iMac Pro startup woes

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Level 1

13 points

iMac Pro startup woes

I have an iMac Pro which I use daily. Because of issues with SoftRaid, I needed to run Startup Security Utility to turn off Secure Boot. Startup Security Utility won't launch, saying "Recovery is trying to change system settings. No administrator was found." I have three admin accounts on my Mac, and use one of them every day without problems.

I tried deleting .AppleSetupDone and reinitializing High Sierra, went through setup and created a new admin account, following Googled instructions. No difference.

I thought the issue might be not having an admin account on the Recovery volume, so I tried to boot into single user mode to mount the volume (another bag of issues) and add an account. But single user mode hangs with a last cryptic message: "AdjustBusy timeout in 40000ms!"

So I tried to mount the Recovery volume from my normal login, but I don't know enough about APFS to do this. I can mount the volume, but it shows up as some sort of container and not the volume itself.

I don't really want to go through the hassle of formatting the drive and reinstalling from scratch, but it's looking more and more like the only route unless someone has another suggestion. Any help would be appreciated.

iMac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.4)

Posted on Apr 23, 2018 12:49 PM

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Answer 1

TomWheel

Level 2

406 points

Apr 24, 2018 9:19 AM in response to rwetmore

Unfortunately I cannot help you, but I have exactly this same issue on my 10-core iMac Pro. The issue of not being able use the Startup Security Utility in Recovery mode appeared one day out of the blue. I get exactly the same message that you do, and iso far I have not been able to find a solution to this issue. Please do post if you are able to resolve this issue either by working with Apple Care or otherwise. Thank you.

Tom

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Answer 2

DonH49

Level 6

16,704 points

Apr 24, 2018 9:25 AM in response to rwetmore

to get to that start up security where the password access is going to work, only boot from the exact drive you initiated the protection. any other drive will get you there but it will not work. change nothing when it comes to that initial setup.

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Answer 3

rwetmore Author

Level 1

13 points

Apr 24, 2018 9:46 AM in response to TomWheel

I too have a 10-core. I’ve gotten many suggestions, but none of them worked. I’m in the middle of a format/reinstall cycle, which is problematic in and of itself. (It requires a separate Mac, the Apple Configurator app and HOURS of time.) I understand why Apple put in this stopgap fix for security reasons, but it’s a misguided process that hinders legitimate usage of my own, very expen$ive, computer. Apple need to figure out another solution.

Part of this ordeal involved pouring over pages and pages of logs and lists of drivers and daemons. The reason I decided to reinstall was the cruft collected over 10 years of installations and system migrations. I had apps and drivers from my old 2007 Mac Pro still hanging around. “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.” 😀

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Answer 4

rwetmore Author

Level 1

13 points

Apr 24, 2018 9:30 AM in response to DonH49

Only trying to boot from the built-in SSD, which came installed from the factory. I disconnected every external connection to drives and hubs.

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iMac Pro startup woes

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