I tried another machine (Gigabyte motherboard) and it shows two partitions I am able to boot from either partition 0 or partition 1, If I select 0 it won't boot but if I select 1 the installer tries and boots. But partition 1 does not show as an option on the nuc to boot from

Configuration

• HaC Mini version [2.0]:
• OSX version [10.14.6]:
• NUC model [NUC8i7HNK]:
• Boot SSD model and protocol [Samsung EVO 870 1TB, SATA]:
• First DIMM model [Crucial DDR4-2666 16GB]:
• Second DIMM model [Crucial DDR4-2666 16GB]:
• Display port(s) used [HDMI]:
• Display resolution(s) [1080p]:
• Any TB3 devices: no
• Any USB devices: no

Installer Log 13-Sep-2019.txt

[kachunkachunk]

I think I am seeing this same issue. Basically it doesn't look like the 2.0 / OpenCore installer (or at least the instructions) is creating an EFI partition or putting boot files on the stick. Dumping the partition table isn't showing more than one partition, either. I just have the installer .app sitting on the root of the USB stick, and extracting the separate EFI zip's contents isn't helping (not that that's probably supposed to work).

I was thinking of trying to adapt the Clover instructions with OpenCore's in mind, but I think I'll wait for a bit more development/dispelling on this report first.

[osy]

Is your usb formatted as GUID?

[kachunkachunk]

Yep, MacOS Extended (not case-sensitive), and GUID partition table. Trying another stick now, just in case.

[osy]

Can you run diskutil list and post the output here?

[Jase-NZ]

Formatted with GUID here will post up diskutil when I get home (the joys of having to be at work)

[kachunkachunk]

Ah, I suppose fdisk was never meant for GUID partition tables, come to think of it, but diskutil list shows both my USB sticks have an EFI partition, after all. Would a missing step be that we're not mounting the EFI partition and merging the contents found from the OpenCore / 2.0 release's EFI.zip?

Partition output (despite figuring out installation medium partitioning is probably fine), from both sticks:

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *64.2 GB    disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Install macOS Mojave    63.8 GB    disk3s2

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *31.6 GB    disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Installer               31.3 GB    disk4s2

Note: I intentionally renamed the 32GB stick's filesystem label to Installer. It's the same patched Mojave installer app package.

Edit: Mounted the hidden EFI partition on the 32GB USB stick (with "Install macOS Mojave"), copied over the EFI.zip's contents over top of what was there, and dismounted. Still no boot on the NUC. But per OP, this might be a bit more NUC-specific in nature after all. Trying my newer stick (without mounting/modifying the EFI partition) and will edit in the result.

Edit: No change in behavior with the 64GB SD card/stick.

[Jase-NZ]

[Jase-NZ]

So some progress on mine but things have come to a halt again.

Removed nvme and replaced it with a new fat 32 formatted drive with nothing on it. Nuc picked up installer from usb and I got into osx installer. Formatted nvme drive as guid and apfs continued on with install and files are copied to nvme, Nuc restarts but does not continue installation process but loads osx installer again off of usb drive.

[osy]

How did you get the hac mini installer to write to the right partition?

[Jase-NZ]

Sorry not sure what you mean.
To start out with the nvme drive I had in the nuc had a copy of windows 10 on it so the nuc would only boot to that no matter what I tried. Putting in a blank nvme seems to have forced it to boot off the usb drive. As mention I now get to the osx installer fine go through the language selection select install mac os and select the nvme drive. The time bar comes up as I presume it is copying file's and when it reboots it just reboots back to the osx installer from the usb drive. Hope that makes sense.

[Jase-NZ]

Sorry I get you now, With the hac installer I don't get to select a partition I just select the usb drive that has the mac os install files on it.

[osy]

When you had the Windows 10 nvme installed, did you hold/spam Alt in order to get into the OC boot menu? Or did that not work?

[Jase-NZ]

ok so trying again, using alt puts me into either boot installer or reset nvram, will let it go through the process to install osx. One thing I have found is cannot install from front usb port it does not detect it there but put it in a back usb port and it sees it which is strange.

[osy]

Which front usb? Blue or yellow or usbc?

[Jase-NZ]

Blue

[osy]

Weird. To clarify when inserted in blue front port, you cannot even see it in BIOS and you cannot get into OC menu?

[Jase-NZ]

just to clarify , when you have gone through the osx install screen and it does it first reboot are you supposed to boot to the ssd from the oc menu ??

[osy]

Ideally it knows the right boot drive automatically, but if you go into OC menu you’re supposed to chose ssd.

[Jase-NZ]

yup I seem to be having more success with that way at the moment, have got onto second boot now via using the oc menu , will see how that goes .Edit: now on the familiar 12 mins remaining screen. Once the install is fully complete you should be able to boot directly from the ssd without having the usb drive in correct ??

[osy]

That should be the case but it's beta so let me know how it goes.

[Jase-NZ]

Ok so up and running.

For me it was usb install from the back ports and to go through OC menu on boots and select ssd each time, Final boot it just boots itself from ssd.

Thank you for your hard work you have put into this , I have installed many hackintoshes but always used clover so this is a refreshing simple change. Does this currently work if I upgraded to catalina public beta ??

Also if there is anything you would like me to test out please let me know I always like mucking around and I am not completely stupid hahahah

Edit: Front port does work but you must enter OC menu to boot from it.

[osy]

It should work with public beta but there’s some issues open right now I haven’t had a chance to look at.

[Jase-NZ]

Seemed to be quite unstable with random reboots, appeared to be nvme related. Updated to Catlina latest beta and have not seen a reboot yet.

[kachunkachunk]

My NVMe has a preexisting installation of Manjaro which I'm fine blowing away. Is it a bug, or EFI-BIOS misconfiguration on our part, that makes it skip the OpenCore bootloader when another EFI boot option exists? Kind of weird. Maybe it's just the way the NUC works too.
I guess I could try using the EFI shell and seeing if that behaves differently. I will otherwise probably get tired of this later and just blow away the NVMe's contents. Oh, and good notes on the random reboots; will keep Catalina in mind, if it happens.

[osy]

Seemed to be quite unstable with random reboots, appeared to be nvme related. Updated to Catlina latest beta and have not seen a reboot yet.

Is it this #22

[kachunkachunk]

Okay, determined that hammering the alt key to get the OpenCore boot menu was what I needed. I did not need to erase my preexisting installation or change my NVMe. This was irrespective of using the EFI shell to select the boot image. I guess a timer or something would help? Or is this nonsense?

[osy]

OC is supposed to find the right partition through bless. There might be a bug there; I’ll have to reproduce it.

[kachunkachunk]

I wish I took a picture earlier for you. But okay, one thing to mention is the boot entries looked to be different when a preexisting EFI installation existed on the NUC first. So, hitting Alt per my above comment would show option 1 as something I cannot remember, but it could be NONE or NULL or something along those lines. Probably the issue there... option two was the installer, option three was reset NVRAM.

Upon getting through the first installer phase (erasing my existing Manjaro EFI install) and rebooting, hammering Alt again shows options 1 to boot from the USB EFI image (install macos), 2 to boot from another installer image (also install macos), 3 for recovery, and 4 to reset NVRAM.

Edit: Seems that it's rebooting back into the installer (step 1, and basically disk utility, install macos, etc). Booting without the USB key presents no bootable devices on next boot. Will just try a few more times and see if other boot options are needed along the way.

Edit 2: Fresh reboot to start over, and I missed getting into the OpenCore boot menu. It seemed to actually carry on to the next, correct, installation phase. haha. I sound like a spaz here but I figure it's good documentation of my experience in case someone else might benefit.

Edit 3: Now installed. Will see if I can contribute elsewhere... uhhh thanks for ingesting my ramblings.
And thanks even more for all the hard work.

[Jase-NZ]

#22

Could very well be looks very similar, I have had it running overnight now on full load doing a lot of tasks and is still running ok this morning.

[Jase-NZ]

You must have jinxed it because it just crashed. Was copying files from usb ssd to the second samsung 970 pro 1 TB drive.

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f9175b4a7): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x1 US[1]=0x0 US[0]=0x3c VID=0x144d DID=0xa808
. FW Revision=1B2QEXM7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-470.0.10/IONVMeController.cpp:5258
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff83d0ed39e0 : 0xffffff800ef41b6b
0xffffff83d0ed3a30 : 0xffffff800f078e95
0xffffff83d0ed3a70 : 0xffffff800f06a8fe
0xffffff83d0ed3ac0 : 0xffffff800eee8bb0
0xffffff83d0ed3ae0 : 0xffffff800ef41257
0xffffff83d0ed3be0 : 0xffffff800ef4163b
0xffffff83d0ed3c30 : 0xffffff800f6d2879
0xffffff83d0ed3ca0 : 0xffffff7f9175b4a7
0xffffff83d0ed3cc0 : 0xffffff7f91746462
0xffffff83d0ed3e20 : 0xffffff800f648119
0xffffff83d0ed3e90 : 0xffffff800f648039
0xffffff83d0ed3ec0 : 0xffffff800ef833b5
0xffffff83d0ed3f40 : 0xffffff800ef82ee1
0xffffff83d0ed3fa0 : 0xffffff800eee813e
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.iokit.IONVMeFamily(2.1)[B9580874-AFA7-3149-B6E4-C2E0D866514E]@0xffffff7f91738000->0xffffff7f9177afff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity(1.0.5)[7B2BEC82-3EFE-3735-BDF0-5C937031D263]@0xffffff7f8ff17000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[67731E8F-F8D7-3AD5-9037-83FD26E4E3C7]@0xffffff7f8f90f000
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM(2.1)[EE231B09-0A76-3AC7-BDB2-7170B66F7822]@0xffffff7f916d7000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(2.1)[0358FA7E-B2E2-3261-A143-1F7D546BC871]@0xffffff7f8fb76000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(47)[8A456F86-9DC7-3659-9690-DF50846852BA]@0xffffff7f8f849000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Boot args: alcid=11 shikigva=32 shiki-id=Mac-BE088AF8C5EB4FA2 -disablegfxfirmware

Mac OS version:
19A558d

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 19.0.0: Sat Aug 31 18:49:12 PDT 2019; root:xnu-6153.11.15~8/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: 7878452F-EDBA-3FDA-8430-29920E2E2C99
Kernel slide: 0x000000000ec00000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff800ee00000
__HIB text base: 0xffffff800ed00000
System model name: Macmini8,1 (Mac-7BA5B2DFE22DDD8C)
System shutdown begun: NO
Panic diags file available: YES (0x0)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 32590128944091

[Jase-NZ]

Just an observation on my part, When I have had the above crash I have been using any number of the usb 3 ports. Have just copied over 1 tb of data to nvme via the thunder bolt port with zero issue.

A usb related issue perhaps ??

[osy]

The error is inside MacOS. People have the same issue on macs with an adapter. Apple has to fix it.

[Jase-NZ]

How do you mean with an adapter ?? , I have all the same nvme drives in my other hackintoshes with out issue. Even in my nuc817bh.
Just trying to understand it.

[osy]

There's adapters to get NVMe working inside a Mac. I think the issue is with the Intel PCH controller.

[Jase-NZ]

One observation I have just found out and that is the temp that the nvme's are running at and I am wondering if a thermal cutout is causing the reboot.
I have two drive samsung 970 evo drives in and it was constantly rebooting. When I took one drive out it appeared to be stable with no rebooting. As soon as I put the other one back in within a few minutes it had rebooted. I notice the thermal pad only covers half each of the drives so i had some thermal pad here and cutting the one on the machine to size and adding a pad to the other drive so they are both completely covered I have not had a reboot since and temps are around the 47 - 55 mark.

I am enjoying trying stuff out so will see how this one goes.

[osy]

Interesting theory, let me know how it goes

[Jase-NZ]

2 hours in and constant use of final cut pro and zero reboots, nvme drives rise to a maximum of 75deg under heavy load.

Will give it 24 hours and see how we are looking.

[osy]

For issues booting into Windows, see "Installing other OS" in https://osy.gitbook.io/hac-mini-guide/installation-guide/installation

[Jase-NZ]

Only going to use osx on this no intention to putting windows on it.

[Jase-NZ]

This has fixed the issue for me zero reboots with 2 drives under constant load for the lat 12 hours.
My fix was pretty janky so I have got some decent nvme heat sinks coming so will retrofit those when when they arrive.

[kachunkachunk]

Good to know about the potential overheating. I noticed the poor thermal pad coverage as well. Even with just one, it's half-covered in my NUC8i7HVK.

[osy]

Since the original issue was resolved, lets move the NVMe issue discussion to #22