Umm, WTF?!

[G.Beard]

Here in frot of me I have two Macbooks.

MacBook A is a 2009 that will not run 10.13
MacBook B is a 2011 that will run 10.13

MacBook B had 10.13.3 installed and did the firmware update.
I installed a new HDD into MacBook B (2011) and neither the firmware or the OS recognises the HDD.

Fitted the HDD to MacBook A (2009) and sure enough it sees it and boots.

Fitted a Toshiba 500GB HDD with the Apple logo on it, to MacBook B (2011) and it sees the HDD and boots just fine.

 

[dukefawks]

There are some really weird issues with the new APFS. I doubt that they locked out non OEM drives though, but it could be possible.

 

[G.Beard]

There are some really weird issues with the new APFS. I doubt that they locked out non OEM drives though, but it could be possible.

I have now tried three SSDs, one 1TB HDD and 2 Apple HDDs... All this thing will see is Apple HDDs.
Tried cloning an OS to SSD - HFS+ (or edit minstalconfig.xml to false under ConvertToAPFS) and fitting that... Tried an APFS SSD
Tried initializing a fresh Samsung Evo SSD and booting to OS
Tried a cloned 1TB HDD with cloned image as well as with fresh format.

All this thing will see is 500GB Apple HDDs I have from other machines.

 

[dukefawks]

Did you try the obvious PRAM reset?

 

[G.Beard]

Did you try the obvious PRAM reset?

That's more of an auto pilot these days. SMC, PRAM, Verbose. Every time.
Can't be arsed to get this board out again. Stuck a DVD / HDD caddy on there it works perfectly so it's mine.

 

[dukefawks]

I believe a firmware update is needed for APFS to work so getting a replacement board to work with AFPS would need to do a clean install of High Sierra so stuff gets updated and then placing back the original customer SSD.

 

[SMMRepair]

Yeah, which is what we've been doing. Not a big deal, most customers are just happy to have a working machine; having to wipe their drives hasn't been a problem. Thanks, Duke!