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Mavericks install - disk cannot be used


jamaly
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Greetings my fellow hackers!

 

I've run into a bit of a conundrum. I've recently created a Mavericks installation usb, i'm trying to upgrade from Mountain Lion 10.8.3. 

I installed Clover as the bootloader on the usb, and spent all of last night until i realised that i missed the USB 3.0 driver, solved that thank God.

 

Now however, it seems like my current hurdle is the message "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer" when i try and select the partition/drive i want to install Mavericks to. I've read around and it seems like the suggestions everyone gives is to shrink the targeted partition slightly (1Gb) with disk utility, and try again. I've tried this, and am still getting the same result. 

 

The other suggestion i've read is to format the whole drive clean and then try to install. My goal however is to do an in-place upgrade without losing files and already-installed apps, especially since i don't have access to another hackintosh, legit mac, or computer capable of booting into the installer to fresh install (originally installed ML with this latter method). A clean install is going to be my last resort, and i actually don't think i'd have that many issues this time around. Clover boot manager seems to have prevented the issues i usually have with my limited access HP BIOS settings. I'm looking at you HP engineers and project managers  :angry: 

 

post-594444-0-65286900-1397956744_thumb.jpg

 

HP Envy 17t-32XX 3D CTO | i7-3820QM | AMD Radeon 7850m | 8Gb Ram @ 1600Mhz | Windows 7 on 750Gb drive (removed during installation attempts)| OSX 10.8.3 Mountain Lion on secondary

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Oh dude, it has nothing to do with my Windows 7. The drive isn't even in my laptop at the moment. I always take it out when I'm making changes or upgrades such as this to OSX. The OSX drive is the only one inside, and is the primary drive when their both installed. On the OSX drive is the 209mb EFI partition with Chimera, and the ML partition. I'll edit later with the diskutil list output later, I'm posting from my tablet.

 

Plan is to install Mavericks, and then put Clover in the EFI partition

 

@fusion71au thanks for the prompt reply. You run into this before?

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Personally haven't had this error but I often use gdisk to solve similar disk partitioning problems.

 

Eg I first list the disks on my system....

diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:               Windows_NTFS System Reserved         104.9 MB   disk0s1
   2:               Windows_NTFS WIN7_X64SSD             119.9 GB   disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS OSX Mavericks           250.0 GB   disk1s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data WIN7_X64HDD             250.1 GB   disk1s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data DATA                    499.8 GB   disk1s4


then run gdisk from terminal...

sudo gdisk /dev/disk1
Password:
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.6

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): ?
b	back up GPT data to a file
c	change a partition's name
d	delete a partition
i	show detailed information on a partition
l	list known partition types
n	add a new partition
o	create a new empty GUID partition table (GPT)
p	print the partition table
q	quit without saving changes
r	recovery and transformation options (experts only)
s	sort partitions
t	change a partition's type code
v	verify disk
w	write table to disk and exit
x	extra functionality (experts only)
?	print this menu

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk1: 1953516911 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 5D4BAEB5-8630-489E-897B-89BA29C5655B
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953516877
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 264332 sectors (129.1 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2          409640       488690887   232.8 GiB   AF00  OSX Mavericks
   3       488953856       977430527   232.9 GiB   0700  WIN7_X86
   4       977430528      1953515519   465.4 GiB   0700  DATA


In addition, it will also report any errors you have on your hard disk (if you have them).

 

Edit1

Always a good idea to backup/clone your existing working OSX install in case disaster strikes :).  I have a bootable OSX Mavericks handy (on an external USB HD) that can be used to rescue my main drive.

 

Gdisk can also back up your GPT partition data to a file - choose option "b" in the main menu--->save to external USB for extra safety.

 

Good Luck!

 

Edit2

Did you install chimera/chameleon into the EFI partition?

 

Doing this can create problems for OSX upgrades as it converts the partition from its normal FAT32 format to HFS+ (you can check with diskutil in terminal as I mentioned previously).  Normally, chameleon should be installed to the MBR or hybrid MBR whereas Clover installs nicely into the standard FAT32 EFI partition used by Apple.

 

You can try formatting your EFI partition to FAT32 in terminal (replace X with your disk number, Y is usually 1):

sudo newfs_msdos -v EFI -F 32 /dev/rdiskXsY

If that doesn't work, you may need to repair or format the EFI as described here, using dd to clone a working EFI eg from your installer USB to the disk to be repaired.

 

NB If you want to install Clover into the EFI (recommended), you must have a FAT32 formatted EFI partition.

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Just made a disk image file with disk utility, now I'm leaning towards just formatting the drive and if anything goes wrong, I at least have this image I can restore with.

 

EDIT: I napped on the issue, and am wanting to assume i'm having this issue simply because my bootloader is in the EFI partition. So perhaps it's giving me this message because that's typically where we would have our bootloader in a hackintosh.

Edited by jamaly
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I would make a Time Machine back up and then do a fresh install of Mavericks and, after that, restore your apps and user files.  Personally, I would not restore all of your settings.  I would do that in Mavericks to make sure you know exactly what settings you have.

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Alright guys thanks for your advise. I am posting this from Mavericks with full graphics hardware acceleration.

 

Issue with installation was solved with a fresh drive format.

 

Few kinks but i'm working on them:

 

  • None of my USB ports are working (includes internal hub that my HP webcam is on)
  • I have to use cpus=1 (Only 1 of my horses is pulling the cart, the other 3 are in the back drinking beers)
  • Screen brightness is all the way up, with no way to change it
  • Sleep doesn't work properly (not too concerned about this one)

Ideas?

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Alright guys thanks for your advise. I am posting this from Mavericks with full graphics hardware acceleration.

 

Issue with installation was solved with a fresh drive format.

 

Few kinks but i'm working on them:

 

  • None of my USB ports are working (includes internal hub that my HP webcam is on)
  • I have to use cpus=1 (Only 1 of my horses is pulling the cart, the other 3 are in the back drinking beers)
  • Screen brightness is all the way up, with no way to change it
  • Sleep doesn't work properly (not too concerned about this one)

Ideas?

 

 

USB:  I have native USB working due to a DSDT fix I implemented.  If you haven't created a DSDT and are letting Clover create one for you, you can try the DSDT patch for Clover for USB.  The bottom line is that you need to tell your laptop that your PID is something it will recognize and not the one you actually have.  There are numerous posts on this subject that you can search for.

 

As for cpus=1, that one is definitely a Clover fix for HP laptops.  You need to enable the Lapic patch. If you haven't downloaded Clover Configurator, I recommend that you do so.

 

For screen brightness, try the Generic Brightness.kext.  The post with all you need is on this forum, including a DSDT fix that will give you a slider bar in your display preferences.  Just do a search for it.

 

As for sleep, you have to get native power management working.  I don't know what smbios you are using and you haven't mentioned anything about an ssdt, which you should create and put into your Clover directory at patched ACPI.  Chances are, when you have working power management, you should have sleep working as well.  If not, post what you have done and we can take it from there.  For the SSDT, check out this post:  http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/290687-wip-hp-envy-17t-j000-quad-haswell-1085109/?p=2006590

 

Stick with it. I looks like you are making real progress.

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USB:  I have native USB working due to a DSDT fix I implemented.  If you haven't created a DSDT and are letting Clover create one for you, you can try the DSDT patch for Clover for USB.  The bottom line is that you need to tell your laptop that your PID is something it will recognize and not the one you actually have.  There are numerous posts on this subject that you can search for.

 

As for cpus=1, that one is definitely a Clover fix for HP laptops.  You need to enable the Lapic patch. If you haven't downloaded Clover Configurator, I recommend that you do so.

 

For screen brightness, try the Generic Brightness.kext.  The post with all you need is on this forum, including a DSDT fix that will give you a slider bar in your display preferences.  Just do a search for it.

 

As for sleep, you have to get native power management working.  I don't know what smbios you are using and you haven't mentioned anything about an ssdt, which you should create and put into your Clover directory at patched ACPI.  Chances are, when you have working power management, you should have sleep working as well.  If not, post what you have done and we can take it from there.  For the SSDT, check out this post:  http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/290687-wip-hp-envy-17t-j000-quad-haswell-1085109/?p=2006590

 

Stick with it. I looks like you are making real progress.

 

The DSDT i'm using is actually the one i used with ML, it's similar to your old one and musicpro from when we were on tonymacs forums. I tried the fix in Clover but they're still not working with that. SSDT is the same one from back then too

 

cpus=1 i also tried the Lapic patch in clover and it still gave me a panic.... Well actually the cursor just paused mid boot in the middle of a line and doesn't respond, so i assume that's a panic. Not like the panics i have seen before, those actually give you an uptime

 

Brightness i have working, thanks to one of your posts that i ran across. I couldn't figure out the remapping program though, even after reading it's "manual" online.

 

Sleep i have fully working also, that was after the sbus fix in clover.

 

I was actually working on the smbios insertion into the config file with clover configurator when i got the post notification. I'm leaning towards MacbookPro 10,1

config dsdt ssdt.zip

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Here, try my DSDT, SSDT and Clover config.plist.  Still, I recommend that you make your own SSDT since we do not have the same CPU and my DSDT has been stripped of all entries enabling the Radeon 7850m because I was having problems booting because both GPUs were trying to load and my 7850m is disabled in the BIOS.  Also, you may want to add entries in your Clover config.plist for the 7850m.  I removed those as well.

DSDT,SSDT,CloverConfig.zip

 

 

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Okay, i made my own SSDT, and threw it into the patched folder, but then i couldn't boot. It compiled without any errors or even warnings.... Had to revert back to the one i was using before.

 

EDIT: So pretty much the only issues i have remaining is running my own custom SSDT, making my own SMBIOS, and the lack of real-time data on my computer. HWmonitor isn't showing any CPU temps or speeds. It only shows my drive temps, and then also the battery information is missing. The icon is a hollow battery with an X inside.... I've put all my kexts in the 10.9 EFI folder and no extra ones in S-L-E. Is this the issue? (I've already had to completely reinstall Mavericks twice the past 24 hours because i dumped them there at once, hence why they're only in 10.9 right now)

 

post-594444-0-53470300-1398139187_thumb.png

 

post-594444-0-54575600-1398139189_thumb.png

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For Battery:  https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-acpi-battery-driver/downloads

 

For HWSensors:  http://www.hwsensors.com  [be sure to install all of the sensors in FakeSMC.kext-Use Customize during install process]

 

Do you have full CPU function yet?  What about speedstepping?

 

Full CPU function with speedstepping it seems.

 

post-594444-0-39638700-1398199974_thumb.png

 

post-594444-0-41413700-1398199976_thumb.png

 

I'm going to do the battery fix in a sec

EDIT: Battery fix had no effect

Edited by jamaly
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Ah yes, DSDT patch is required.  Get it here:

 

https://github.com/RehabMan/Laptop-DSDT-Patch/blob/e7587379984508bf233061c195133183fdee05ac/battery/battery_HP-Envy-17t.txt

 

Put the patch into MaciASL and apply.

 

BTW, in your Clover configuration, change the Bus Speed KHz to 100000.  This will make your speed steps appear as even numbers.  Also, are you stuck with only 2 speed steps or do you have more?  If your SSDT is correct, you should have about 7 different speed steps.

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Just discovered that the battery fix broke my sleep and webcam, I'll try it again after the dsdt patch.

 

Second, I'm not so sure about speed stepping because my multiplier stays pegged at 27. Sure the CPU package average changes, but the frequency doesn't change either.

 

Would altering my smbios have any effect on making the created ssdt work?

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Changed my smbios to mb pro 10,2 using clover configurator and it kind of broke clover...lol, the boot manager doesn't load after power up even after i used my usb to boot and revert back to the config file pre-edit.

 

Guess I'm gonna reinstall clover

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Are you sure you saved the config.plist to the right place?  Your choice of smbios won't have any effect on Clover booting, but saving the config.plist to the wrong location, i.e., EFI if you are using Clover in legacy mode will definitely prevent Clover from booting.

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That's interesting.  I can't get Clover to boot from my EFI volume.  It only boots in legacy mode - when the EFI folder is in the same partition as my operating system.  If you can boot with Clover in your EFI volume, then I will have to try that out again and maybe I will learn from you while I try to help you out.

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That's interesting. I can't get Clover to boot from my EFI volume. It only boots in legacy mode - when the EFI folder is in the same partition as my operating system. If you can boot with Clover in your EFI volume, then I will have to try that out again and maybe I will learn from you while I try to help you out.

You have 2 bays in your envy, you have to put the osx drive in the primary bay and move the windows drive to the secondary. The envy will only look at the primary for booting OSes.

 

Here's the link, you obviously want the post-installation section...

http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks-desktop-guides/125632-how-install-os-x-mavericks-using-clover.html

 

What's this jazz about legacy mode? (Just reread your post), might as well put that EFI partition to use dude. Its just sitting there. Don't forget the terminal command prior to attempting to install it to that partition. What was going wrong when you tried before?

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I have my OS X drive in my primary bay, but I also have an mSata SSD drive, which is where my EFI directory is located.  When I tried to install to my EFI partition, when I booted it just said no bootable disk present.  I assumed it was related to my BIOS, which is horribly unconfigurable.  I'll give it a shot over the weekend and see if I can't get it done. 

 

In the meantime, you still have plenty of work to do so lets focus on that in this thread.  If I encounter any problems that I can't figure out by searching for answers on Google, I'll let you know. 

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Holy cannoli batman. IT'S ALIVE! Got it working. 1.19Ghz all the way up to 3.56Ghz (that i've seen using the "yes > /dev/null" terminal command) I did a couple of things, so i'm not exactly sure what exactly did it. I updated my AppleInteCPUPowerManagement.kext to the 216.0.0 version, added the -xcpm argument to boot, set CPU latency to 0x00FA, completely removed my SSDT file, and used the MacBookPro9,1 SMBIOS.

 

The only problem i have left now is this weird sleep behavior... The computer will go to sleep if i close the lid or use the menu option, but then it wakes right back up in less than a second. <--ClockID fixed that.

 

And pressing the power button does nothing. Supposed to bring up the sleep/shut down dialogue right? Battery icon also went missing

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Holy cannoli batman. IT'S ALIVE! Got it working. 1.19Ghz all the way up to 3.56Ghz (that i've seen using the "yes > /dev/null" terminal command) I did a couple of things, so i'm not exactly sure what exactly did it. I updated my AppleInteCPUPowerManagement.kext to the 216.0.0 version, added the -xcpm argument to boot, set CPU latency to 0x00FA, completely removed my SSDT file, and used the MacBookPro9,1 SMBIOS.

 

The only problem i have left now is this weird sleep behavior... The computer will go to sleep if i close the lid or use the menu option, but then it wakes right back up in less than a second. <--ClockID fixed that.

 

And pressing the power button does nothing. Supposed to bring up the sleep/shut down dialogue right? Battery icon also went missing

 

Nice to see you are making progress.  I still prefer using a custom SSDT prepared the way it was outlined for me (link is set forth above) and using MacBookPro10,2.  You still need to use ACPIBattery.kext and will need to make the DSDT edit required to make it work.  It's in my DSDT.

 

As for the power button, this is a new feature in Mavericks.  If you press the power button for an instant, it is supposed to put the laptop to sleep.  For me, it just puts the video to sleep.  But if you hold the power button for 1-2 seconds, it DOES bring up the sleep/shutdown dialogue.

 

Any other issues left to deal with?

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