Lenovo ThinkPad T420 with UEFI Only

[tluck]

23 hours ago, davidian said:

I wonder if any of you guys ran into this issue.. I created a mojave usb installer with dosdude-s patcher tool (tool 1.3.3, macos 14.5.02), and used the EFI from tluck's github, with the 1600x900 config plist. When trying to install mojave, I get a "No packages were eligible for install" error message.

I googled it, and they say this is because of date/time not beeing set, but running date in terminal shows the correct time. Even after setting it manually I get this error.

Any ideas?

When creating the usb installer I get "This machine is natively supported" message, I guess this is due to Mac model being set to MacBookPro9,1 in SMBIOS section of config.plist ?

yes. use mbp8,1 for the dosdude1 method. In fact I just removed all the Mojave specific stuff in the GitHub repo as the HighSierra configs work for Mojave and Catalina.

[davidian]

3 hours ago, tluck said:

yes. use mbp8,1 for the dosdude1 method. In fact I just removed all the Mojave specific stuff in the GitHub repo as the HighSierra configs work for Mojave and Catalina.

Hm, I tried with the new config.plist (MBP8,1) and got the same result.. I wonder what am I missing, or did wrong.

Edited October 26, 2019 by davidian

[datagr]

Hello,

 

I have a Lenovo T520 laptop with triple boot Windows 7, Mac OS and Linux(Kali).

All operating systems are running from one SSD hard disk splitted into 3 partitions.

Everything is working smoothly.

I would like to upgrade the partition of Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Is there any guide to follow on how to keep my current setup and just upgrade the Windows partiotion?

Sorry if there has been answered before!

 

[macq]

3 hours ago, datagr said:

Hello,

 

I have a Lenovo T520 laptop with triple boot Windows 7, Mac OS and Linux(Kali).

All operating systems are running from one SSD hard disk splitted into 3 partitions.

Everything is working smoothly.

I would like to upgrade the partition of Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Is there any guide to follow on how to keep my current setup and just upgrade the Windows partiotion?

Sorry if there has been answered before! 

  

Hi,

Make a uefi windows 10 installer USB using Rufus, and then using Clover boot from it and then install as usual, you can format the windows partition and do a fresh install if its partitioned as GPT then other installs would not be touched with a fresh uefi install using clover.

 

[tluck]

On 10/26/2019 at 4:15 PM, davidian said:

Hm, I tried with the new config.plist (MBP8,1) and got the same result.. I wonder what am I missing, or did wrong.

hmm. I was able to make the USB from another Mac that is "supported"? then I booted the USB and installed. for the post install I used MBP8,1 to install all the patches. 

so you could make the special usb installer OK? you can boot it? 

 

7 hours ago, datagr said:

Hello,

 

I have a Lenovo T520 laptop with triple boot Windows 7, Mac OS and Linux(Kali).

All operating systems are running from one SSD hard disk splitted into 3 partitions.

Everything is working smoothly.

I would like to upgrade the partition of Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Is there any guide to follow on how to keep my current setup and just upgrade the Windows partiotion?

Sorry if there has been answered before!

 

 

so why can't you just upgrade it? the win installer should not try to remove anything non-windows. I mean the T520 (or T420) is a PC. I presume you have the windows boot stuff in the ESP already? 

[davidian]

21 hours ago, tluck said:

hmm. I was able to make the USB from another Mac that is "supported"? then I booted the USB and installed. for the post install I used MBP8,1 to install all the patches. 

so you could make the special usb installer OK? you can boot it?

 

@tluckI was able to make the usb installer on my Sierra T420 hackintosh with tool 1.3.3, macos 14.5.02. Then copied your latest EFI on it. Did u use same tool/OS versions, or a previous one?

For some reason  the charger icon is skewed on the top right corner, see attachment.

Another interesting think is that if I create a catalina usb, then I don't get that error message (nor the skewed charger icon), but installation did not finish in 2 hours, progress bar was still at middle, so I abandoned it. I use an older hdd to try these out, not ssd. But I think I still should see regular disk activity  and some promising progress in 2 hours even if APFS is slower on spin disks.

[tluck]

odd. was your HDD blank? i remember seeing something like this once and it was because of Microsoft in the ESP. I wonder if that is the issue.

i installed on spinning disk too to test out. and then copied from HDD to SSD (my ssd has smart issues - dying slowly)

[goodguess]

Bad news, a dying SSD. What brand, how many years in use, may I ask?

I tried installing 10.15 onto an old SATA II 160GB HDD and even could not initialise it via macOS.

Windows does format it and Crystal Disk says the drive is in good condition.

Could it be DiskUtility became picky with spinning disks?

[davidian]

18 hours ago, tluck said:

odd. was your HDD blank? i remember seeing something like this once and it was because of Microsoft in the ESP. I wonder if that is the issue.

i installed on spinning disk too to test out. and then copied from HDD to SSD (my ssd has smart issues - dying slowly)

 

That HDD is not blank, but there was no Win in the ESP. That HDD had only 2 other partitions, one with yosemite, one with el capitan.

But I tried on 2 other blank HDD's and had the same issue like @goodguess (and I'm glad he mentioned it, so I know its not just me), namely could not erase the HDD to APFS or exfat Journaled either. It said that it is not recognized or uninitialized, cant remember.. but when I tried to do it from the disk utility, it always got stuck forever after unmounting, at the writing partition table step.. but had no problems to install high sierra with APFS on it.. so its only from this installer that I have the issue, very odd..

I could try to get an SSD just for a day to try and see if it makes any diference. Dont know why that other HDD is recognized though, would love to see a log about it somewhere..

Since a lot of people had success with dosdude's method, would like to move to mojave, or even catalina.. but no success so far with HDD's, and don't want to risk my good install on SSD yet if I can avoid it

Is the new config.plist with MACPRO8,1 supposed to work with HighSierra? For me it doesn't seem to work, I had an older one from your repo with MACPRO11,1, that one worked. It's just that I'm getting every now and then a white screen when getting at the login screen, and I have to either hard reset or try a sleep/wake cycle to get rid of it, don't know why that is.. I've been having that ever since Sierra, never had it with ElCapitan.

[goodguess]

Exactly davidian. DU quits with an error "The disk could not be initialised" or so.

The HHD was sitting in the same Ultrabay as the SSD which did boot 10.14/10.15.

The HDD is a unused 160GB Hitachi one, 5400 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA II, IIRC.

No dice.

This is a pict of the device not working in macOS.

Maybe an issue that this HDD was manufactured before AF became common?

 

Good thought to try with an earlier OSX / macOS.

Edited October 31, 2019 by goodguess

[davidian]

On 10/30/2019 at 3:13 AM, tluck said:

odd. was your HDD blank? i remember seeing something like this once and it was because of Microsoft in the ESP. I wonder if that is the issue.

i installed on spinning disk too to test out. and then copied from HDD to SSD (my ssd has smart issues - dying slowly)

 

I tried again with a blank SSD, same thing. SSD/HDD is in the bay slot, hope it doesn't matter. Main HDD is in slot 0. What version of patcher and Mojave did you use? Maybe I should use an earlier mojave version, like 14.4 or 14.5.0.

 

@goodguess donno exactly what is the difference between the HDD's. One that I tried and didn't work had the AF logo on it, and checked with HDD Sentinel also, it had AF. SSD got recognized, but could not install.

[davidian]

I tried installing Catalina again, but with an SSD this time.. It installed under an hour, sound/bluetooth works, but screen was doubled in width. I used the default config.plist. I tried 2e3, same thing, and with 2e2 resolution was normal. Brightness works, but its less bright on maximum, than on the previous versions.

Sleep/wake doesn't work.

Can this installs (Mojave/catalina) be upgraded like the previous versions, or one needs to make a new usb patcher install, and use that?

Edited November 1, 2019 by davidian

[goodguess]

Good you got things sorted, davidian - mostly.

Presumably you may upgrade the usual way via AppStore.

You will have to re-install the patches from your boot stick methinks, as soon as S/L/E was overwritten by upgrading.

[davidian]

1 hour ago, goodguess said:

Good you got things sorted, davidian - mostly.

Presumably you may upgrade the usual way via AppStore.

You will have to re-install the patches from your boot stick methinks, as soon as S/L/E was overwritten by upgrading.

 

Aha, so I update the usual way, then run again the post install step. I see there's already a new patcher for the new Catalina update.

I'll try to get an older copy of mojave, 14.4 or 14.5.0. Maybe there is something in the newest update that the patcher didn't cover.

[tluck]

I just re-tested Catalina, Mojave, HighSierra, Sierra with the current zip - all good with config.EDID-2e2.plist as config.plist. Sleep/wake works for me on Catalina (and Mojave etc). And i did upgrade Mojave from like 10.14.4 to 10.14.5. I created a Catalina USB and installed over Mojave to validate.

 

 

[goodguess]

Thanks for doing all that testing, great work!

Did you use 10.15.1 already or an earlier build?

[davidian]

†

16 hours ago, tluck said:

I just re-tested Catalina, Mojave, HighSierra, Sierra with the current zip - all good with config.EDID-2e2.plist as config.plist. Sleep/wake works for me on Catalina (and Mojave etc). And i did upgrade Mojave from like 10.14.4 to 10.14.5. I created a Catalina USB and installed over Mojave to validate.

 

 

 

Thanks for the testing!

In the last 1-2 days a new Mojave version came out. I downloaded that one, and with that one I did not get that error message, so it was related to the patcher and that specific Mojave installer version.

I wonder if there's any way that I can download an older version, like 14.4. Applestore offers me only the latest, and whatever apple link I found with googling seems to be only for different combo updates/security patches, not the whole installer.

Sleep works for me too up to High Sierra, just not with Mojave 14.6 and Catalina 15.0. It starts doing that quick blinking of the power button/sleep icon on the back of the lid, screen goes dark, and stays like that.

BTW, in the older versions it works, but after coming back from sleep, the power button/sleep icon is stuck on rapid blinking, did you experience that, or you don't have this issue? I had this all the way from El Capitan.

But I saw that 15.1 just came out, so I'll give that a go.

Edited November 2, 2019 by davidian

[goodguess]

Where in the world are you located, davidian? Snail mail goods are often destroyed by EMF inspection, sadly.

I may have 10.14.4 stored locally, but would have to look for it.

 

Isoriver seems to have 10.14.1, so they say, you should be able to go to 10.14.4 via combo update.

https://isoriver.com/macos-mojave-10-14-download/

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1996?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

Archive.org has something too: https://archive.org/details/MacOSMojave10.14BySYSNETTECHSolutionsFullVersion

Edited November 2, 2019 by goodguess

[davidian]

44 minutes ago, goodguess said:

Where in the world are you located, davidian? Snail mail goods are often destroyed by EMF inspection, sadly.

I may have 10.14.4 stored locally, but would have to look for it.

 

Isoriver has 10.14.1 so you should be able to go to 10.14.4 via combo update.

https://isoriver.com/macos-mojave-10-14-download/

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1996?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

Thanks. To be honest I don't think it will help me. I don't think it will solve the sleep problem, and besides that I can install both latest mojave and catalina. I noticed that since high sierra boot time is def longer, donno if its the OS or APFS.

Hungary btw

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by davidian

[tluck]

Note: i disable hibernation. use sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

and yes installed 10.15.1 vis USB. 

used MPB8,1 to post install.

I removed the legacyUSB kexts from /Library/Extensions (dont think we need them) 

[davidian]

1 hour ago, tluck said:

Note: i disable hibernation. use sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

and yes installed 10.15.1 vis USB. 

used MPB8,1 to post install.

I removed the legacyUSB kexts from /Library/Extensions (dont think we need them) 

 

Thanks, I forgot to disable hibernation, that did the trick in Mojave (probably Catalina as well). In Sierra / High Sierra I guess it was disabled or I don't know, but it worked. Blinking of power bin after sleep is the same, do you have it too?

I noticed that with the old Clover/config.plist (4xxx) I have higher max brightness than with the newest pack (5079). Don't know what is the reason for that. After sleep/wake cycle max brightness seems to be higher than after fresh boot, but not as high as with the old pack.

 

Also, the e2e config solved my white screen problems, I think I read about this in the guide also.

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by davidian

[tluck]

@davidian - have to wonder if you are using the DSDT/SSDT and config.plist in the zip? do you use Whatevergreen.kext - the blinking lights (sleep/wake) and brightness different levels are all addressed in the package. the SSDT-PNLF should be redefining the panel max levels...

otherwise there is an )old-no-longer-needed-for-me) SNBGraphics patch to fix the brightness difference.

[davidian]

23 minutes ago, tluck said:

@davidian - have to wonder if you are using the DSDT/SSDT and config.plist in the zip? do you use Whatevergreen.kext - the blinking lights (sleep/wake) and brightness different levels are all addressed in the package. the SSDT-PNLF should be redefining the panel max levels...

otherwise there is an )old-no-longer-needed-for-me) SNBGraphics patch to fix the brightness difference.

 

@tluck I use what is in the zip, with a small edit to the DSDT. When docked, I have an eGPU attached to the EC slot, so I removed your edit for the USB3 card adapter, or what you have there.

But this is an older edit from El Capitan or Sierra zips. If you made some additional edits to the DSDT since then, then I need to do my edit again on the newer DSDT.

The blinking happened also with El Capitan though, with the zip from back then.

Edited November 6, 2019 by davidian

[tluck]

ok. cool. really haven't made any changes in DSDT for a long time. the updates over the last year or 2 have mostly been updates with Clover and the Lilu family of kexts for audio and graphics.

[datagr]

Thank you for the support on the windows update question! Windows 10 is now running normally!

 

So, I kept a backup from High Sierra partition, I downloaded a full copy of Catalina and I created a usb installer using the transmac app in windows. I’m trying to make a clean install of Catalina but it says I cannot. Here is a screenshot of the message that pops up. I used the disk utility from the installer to create an APFS partition.