"Restart" function not working Mojave 10.14.6 - 2017 Macbook Pro

[exxtrmmst]

Have a client who bought a 2017 Macbook Pro with a 128GB drive. She filled it up. Replaced this ridiculous & proprietary drive with an adapter and a Sabrent 1TB M.2 2240 Drive. Could not do an OS install from scratch, kept failing. Was able to clone her original drive successfully however. Boots to the new drive no problem. Has Mojave 10.14. During each attempt to install 10.14.6 updates, machine would not see the drive, unless I reset the SMC, then booted holding Option key, then it saw the drive, and I could boot to it. Eventually after 8 attempts, was able to install the 10.14.6 security updates. Weird symptoms. Replaced the adapter with a different brand for the hell of it. Same issues. Decided to just go with the cloned drive and not do a fresh OS install. Was able to get through the updates. BUT...Apple > Restart does not work - it just shuts down and that's it. When it's powered on again, it says it shutdown abruptly and has recovered from an error. Apple > Shutdown works fine. To reiterate the main issue now: Restart does not work, Shutdown works fine. This is going to be a problem, because my client is going to do a Restart at some point and it's not going to power back on as normal.



This is going to be a tough one I'm sure, if anyone has a clue on this, I would appreciate it.

~Robert

 

[Fishrrman]

This may sound like "too much work", but it's what I'd suggest.

First, put the original drive back in.
Remove some of the junk that's clogging it up.

Now, update the OS on the original drive to 10.14.6, including all security updates, etc.

When that's done, try swapping the drives again.

See if the restart sequence goes better now.

WHY I'm suggesting this:
It's possible that there was some kind of firmware update that would have been installed during the various updates that required "the presence of the factory-original drive" to "take".

Since you did not "bring things up to date" in that manner, something -- either software or firmware -- is "not where it should be".

So... doing these updates with the factory-original drive MIGHT get them "to where they ought to be".

I make no promises.
Just an approach that might be worth trying.