2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X El Capitan

[TJH2018]

Hi all! I'm trying to get OS X 10.11.5 to run on my Mac Pro 1,1. It goes through the install process fine, and it stops and gives me an error, saying that the "Essentials.pkg" file is corrupted. Help?

Thanks,
TJH2018

 

[Ant3000]

Are you following the instructions and video created by rthpjm inc info on RAM etc? If so, have you tried downloading the installer again from the App Store and recreating the USB installer? If you do download again you must remove all previous downloads of the installer or it won't download a new copy - it thinks you already have it.

 

[cbelldina]

Are you following the instructions and video created by rthpjm inc info on RAM etc? If so, have you tried downloading the installer again from the App Store and recreating the USB installer? If you do download again you must remove all previous downloads of the installer or it won't download a new copy - it thinks you already have it.

I'm currently running 10.11.4. Of course, setup using Pikes great work as a fresh install a while back.

I noticed that 10.11.5 update doesn't work. 1,1 boots into recovery mode every time. I'm sure the efi has been overwritten?? It tried CaptainPikeFix but it states my OS is not supported.

Luckily, I have a TimeMachine backup so i'm here on 10.11.4.

Ideas? I have 32GBB of RAM.

 

[Ant3000]

I went from 11.4 to 11.5 but had used rthpjm's script to fix updates - Look for Boot64 on this thread. Or you can manually change the boot.efi files from Recovery or another OS that will boot.

 

[cbelldina]

I went from 11.4 to 11.5 but had used rthpjm's script to fix updates - Look for Boot64 on this thread. Or you can manually change the boot.efi files from Recovery or another OS that will boot.

Thanks! Any downside to using Boot64 when it comes to recovery? I had Yosefix a long time back, and that worked well.

 

[Ant3000]

Not that I have encountered but there is another script to fix Recovery if you ever need it. There do seem to have been a few reports of 11.5 causing issues updating even with Boot64 but it worked OK for me. I used PikeYosefix too and it worked well - I think the introduction of SIP caused the most problems with this type of fix - Boot64 (as I understand it) lowers protection for the Boot.efi but doesn't disable SIP altogether.

 

[spin498]

Hello spin498,

If the MSDOS formatted disk is self contained, first try removing it from your system to see if it resolves your boot issue.

If you have an NVidia card, don't try removing it. I really just pointed out the third party kexts because those won't be enabled when safe-booted

Before I could get the MSDOS drive sorted my system crashed. I've ended up with a fresh install of El Capitan which, of course, got rid of SoundFlower and Blackberry. I now have 10.11.5 with latest NVIDIA web drivers, but lost all my apps.

 

[TJH2018]

Are you following the instructions and video created by rthpjm inc info on RAM etc? If so, have you tried downloading the installer again from the App Store and recreating the USB installer? If you do download again you must remove all previous downloads of the installer or it won't download a new copy - it thinks you already have it.

Hi, yes, yes, and yes. That's why it's weird. I followed the instructions word for word.

 

[Peatwheat]

SIP - turned off?

 

[TJH2018]

SIP - turned off?

Let me check...Good idea...
[doublepost=1467394696][/doublepost]

Let me check...Good idea...

Nope, didn't work...Totally lost at this point...

 

[rthpjm]

Let me check...Good idea...
[doublepost=1467394696][/doublepost]
Nope, didn't work...Totally lost at this point...

If you get an error about unpacking the Essentials.pkg it is almost always because you do not have enough RAM.

When running the install via a memory stick built using the pikify tool, you are running from RAM-disks (that's how Apple does it, it ensures that no HDD/SDD is in use and can therefore be a target for the install).

How much RAM do you think you have installed, and how much RAM does the MacPro report is installed?

We also know that original 512Mb RAM causes problems with El Capitan. Do you have any of those in your system?

 

[TJH2018]

If you get an error about unpacking the Essentials.pkg it is almost always because you do not have enough RAM.

When running the install via a memory stick built using the pikify tool, you are running from RAM-disks (that's how Apple does it, it ensures that no HDD/SDD is in use and can therefore be a target for the install).

How much RAM do you think you have installed, and how much RAM does the MacPro report is installed?

We also know that original 512Mb RAM causes problems with El Capitan. Do you have any of those in your system?

I have 12GB installed, with 3 2GB modules per tray. I recently went and bought some memory because I originally had 8GB, which wasn't sufficent. The memory is the correct specs and all that jazz.
[doublepost=1467395346][/doublepost]

If you get an error about unpacking the Essentials.pkg it is almost always because you do not have enough RAM.

When running the install via a memory stick built using the pikify tool, you are running from RAM-disks (that's how Apple does it, it ensures that no HDD/SDD is in use and can therefore be a target for the install).

How much RAM do you think you have installed, and how much RAM does the MacPro report is installed?

We also know that original 512Mb RAM causes problems with El Capitan. Do you have any of those in your system?

I just looked, and it says it only has 8GB installed. Weird. Now that's something I can deal with.

 

[rthpjm]

I have 12GB installed, with 3 2GB modules per tray. I recently went and bought some memory because I originally had 8GB, which wasn't sufficent. The memory is the correct specs and all that jazz.
[doublepost=1467395346][/doublepost]
I just looked, and it says it only has 8GB installed. Weird. Now that's something I can deal with.

Oooh

3 modules per tray is incorrect installation and probably explains why the system is only reporting 8Gb.

They need to be installed in pairs, so put 4 on one riser card, and 2 on the other

Take a look at the inside of the removable side panel there's usually a diagram....

 

[TJH2018]

Oooh

3 modules per tray is incorrect installation and probably explains why the system is only reporting 8Gb.

They need to be installed in pairs, so put 4 on one riser card, and 2 on the other

Take a look at the inside of the removable side panel there's usually a diagram....

Yeah, I looked on Apple's website and saw that too...It's running El Cap without a problem now, thanks for the help, everyone! Cheers!

 

[tobamiester]

Thanks guys. Took me a few attempts but installed it in the end on my old Mac Pro using
pikify v10, building a USB booting drive on a 2nd mac.

One issue I had was this error. It would abort pretty much right away with this error:

==A problem occurred when unmounting the BaseSystem disk image
==This is very odd and does not usually happen.

After editing createpikeinstallmedia and removing the error redirect to /dev/null i saw it was having issues un-mounting :

Close the BaseSystem disk image

hdiutil: couldn't unmount "disk4" - Resource busy


So I edited createpikeinstallmedia and added the "force" command as follows:

echo "Close the BaseSystem disk image"
hdiutil detach -force /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/

After this I was golden. Thanks guys!

 

[ortizra1]

Aloha to All; I hope all is well for everyone. i'm seeking expertise in upgrading my Mac Pro 2.1 to run El Cap. I followed the pikify3.1 instructions and managed to get the os installer in a second drive in my mac but when I try to reboot to it, by pressing the options key after restart, the screen stays black. My lion 10.7 boot disk doesn't even show. These are my specs:
Hardware Overview: Model Name:Mac Pro, Model Identifier:MacPro2,1, Processor Name:Quad-Core Intel Xeon, Processor Speed:2.66 GHz, Number of Processors:2, Total Number of Cores:8, L2 Cache (per Processor):8MB, Memory:16GB, Bus Speed:1.33 GHz, Boot ROM Version:MP21.007F.B06, Chipset Model:ATI Radeon HD 6xxx,
VRAM (Total):2048 MB. I go to the HD were I installed the pikify 3.1 folder and can see the OS installer, but my computer does nothing when I reboot. It does not even boot to the main drive where the Lion os is. I have attached a screen shot of my drives. Thank You Very Much in Advance for any expert help and suggestion you can provide me that will help me finish the install.

 

[rthpjm]

Aloha to All; I hope all is well for everyone. i'm seeking expertise in upgrading my Mac Pro 2.1 to run El Cap. I followed the pikify3.1 instructions and managed to get the os installer in a second drive in my mac but when I try to reboot to it, by pressing the options key after restart, the screen stays black. My lion 10.7 boot disk doesn't even show. These are my specs:
Hardware Overview: Model Name:Mac Pro, Model Identifier:MacPro2,1, Processor Name:Quad-Core Intel Xeon, Processor Speed:2.66 GHz, Number of Processors:2, Total Number of Cores:8, L2 Cache (per Processor):8MB, Memory:16GB, Bus Speed:1.33 GHz, Boot ROM Version:MP21.007F.B06, Chipset Model:ATI Radeon HD 6xxx,
VRAM (Total):2048 MB. I go to the HD were I installed the pikify 3.1 folder and can see the OS installer, but my computer does nothing when I reboot. It does not even boot to the main drive where the Lion os is. I have attached a screen shot of my drives. Thank You Very Much in Advance for any expert help and suggestion you can provide me that will help me finish the install.

Is your graphics card a generic PC Card?
If so have you tried to flash it with the EFI addition?

Has it ever shown the boot screens?

Have you tried a DVI-to-VGA adaptor, cable to the VGA port on your monitor (or find an old monitor)

 

[wazzco]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the great continuous efforts to keep the mac pro 2006 /2007 alive.

I picked up one of my own and am trying to get the pikify method to work - up until now unsuccessfully.

My ingredients:

- the Pikify 3.1v10 folder from zip.
- a freshly downloaded OSX EL CAPITAN installer.app (10.11.5) in the applications folder (downloaded at the day of posting this message)

When calling the ./createpikeinstallmedia script (on a macBook Pro running El capitan) and following the correct instructions to create a USB thumbdrive (>8GB) or partition on a different disk, it keeps failing at this step:

================================================================
== A problem occurred when creating the install media with Apple's createinstallmedia tool
== The most common issue is that the installer volume could not be unmounted because some other process is using it
== Close all other windows (especially terminal windows) and try again ================================================================

I can't find a way around this error.
Whenever I run Apple's createinstallmedia UNTOUCHED BY THE PIKIFY SCRIPT, it creates me the install medium for OSX El capitan just fine.

Which leads me to believe that either the apple createinstallmedia command has some integrity check built-in that detects that the pikify script has altered it and refuses to complete...

What is going on here?

 

[Andreaux]

Where in the directory tree are you in Terminal when issuing the commands. You must not be 'cd'-ing into the USB drive.

If that's not the case, maybe you're right. Here's what I would do then:

1. Split the Mac Pro HD in two and install a plain Lion or whatever other OS on the _SECOND_ partition.
2. Then boot into that and create the install media from there.
3. When done and successfully booting into El Capitan, drop the second partition and resize the disk to fit the whole space.

That has worked for me. I did the whole process without using my Macbook Pro, only to download the El Capitan installer.

Hope this helps.

 

[cdmawolf]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the great continuous efforts to keep the mac pro 2006 /2007 alive.

I picked up one of my own and am trying to get the pikify method to work - up until now unsuccessfully.

My ingredients:

- the Pikify 3.1v10 folder from zip.
- a freshly downloaded OSX EL CAPITAN installer.app (10.11.5) in the applications folder (downloaded at the day of posting this message)

When calling the ./createpikeinstallmedia script (on a macBook Pro running El capitan) and following the correct instructions to create a USB thumbdrive (>8GB) or partition on a different disk, it keeps failing at this step:

================================================================
== A problem occurred when creating the install media with Apple's createinstallmedia tool
== The most common issue is that the installer volume could not be unmounted because some other process is using it
== Close all other windows (especially terminal windows) and try again ================================================================

I can't find a way around this error.
Whenever I run Apple's createinstallmedia UNTOUCHED BY THE PIKIFY SCRIPT, it creates me the install medium for OSX El capitan just fine.

Which leads me to believe that either the apple createinstallmedia command has some integrity check built-in that detects that the pikify script has altered it and refuses to complete...

What is going on here?

Did you quit out of Diskutil?

 

[Andreaux]

I'm hesitating in letting the 10.11.5 update run... should I? I'm currently running 10.11.4 and it keeps prompting me...

Has anyone gone from 10.11.4 to 10.11.5 without problems?

 

[wazzco]

Hi Andreaux, thanks for your reaction!

I'm in the folder where I unpacked the pikify3.1 zip file. (~/Download/pikify 1.3/ )
Otherwise I couldn't be running the ./createpikeinstallmedia script.

I'll try to run the exact same pikify 3.2v10 script+osx el capitan installer.app pikify script from osx 10.7.5 Lion and see if it makes any difference vs running it in El capitan (I guess not)

@cdmawolf : I'll pay extra attention that the diskutil.app is closed - I assume having ran the diskutil list command just before running ./createpikeinstallmedia doesn't count as having diskutil running...

Cheers

 

[Andreaux]

Hi Andreaux, thanks for your reaction!

I'm in the folder where I unpacked the pikify3.1 zip file. (~/Download/pikify 1.3/ )
Otherwise I couldn't be running the ./createpikeinstallmedia script.

I'll try to run the exact same pikify 3.2v10 script+osx el capitan installer.app pikify script from osx 10.7.5 Lion and see if it makes any difference vs running it in El capitan (I guess not)

@cdmawolf : I'll pay extra attention that the diskutil.app is closed - I assume having ran the diskutil list command just before running ./createpikeinstallmedia doesn't count as having diskutil running...

Cheers

I guess it does, since El Capitan has SIP (System Integrity Protection), while Lion doesn't... I think this makes all the difference (maybe I'm wrong, but I could not replace boot.efi files on any volume with SIP turned on in El C.)

 

[wazzco]

@Andreaux
when executing: csrutil status
System Integrity Protection status: disabled.

So it can't be that.

 

[Andreaux]

@Andreaux
when executing: csrutil status
System Integrity Protection status: disabled.

So it can't be that.

Weird then

Anyhow, I installed El C 3 times already with the process I described and never had a hiccup...

Let us know if you succeed!

Cheers