Administrators Bronxteck Posted July 15, 2017 Administrators Share Posted July 15, 2017 what happens if you change sata bios option from AHCI to IDE? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 15, 2017 Author Share Posted July 15, 2017 This BIOS doesn't have an option for IDE. Only choices are Disabled, ATA, and AHCI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 15, 2017 Author Share Posted July 15, 2017 For some trials, I've recreated the USB installation. One by one, I am going to use the bootpacks for the other Sandy Bridge models. So far, E6420_Optimus_A23 and E6420_HD3000_A23 seem to fully boot, but the installer wizard is not displaying from what I believe to be a difference in video chipsets that are used for these units vs what is in this E5520. In verbose mode for these two boot packs, the loading surges through without pause. It just eventually changes to a "foggy" screen. The unit appears to be responsive, as the caps lock light will toggle on/off as the key is pressed. I'll continue with the other boot packs to see if there's a winner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 15, 2017 Author Share Posted July 15, 2017 The E6220_A13 boot pack gets to the installer! Perhaps things with this boot pack can be compared to the E5520 one, in order to make a better E5520 boot pack. I have a brand new SSD that I am going to use for an installation. I'll report back on any items that are discovered to not work (i.e. wireless / sound /etc.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 15, 2017 Author Share Posted July 15, 2017 Let the weirdness live on. Disk Utility sees the SSD, but keeps failing to erase/format it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Jake Lo Posted July 15, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 15, 2017 What are you formatting it to? Make sure it's GUID / Extended Journaled Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 16, 2017 Author Share Posted July 16, 2017 Yes, that's what I use for my other machines. Actually, no matter which type of erase operation I try, they all try for about 15-20 seconds, and then die out to a failure message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Jake Lo Posted July 16, 2017 Moderators Share Posted July 16, 2017 open terminal, enter the following: diskutil list //determine the disk #, should be disk0 diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk0 1 GPT HFS+J "Sierra" exit Note: diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk# "Name of Drive" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 17, 2017 Author Share Posted July 17, 2017 Terminal failed too. Windows 10 couldn't even format the drive. I connected it to another laptop via an external enclosure, and then was able to format it. Sierra installing now.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpw95 Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 I have gone through with a comparison of what is in the E5520 boot pack vs. what is in the one for the E6220 boot pack. Again, using the E6220 boot pack today allows me to boot to the Sierra installer, whereas the contents of the current E5520 boot pack will never make it through that first boot. For each boot pack, here are the differences in KEXTS contained: - E5520 has BCM5722D.kext & AppleBacklightInjector.kext - E6220 has IntelBacklight.kext & IntelMausiEthernet.kext Using Notepad++ and diffchecker.com to isolate differences in each bootpack's config.plist files: - the KextsToPatch entries are identical, with the exception that the one for the E5520 has 16 extra lines of entries for AppleBacklightInjector / AppleBacklight. - with the three screenshots attached here, we can observe: -- the E5520 file has a section under the SSDT key for CStates and PStates that are not present in the E6220 file -- the E5520 file has a section under the SortedOrder key that is not present in the E6220 file -- the E6220 file has an entry for BOOTX64.EFI that is not present in the E5520 file -- the E6220 file has a value for Legacy set to true, whereas the E5520 file has this as false -- the E6220 file has a value for DualLink set to 0, whereas the E5520 file has this as 1 -- the E5520 file has an entry for DellSMBIOSPatch that is not present in the E6620 file (the config.plist contents for the E6620 are on the left, showing red for differences, and the contents for the E5520 are on the right, showing green for differences) Jake: With these differences called out, does anything leap out at you as for why I was not able to use the E5520 boot pack, but instead could use the E6220 boot pack? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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