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macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
TimothyR734 said:
Dark and Light mode in safe mode :)
Click to expand...
Ouch! I think we have something...

Can you show a Finder Window in both Dark and Light mode?
[doublepost=1534817780][/doublepost]
thegurgz said:
Huh, must have made a typo. I meant step 6. “Converted empty disk to APFS, installed DP7”. Clean install and still a no-go, but will try DP8.
[doublepost=1534816319][/doublepost]

Not an SSD at all. I have a newer (though not technically mine) mid 2014 MBP accessible to me, so I never decided to invest in an SSD for my old MBP, even though they are around 40 dollars. Running a hitachi HDD, could be the issue.
Click to expand...
We DO now that some third party SSDs have APFS compatibility issues (since Sierra introduced APFS in the open). I'm wondering if certain spin drives have the same issues with APFS.
 
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thegurgz said:
Huh, must have made a typo. I meant step 6. “Converted empty disk to APFS, installed DP7”. Clean install and still a no-go, but will try DP8.
[doublepost=1534816319][/doublepost]

Not an SSD at all. I have a newer (though not technically mine) mid 2014 MBP accessible to me, so I never decided to invest in an SSD for my old MBP, even though they are around 40 dollars. Running a hitachi HDD, could be the issue.
Click to expand...

Ok, we may have found your problem. Read below...

Does Apfs support hard drives?
APFS currently works only with SSDs, although Apple says that full support for mechanical hard disks and Fusion drives is coming in macOS 10.14 Mojave. It's possible to format a hard disk drive as APFS, but you're likely to experience a performance hit compared to it formatted with Mac OS Extended.Jul 23, 2018


https://blog.macsales.com/43043-using-apfs-on-hdds-and-why-you-might-not-want-to
 
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arqueox said:
Still no transparency right?
Click to expand...
Right.

This just says: with no acceleration (kexts are dropped) the screen looks normal cause fancy blur effects are not even attempted. Of course its slow as molasses and basically useless. However, a good indication that we're on the right track with OpenGL or AppKit acceleration discrepancies. False positives are important...
 
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This was probably the most painless upgrade of them all for my 2010 Mac Mini 4,1 with a 320 GB old fashioned hard drive (formatted for APFS). I didn't wait for the public beta upload in Software Update so i rebuilt the USB stick and did it that way. This was the first in-place upgrade that worked (without having to wipe the drive and start over). I did force a cache rebuild this time unlike the last times.

At some point I'll get up the nerve to try either upgrading my 2008 iMac 8,1 or the 2008 Macbook 5,1...both are in production as Roon music transports (as is the Mac Mini). Pretty worried about the whole APFS ROM patcher thing (thankfully, the Mac Mini didn't need it).

My two other devices on public beta (Apple TV 4k and iPad Mini 2) both did their upgrades without incident.

We're getting close to release.
 
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pkouame said:
Ok, we may have found your problem. Read below...

Does Apfs support hard drives?
APFS currently works only with SSDs, although Apple says that full support for mechanical hard disks and Fusion drives is coming in macOS 10.14 Mojave. It's possible to format a hard disk drive as APFS, but you're likely to experience a performance hit compared to it formatted with Mac OS Extended.Jul 23, 2018


https://blog.macsales.com/43043-using-apfs-on-hdds-and-why-you-might-not-want-to
Click to expand...

Very strange, since it was possible to boot on but not install. I should probably just buy an SSD, I’m tired of 10 minute boots and such. If the Mojave GM requires APFS and this “full support” doesn’t come through, I’ll definitely have an excuse to buy one. I read that article too, but I just have missed that part. Case closed I guess.
 
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thegurgz said:
Very strange, since it was possible to boot on but not install. I should probably just buy an SSD, I’m tired of 10 minute boots and such. If the Mojave GM requires APFS and this “full support” doesn’t come through, I’ll definitely have an excuse to buy one. I read that article too, but I just have missed that part. Case closed I guess.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think we found your problem. Or at the very least it accentuates one. I never attempted running APFS on HDD (nor do I know anyone who has), that's why it ticked.

Look on the bright side - one of the most significant upgrades is moving to SSD (second is more memory). Even better then new OSes. You won't regret it. Make sure you find one that's compatible with your setup. If you have deeper pockets and a good machine consider NVMe. Ask on this forum if some have a performant SSD running on your model (I forgot what you have)

Good luck.
 
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pkouame said:
Yes, I think we found your problem. Or at the very least it accentuates one. I never attempted running APFS on HDD (nor do I know anyone who has), that's why it ticked.

Look on the bright side - one of the most significant upgrades is moving to SSD (second is more memory). Even better then new OSes. You won't regret it. Make sure you find one that's compatible with your setup. If you have deeper pockets and a good machine consider NVMe. Ask on this forum if some have a performant SSD running on your model (I forgot what you have)

Good luck.
Click to expand...
I am running APFS on my HDD on my iMac 9,1 no issues
 
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pkouame said:
Yes, I think we found your problem. Or at the very least it accentuates one. I never attempted running APFS on HDD (nor do I know anyone who has), that's why it ticked.

Look on the bright side - one of the most significant upgrades is moving to SSD (second is more memory). Even better then new OSes. You won't regret it. Make sure you find one that's compatible with your setup. If you have deeper pockets and a good machine consider NVMe. Ask on this forum if some have a performant SSD running on your model (I forgot what you have)

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Just a MBP 5,5, so it will be an easy installation.
 
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pkouame said:
Yes, I think we found your problem. Or at the very least it accentuates one. I never attempted running APFS on HDD (nor do I know anyone who has), that's why it ticked.
Click to expand...
I don't know but I've been running APFS since High Sierra, and now with Mojave Beta, on a 500 GB HDD with no problems at all.

Just installed PB7 update, via System Preferences, rebooted to USB installer, ran the patches again, updated the caches, and restarted Mojave. Worked like a charm. My system may not be as zippy as it would be with an SSD -- but it's hardly what I'd call sluggish either (boot up takes about three minutes; all windows can be dragged with no delays or artefacts; some programs are a little slow to load the first time in each new session but, once loaded, they respond lightning fast).
 
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Besides the SSD vs HDD issue, a couple of times you have implied that the HDD has been partitioned for two HFS+ and APFS volumes. Am I misreading this? If you have mixed partitions on the disk, it might screw up stuff.
A 250 GB SSD is only about $75 now. Be wary of OWC SSDs, they had firmware problems. Get a Samsung 860 EVO or something like that.
Good luck.
[doublepost=1534827149][/doublepost]PS. I'd not suspect or mess with the APFS boot ROM patch. If it gave you the successful flash message and you can start the Mac, I'd leave it well alone for now. Look for the simplest explanation not the Sherlock/Spock explanation. Get an SSD and try first.
 
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nekton1 said:
Besides the SSD vs HDD issue, a couple of times you have implied that the HDD has been partitioned for two HFS+ and APFS volumes. Am I misreading this? If you have mixed partitions on the disk, it might screw up stuff.
A 250 GB SSD is only about $75 now. Be wary of OWC SSDs, they had firmware problems. Get a Samsung 860 EVO or something like that.
Good luck.
[doublepost=1534827149][/doublepost]PS. I'd not suspect or mess with the APFS boot ROM patch. If it gave you the successful flash message and you can start the Mac, I'd leave it well alone for now. Look for the simplest explanation not the Sherlock/Spock explanation. Get an SSD and try first.
Click to expand...

Well, the same issue happened with just HFS+ on the disk, so I do not suspect it's that. Going to try one last time overnight and will record results tomorrow. Not really expecting anything to change though.
 
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ASentientBot said:
I'm 99% sure they're fine now. They have a good reputation on Apple subreddits, anyways. And I installed one in my 2010 MB and it worked perfectly out of the box.
Click to expand...
I also owned a few. There were some firmware/driver issues with APFS on older models. Aside from that gotcha which prevented some from supporting APFS back on HS, they've been reliable. Just a little maintenance sometimes...
[doublepost=1534829056][/doublepost]
PBear.SF said:
I don't know but I've been running APFS since High Sierra, and now with Mojave Beta, on a 500 GB HDD with no problems at all.

Just installed PB7 update, via System Preferences, rebooted to USB installer, ran the patches again, updated the caches, and restarted Mojave. Worked like a charm. My system may not be as zippy as it would be with an SSD -- but it's hardly what I'd call sluggish either (boot up takes about three minutes; all windows can be dragged with no delays or artefacts; some programs are a little slow to load the first time in each new session but, once loaded, they respond lightning fast).
Click to expand...
Apple did say Mojave will support HDD. So no one's saying it's a show stopper.
But I know for a fact that they did so mainly to support their line of Fusion drives (hybrid SSD+HDD) and as a second phased roll-out. So you may be good. But I wouldn't bet that all HDDs are the same or perform consistently. I think this is a good article. Obviously they've had a few months to tune. I'm slowly phasing out all my spin drives...
 
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Sevenfeet said:
This was probably the most painless upgrade of them all for my 2010 Mac Mini 4,1 with a 320 GB old fashioned hard drive (formatted for APFS). I didn't wait for the public beta upload in Software Update so i rebuilt the USB stick and did it that way. This was the first in-place upgrade that worked (without having to wipe the drive and start over). I did force a cache rebuild this time unlike the last times.

At some point I'll get up the nerve to try either upgrading my 2008 iMac 8,1 or the 2008 Macbook 5,1...both are in production as Roon music transports (as is the Mac Mini). Pretty worried about the whole APFS ROM patcher thing (thankfully, the Mac Mini didn't need it).

My two other devices on public beta (Apple TV 4k and iPad Mini 2) both did their upgrades without incident.

We're getting close to release.
Click to expand...

I was SUPER nervous about flashing my machines as well but I did my 2008 MacBook Pro 4,1 a few weeks back and I just did my Unibody MacBook 5,1 yesterday with no problems at all! It takes forever but just don’t touch it and let it do its thing and you should be fine.
 
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pkouame said:
I also owned a few. There were some firmware/driver issues with APFS on older models. Aside from that gotcha which prevented some from supporting APFS back on HS, they've been reliable. Just a little maintenance sometimes...
[doublepost=1534829056][/doublepost]
Apple did say Mojave will support HDD. So no one's saying it's a show stopper.
But I know for a fact that they did so mainly to support their line of Fusion drives (hybrid SSD+HDD) and as a second phased roll-out. So you may be good. But I wouldn't bet that all HDDs are the same or perform consistently. I think this is a good article. Obviously they've had a few months to tune. I'm slowly phasing out all my spin drives...
Click to expand...

I have spin drives for mass data storage, backups, and OS testing (obviously not performance testing.) and they work fine for me.
 
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0403979 said:
I have spin drives for mass data storage, backups, and OS testing (obviously not performance testing.) and they work fine for me.
Click to expand...
To each is own. Just my very biased opinion ;). I've had way too many spin drives bail on me - so much so that RAID was indispensable. I live in an area with the biggest data centers in the world and without exception they've replaced football fields worth of spin drives for solid state.
 
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pkouame said:
To each is own. Just my very biased opinion ;). I've had way too many spin drives bail on me - so much so that RAID was indispensable. I live in an area with the biggest data centers in the world and without exception they've replaced football fields worth of spin drives for solid state.
Click to expand...
Yeah I know what you mean my external hdd with High Sierra just bailed on me :(
 
Bobbytshoes said:
@dosdude1

Just applied the APFS ROM Patcher to my MacPro3,1 and it worked perfectly.

Thank you dosdude1.

Now when I reboot my Mac, it still shows the APFS script at the start. Is this script required now that the computer can boot natively?
Click to expand...

No, you need to get into the hidden EFi volume on the disk using the terminal diskutil command and delete the APFS scripts.
 
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Luckygreek said:
That's odd, I can't boot into Safe mode, I get ø, I wanted to test your theory. This requires some poking under the hood.

I can boot in Recovery or Verbose but not Safe Mode???
Click to expand...

Getting the ø prohibitory symbol if you hold [shift ⇧] for safe booting often is due to a dynamic overridden boot parameter value "no_compat_check", so you should embed it in all the ways possible:

editing the boot plist:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
adding:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>-v -no_compat_check</string>


booting from Recovery HD or Mojave USB Installer launch Terminal and type:
csrutil disable
nvram boot-args="-v -no_compat_check"
reboot


While instead if you use Refit or Refind bootloader you have to highlight (only with keyboard arrows) the Mojave partition, press F2 then from the submenu highlight "safe mode" press again F2 and manually type followed by enter key:
-v -x -no_compat_check
 
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