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

[WarlordCustom]

Sounds like you probably have low capacity RAM sticks! Do you have any 512MB or 1Gb RAM sticks installed?

Yes, but i removed them. Even then, i still am in a boot loop.
I even replaced the kernel file, but i am still in a boot loop. Even if i move the mouse, the computer reboots.

Maybe the elcapitan image i got is malicious..
Does anybody share a bootable disk image?

I am about to give up. Can't figure it out..

 

[rthpjm]

Yes, but i removed them. Even then, i still am in a boot loop.
I even replaced the kernel file, but i am still in a boot loop. Even if i move the mouse, the computer reboots.

Maybe the elcapitan image i got is malicious..
Does anybody share a bootable disk image?

I am about to give up. Can't figure it out..

The boot loop is usually the incompatible kernel file. Can you boot into recovery?
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The boot loop is usually the incompatible kernel file. Can you boot into recovery?

Moving the mouse causing a crash could be low memory. When you remove the 512mb sticks how much RAM is left in the machine?
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The boot loop is usually the incompatible kernel file. Can you boot into recovery?
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Moving the mouse causing a crash could be low memory. When you remove the 512mb sticks how much RAM is left in the machine?

One thing to try would be a PRAM and SMC reset. Search for my posts in this thread with the word SMC

 

[WarlordCustom]

I removed them, but no luck. The problem persists.
I am about to quit after 10 days of trying...
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Cannot boot into recovery. Recovery hangs.

1 got pure 4GB of ram with the 512 dimms removed. If i add them, RAM rises to 5 GB.

I ll try to do it all over again for the last time.
SMC reset is done onboard with the button.

 

[rthpjm]

I removed them, but no luck. The problem persists.
I am about to quit after 10 days of trying...
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Cannot boot into recovery. Recovery hangs.

1 got pure 4GB of ram with the 512 dimms removed. If i add them, RAM rises to 5 GB.

I ll try to do it all over again for the last time.
SMC reset is done onboard with the button.

If you cannot boot into recovery either, then there is probably something very wrong. Try popping all the RAM sticks out of their sockets and re-seating them. Remove the 512mb sticks, don’t put them back.
Make sure you have the RAM sticks in the proper socket sequence in matched pairs (size, speed). There’s a graphic on the inside of the removable door.

4GB is a bit “low”. I’d recommend a minimum of 8Gb RAM
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Cannot boot into recovery. Recovery hangs.

How did you install? External disk connected to a newer/supported Mac?

if so you would need to replace the boot.efi file on the Recovery partition...

 

[WarlordCustom]

I got 4 disks on my mac. One is Lion. I 've donwloaded an image (with the EFI replaced already on it) of OS X El Capitan. Restore it on an SSD disk. Select boot from the SSD as a start up. And it was supposed to be working perfectly. At least people who've download the same image were perfectly happy.

But I am not. It doesn't work on my machine no matter what I do. I am in a boot loop and kernel panic screens.. Honestly do not know.

 

[WarlordCustom]

Update on my adventure.
I managed to install OSX El Capitan on my 1.1 mac pro.

I got freezes and reboots when the machine is online. When it's offline, it works fine.
(all automatic updates are off, and i got only the 2017-05 update installed).

I thought it might be a RAM problem (since i got 4GB of ram).
I run Apple Hardware tools, no problem found.

I run the REMEMBER memory test (with the activity monitor open) and I got a "no problem found" message after the test. Memory pressure went up to 3.5Gb with no stress (graph was green all the time).

I 've found a post in this forum, about the ram sticks, advising that the 4GB should be split in 2 (1x2GB installed on memory card A, and 1x2GB installed on memory card B). Did that, and El Cap saw only 2GB on board A (the top memory card). No matter how i rearrange dimms, or boards etc, it only sees the one dimm of the top memory card.

If i go 2x2GB (pair) on a single memory card, El Cap, identifies 4GB (on board A or B). So i don't think system freezes due to the 4BG, but something else must be the problem. I think it has to do with the internet connection.

Any suggestions?

BTW, this RAM setup,( the same Dimms, plus 2x512MB) works fine and error free on OS X Lion.
So , I don't think my ram has problem.

 

[WarlordCustom]

Ι tried to build the installer using the pikify3.1 tool.
I did that using my macbook pro.

Done Pikifying, but when installation starts, it stops at 10minute.
Cannot install essentials package, and I get a kick..

Give up trying. Going back to Lion.

 

[rthpjm]

Ι tried to build the installer using the pikify3.1 tool.
I did that using my macbook pro.

Done Pikifying, but when installation starts, it stops at 10minute.
Cannot install essentials package, and I get a kick..

Give up trying. Going back to Lion.

You need 12GB of RAM to install with the Pikify tools I produced.

The Pikify tools build a “slipstreamed” installer set of folders on to a USB memory stick (or if you’re using your MacPro it can target a local volume, no need for the USB stick).

The MacPro then boots from this installer set. Because the Apple tool we use (createinstallmedia) is building a folder set that is expected to be written to an optical disk (DVD), the whole thing is expected to be read-only.

Therefore on boot the first thing it does is to create a bunch of RAM disks to hold the “Installer” in a read-write format. It effectively copies everything to the RAM disks, and re-roots itself from there (reboot effectively). So now the Installer is running from the read-write RAM disks. This has the added benefit that the hard disks are now not used/locked. If you need to, you can safely reformat the HDD/SSD and the installer will continue to reside in RAM.

Running the Install Mac OS El Capitan from the presented options will then allow you to select your HDD/SSD, beginning the install process. To install the full OS, the compressed distribution files need to uncompressed. The installer uncompresses to a temporary location (which is on the RAM disks). The Essentials package expands to just over 10Gb. Since this is all happening on the RAM disks, that’s why you need approx 12Gb of RAM.

If you don’t have 12GB of RAM, the Essentials package will take approx 10 mins to partially uncompress and then fail. Unfortunately the installer doesn’t handle the “running out of temporary disk (RAM) space very well.

More RAM is a better less frustrating life.

in the same vein, Lion was the last supported version of Mac OS for the MacPro 1,1 / 2,1. It is the last version of the OS that needed to support memory module sizes less than 1GB. Every newer Mac models after the MacPro 2,1 shipped with hardware RAM controllers and RAM sticks of capacity greater than (or equal to) 1GB.

When Apple officially declared the MacPro 1,1 and 2,1 are not supported by Mountain Lion or higher it meant that the OS (kernel) is then free to be updated at some point such that 512Mb RAM configurations are not catered for. El Capitan 10.11.x appears to be the point where this happened. El Capitan will start up but it will then randomly crash for no apparent reason if you still have 512Mb RAM sticks installed.

if you want to use El Capitan on a MacPro 1,1 or 2,1 you MUST remove any 512Mb RAM sticks (and possibly 1GB RAM sticks). If you don’t El Capitan will randomly crash. This is why the pioneers in the community have always recommended using 2GB or 4GB RAM stick only. El Capitan performs better with more RAM, combined with the 12GB requirement for successful use of the Pikify tools means “BUY AS MUCH 2GB or 4GB RAM sticks as you can (in matched pairs), preferably more than 12GB in total”

 

[Tony.Skid]

Hello!
After a while, my "old" Ati video card stopped working, so I need a replace. Now I'm using a GeForce 210 w/o nvidia drivers, but thinking about install a GT 710. On nVidia website, I understand that the right driver is 346.03.15f02 for el cap. After this, I will need to install also the Cuda driver? And, El Cap will be stable?

Thank you

edit to add: Now my Mac Pro is working very well, and I'm a little worried to install a driver that I don't know how it will work

 

[alphascorp]

Thank you for all your work. I might be getting some life out my old mac pro.

Any chance you still have Fix SecUpdate ElCapitan Mac Pro 1.1-2.1 Start Loop.dmg file to fix the boot loop after 2018-004 update? The link in your post seems to be broken. Thanks again!

Hi everybody,
Sorry I did not connect for a long time.

Better late than never...

I just updated the download links of the file "Fix SecUpdElCap MacPro1,1_2,1 startup loop.dmg" (I also corrected it on all my other messages)

Fix SecUpdElCap MacPro1,1_2,1 startup loop.dmg
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alphascorp; I've already downloaded your provided zip file but have not opened it as of yet. Having issues of where to locate the SystemLogo.tiff. Went through the steps of /Applications/Utilities/System Information.app - right clicked to open/Contents/Resources. I do see 2 tiff files already in the resource file - AppleCareBox.tiff & AppleLogoSmall.tiff. Any further instructions of what to do with the zip file ? Will the OS automatically know what to do once it it placed in the Resources file?

Hi @Mariner19
In "/Applications/Utilities/System Information.app/Contents/Resources" there are only 3 .tiff files:
"AppleCareBox.tiff"
"AppleLogoSmall.tiff"
"SystemLogo.tiff"
The one to replace (contained in the zip archive) has the same name: "SystemLogo.tiff"

 

[WarlordCustom]

Hello there,
finally did it. Everything works perfect. Installed 12G of ram, and pikify app did its magic.

But, cannot install any 2017 security update.
I get the "this volume does not meet the requirements for this update".

Any suggestions

 

[rthpjm]

Hello there,
finally did it. Everything works perfect. Installed 12G of ram, and pikify app did its magic.

But, cannot install any 2017 security update.
I get the "this volume does not meet the requirements for this update".

Any suggestions

That’s odd!

Take a look at the install.log file. Look for a description of why it’s failing.

You can use the Console app (Applications: Utilities), in the left hand panel open up /var/log, you should see install.log in the next panel.

OR

From the Terminal app navigate to /var/log, and cat(entate with standard output) the file to read the content

cd /var/log
cat install.log

Look at the last few lines. I expect it might give you a clue...

P.S. it’s great to hear that you finally got El Capitan installed!

 

[WarlordCustom]

That's what console gave me (check the last 6 lines)

 

[rthpjm]

That's what console gave me (check the last 6 lines)

That’s the combined log entries generated across the whole system (plus a view of interprocess messages). You would need to be very quick to see the thing you were looking for in that “live view”...

Click the Show Log List icon (top left). A new panel will open down the left hand side. Find /var/log in that left-side list. It should then show you all the files in /var/log, one of them will be the install.log. Click on that...

 

[WarlordCustom]

Ok, here's the screenshot of the install.log

 

[milkywaymaps]

Thanks so much for all this good info!

I've scoured this thread for hours over the past two days. Finally realizing that I need more ram to complete the install from Pikify El Capitan USB on the Mac Pro 2,1 side, however I have also been unable to boot to the usb from a functional macbook running High Sierra. Recently updated to 10.13.6. Could that security update be why it can't boot the usb? It's just too old? Haven't found much on this yet.

I disabled csrutil and also replaced the usb boot.efi from http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/

 

[rthpjm]

Thanks so much for all this good info!

I've scoured this thread for hours over the past two days. Finally realizing that I need more ram to complete the install from Pikify El Capitan USB on the Mac Pro 2,1 side, however I have also been unable to boot to the usb from a functional macbook running High Sierra. Recently updated to 10.13.6. Could that security update be why it can't boot the usb? It's just too old? Haven't found much on this yet.

I disabled csrutil and also replaced the usb boot.efi from http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/

You can “build” (create) the installer from the MacBook onto the USB stick, but the USB-stick-based installer is heavily modified and is intended to boot your MacPro 2,1. It’s not really designed to boot the MacBook.

Fit the USB stick to the MacPro, start up, hold down ALT when you hear the boot chime. I’m assuming your MacPro has a graphics card fitted that shows the EFI boot selector, choose the USB stick to boot.

If you have a non-efi compatible graphics card (which does not display the efi boot screen), try holding down the C key on boot when you hear the chime. Holding the C key is intended to “boot from CDROM” (yes it’s a historical throwback). It should “see” the USB stick as a DVD and boot from it...
(I can’t remember if it is just the C key, or both the APPLE key and the C key together, CMD+C)

Does that help?

If it won’t boot from the USB stick, it might be because you have the wrong format on the USB stick. To boot the stick, you should ensure the format is HFS+ journaled with a GPT partition scheme. Most USB sticks are pre-formatted as FAT with an MBR partition scheme.

 

[joebarqc]

Hi everybody.
Installed El Capitan on my macpro 2,1, 2x3 Ghz Quad, 32 Gb (8 x 4 Gb), Original Radeon HD 5770 in mid november.

Last OSX supported for this machine 😭.

I never have any problem with Yosemite before (same config).
From time to time, everything freeze, disk are spinning and macpro reboot after a kernel panic.

Attached is the last report (Kernel_2019-12-14-180944_mbp-as-Mac-Pro.panic).

Does anyone can help me to resolve this problem ?

Thanks for your help.

 

[rthpjm]

Hi everybody.
Installed El Capitan on my macpro 2,1, 2x3 Ghz Quad, 32 Gb (8 x 4 Gb), Original Radeon HD 5770 in mid november.

Last OSX supported for this machine 😭.

I never have any problem with Yosemite before (same config).
From time to time, everything freeze, disk are spinning and macpro reboot after a kernel panic.

Attached is the last report (Kernel_2019-12-14-180944_mbp-as-Mac-Pro.panic).

Does anyone can help me to resolve this problem ?

Thanks for your help.

It looks to me like you have at some time in the past changed the boot settings to disable MacOS automatic memory compression and memory swap to disk (your boot args appear to have vm_compressor=2). If you do that AND the memory pressure is high then you are almost certainly going to experience a kernel fault.

ref:
https://medium.com/@ayltai/need-for...ry-last-drop-out-of-macos-sierra-7ac17b680c98

 

[Adrenaline1965]

Hi,

I'm trying to install El Capitan on my MacPro2,1 with 12GB RAM (2x2GB + 2x4GB) using both the pikify3.1.v14 script and the PikifyAppV1-9. I tried it directly to the target HD and via a USB...

The process goes as scheduled up until the installation of El Capitan on the target HD (after reboot) but about 2mins after the installation starts I get the following error message:

OS X could not be installed on your computer

No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.

(Restart)
​

Any ideas what goes wrong and how I can fix this?

Thanks for any assistance in advance!

 

[rthpjm]

Hi,

I'm trying to install El Capitan on my MacPro2,1 with 12GB RAM (2x2GB + 2x4GB) using both the pikify3.1.v14 script and the PikifyAppV1-9. I tried it directly to the target HD and via a USB...

The process goes as scheduled up until the installation of El Capitan on the target HD (after reboot) but about 2mins after the installation starts I get the following error message:

OS X could not be installed on your computer

No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.

(Restart)
​

Any ideas what goes wrong and how I can fix this?

Thanks for any assistance in advance!

Try a PRAM reset (reboot, when you hear the chime hold down APPLE ALT P R until you hear the second chime then let them go). Then try Pikify again.

If that doesn’t help, it’s possible that you have something on your current disk that’s flagging the partition as not compatible. Try creating a new partition/volume in the spare space of your disk, or use another disk, you can then use the Migration Assistant to move your data to the new install.

if you use another disk and you can format the drive make sure you format as HFS+ journaled with a GPT partition scheme...

I’ve had this happen to me on occasion and I think the PRAM reset usually sorts out the issue...

 

[Adrenaline1965]

Try a PRAM reset (reboot, when you hear the chime hold down APPLE ALT P R until you hear the second chime then let them go). Then try Pikify again.

I tried the PRAM reset but the same error appears...

If that doesn’t help, it’s possible that you have something on your current disk that’s flagging the partition as not compatible. Try creating a new partition/volume in the spare space of your disk, or use another disk, you can then use the Migration Assistant to move your data to the new install.

if you use another disk and you can format the drive make sure you format as HFS+ journaled with a GPT partition scheme...

I started from the beginning with a new/fresh Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume on my SSD by reducing the size of my Mavericks partition and using the freed space for a new (El Capitan) partition. I initially used this partition as a target for the pikify tool/app and when that didn't work I used a USB drive as a target. For both the new El Capitan volume was then selected as drive where El Capitan is to be installed.

Should I perhaps erase the new El Capitan volume?

Is there a way I can collect logs from the installer?

Thanks in advance for your help/support!

 

[Adrenaline1965]

Should I perhaps erase the new El Capitan volume?

UPDATE: this didn't solve the problem either...

 

[joebarqc]

Hi,

I'm trying to install El Capitan on my MacPro2,1 with 12GB RAM (2x2GB + 2x4GB) using both the pikify3.1.v14 script and the PikifyAppV1-9. I tried it directly to the target HD and via a USB...

The process goes as scheduled up until the installation of El Capitan on the target HD (after reboot) but about 2mins after the installation starts I get the following error message:

OS X could not be installed on your computer

No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.

(Restart)
​

Any ideas what goes wrong and how I can fix this?

Thanks for any assistance in advance!

Hi.

I faced the same problem.

It's just due to the date of your computer.

Most of the security certificate have expired on El Capitan .dmg file.

Just put your computer in 2017 before you launch installation and everything will work

Cheers.

 

[Adrenaline1965]

Hi.

I faced the same problem.

It's just due to the date of your computer.

Most of the security certificate have expired on El Capitan .dmg file.

Just put your computer in 2017 before you launch installation and everything will work

Cheers.

Hi Joe,

You're a life saver! This indeed solved the problem!! Many thanks for your help!

Greetz!