MBP Retina 11,3 - Successfully installed Ventura via OCLP 6.3 on external SSD, Unsuccessful cloning back to internal NVME, cannot boot from it?

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Hi, The title pretty much says it all. I have MBP 11,3 Retina (mid-2014) that was running big sur, due to some issues with a software/ file i needed, I had to upgrade to Ventura which led me down the "installing Ventura on unsupported mac" rabbit hole. I did this many times with my MP 3,1 via dosdude1's patchers. Anyway, this led me to OpenCore Legacy Patcher v6.3. So as a safety precaution I cloned my big sur nvme internal drive to a samsung t5 external ssd using carbon copy cloner without issue. I then removed my big sur nvme internal drive from the laptop. I booted off the external usb drive with the new clone a boom, I was back to where I started but now using an external to run the OS.

I then went through the OCLP (v6.3) process on the external drive running the os and viola! It worked! I am now running Ventura 13.3.1 off the external ssd via usb. I bought a new larger capacity internal nvme (OWC 1.0TB Aura Pro X2 SSD) and installed it into the machine. Booted up the computer via the Ventura usb drive. The owc nvme showed up on the desktop and I reformatted it to apfs. I then cloned the external ssd to the internal nvme. The process completed and all seemed good.

Here is where the trouble comes in, the computer does not see the new cloned nvme as a bootable drive. I can still plug in the usb ssd and boot ventura off it no problem. Once booted the nvme shows up on the desktop. Its formatted correctly, files appear to be cloned but I cant boot from it.

Any ideas?

Thanks to all for any insight.

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

Can you post a video about the computer does not see the new cloned nvme as a bootable drive? It's kinda hard to troubleshoot with current information.

 

[gilby101]

I then cloned the external ssd to the internal nvme

Did the cloning include the EFI partition? That is where the OCLP magic happens.

I recommend you do a new OCLP and macOS install on the new internal disk and pull your data from the external.

 

[rpmurray]

Bombich has articles on the Carbon Copy Cloner site about how Apple has tied down macOS so much that they have to go through hoops to make a bootable clone. It's easier just to do a clean install of the OS and then clone back the Data volume.