2018 Macbook Pro not able to install Mojave

[allanmulwee]

So a customer brought in a 2018 Macbook Pro that he had wiped and wanted to do a fresh install of Mojave from a thumb drive. He has a firmware password on the laptop. Guess what? Not possible. The T2 chip blocks everything and requires another machine with a T2 chip to connect to it in order to make this happen. The good old days of swapping drives, booting from thumb drives, installing OS via target disk... are coming to an end.
[doublepost=1546907004][/doublepost]and yes he has the firmware p/w

 

[Bending Pixels]

It's an added security measure. You can reinstall Mojave via internet restore

 

[allanmulwee]

That didn't work either. You need another T2 machine to connect it I believe and we don't have one in the shop yet.

 

[chabig]

Why not remove the firmware password and then install Mojave?

 

[internetrando]

You need to disable secure boot.

He will need to create an admin account on whatever software can be installed, boot into recovery, remove secure boot in the f/w security utility, then boot into USB.

 

[oatman13]

That didn't work either. You need another T2 machine to connect it I believe and we don't have one in the shop yet.

Hold down: CMD+OPTION+R on boot to start up Internet Recovery.
If there is no image on the system or no local recovery to boot from then the only place you can boot is internet recovery.

Unless the system has "allow external boot" enabled; which it sounds like it doesn't.

 

[CoastalOR]

Here is Apple's information about Secure Boot on a T2 machine:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"So a customer brought in a 2018 Macbook Pro that he had wiped and wanted to do a fresh install of Mojave from a thumb drive. He has a firmware password on the laptop. Guess what? Not possible. The T2 chip blocks everything and requires another machine with a T2 chip to connect to it in order to make this happen."

Yes, that's the way it works now.

The solution is to take the laptop to a brick n mortar Apple Store genius bar, and they will "put it right".

WARNING!
Unless the customer has HIS ORIGINAL SALES RECEIPT, Apple WILL NOT do this for him.

In that case, he'd better start looking for a new laptop.
And... if it's a Mac laptop... he'd better be durned careful about what he does with it "next time"...

 

[jlapalme32]

So a customer brought in a 2018 Macbook Pro that he had wiped and wanted to do a fresh install of Mojave from a thumb drive. He has a firmware password on the laptop. Guess what? Not possible. The T2 chip blocks everything and requires another machine with a T2 chip to connect to it in order to make this happen. The good old days of swapping drives, booting from thumb drives, installing OS via target disk... are coming to an end.
[doublepost=1546907004][/doublepost]and yes he has the firmware p/w

 

[jlapalme32]

I was able to install Mojave MacOS from a thumbdrive. Here is the instructions. I did this a couple weeks ago.

1. Download the Mojave OS from Apple’s developer portal Or from https://developer.apple.com/download/
2. The download puts the .pkg file in the Applications area on the Mac.
3. Right click the .pkg file and click "Show Package Contents"
4. Click "Content Folder", Click "Resources" folder. Make sure "CreateInstallMedia" is in the Resources folder.
5. Click "Finder", open "Utilities", Open Terminal
6. Type in Terminal sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave\Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USBSTICKNAME --nointeraction
7. Plug in USB Stick 8GB or greater
8. Click Enter
9. Type in password
10. Terminal will start erasing
11. Installer file will be copied to your usb disk.
12. Unplug the USB Stick from machine that created it.
13. Plug in USB Stick into machine that needs to be reimaged with Mojave MacOS
14. Restart your MAC, Hold down Option/ALT Key while booting up
15. In Startup manager, click external usb drive, select "Install macOS"

Video of the process being done. https://9to5mac.com/2018/06/18/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-mojave-10-14-usb-install-drive-video/

Let me know if you run into any snags