Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

drkheure

macrumors newbie
Nov 4, 2015
28
1
Did you disable SIP? It has to be disabled in order to upgrade firmware.
I couldn't boot in rescue mode, so didn't do it. Thought it wasn't needed.
Can I disable it by taking out the disk and mount it with a macbookpro running el capitan ?
If so will try that next week.
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
You could try booting into Recovery HD from MacBook, but I really don't know if it will work.

If you look through those few important posts by rthpjm, you'll see that he made script for rebuilding Recovery partition in El Cap, it worked for me.

Edit: You could also install Lion or Snow Leopard on small HDD partition and do firmware update from there. Shouldn't take more than half an hour.
 

drkheure

macrumors newbie
Nov 4, 2015
28
1
I have the previous version booting. ( yosemite ? ) but my bootloader doesn't allow the firmware update.
( I have chimera on that disk and not changing it ( win7 as well ) )
I fixed the recoveryHD with that script, but had hoped I could connect to it with screen sharing from my macbookpro. ( 1060 not supported yet )
Thanks for the help, will try next week with mounting the hard disk on the macbookpro .
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Hi all. Newbie but a seasoned UNIX Sysadmin. I have a Mac Pro 2,1 (1,1) that I successfully updated to Mavericks using the pikify method. I messed around with jumping to Yosemite as a next logical step but wound up instead jumping to El Capitan using Pikify. My rig is a September 2006 Mac Pro that the previous owner upgraded the CPU's to quad core Xeon so that the system reports Mac Pro 2,1 instead of the original 1,1. Also, I still have the stock Nvidia card 7300 GT and system reports shows that it has 8Mb of video ram. Obviously that is in error. Looking for a Radeon 5770 to upgrade card. My rig has 15GB of RAM, a 250GB SATA SSD, 1TB WD SATA 7200RPM and a 250GB Maxstor. Mavericks is on the SSD and El Capitan is on the 250GB Maxstor. Once I am convinced it is stable, I will install El Capitan onto the SSD.

A big note for all the experimenters out there is that the stock NVIDIA card from 2006 IS WORKING. Yes, there are refresh issues, but the point being you can experiment first without spending more money to upgrade your video card.

After I installed El Capitan, it wanted to update to 10.11.6. I saw earlier in the thread at around page 56 that that one was a safe jump, so I did it and it worked successfully. I also re-check the daemon from the 'watchdog' script that it was still running and guarding the boot.efi.

Douglass-Mac-Pro:~ dougp59$ sudo -s

Password:

bash-3.2# launchctl list | grep boot

- 0 uk.co.rthpjm.boot64

I tip my hat to you geniuses involved in this work.

One last thing, the App store now wants to install Security Update 2016-001 10.11.6 and restart. Any thoughts or experience on the safeness of proceeding with that?
[doublepost=1472943409][/doublepost]ps. Just tried to install iMovie but the app store says the Video card does not meet the minimum requirements. Not a big deal but again, I got to El Capita with the original stock card.

Time to upgrade as this rig is destined to be my old 8mm video tape archiver.



Hi all. Newbie but a seasoned UNIX Sysadmin. I have a Mac Pro 2,1 (1,1) that I successfully updated to Mavericks using the pikify method. I messed around with jumping to Yosemite as a next logical step but wound up instead jumping to El Capitan using Pikify. My rig is a September 2006 Mac Pro that the previous owner upgraded the CPU's to quad core Xeon so that the system reports Mac Pro 2,1 instead of the original 1,1. Also, I still have the stock Nvidia card 7300 GT and system reports shows that it has 8Mb of video ram. Obviously that is in error. Looking for a Radeon 5770 to upgrade card. My rig has 15GB of RAM, a 250GB SATA SSD, 1TB WD SATA 7200RPM and a 250GB Maxstor. Mavericks is on the SSD and El Capitan is on the 250GB Maxstor. Once I am convinced it is stable, I will install El Capitan onto the SSD.

A big note for all the experimenters out there is that the stock NVIDIA card from 2006 IS WORKING. Yes, there are refresh issues, but the point being you can experiment first without spending more money to upgrade your video card.

After I installed El Capitan, it wanted to update to 10.11.6. I saw earlier in the thread at around page 56 that that one was a safe jump, so I did it and it worked successfully. I also re-check the daemon from the 'watchdog' script that it was still running and guarding the boot.efi.

Douglass-Mac-Pro:~ dougp59$ sudo -s

Password:

bash-3.2# launchctl list | grep boot

- 0 uk.co.rthpjm.boot64

I tip my hat to you geniuses involved in this work.

One last thing, the App store now wants to install Security Update 2016-001 10.11.6 and restart. Any thoughts or experience on the safeness of proceeding with that?
 
  • Like
Reactions: owbp

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
Wellcome dougp59!

Yes, with 7300GT you can see the screen at least and you can use it for troubleshooting if you choose to go with some PC card of your choice (other than 5770, 5870, 7950, 7970... that can be easily flashed).

Latest security update is 100% safe to install.
The only problem people are having is that it breaks nVidia Web drivers, but since you don't have Maxwell card, you're good to go.

Edit: Wait and see for yourself, but El Capitan has been rock solid on my machine since the beginning - i can easily compare it to Snow Leopard and Mavericks (but it really needs SSD to shine).
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Excellent owbp! I will go ahead.

I need to dig deeper in this thread for the whole disable SIP thing and any other tweaks. Can you suggest a key post number(2)?

Thanks and how are things in Belgrade?


Wellcome dougp59!

Yes, with 7300GT you can see the screen at least and you can use it for troubleshooting if you choose to go with some PC card of your choice (other than 5770, 5870, 7950, 7970... that can be easily flashed).

Latest security update is 100% safe to install.
The only problem people are having is that it breaks nVidia Web drivers, but since you don't have Maxwell card, you're good to go.
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
For disabling SIP you'll need to boot into the Recovery HD and type csrutil disable in Terminal.
You can check then anytime for its status by typing csrutil status in OS X.

Of course, you'll need to replace boot.efi file in Recovery HD too if you want to boot into it.
Some guys have no problem booting into Recovery, but if you have it, @rthpjm made a great script for rebuilding that partition. Its in the post #1607 .

Everything else you need is in the first post (link to step by step replacing boot.efi files from supported mac by MacVidCards) or post #1380 , again by rthpjm that has made all of the good scripts and deamons for us to use. :)

Thanks and how are things in Belgrade?
Let me loosely translate the local saying, mostly used sarcastically: If it were better, it wouldn't be as good. :D
Have you ever lived here or visited Belgrade?
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Ok, anyone have an issue with the USB stick taking a long time to load. After using this 32GN stick to install El Capitan to a standard hard drive. I went to use this same stick to re-install to an SSD and the progress bar goes all the way to the end and then sits there. I even let it sit there for 5 hours and nothing.
[doublepost=1473046777][/doublepost]
For disabling SIP you'll need to boot into the Recovery HD and type csrutil disable in Terminal.
You can check then anytime for its status by typing csrutil status in OS X.

Of course, you'll need to replace boot.efi file in Recovery HD too if you want to boot into it.
Some guys have no problem booting into Recovery, but if you have it, @rthpjm made a great script for rebuilding that partition. Its in the post #1607 .

Everything else you need is in the first post (link to step by step replacing boot.efi files from supported mac by MacVidCards) or post #1380 , again by rthpjm that has made all of the good scripts and deamons for us to use. :)


Let me loosely translate the local saying, mostly used sarcastically: If it were better, it wouldn't be as good. :D
Have you ever lived here or visited Belgrade?

Never been to Belgrade. Maybe some day!
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Well, I chalked it up to a flaky stick. I re-burned to an 8GB stick and it boots right up and is installing El Capitan to the SSD drive as a type. Good night!
 

cdmawolf

macrumors member
Feb 26, 2016
63
10
Did you re-bless/re-pikify after the first install? The installer re-assigns the boot to the target drive after install.

Well, I chalked it up to a flaky stick. I re-burned to an 8GB stick and it boots right up and is installing El Capitan to the SSD drive as a type. Good night!
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Hmmm. I have El Capitan on a standard drive and it boots. (Black background white apple). Fully functional. When I installed El Capitan to the SSD drive, I'm getting the grey background and it does not complete the boot sequence. I did disable SIP as the recovery partition does boot. When getting into the OPTION screen at the chime, I see my 3 different install disks. 1.) Mavericks with Recovery partition. Both working fine. This is on a standard drive. 2.) El Capitan with Recovery drive on a standard drive. It too is working fine. The SSD has El Capitan and the recovery partition boots but not the OS and I get a grey splash screen with white apple. The El Capitan on the standard hard drive gives the black background and white apple. I'm going to try and re-install again.
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
You have two boot.efi files available, one black and other one gray. So maybe you used different ones?

If you want to troubleshoot this install, we're here to help. If not, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner (it has trial period, so you don't have to buy it) to clone your working El Capitan install from HDD to SSD.
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Did you re-bless/re-pikify after the first install? The installer re-assigns the boot to the target drive after install.

I am booting fresh from stick after re-doing the pikify script to rebuild the stick. Is this what you mean by "re-pikify"?
[doublepost=1473088259][/doublepost]
Did you re-bless/re-pikify after the first install? The installer re-assigns the boot to the target drive after install.

Ah yes, I understand. There is a command to re-bless. What if one were to use a stick with a write-protect tab on it, would that negate having to do this?
[doublepost=1473088572][/doublepost]
You have two boot.efi files available, one black and other one gray. So maybe you used different ones?

If you want to troubleshoot this install, we're here to help. If not, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner (it has trial period, so you don't have to buy it) to clone your working El Capitan install from HDD to SSD.

Thanks for the quick reply owbp. I'm enjoying the challenge here. I re-pikified my stick and am re-installing to SSD. One thing I noticed was that I had created 2 partitions on my SSD, one named Recovery and the other El Capitan. I tried both a Super Duper clone from the Maxstor drive (working boot of El Capitan with black splash screen) to the SSD and also a stick install. Both times, I get a grey boot screen with white apple. The progress bar goes about 50% and then stays there.

So I rebooted into Mavericks. Re-pikified the stick and zeroed out the ssd to a single partition.


The re-install from the stick is about 50% done as I type. Let's see what happens. :)
[doublepost=1473088682][/doublepost]ps. I also cleared my PRAM. :)
[doublepost=1473088773][/doublepost]Hey owbp when do you sleep dude? Lol!
[doublepost=1473088983][/doublepost]Bingo it's working! Must have maybe been the Recovery partition I manually installed on the SSD. Maybe that was messing up with the install. It was a 10GB partition and the Samsung SSD is 250GB.
[doublepost=1473089068][/doublepost]I would love to get feedback on the whole write protected stick question and if that would negate having to re-pikify.
[doublepost=1473090121][/doublepost]Ok, question. I ran the csrutil disable command and I also installed the boot64-v2.dmg files and an reviewing http://www.rthpjm.co.uk/drupal/?q=node/2 Why would all those steps need to be done if the CLI disabled SIP?
[doublepost=1473090929][/doublepost]Ok, we're good to go. I see that the newer version of the pikify scripts does all the mods to protect the EFI and launch the watchdog script.




I am booting fresh from stick after re-doing the pikify script to rebuild the stick. Is this what you mean by "re-pikify"?
[doublepost=1473088259][/doublepost]

Ah yes, I understand. There is a command to re-bless. What if one were to use a stick with a write-protect tab on it, would that negate having to do this?
[doublepost=1473088572][/doublepost]

Thanks for the quick reply owbp. I'm enjoying the challenge here. I re-pikified my stick and am re-installing to SSD. One thing I noticed was that I had created 2 partitions on my SSD, one named Recovery and the other El Capitan. I tried both a Super Duper clone from the Maxstor drive (working boot of El Capitan with black splash screen) to the SSD and also a stick install. Both times, I get a grey boot screen with white apple. The progress bar goes about 50% and then stays there.

So I rebooted into Mavericks. Re-pikified the stick and zeroed out the ssd to a single partition.


The re-install from the stick is about 50% done as I type. Let's see what happens. :)
[doublepost=1473088682][/doublepost]ps. I also cleared my PRAM. :)
[doublepost=1473088773][/doublepost]Hey owbp when do you sleep dude? Lol!
[doublepost=1473088983][/doublepost]Bingo it's working! Must have maybe been the Recovery partition I manually installed on the SSD. Maybe that was messing up with the install. It was a 10GB partition and the Samsung SSD is 250GB.
[doublepost=1473089068][/doublepost]I would love to get feedback on the whole write protected stick question and if that would negate having to re-pikify.
[doublepost=1473090121][/doublepost]Ok, question. I ran the csrutil disable command and I also installed the boot64-v2.dmg files and an reviewing http://www.rthpjm.co.uk/drupal/?q=node/2 Why would all those steps need to be done if the CLI disabled SIP?
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Ok, burn in on hour 5 or so. El Capitan up and running and stable at 10.11.6. I am posting this from the running system:
September 2006 Mac Pro that was 1,1. Upgraded by previous owner to two quad core xeon 3.0Ghz. System report now states 2,1
1st test: Installed Mavericks via softt tool to SSD. Status: Successful.
2nd test: Install El Capitan to standard hard drive via pikify stick. Status: Successful.
3rd test: Use super duper to clone SSD to standard drive and test boot of Mavericks. Status: Successful.
4th test: Install El Capitan to SSD drive. Status: Successful.

I had earlier run benchmarks on Mavericks when it was on the SSD. I will re-run and post when I test El Capitan running on SSD before and after SSD is moved to 16x lane PCIe card.

Now I gotta find me a decent Radeon card already MAC'ified.
[doublepost=1473117136][/doublepost]
Hi guys,
I have problem with installation El Capitan on my mac pro 2.1. I installed it for testing on my extra drive - it was working fine so I decided to install it on my system SSD drive. And here is a problem: when I try install it i have message: The OS X El Capitan is already installed - so I am not able to install it. I deleted everything from SSD drive. With yosemite I dont have this problem. I also created new USB with El Capitan - the same result. Any ideas?

Thank you

You could open the side case. Yank out all drives except the target drive and try again with the USB install. That should work.
[doublepost=1473117381][/doublepost]Hmmm. I just checked mine and it only displays one possible resolution 1600x900/ I've got an HP 20 inch DVI monitor but I'm using SVGA cable. I too have the stock 7300 Nvidia card. System report says I have 8MB of Video ram. I do correctly show the 15GB of system RAM and I have two quad core Pentiums the correctly upgraded the system report from Mac 1,1 to Mac 2,1 even thought this is a September 2006 Macpro rig.

Hey y'all! I'm new to this! but mechanically inclined! I do have el capitan up and running on my mac pro 1,1. I'm having issues with the graphics however. when i go to change the display resolution, the only one available is 800x600. i have a second bootable partition with lion on it that has multiple resolutions on there. i don't know why there not showing up in el capitan. any help would be greatly appreciated. OHH BTW my specs are

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (graphics card)
Model Name: Mac Pro

Model Identifier: MacPro1,1

Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz

Number of Processors: 2

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Processor): 4 MB

Memory: 12 GB

 

KeithJohn

macrumors member
Aug 18, 2015
87
65
Glasgow
Hi Guys, I am interested in buying this Mac Pro off Ebay:-
Mac Pro 2.1 - 8 core 3.0GHz / 32GB RAM / 7300GT 256MB GPU / 2TB HDD

Its running Lion and I want to put El Capitan on it I have a graphics card that might fit :-

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1280 MB

I would just like some assurance that I can put this card in and it will run and also using Pikes installer for El Capitan

Many Thanks in advance

KeithJohn
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
GTX 570 works out of the box with Mac, so you are good to go (don't forget to buy two power cables for Mac's GPU - mini 6pin PCIe to 6pin PCIe).
You're in for some treat, my 1,1 upgraded with 8 core 2,66GHz, 16GB RAM and SSD boot drive flies in El Capitan (and Windows 10;)).
 

KeithJohn

macrumors member
Aug 18, 2015
87
65
Glasgow
GTX 570 works out of the box with Mac, so you are good to go (don't forget to buy two power cables for Mac's GPU - mini 6pin PCIe to 6pin PCIe).
You're in for some treat, my 1,1 upgraded with 8 core 2,66GHz, 16GB RAM and SSD boot drive flies in El Capitan (and Windows 10;)).
Thanks for the replying fast owbp, they want £385 for it but I found another at £345 but with a 1TB HD, decisions, decisions !! lol:(
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
Personally, i don't care for second hand hard drives (or solid state drives) so i would go with the cheaper.
Also, i see that in the UK 2,1's are selling for that price, but you can also buy 3,1 (2008) or 4,1 (2009) for 50-100£ more. That's a good deal, or maybe buy a basic 1,1 for 130-150£ and upgrade CPU's and RAM for 80-100£ max?

I'm not telling you what to do :D just trying to show you that you can save some money if you shop around.:)

Look here at completed listings to get the idea: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Desktops-All-in-Ones/171957/i.html?_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&_nkw=mac pro&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=1&_trksid=p2045573.m1684
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
First, a standing O for tiamo, pikeralpha, PeterHolbrook, rthpjm, mikeboss, Macvidcards, Hennessie2000, splifingate and the rest of the team and moderators for the work done and on display on this thread. ALL credit to them. I am just a happy end user with a September 2006 Macpro 2,1 (was 1,1) now running El Capitan 10.11.6 happily.

IMHO, some KEY and informative posts from pages 1 - 70 and 113:

Post 1. The genesis of it all.

Post 18. Find a supported Mac video card.

Post 107. Wonky behaviour from PRAM? Here's how to reset.

Post 585. Probably obsolete considering piker script, but some good info on using carbon copy cloner for experimenting.

Post 661. boot.efi comparison between 'stock Apple' and modified.

Post 801. If you really need/want your old rig to have USB 3.0. Here's a good expansion card listed.

Post 1065. 3 key PATHS to boot.efi (now handled by pikify v11 script)

Post 1151. Very detailed under the hood look of what the pikify script is doing to your stick when creating the bootable El Capitan install stick. (Info is probably obsolete but does give a very detailed look into the steps needed to get El Capitan installed to a Macpro 1,1/2,1.) I have not compared the actual pikify script to this post, I doubt it is a line by line implementation. But certainly major concepts are.

Post 1166. A Google shared El Capitan disk image that has not gone through initial setup. Includes instructions for restore. Also references pikify boot.efi. Poster states this is for people with no access to a second supported MAC.

Post 1253. First intro to CapitanPikeFix.

Post 1314. Another detailed step by step. (now handled by pikify v11 script) Still cool to review and appreciate all the hard work the team put into the pikify script to make all these manual steps not needed anymore.

Post 1315. Gives credit to user of Post 1166 (listed above) for El Capitan shared image. As of 09/06/2016. Shared disk image was still in Google for public download. (AGAIN!!! This should NOT be used in conjunction with pikify script!!!)

Post 1322. Verifiable proof of a 2006 Macpro 1,1 running El Capitan with 8x8 GB DIMMS for a 64GB total. Way beyound the rated max for the specs released in 2006.
(Post 1325) Direct tie into 1322 so you don't buy the WRONG DIMMS!
(Post 1327) Proper Ebay search string for compatible DIMM.​

Post 1380. Recovery partition not booting? (This should NOT at all be used in conjunction with pikify script.!!!)

Post 1390. Updated info. REALLY - REALLY IMPORTANT POST. Main one I used to install El Capitan to my Macpro 2,1(1,1) using the pikify script to prep and build your USB stick prior to booting it to install El Capitan to a hard drive.

Post 1391. Various El Capitan release status's and the safety of letting the internal Apple update program install them. (Maybe obsolete if you use Pikify v11 script)

Post 1395. How to see if the 'watchdog' daemon is protecting your boot.efi from being overwritten by an Apple update, which would break your boot capabilities.

Post 1399. For installing El Capitan, do NOT run pikify script on an existing El Capitan system. Run it on Yosemite or Mavericks. (I ran mine on Mavericks.)

Post 1419 (pg. 57) Nice info in doing an Apple Store maintenance upgrade.

Post 1487. Processor/firmware upgrade tutorial.

Post 1521. (pg. 61) After using the stick to install, it CANNOT be re-used unless "re-blessed". Thist post tells you how.

Post 1555. Using native dd command to copy a drive.

Post 1569. Re-fresh of pikify install script proceedures.

Remote link explaining SIP and how to turn it off. http://www.macworld.com
Remote link for pre-compiled boot loader. http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/
Remote link with more info on NVRAM/PRAM reset. http://www.macworld.com/

The thread as of this writing was 113 pages long. Don't be scared off by the voluminous amount of information and back and forth. This is actually quite easy now thanks to the pikify script.

So, below, just some general guidance. All of the above referenced posts are a mix of how-to and reference and info for the techies that like to tinker 'under the hood'. By no means do I imply that all Posts above have to be followed in order. So DON"T DO THAT!!! LoL!


DRAFT:
General guidance:
(DOES NOT replace excellent install guides posted on forum (Start at Post 1390)

  1. Before you begin, have at least an 8gb stick.
  2. Duh - Macpro 1,2 or 2,1
  3. At least 1 empty hard drive.
  4. Of course backup your data.

Liftoff:
  1. See post 1390 and download the pikify script and follow the posted install instructions.
  2. Boot from stick from cold power-off. (Power-on, hold down ALT key when you hear chime and release when screen turns color and shows boot media and boot USB and follow prompts.)
  3. Once install completes and you reboot, check info on on external link explaining how to disable SIP. You will need to reboot into recovery. Pikify v11 script build a successful bootable recovery partition. Link above tells you how to reboot into recovery. (Note that booting into Recovery is a DIFFERENT proceedure than just hitting ALT key at chime!!!)
  4. Review Post 1395 to insure your just installed boot.efi files are not subsequently OVERWRITTEN by an Apple update. NOTE: This will NOT protect you if you 1.) Fresh re-install El Capitan or 2.) Fresh install a newer (Sierra) or older OSX.
  5. Review Post 1391 and implement either of the solutions for full protection of boot.efi. (Thanks to rthpjm for the feedback on and work on this.)
  6. Review Post 1065 and 661 to review location of boot.efi and check sizes.
  7. Make a disk image of your work and store it somewhere Recovery can use. Label the image in a sensical way, aka ElCap10.11.6 etc.
  8. Launch app store and run update all.
  9. Reboot.
  10. It works, great! Make a new disk image, name it something link ElCap10.11.x
  11. If Guidance 7 reboot no work, fallback to disk image you just made and restore it. Then check this thread for tips/tricks/help.
  12. Whenever the app store does an update, make a new disk image and re-check boot.efi (Guidance 5) just to be safe and make sure the watchdog daemon survived the update. (Guidance 4)
Note: I think some of the guys on here might be a little burned out from answering the same question(s) over and over, so use some simple due dilligence and search the thread first before sounding like a broken record.

ANY contructive addtion to the above for GENERAL guidance, please advise. I'm not looking to re-write the install guide, just provide some clarity for the newbies.


Again, ALL credit to the gurus on the forum.
 
Last edited:

rthpjm

macrumors 6502a
Jan 31, 2011
720
309
U.K.
First, a standing O for tiamo, pikeralpha, PeterHolbrook, mikeboss, Macvidcards, Hennessie2000, splifingate and the rest of the team and moderators for the work done and on display on this thread. ALL credit to them. I am just a happy end user with a September 2006 Macpro 2,1 (was 1,1) now running El Capitan 10.11.6 happily.

IMHO, some KEY and informative posts from pages 1 - 70 and 113:

Post 1. The genesis of it all.

Post 18. Find a supported Mac video card.

Post 107. Wonky behaviour from PRAM? Here's how to reset.

Post 585. Probably obsolete considering piker script, but some good info on using carbon copy cloner for experimenting.

Post 661. boot.efi comparison between 'stock Apple' and modified.

Post 801. If you really need/want your old rig to have USB 3.0. Here's a good expansion card listed.

Post 1065. 3 key PATHS to boot.efi (now handled by pikify v11 script)

Post 1151. Very detailed under the hood look of what the pikify script is doing to your stick when creating the bootable El Capitan install stick. (Info is probably obsolete but does give a very detailed look into the steps needed to get El Capitan installed to a Macpro 1,1/2,1.) I have not compared the actual pikify script to this post, I doubt it is a line by line implementation. But certainly major concepts are.

Post 1166. A Google shared El Capitan disk image that has not gone through initial setup. Includes instructions for restore. Also references pikify boot.efi. Poster states this is for people with no access to a second supported MAC.

Post 1253. First intro to CapitanPikeFix. (Now obsoleted by v11 pikify install script???)

Post 1314. Another detailed step by step. (now handled by pikify v11 script) Still cool to review and appreciate all the hard work the team put into the pikify script to make all these manual steps not needed anymore.

Post 1315. Gives credit to user of Post 1166 (listed above) for El Capitan shared image. As of 09/06/2016. Shared disk image was still in Google for public download. (AGAIN!!! This should NOT be used in conjunction with pikify script!!!)

Post 1322. Verifiable proof of a 2006 Macpro 1,1 running El Capitan with 8x8 GB DIMMS for a 64GB total. Way beyound the rated max for the specs released in 2006.
(Post 1325) Direct tie into 1322 so you don't buy the WRONG DIMMS!
(Post 1327) Proper Ebay search string for compatible DIMM.​

Post 1380. Recovery partition not booting? (This should NOT at all be used in conjunction with pikify script.!!!)

Post 1390. Updated info. REALLY - REALLY IMPORTANT POST. Main one I used to install El Capitan to my Macpro 2,1(1,1) using the pikify script to prep and build your USB stick prior to booting it to install El Capitan to a hard drive.

Post 1391. Various El Capitan release status's and the safety of letting the internal Apple update program install them. (Maybe obsolete if you use Pikify v11 script)

Post 1395. How to see if the 'watchdog' daemon is protecting your boot.efi from being overwritten by an Apple update, which would break your boot capabilities.

Post 1399. For installing El Capitan, do NOT run pikify script on an existing El Capitan system. Run it on Yosemite or Mavericks. (I ran mine on Mavericks.)

Post 1419 (pg. 57) Nice info in doing an Apple Store maintenance upgrade.

Post 1487. Processor/firmware upgrade tutorial.

Post 1521. (pg. 61) After using the stick to install, it CANNOT be re-used unless "re-blessed". Thist post tells you how.

Post 1555. Using native dd command to copy a drive.

Post 1569. Re-fresh of pikify install script proceedures.

Remote link explaining SIP and how to turn it off. http://www.macworld.com
Remote link for pre-compiled boot loader. http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/
Remote link with more info on NVRAM/PRAM reset. http://www.macworld.com/

The thread as of this writing was 113 pages long. Don't be scared off by the voluminous amount of information and back and forth. This is actually quite easy now thanks to the pikify script.

So, below, just some general guidance. All of the above referenced posts are a mix of how-to and reference and info for the techies that like to tinker 'under the hood'. By no means do I imply that all Posts above have to be followed in order. So DON"T DO THAT!!! LoL!


DRAFT:
General guidance:
(DOES NOT replace excellent install guides posted on forum (Start at Post 1390)

  1. Before you begin, have at least an 8gb stick.
  2. Duh - Macpro 1,2 or 2,1
  3. At least 1 empty hard drive.
  4. Of course backup your data.

Liftoff:
  1. See post 1390 and download the pikify script and follow the posted install instructions.
  2. Boot from stick from cold power-off. (Power-on, hold down ALT key when you hear chime and release when screen turns color and shows boot media and boot USB and follow prompts.)
  3. Once install completes and you reboot, check info on on external link explaining how to disable SIP. You will need to reboot into recovery. Pikify v11 script build a successful bootable recovery partition. Link above tells you how to reboot into recovery. (Note that booting into Recovery is a DIFFERENT proceedure than just hitting ALT key at chime!!!)
  4. Review Post 1395 to insure your just installed boot.efi files are not subsequently OVERWRITTEN by an Apple update. NOTE: This will NOT protect you if you 1.) Fresh re-install El Capitan or 2.) Fresh install a newer (Sierra) or older OSX.
  5. Review Post 1065 to review location of boot.efi and check sizes.
  6. Make a disk image of your work and store it somewhere Recovery can use. Label the image in a sensical way, aka ElCap10.11.6 etc.
  7. Launch app store and run update all.
  8. Reboot.
  9. It works, great! Make a new disk image, name it something link ElCap10.11.x
  10. If Guidance 7 reboot no work, fallback to disk image you just made and restore it. Then check this thread for tips/tricks/help.
  11. Whenever the app store does an update, make a new disk image and re-check boot.efi (Guidance 5) just to be safe and make sure the watchdog daemon survived the update. (Guidance 4)
Note: I think some of the guys on here might be a little burned out from answering the same question(s) over and over, so use some simple due dilligence and search the thread first before sounding like a broken record.

ANY contructive addtion to the above for GENERAL guidance, please advise. I'm not looking to re-write the install guide, just provide some clarity for the newbies.


Again, ALL credit to the gurus on the forum.
Hey Doug,

Nice trawl and summary.
Have you thought about going into the search engine business? Your unique selling point could be "human intelligence" (not artificial)!!!!

One update,
The pikify script prepares the MacOSX install for the Boot64 protection daemon but does not install Boot64.

There are 2 commonly used protection daemons, Capitanpikefix and my Boot64.

I didn't want to force the use of one over the other, hence the pikify script does not install it.

The end user should decide which of the protections they want.

In summary, Capitanpikefix requires SIP to be completely disabled, whereas Boot64 will work with SIP on so long as the exclusions are in place (those exclusions are included in the pikify script, that's the preparation I mentioned earlier). Boot64 will also work with SIP completely disabled too (I hope that's obvious?!)

Post 1391 references a link to Capitanpikefix, and includes the instructions to install Boot64. In post 1391 I say "no need to..." But that refers to just the first 4 steps, the other steps should be completed to install Boot64...
 

dougp59

macrumors newbie
Sep 3, 2016
28
19
Hey Doug,

Nice trawl and summary.
Have you thought about going into the search engine business? Your unique selling point could be "human intelligence" (not artificial)!!!!

One update,
The pikify script prepares the MacOSX install for the Boot64 protection daemon but does not install Boot64.

There are 2 commonly used protection daemons, Capitanpikefix and my Boot64.

I didn't want to force the use of one over the other, hence the pikify script does not install it.

The end user should decide which of the protections they want.

In summary, Capitanpikefix requires SIP to be completely disabled, whereas Boot64 will work with SIP on so long as the exclusions are in place (those exclusions are included in the pikify script, that's the preparation I mentioned earlier). Boot64 will also work with SIP completely disabled too (I hope that's obvious?!)

Post 1391 references a link to Capitanpikefix, and includes the instructions to install Boot64. In post 1391 I say "no need to..." But that refers to just the first 4 steps, the other steps should be completed to install Boot64...

Rthpjm I was honestly thinking of you this morning! I was gonna ask you about your handy dandy script. I was unclear if I needed it since I used v11 pikify and the watchdog daemon is running and I can boot into recovery.

So you answered my questions! So even with the above, you still need the added protection of your magic or the other one. I will edit my post later today!

Thanks man and again thanks to you and the guys that pulled a rabbit out of a hat!
 

KeithJohn

macrumors member
Aug 18, 2015
87
65
Glasgow
Hi All, Can any of you tell me if this card is compatible to a Mac Pro 2.1 ?

GeForce GTX 1060 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Thanks guys
 

drkheure

macrumors newbie
Nov 4, 2015
28
1
Hi All, Can any of you tell me if this card is compatible to a Mac Pro 2.1 ?

GeForce GTX 1060 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Thanks guys
I have a zotac 6gb 1060 installed. it runs fine in windows 7. latest nvidia web driver ( sept ) still does not support the card. ( nor the standard apple drivers )
For the time being I use screen sharing when I want to do anything on the macpro using osx. ( not cool )
[doublepost=1473254344][/doublepost]Finaly got my cpu upgrades. ordered from a guy on ebay. the title line said slac4-slaeg. So I was thinking it would support slaeg. nope chips are slac4.
Where does the world go to if you can't trust germans anymore ?
Should have ordered from china and taken the longer wait and cheaper price.
 

hwojtek

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,274
1,277
Poznan, Poland
There is no such thing as "supporting" SLAEG or SLAC4. It's just the stepping (internal revision number) SLAEG being the last revision, which accidentally runs a slightly lower temperature (70 vs 63 deg C).
 
  • Like
Reactions: drkheure
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.