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Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

K0gen

By K0gen,
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tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted (edited)

@davidian - I successfully tested the HD3000 kexts from Sierra and High Sierra with Mojave, but i recall a failure with the el cap gfx kexts. 

High Sierra is the last properly supported version for aHD 3000 system like the T420

 

As bedfellow suggested, move to that (first) to get the kexts you will need to move forward.

 

if you have enough free space, perhaps create a 20 or 30 GB partition to test out mojave. For example, I dual boot using the same ESP/Clover config for High Sierra and Mojave.

Note: be prepared for APFS - all my disks are formatted with APFS now -  whether SSD or regular SATA now. 

 

and i use jackluke's script to switch from light to dark mode at night!

 

Edited by tluck
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davidian
davidian
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Posted

@tluck, @bedfellow, thanks for the info.

@tluck, I read about the new apfs, is there any downside to it or it's just another file system? I'm asking because you mentioned it, and I don't know if it was  because I should watch out for something, or it was just a casual info..

 

I will move first to High Sierra, and then see from there.

I remember talk about the glitches since tluck was trying out the Sierra Beta, so I never felt motivated to move from El Cap.

If I manage to install HS / Mojave, maybe I won't have a problem with glitches or other gfx issues, because I use eGPU while docked.

 

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bedfellow
bedfellow
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Posted
2 hours ago, davidian said:

@tluck, @bedfellow, thanks for the info.

@tluck, I read about the new apfs, is there any downside to it or it's just another file system? I'm asking because you mentioned it, and I don't know if it was  because I should watch out for something, or it was just a casual info..

 

I will move first to High Sierra, and then see from there.

I remember talk about the glitches since tluck was trying out the Sierra Beta, so I never felt motivated to move from El Cap.

If I manage to install HS / Mojave, maybe I won't have a problem with glitches or other gfx issues, because I use eGPU while docked.

 

For me, some of the more recent plist have helped with the graphics glitches, but they never truly went away until I upgraded the RAM to 16gb.

 

The light theme is Mojave does not work properly on the T420, I suspect due to the now unsupported graphics chip. I also found Mojave to be more prone to lockups than High Sierra.

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davidian
davidian
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Posted (edited)

So I created the usb installer, made an empty 50Gb macOS partition, but after booting from the usb stick, I cannot select that partition (or any). I'm getting "You may not install on this volume because the computer is missing a firmware partition".

Did I miss something, anyone got this before me?

I downloaded the full installer app (~5Gb) with macOS High Sierra patcher, since from the app store I was getting the 28Mb installer.

Edited by davidian
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bedfellow
bedfellow
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Posted
28 minutes ago, davidian said:

So I created the usb installer, made an empty 50Gb macOS partition, but after booting from the usb stick, I cannot select that partition (or any). I'm getting "You may not install on this volume because the computer is missing a firmware partition".

Did I miss something, anyone got this before me?

I downloaded the full installer app (~5Gb) with macOS High Sierra patcher, since from the app store I was getting the 28Mb installer.

Sounds to me that you have not created a GUID (GPT) partition.

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davidian
davidian
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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, bedfellow said:

Sounds to me that you have not created a GUID (GPT) partition.

On the HDD? It's the same HDD where I have El Capitan installed, just created a separate partition and formatted it to Mac Os Extended (Journaled), so that must be GPT.

Disk Util says so..

Would it make any sense to try with a complete blank HDD?

Edited by davidian
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davidian
davidian
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Posted
17 hours ago, davidian said:

On the HDD? It's the same HDD where I have El Capitan installed, just created a separate partition and formatted it to Mac Os Extended (Journaled), so that must be GPT.

Disk Util says so..

Would it make any sense to try with a complete blank HDD?

 

So to answer my own question:

the problem was that the partition wasn't APFS.

In the guide it says macOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.

For High Sierra macOS Extended is not accepted, only APFS (at least in my case with my installer is not).

I will later check if it's the same with Mojave.

I don't know if this is trivial info or not, I'm just glad I found out what was the issue.

If anyone thinks it's worth it, then maybe mention it in the guide, altough searching for the text that I posted in the thread give me no hits, so maybe it's just me.

 

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bedfellow
bedfellow
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Posted
13 minutes ago, davidian said:

I don't know if this is trivial info or not, I'm just glad I found out what was the issue.

I'm glad you have resolve the issue. When I dual booted HS and Mojave I had them on separate drives so didn't have this issue. If the information is useful to others then it's certainly not trivial.

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goodguess
goodguess
Posted
Posted

You are the greatest tluck, thanks a bunch for your latest EFI package!

I was able to install Mojave on a spare old USB2 drive, AFS formatted.

Needed some re-boots, but all an all a hassle free installation.

 

One thing puzzling me, from the About this Mac, I'm getting 5 MB VRAM, is that what it should be?

I seem to recall that some kext from Sierra would better things a bit.

If that's still an option, which one should be installed?

 

Sorry for not recalling all proceedings in this thread.

Again, awesome work. Thanks for keeping our oldies updated!

 

Mojave-T420.png

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tonyyang123
tonyyang123
Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, goodguess said:

You are the greatest tluck, thanks a bunch for your latest EFI package!

I was able to install Mojave on a spare old USB2 drive, AFS formatted.

Needed some re-boots, but all an all a hassle free installation.

 

One thing puzzling me, from the About this Mac, I'm getting 5 MB VRAM, is that what it should be?

I seem to recall that some kext from Sierra would better things a bit.

If that's still an option, which one should be installed?

 

Sorry for not recalling all proceedings in this thread.

Again, awesome work. Thanks for keeping our oldies updated!

 

Mojave-T420.png

Mojave removed support of HD 3000 Graphics , you need to copy the hd3000 kexts to /S/L/E , and than rebuild caches

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goodguess
goodguess
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Posted (edited)

Thanks, thats right.

Found the needful things three pages before.

Still a working package hosted here won´t harm much. ;)

 

Another problem did arise unfortunately.

I lost PS2 Trackpad and keyboard after booting from power off.

USB mouse and keyboard do work of course, but thats not comfortable with a laptop.

Just realized that sound is gone too. :(

Any thoughts how to get back the functionality from just after installation?

Other than that, the OS looks quite snappy, even from my old USB2 Fujitsu 120 HDD.

Edited by goodguess
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goodguess
goodguess
Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Tetonne said:

T420 2420M 8Go 1600*900 bought :) must received it wednesday  

my previous was 2440M 4Go 1366*768

i'm back soon :-)

 

Got both cpu flavours 1600*900 (Intel only) and honestly do not see a difference, performance wise.

RAM will matter and possibly an i7, but I don´t think upgrading the cpu is worth the money, SSD and RAM are the ones and possibly a expansion bay for backup etc.

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tluck
tluck
Posted
Posted
On 10/29/2018 at 7:32 AM, goodguess said:

Thanks, thats right.

Found the needful things three pages before.

Still a working package hosted here won´t harm much. ;)

 

Another problem did arise unfortunately.

I lost PS2 Trackpad and keyboard after booting from power off.

USB mouse and keyboard do work of course, but thats not comfortable with a laptop.

Just realized that sound is gone too. :(

Any thoughts how to get back the functionality from just after installation?

Other than that, the OS looks quite snappy, even from my old USB2 Fujitsu 120 HDD.

hmm seems like some of the kexts are not loaded? I will try to find time re-test a complete installation.

anyway seems like a good idea to include the HD 3000 GFX/Atheros kexts in the repo as there seems to be a lot Mojave interest.

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goodguess
goodguess
Posted
Posted (edited)

Thanks tluck.

As I was uncertain how to get back the trackpad function, installed from scratch again on the USB2 volume.

Until right now trackpad, trackpoint and keyboard do work. Same for sound, volume keys and camera.

Why the kexts were no loaded last time remains the question.

I´ll try some more, than replacing HS with Mojave will be on schedule.

 

I´m getting system crashes in an early stage, three out of four times.

I´ll try with my other T420, as there may be a ACPI issue as seen before.

The crash report (first lines) is attached.

 

For the lost trackpad and sound, could HWSensors be the culprit?

The devices did work on my second trial until installation.

Afterwards Trackpad and sound are missing and HWSensors are not loaded either - strange.

panic_report.rtf

Edited by goodguess
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goodguess
goodguess
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Posted
22 hours ago, goodguess said:

Thanks tluck.

As I was uncertain how to get back the trackpad function, installed from scratch again on the USB2 volume.

Until right now trackpad, trackpoint and keyboard do work. Same for sound, volume keys and camera.

Why the kexts were no loaded last time remains the question.

I´ll try some more, than replacing HS with Mojave will be on schedule.

 

I´m getting system crashes in an early stage, three out of four times.

I´ll try with my other T420, as there may be a ACPI issue as seen before.

The crash report (first lines) is attached.

 

For the lost trackpad and sound, could HWSensors be the culprit?

The devices did work on my second trial until installation.

Afterwards Trackpad and sound are missing and HWSensors are not loaded either - strange.

panic_report.rtf

 

Edit: The other T420 has the same isuue booting up - 3 out of 4 failures.

Here is the second crash report for the people knowing to read it. :)

panic2report.rtf

 

 

 

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Tetonne
Tetonne
Posted
Posted (edited)

As i told before, i'm back with my T420, i follow the thread but may have miss informations :

my product : 42361U2 BIOS : 83ET82WW (1.52)

1. can someone  share again the information about BIOS white list update (file and how2) (to change my wifi card : Original Wireless WIFI Card NGFF 802.11AC 867Mbps Broadcom BCM94352Z WIFI Bluetooth Wireless-AC BT 4.0 Network Wlan adapter. i bought it 1 year ago, hope it'll be ok lol

 

Edited by Tetonne
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goodguess
goodguess
Posted
Posted (edited)

I still have the BIOS/UEFI stuff on a 1GB thumb drive.

My BIOS was at 1.48 with my last T420, lets hope the downgrade still works via DOS with BIOS 1.5.2

The bootable thumb drive is 1 GB, I´ll copy the needed files to a folder.

You will need to make a bootable volume from them to get into DOS for downgrading BIOS.

 

Here are the files: https://www.magentacloud.de/lnk/fvStA9ob

Good luck!

 

Edited by goodguess
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