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

[andyyau]

What worked for me last night was running the whole install on a 2012 MB via USB Sata adapter, then booting into 10.10 on the MB and switching all 3 files out (2 in OS and 1 on Recovery partition)

I am running 10.11.1 on my MP 1,2 now. The only problem is that I do not know how to replace the boot.efi in recovery partition. I used a MBP to install it and it is also running 10.11.

I can boot into MP recovery with MBP. But boot.efi permission is not allowed to change...
How you did that?

 

[mikeboss]

Getting ready for -f kernel patch

no big deal, the old Mac Pro is okay. it's just that I disassembled it already. I need to put the components back together, that's all ;-) will be up and running again tomorrow.

 

[MacVidCards]

macvidcards: for using a pcie ssd do you need an adapter or does the pcie 1.1 slot for the graphics card (16 lanes)
give you that option. Could you please describe how to manage that ? (700 Mb/s read and write speed ...
i am getting around 250 with my samsung evo 850 ssd (500 Gig)

Have a look in the Mac Pro section, there is a huge thread about NGFF PCIE drives.

It is a SM951 in a $20 adapter.

I am running 10.11.1 on my MP 1,2 now. The only problem is that I do not know how to replace the boot.efi in recovery partition. I used a MBP to install it and it is also running 10.11.

I can boot into MP recovery with MBP. But boot.efi permission is not allowed to change...
How you did that?

I am going to sound like a broken record, but I wrote a detailed procedure in the Mac Pro section, look for 06/07 Mac Pro El Capitan thread.

It is possible that the clever guys behind this will be doing an installer if that sounds too difficult, maybe just wait if it sounds challenging.

And on another note, I got a El Cap running in a 2007 Mini, has the expected lack of USB, so not easy to navigate. I used screen sharing and grabbed some shots. I doubt that anyone will be interested in fixing this, it means that Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 may be only older Macs to run El Cap, especially as there is no GPU acceleration either.

If anyone wants to work on this, I will try some suggestions but I am not motivated to put lots of time into it.

 

[sweetspud]

Guys!

Forgive me, if this has been covered! I've seen conflicting info:

Do I need to replace my ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB To get El Cap to run on my MP 1,1 flashed to 2,1??

If so, what do I need to put in there??

Thanks!!

 

[wwanthony]

Guys!

Forgive me, if this has been covered! I've seen conflicting info:

Do I need to replace my ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB To get El Cap to run on my MP 1,1 flashed to 2,1??

If so, what do I need to put in there??

Thanks!!

No you do not.

 

[MacVidCards]

Guys!

Forgive me, if this has been covered! I've seen conflicting info:

Do I need to replace my ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB To get El Cap to run on my MP 1,1 flashed to 2,1??

If so, what do I need to put in there??

Thanks!!

Where did you read that 5770 was an issue?

You will likely want boot screens, so hopefully it is a Mac one, but 5770 is fine for El Cap.

The list of Mac Pro cards that lost support in 10.8 is short, same cards aren't supported now:

7300GT
X1300
X1900XT
Quadro 4500

And even with that, as long as those cards have EFI, they will show boot screens and probably get to desktop, they will just be running in Software mode. So, will have like 8MB of RAM, you'll see a CRAZY amount of black lines scrolling up, everything will be herky jerky, the dock will be opaque white, etc. But they should still work to see what you are doing, they just lost acceleration.

 

[wwanthony]

Same problem for me. You replaced the com.apple.boot.plist with what? I don't have any issues with booting into the recovery partition and turning off SIP. But I get a panic when I try to boot into the regular partition.

FYI.

My problem was a couple of CalDigit USB 3.0/SATA extensions I pulled over from my Yosemite install.

I pulled the card and the extensions. The extensions trigger a kernel panic when booting El Capitan.

 

[sweetspud]

Thanks for the quick replies!

Sounds like all I need now is the guts to give it a try!

 

[sweetspud]

Where did you read that 5770 was an issue?

You will likely want boot screens, so hopefully it is a Mac one, but 5770 is fine for El Cap.

The list of Mac Pro cards that lost support in 10.8 is short, same cards aren't supported now:

7300GT
X1300
X1900XT
Quadro 4500

And even with that, as long as those cards have EFI, they will show boot screens and probably get to desktop, they will just be running in Software mode. So, will have like 8MB of RAM, you'll see a CRAZY amount of black lines scrolling up, everything will be herky jerky, the dock will be opaque white, etc. But they should still work to see what you are doing, they just lost acceleration.

How can you tell if a 5770 is a "Mac one"??

 

[MacVidCards]

Real Apple one has 2 @ MDP ports, other use one full size DisplayPort.

Do you see boot screens? Only real Apple cards show bot screens on MDP or DVI. Flashed ones may show on VGA (or very recently DVI)

But number of ports is definitive.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I don’t suppose this is very different from the previous build, but just in case.

Getting ready for -f kernel patch

To everyone interested in this project:


[P]eople must be aware that [this and other] interim future versions are NOT intended as a replacement for the official repository versions. Until further notice, those of you who want to use Pike's boot.efi ought to go to http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/ and download either the "black" version or the "grey" one, according to your particular preference (the change is purely cosmetic; otherwise, they are exactly the same; the choice is irrelevant as far as the operating system is concerned). Pike alone will decide when such repository versions will be updated with a newer version.


Please, notice that the [enclosed and other] upcoming experimental versions might contain bugs that could cripple your ability to boot your old Mac. So, unless you are absolutely certain of what you are doing and know how to reverse such undesirable situations, KEEP AWAY FROM THEM. In general terms, [these] versions ARE NOT FOR YOU!

 

[mikeboss]

I was under the impression that the boot.efi is finished and that there’s no need to test anymore… so I dismantled the system (I do own a bunch of other, more recent Macs to run modern OS X releases).

4fe6137845f7b734db6a2f52d79b7ad1f8cdf3f5: this commit does not boot successful. I can see the grey Apple logo and the progress bar but then the system immediately reboots.

commit 61c5f5b7ff1540d4ec582c4f7a78be66caedb29d also gives an immediate reboot (El Capitan & Recovery HD).

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Add check for BOOT_MODE_FLUSH_CACHES

To everyone interested in this project:

[P]eople must be aware that [this and other] interim future versions are NOT intended as a replacement for the official repository versions. Until further notice, those of you who want to use Pike's boot.efi ought to go to http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/ and download either the "black" version or the "grey" one, according to your particular preference (the change is purely cosmetic; otherwise, they are exactly the same; the choice is irrelevant as far as the operating system is concerned). Pike alone will decide when such repository versions will be updated with a newer version.

Please, notice that the [enclosed and other] upcoming experimental versions might contain bugs that could cripple your ability to boot your old Mac. So, unless you are absolutely certain of what you are doing and know how to reverse such undesirable situations, KEEP AWAY FROM THEM. In general terms, [these] versions ARE NOT FOR YOU!

 

[mikeboss]

a014b2e6dd0a5a2454e5bacf357e034b71d24efb: El Capitan & Recovery HD are booting just fine.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

More debug output.

To everyone interested in this project:

[P]eople must be aware that [this and other] interim future versions are NOT intended as a replacement for the official repository versions. Until further notice, those of you who want to use Pike's boot.efi ought to go to http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/ and download either the "black" version or the "grey" one, according to your particular preference (the change is purely cosmetic; otherwise, they are exactly the same; the choice is irrelevant as far as the operating system is concerned). Pike alone will decide when such repository versions will be updated with a newer version.

Please, notice that the [enclosed and other] upcoming experimental versions might contain bugs that could cripple your ability to boot your old Mac. So, unless you are absolutely certain of what you are doing and know how to reverse such undesirable situations, KEEP AWAY FROM THEM. In general terms, [these] versions ARE NOT FOR YOU!

 

[mikeboss]

a901c62bfccc0fc751b985431bbb2c0b4504c7d2: debug output is exactly the same. 5x "PIKE: _IdlePML4 found!" doesn't matter if I boot El Capitan or the Recovery HD.

 

[rkanaga]

Apologies if this is a little off topic.

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2006 running Yosemite on an SSD in the optical bay (thanks Guys!) using Tiammo's EFI and Yosefix. I have a flashed ATI 5770 GPU so obviously no boot screen until finder.

I understand how to install El Cap on one of the Mac Pro HD's using a friendly iMac and copying the EFI files etc then moving the disk back to the Mac Pro. I would then select that HD and restart. My plan would be to install it on an external firewire HD over a copy of my Yosemite boot SSD, then move the firewire disk to e Mac Pro and select it as a startup from Yosemite.

My concern is if I muck things up how will I select the original SSD startup disk as I have no bot screen. If I removed the non functioning firewire startup disk would the Mac eventually search and find the original SSD with Yosemite and restart?

Or should I leave a copy of Lion somewhere on the system in case I need to replace the original GPU and boot to that?

Many thanks!

 

[rkanaga]

Might have answered my question here but it it all goes pear shaped could I simply boot up holding down the 'C' key from an old Snow Leopard install CD and then select the startup disk from there?

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2006 running Yosemite on an SSD in the optical bay (thanks Guys!) using Tiammo's EFI and Yosefix.

Tiamo's boot.efi was good only for Mavericks, not Yosemite. If you are running Yosemite on an old Mac Pro via a modified boot.efi, you are using Pike's boot.efi (Yosemite edition).

As for your unsupported GPU, there isn't much I can say, as I have no experience in that area. I suppose that the safest method for you to choose an El Capitan boot would be for you to select the relevant device (an external disk as you say) from within the Startup Disk System Preference in Yosemite or an older operating system, such as Lion.

 

[andyyau]

If I removed the non functioning firewire startup disk would the Mac eventually search and find the original SSD with Yosemite and restart?

It is still there. Or you can select the original to boot in startup disk.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Might have answered my question here but it it all goes pear shaped could I simply boot up holding down the 'C' key from an old Snow Leopard install CD and then select the startup disk from there?

Yes, of course, unless your target disk is huge. Snow Leopard may find it difficult to recognise a huge OS X boot disk. For instance, it usedn't to have any trouble recognising my Yosemite 1.5TB HD, but now it can't recognise my newer Yosemite 4TB SSHD.

 

[sweetspud]

Real Apple one has 2 @ MDP ports, other use one full size DisplayPort.

Do you see boot screens? Only real Apple cards show bot screens on MDP or DVI. Flashed ones may show on VGA (or very recently DVI)

But number of ports is definitive.

Yup! 2 MDP ports!

Great!! Thanks very much!

 

[rkanaga]

ok thanks. Andy thanks but the issue is I won't be able to see the startup chooser with my flashed card. If I can select a CD to startup with, or if as Peter suggests the system should eventually find the original startup disk then I should be fine.

I presume therefore the startup disk selection is an order of preference and if the chosen one is not there the Mac starts trawling through the other volumes to find one that might work?

thanks

 

[andyyau]

ok thanks. Andy thanks but the issue is I won't be able to see the startup chooser with my flashed card. If I can select a CD to startup with, or if as Peter suggests the system should eventually find the original startup disk then I should be fine.

thanks

As far as I know, you can use use bless command to make it bootable by default.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...d-os-x-yosemite.1740775/page-79#post-20427998

Or try to use older OS X USB bootable installer to make it to boot by default. (using startup disk option)

 

[LaurentR2D2]

Hello,

From what I read at the beginning of the thread, I should use a second El Capitan-supported Mac to install El Capitan before installing it on my Mac Pro rev 1,1. I don't have a machine like that. Is it possible to use the same procedure I've used to install Yosemite (from Mike Hennessie) to install El Capitan on my machine ?

Thank you