I just installed El Capitan. Was much easier than I thought it would be. Thanks to everyone who helped making this possible!
Here's a complete step by step guide what I did and what worked for me. This is very detailed and for some a couple of steps might be unnecessary because "of course you do that and you don't have to write THAT down", but from my experience that's where most mistakes happen.
So this is an How-to-upgrade-a-MacPro-2,1-from-Yosemite-to-El-Capitan-for-dummies.
(Hardware used: MacPro 2,1 running latest Yosemite 10.10.5, new Macbook Pro running El Capitan 10.11., empty hard drive) (Software used: Carbon Copy Cloner (bombich.com), Mac Terminal)
1. Connected an empty hard drive to my MacPro 2,1 and Carbon Copy Cloned my workstation hard drive onto an empty external hard drive.
Why? Because El Capitan is no use for me if it just works great on a fresh hard drive. To assess if El Capitan is a good system for me I need to test it in the environment I'm actually using every day without compromising the integrity of my workstation hard drive. That's why I make an identical copy of my workstation and test it there.
2. While carbon copying my hard drive I downloaded El Capitan on my Macbook Pro via the App Store. As I already run El Capitan on my MBP it asked me if I want to download nevertheless as an installer. Clicked yes.
3. Connected the carbon cloned external hard drive with my MBP and installed El Capitan onto that. Took about 30 minutes.
4. When finished I copied this command into Mac Terminal: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES and hit return. After that I restarted the Finder.
5. I then replaced the attached below boot.efi in two directories of the external hard drive which are now visible thanks to the Terminal command I just used: The two directories are: /usr/standalone/i386/ and /System/Library/Coreservices/. The boot.efi in the CoreServices folder was write protected so I clicked on it once, hit CMD+I to show information and disabled the protection. Once I did that I could replace the boot.efi. I checked the size of the new boot efis twice as they should have 314/315 kb, not 600 something as the original ones had.
6. I ejected the El Capitan external hard drive from my MBP, plugged it into my MacPro running Yosemite and fired up the machine. Once it booted into Yosemite, I changed the start volume and chose the El Capitan hard drive.
7. Done.
After I ran some tests and saw that it runs smoothly on the carbon copy I did the same procedure with my original workstation hard drive because that's an SSD and much much faster.
Installed the same way I did Yosemite (HDD on USB connected to MBPR) and it worked perfect 1st time. Only issue I can identify is that plugging a USB HDD into any one of the front USB ports reboots the Mac Pro.
I just installed El Capitain! Upgrade my old iMac to El Captain; boot Mac Pro 1,1 (2,1) in target mode and install El Capitain; replaced the two boot.efi files and the one on the Recovery drive; bless the new El Captain, restart my Mac Pro et voilà! Thanks to all !!
Could you please provide detail on replacing the boot.efi on the Recovery drive and the "bless the new El Capitan"??
1. In target mode, after installing El Capitain and the two boot.efi files, I launch Disk Utility and choose repair for my Mac Pro 1,1 (2,1). After, I eject my Mac Pro drive from my Imac, shut down my Mac Pro and unplug the firewire. Start again my Mac Pro in El Capitain.
Now, I just use the terminal for it, show the partitions: diskutil list
and then: diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1 To mount the partition Recovery Drive. (you have to find the correct number disk (0, 1, 2, 3) for your Recovery drive)
Then I delete the boot.efi from the Recovery drive and put the new boot.efi
Got'cha!! Thanks SO much!!
...and, "bless the new El Captain"??
Also, I'm wondering if you could post a screenshot of your /usr/standalone/i386/ file contents. If you'll notice my post #602, I have this circumstance and I'm wondering how to manage (see attached). I'm trying to figure out what's suppose to be in there...
1. Remove Tiamo boot.efi
2. Bless the new El Capitain = Launch Disk Utility and choose Repair
Now, I just use the terminal for it, show the partitions: diskutil list
and then: diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1 To mount the partition Recovery Drive. (you have to find the correct number disk (0, 1, 2, 3) for your Recovery drive)
? I have Photoshop CS5.5 running on my Mid-2012 MacPro with El Capitan. Just update your Java runtime and your good to go (the Finder will warn you and give you the link to download)
I use a 10.9.5 or 10.10.5 install to go access the files.
Much easier then doing from the running OS
rootless=0 stopped working at DP5
Get the SSD! I have one running Yosemite on my Mac Pro 1,1 - 1,2 and it's THE best thing I've ever done for the computer - FAST!
Also, get an Apple edition of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB or better yet (for El Capitan), the Apple edition of the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950.
I use a 10.9.5 or 10.10.5 install to go access the files.
Much easier then doing from the running OS
rootless=0 stopped working at DP5
^^^^Have you looked at the Mouse Utility in System Preferences?
Lou
The simplest install on a 2006/2007 Mac Pro is to use a second El Capitan-supported Mac and install El Capitan to the 2006/2007 Mac Pro's drive. This may be done either by attaching the 2006/2007 Mac Pro's drive as an external drive by placing the 2006/2007 Mac Pro in target disk mode or otherwise mounting the 2006/2007 Mac Pro's drive to an El Capitan-supported Mac.
Then, after installation, copy Pike's EFI32 boot.efi to that drive's /usr/standalone/i386 and /System/Library/CoreServices/ directories overwriting the stock Apple EFI64 boot.efi and repair permissions. That drive should now be bootable on a 2006/2007 Mac Pro, although sometimes it still may need to be blessed in the 2006/2007 Mac Pro.
Alternatively, adding rootless=0 to com.apple.Boot.plist allows replacing the boot.efi in-place.
I don't have access to a supported Mac...
Would it be possible to create a USB Installer Stick with the appropriate boot.efi just the way Hennesie2000 has described it for the installation of Yosemite ? (Hennesie2000's Guide for installing Yosemite on a Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 - the boot.efi method)
Yes, this is exactly what I did and works fine