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

[chackett]

I have absolutely zero issue with El Capitan, it runs beautifully. In fact I upgraded my OS drive to a SSD yesterday, and not only it runs, now it flies! SSD is one of the best upgrades we can make to give a serious speed boost to our MacPros

Yeah, couldn't agree more, on both counts. El Capitan feels much snappier. I was a little nervous about installing it after reading all the horror stories on Macintouch about people having problems. Not here; it's been working like a charm, I haven't had a single issue. And my Mac feels much snappier now. I'm not a big fan of the new DiskUtility but you can do just as much (and more) in the terminal version so it's not a big deal. And having an SSD to boot from is amazing. By far the best upgrade you can make.

Artooks, the best thing is to have another boot drive on your Mac Pro (either internal or external), in case the El Capitan update writes over the boot.efi files (like 10.11.2 is going to). Just boot into your other drive, replace the boot.efi files with the Pike versions on your main boot drive, and restart on your main drive. Voila!

You can do all of this from the recovery drive using the terminal, too, but I find that a bit of a pain.

 

[artooks]

Thank you very much right now I am erasing my Hard disc with zero out that is going to take some time, I have taken out the disc from my mac pro and attached it to my mac book pro, I also have downloaded El Capitan so once this erase finishes I am going to restart mac pro and how can I install it on this hard disc do I have to choose it at startup but it is residing inside this mac so once I install as far as I understand I have to use the command to show hidden files and then I will go to system to change the two directories are: /usr/standalone/i386/ and /System/Library/Coreservices/.
so do I replace the boot.efi V3.1 to these locations or do I only put it in one directory this part is not clear to me so anyway once I replace these two then I will put back the hdd back to mac pro 2,1 and start and update is this like that please tell me more in detail about replacing the efi file does it matter which efi I choose ? there is that black over white and grey one I suppose, please help me out in these details so that luckilly I will avoid making a mistake.

 

[chackett]

Thank you very much right now I am erasing my Hard disc with zero out that is going to take some time, I have taken out the disc from my mac pro and attached it to my mac book pro, I also have downloaded El Capitan so once this erase finishes I am going to restart mac pro and how can I install it on this hard disc do I have to choose it at startup but it is residing inside this mac so once I install as far as I understand I have to use the command to show hidden files and then I will go to system to change the two directories are: /usr/standalone/i386/ and /System/Library/Coreservices/.
so do I replace the boot.efi V3.1 to these locations or do I only put it in one directory this part is not clear to me so anyway once I replace these two then I will put back the hdd back to mac pro 2,1 and start and update is this like that please tell me more in detail about replacing the efi file does it matter which efi I choose ? there is that black over white and grey one I suppose, please help me out in these details so that luckilly I will avoid making a mistake.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but since it sounds like you're going with running your Mac Pro boot drive as an external disk on the supported Mac (which is what I did), here's how it went for me:

1. Connect Mac Pro boot drive as external disk on supported Mac
2. Run El Capitan installer on supported Mac
3. Choose the external drive (your Mac Pro boot disk) for the El Capitan installation
4. Wait. You'll see the black screen with the white Apple logo and the white progress bar underneath, with some white text on top of the progress bar telling you how many minutes are left in the installation
5. When it's done, it will reboot into El Capitan using the external drive as the boot disk
6. Reboot on the internal drive for the supported Mac using the boot manager (hold down the option key during startup) or the Startup Disk preference pane
7. Either use the terminal to show hidden files, or use the Go to Folder.... submenu on the Finder Go menu to go to /Volumes/XXX/usr/standalone/i386 ("XXX" being the name of the external Mac Pro boot drive). Replace the Apple version of boot.efi (600-something bytes) with the Pike version. You can do this because the usr directory is hidden, but the files inside of it are not
8. Make the same replacement (these are not hidden files) in /System/Library/CoreServices on the external drive that is your Mac Pro boot drive. The boot.efi here is locked; easiest way I know of to unlock it is with the terminal. Open terminal and type (without the quotes) "sudo chflags nouchg" and then go to the boot.efi file in CoreServices and drag it into the Terminal window. This will add the path to the boot.efi you want to unlock into the command you just typed.
9. Hit return and when asked type the password for the supported Mac.
10. File is now unlocked and you can replace it with the Pike version.
11. You're done, I think. I usually lock the Pike boot.efi in CoreServices by using the above command but with "uchg" rather than "nouchg", but I've seen several people on here say that this is not necessary with El Capitan.

 

[iMattux]

Follow-up: to psot https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...os-x-el-capitan.1890435/page-43#post-22154494

This guidance is intended for the "legacy" (Jabbawok, Hennessie, et al.) installer.

Remember that there is no inherent need to do these things, nor should there be such with a sense of immediacy: things that work for you should remain as so, as this is all an exercise in "what-could-be", not "what-must-be"
<<SNIP>>
A key part of a successful boot into the installer environment is getting the kernel into /System/Library/ . . . this requires soft-ware external to the native OSX environment:

One can use the excellent 'Pacifist' from http://www.charlessoft.com/ to extract "/Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ESD/ Packages/ (…Contents of Essentials.pkg/System/Library/Kernels/kernel)" to "/Volumes/legacy/System/Library/Kernels"
<<SNIP>>
Whether you use Pacifist, or LZVN, to get 'kernel' into "/Volumes/legacy/System/Library/Kernels" makes not one difference: they accomplish the same goal, and will enable a successful boot into the installer environment.

Just make sure that "/Volumes/legacy/System/Library/Kernels/kernel" exists, and is 10,718,400 bytes (10.7 MB on disk) in size

For the record: After many attempts installing to a firewire drive from a supported iMac, swapping boot.efi files, manually fixing owners and permissions and being able to boot EC only to experience kernel panics and hard crashes to a black screen, I tried Splifingate's method.
I'm on my MacPro1,1 (flashed to 2,1) in Lion because that's the only stable environment I have. I used the 10.11.1 installer dl'd from MAS. I followed instructions to the letter, all the way to calling the 10GB target drive "legacy". I used an older, Lion-compatible version of Pacifist to extract the kernel. I had a 10.7MB kernel in /Volumes/legacy/System/Library/Kernels/kernel and Pike's 3.1 bootloader in all three places (/V/l/S/L/CS - boot.efi & bootbase.efi & /V/l/u/s/i/boot.efi) below.

Now you can boot that fsck'r <grin>
hth

"legacy" showed up as a bootable drive when I held option. The installer launched and immediately asked me to choose my language - that's different from the procedure when installing on the supported iMac. The screens also look different. There is a "customize" button in the lower left corner of the screen where you choose the HD to install to. That's definitely not there when you install to a supported iMac. I just want to confirm that others see what I'm seeing or if that indicates I made a mistake somewhere. I choose the drive and click install - there is no reboot - the next screen has a progress bar that shows 17 minutes. The first time, it crashed and rebooted with no message. 2 subsequent attempts got down to 9 minutes remaining and then reported and error reading "essentials.pkg" and told me to reboot and try again.

That's my mileage. I really appreciate everyone's efforts from Pike to Hennessie to 666sheep, to PeterHolbrooke to Spliffingate and everyone in-between.
I'm downloading the pre-patched Yosemite installer now and I'll try taking that intermediate step and see if it helps/makes any difference. Seems to have worked for Jacko-Lantern...

UPDATE: I used the pre-patched Yosemite installer from way back - the one on Mega - and so far, for several hours now, I'm stable. There are some errors reported in console, but not the same as in El Cap and I haven't crashed. w00t! I'm going to clone the Yosemite install with CCC and then update it to El Cap - not a clean install.

Oh, and I flashed the firmware from 1,1 to 2,1 before I did this. From what I've read, that shouldn't have made any difference as I still have the stock 5150 cpus, but who knows?

 

[artooks]

Thank you very much just one thing to make it clear when you say at number 6:

1. Reboot on the internal drive for the supported Mac using the boot manager (hold down the option key during startup) or the Startup Disk preference pane

I think you mean the external drive we need to change

Also these next two steps

1. Either use the terminal to show hidden files, or use the Go to Folder.... submenu on the Finder Go menu to go to /Volumes/XXX/usr/standalone/i386 ("XXX" being the name of the external Mac Pro boot drive). Replace the Apple version of boot.efi (600-something bytes) with the Pike version. You can do this because the usr directory is hidden, but the files inside of it are not
2. Make the same replacement (these are not hidden files) in /System/Library/CoreServices on the external drive that is your Mac Pro boot drive. The boot.efi here is locked; easiest way I know of to unlock it is with the terminal. Open terminal and type (without the quotes) "sudo chflags nouchg" and then go to the boot.efi file in CoreServices and drag it into the Terminal window. This will add the path to the boot.efi you want to unlock into the command you just typed.

These two will need to be done on the external hard disc where the El Capitan is installed right ?

Thanks

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Many have "pikeyosefix" (reference: see another thread for yosemite) when they upgraded to Yosemite, it does not allow updates or in this case upgrade from overwriting the files that make Yosemite work on our MP's. That is one reason people who have pikeyosefix have problems when the el capitan installer gets to the point of reboot. It cannot reboot to your chosen el capitan partioin because "pikeyosefix" did its job at keeping your yosemite partition still yosemite.

That information is not entirely correct. The PikeYoseFix daemon (inherited from a similar daemon from Mavericks' days) saw to it that Pike's boot.efi or Tiamo's boot.efi would still be there after a Mavericks or a Yosemite System update, NOT AFTER installing a new operating system. That's the way it should be, because the daemon does its work when the live operating system (in this case, Mavericks or Yosemite shuts down). However, when you are installing a new operating system (for instance, Yosemite on top of Mavericks) the live operating system itself (in the example, Mavericks) isn't running, so there's no daemon to do any replacement of files.

The reason El Capitan can't boot immediately after installing it on an unsupported Mac (such as the old Mac Pro) with a Pike-modified installer is that the installer itself doesn't replace the stock boot.efi on the target disk/partition (at least for now), not that the now inoperative PikeYoseFix daemon did any job (it doesn't work with SIP on). Before launching El Capitan for the first time, you need to modify boot.efi in the two usual folders (and in the Recovery HD if you want to) from outside El Capitan, ideally from the Installer Terminal, where you'll have all the rights to do so. Trying to do it from the Recovery HD might require more work.

 

[landersbrock]

So I hope to share my experience thus far with El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 in regards to using it to stream movies to the new Apple TV

So far everything has been working great with El Capitan on my Mac Pro until I got the new Apple TV 4th Gen.

I use my Mac Pro as a streaming iTunes server to the TV, and this has worked out great up until now. Typically the files I stream are ripped MKV from bluRays that I have converted to MP4 for iTunes/appleTV. I have not compressed these files at all from the original source and they are very large (~30 GB's each) with a high bitrate. My prior Apple TV (3rd Gen) can stream adequately over 100 base T ethernet with current setup using iTunes on El Capitan.

Now whenever I stream a movie to the new Apple TV connected over 100 base T ethernet, the movie will stream for around 1 minute... and then... The Mac Pro crashes and restarts. This is a replicable problem with different movies. Bizarre!

Any ideas or has anyone else encountered similar problems?

Thanks

So I have done a clean install with Piker Alpha's 3.1 boot.efi and have the same issue streaming from my itunes library to new apple TV. After 30 seconds or so, the computer restarts. Here is the crash data from when the computer reboots. I don't know if there is anything meaningful here:

Anonymous UUID: C29DD8EE-31D7-7D01-24B9-35499B7BA46D

Sun Nov 1 18:42:10 2015

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 1 caller 0xffffff800f9ea9b7): slab_nextptr_panic: mcache.bigcl buffer 0xffffff80f9d2b000 in slab 0xffffff80c84a7e48 modified after free at offset 0: 0x7104e4dff537332b out of range [0xffffff80f7edf000-0xffffff80fbedf000)

Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff90fd79b820 : 0xffffff800f4e5307
0xffffff90fd79b8a0 : 0xffffff800f9ea9b7
0xffffff90fd79b900 : 0xffffff800f9ea05a
0xffffff90fd79b940 : 0xffffff800f9e6bc8
0xffffff90fd79ba00 : 0xffffff800f9c5656
0xffffff90fd79bab0 : 0xffffff800f9e674a
0xffffff90fd79bb60 : 0xffffff800f9c5656
0xffffff90fd79bc10 : 0xffffff800f9e1276
0xffffff90fd79bc90 : 0xffffff800f9f2df2
0xffffff90fd79be00 : 0xffffff800fa05fb3
0xffffff90fd79bef0 : 0xffffff800fa028a6
0xffffff90fd79bf60 : 0xffffff800fa2afd1
0xffffff90fd79bfb0 : 0xffffff800f5f4b16

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: iTunes

Mac OS version:
15B42

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 15.0.0: Sat Sep 19 15:53:46 PDT 2015; root:xnu-3247.10.11~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: AB5FC1B4-12E7-311E-8E6F-9023985D8C1D
Kernel slide: 0x000000000f200000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff800f400000
__HIB text base: 0xffffff800f300000
System model name: MacPro2,1 (Mac-F42C88C8)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 1081357126545
last loaded kext at 296238368629: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f925f9000, size 69632)
last unloaded kext at 427745930964: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f925f9000, size 61440)
loaded kexts:
jp.plentycom.driver.SteerMouse 4.2.2
com.apple.filesystems.smbfs 3.0.0
com.apple.filesystems.afpfs 11.0
com.apple.nke.asp-tcp 8.0.0
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleOSXWatchdog 1
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 3.6.1
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl 1.2.13
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 272.50.31
com.apple.kext.AMDFramebuffer 1.3.8
com.apple.driver.pmtelemetry 1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet 1.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 4.4.2f1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X 7.0.0
com.apple.iokit.CSRBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.2f1
com.apple.AMDRadeonX3000 1.3.8
com.apple.driver.AppleHV 1
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 3.1
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC 1.70
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin 1.0.0
com.apple.kext.AMD5000Controller 1.3.8
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSlowAdaptiveClocking 4.0.0
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 3.7.7
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless 1.0.0d1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 2.8.0
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0
com.apple.BootCache 37
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 5.5.2
com.apple.driver.AppleIntel8254XEthernet 3.1.4b1
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 3.1.5
com.apple.driver.AirPortBrcm43224 700.36.24
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPIIXATA 2.5.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCIPCI 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBUHCIPCI 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient 218.0.0
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 163
com.apple.security.quarantine 3
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 8
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement 218.0.0
com.apple.security.SecureRemotePassword 1.0
com.apple.kext.triggers 1.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController 1.0.14d1
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 272.50.31
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 525
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface 108.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 11
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 2.4.1
com.apple.driver.CoreCaptureResponder 1
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com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2 203.10
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 272.50.31
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 272.50.31
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 2.2.6
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 3.1.9
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginLegacy 1.0.0
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com.apple.kext.AMDSupport 1.3.8
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com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI 2.6.2
com.apple.driver.usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice 1.0.1
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com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 204.1
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[landersbrock]

Lendersbrock my next to the last install seemed to be the best. I ran for hours without crashing. I created an install flash drive but could find a way to boot into this USB flash drive and install El Capitan directly to my Mac Pro. It seems to me that those who have a better understanding of this process say the preferred way to install El Capitan is to install it from our Mac Pros instead of installing it to the primary hard drive of our Mac Pro attached to a computer currently running El Capitan. I think that part of the problem is that when you install from another computer some of that computer's information is associated with new install to the Mac Pro. I am thinking that many of our problems will be solved either when we install with the latest boot.efi from Pike R Alpha and are able to either install directly from our Mac Pros or install from another computer without that computer's information being associated with the 'new' install.

I would be interested in the steps you took to install El Capitan from one of the internal HD's as you have done with all the other recent 32 bit bootloaders.

Hi So I basically followed the Yosemite instructions to create a bootable partition.

Lendersbrock my next to the last install seemed to be the best. I ran for hours without crashing. I created an install flash drive but could find a way to boot into this USB flash drive and install El Capitan directly to my Mac Pro. It seems to me that those who have a better understanding of this process say the preferred way to install El Capitan is to install it from our Mac Pros instead of installing it to the primary hard drive of our Mac Pro attached to a computer currently running El Capitan. I think that part of the problem is that when you install from another computer some of that computer's information is associated with new install to the Mac Pro. I am thinking that many of our problems will be solved either when we install with the latest boot.efi from Pike R Alpha and are able to either install directly from our Mac Pros or install from another computer without that computer's information being associated with the 'new' install.

I would be interested in the steps you took to install El Capitan from one of the internal HD's as you have done with all the other recent 32 bit bootloaders.

Hi Bruce

So I basically I downloaded the installer for El Capitan on a supported computer, transferred it to my Mac Pro and followed the instructions listed here for Yosemite:

https://www.icloud.com/pages/000MYC...ite_on_a_Mac_Pro_1,1_or_2,1_-_Boot.efi_Method

I substituted Piker Alpha's boot.efi 3.1 for El Capitan as well

I do believe after the first part of the install and restart, the computer booted to an old recovery partition. THen using hte terminal I copied the boot.efi file to the two appropriate locations /usr/standalone/i386 and /System/Library/CoreServices

hope that helps

 

[chackett]

Thank you very much just one thing to make it clear when you say at number 6:

1. Reboot on the internal drive for the supported Mac using the boot manager (hold down the option key during startup) or the Startup Disk preference pane

I think you mean the external drive we need to change

Also these next two steps

1. Either use the terminal to show hidden files, or use the Go to Folder.... submenu on the Finder Go menu to go to /Volumes/XXX/usr/standalone/i386 ("XXX" being the name of the external Mac Pro boot drive). Replace the Apple version of boot.efi (600-something bytes) with the Pike version. You can do this because the usr directory is hidden, but the files inside of it are not
2. Make the same replacement (these are not hidden files) in /System/Library/CoreServices on the external drive that is your Mac Pro boot drive. The boot.efi here is locked; easiest way I know of to unlock it is with the terminal. Open terminal and type (without the quotes) "sudo chflags nouchg" and then go to the boot.efi file in CoreServices and drag it into the Terminal window. This will add the path to the boot.efi you want to unlock into the command you just typed.

These two will need to be done on the external hard disc where the El Capitan is installed right ?

Thanks

Yes, you have to do steps 7 and 8 (1 and 2 in your quote above) on the external drive that has been updated to El Capitan, or it won't boot when you put it back in your Mac Pro. And that's why you have to boot off of the internal drive in step 6, before you makes the changes in the external drive boot.efi files. El Capitan won't let you modify those files. You have to be running off of an earlier version of the OS.

 

[splifingate]

--8<------

I used the 10.11.1 installer dl'd from MAS. I followed instructions to the letter, all the way to calling the 10GB target drive "legacy". I used an older, Lion-compatible version of Pacifist to extract the kernel. I had a 10.7MB kernel in /Volumes/legacy/System/Library/Kernels/kernel and Pike's 3.1 bootloader in all three places (/V/l/S/L/CS - boot.efi & bootbase.efi & /V/l/u/s/i/boot.efi) below.

"legacy" showed up as a bootable drive when I held option. The installer launched and immediately asked me to choose my language - that's different from the procedure when installing on the supported iMac. The screens also look different. There is a "customize" button in the lower left corner of the screen where you choose the HD to install to. That's definitely not there when you install to a supported iMac. I just want to confirm that others see what I'm seeing or if that indicates I made a mistake somewhere.

You should boot directly into the Input Selection screen (shows how to activate your mouse or trackpad); once activated, you then proceed the Install OS X screen.

The 'Customize' button is there for me, but only after selecting the destination disk (it only has ever allowed the choice of Essential System Software and some other software component (the name of which escapes me at the moment (I also forgot to select 'Customize' in the screenshots that will follow)), both of which are already selected, and I have not installed without this being so).

I just performed a clean install of El Capitan with the very same installer I created with said steps, previously. Earlier this evening, I performed a clean install of El Capitan using the createinstallmedia installation method with the steps I outlined in Post #1065

Each successfully brought me to a functional installation.

Can you psot a screencap of your installer in Terminal showing permissions?

cd /Volumes/legacy

ls -laG

I'm downloading the pre-patched Yosemite installer now and I'll try taking that intermediate step and see if it helps/makes any difference. Seems to have worked for Jacko-Lantern...

I am modding all these things from within Yosemite, so that may be the key....

 

[djeeyore25]

I had the beta version of El Capitan running fine but wasn't receiving any updates, so I tried to install the regular App Store version. I put an SSD drive in an external enclosure, ran the install on a supported Mac (clean install), and put the SSD in my Mac Pro. Then while booted in Yosemite I switched the two boot files and made El Capitan the boot drive. This all worked for the beta version, but with this version all I get is the Apple boot screen. It'll only load all the way through the process bar and stop. I let it run for hours but it didn't budge. I have to restart the computer. The boot files at least work enough to allow it to get to the boot screen, but something is stopping it from loading completely.

Any thoughts?

 

[artooks]

Hi Again thanks for the help, now My external drive has been erased and I installed El Capitan on that drive, now I will replace the boot.efi in System/Library/CoreServices and /usr/standalone/i386. What I want to make sure is do I first erase the original boot.efi file or just replace it ? One other thing in some posts it says that for two locations it uses the same boot.efi but I have to rename it one to bootbase.efi do I have to do that in my case ( I installed in from an external drive in an supported mac) if so which one goes where I mean if I have to change it which location do I have to put it, please help.

So from what I understand

I have to put pikers "boot.efi" directly to /usr/standalone/i386
and I have to download another "boot.efi" and rename it to bootbase.efi and put it to System/Library/CoreServices

Please confirm if I get it right, so that I avoid making a mistake.

Thanks

 

[artooks]

Hi Everyone I can now confirm that I am up and running Mac OSX El Capitan on my Mac Pro, after writing this post I donated to Pikes again this is a great feeling also I would like to thank to everybody who helped me with their informative support. Now I would like to share exactly what I did so maybe someone like me could benefit from it.

How to Install El Capitan on Unsupported Mac.

1) I removed the Hard Drive from my Mac Pro 2,1 and put it on an enclosure to connect as an external drive on another mac which is supported by El Capitan.
2) I booted to a Mac which is Supported by El Capitan, and I downloaded the Operating System.
3) Then I attached the hard disc that I put in an enclosure via usb
4) Once I see that Hard Drive because I wanted to do a clean install I went to Disc Utility and choose zero out from the erase list and started the process ( This could take a long time as it writes 0 and 1 on the hard disc)
5) Once the erasing procedure finished, I started the El Capitan Installation by selecting the install file in Applications folder.
6) Then I selected the external hard drive as the target drive for installation.
7) Installation took around 30 minutes and voila El Capitan starts.
8) I entered all the information regarding wireless password, name etc until I see the desktop, then I shut down the computer.
9) Next I installed Snow Leopard as a second installation on my other computer.
10) I attached the external hard drive which EL-Capitan has been installed to the other computer which has Snow Leopard installed.
11) First I opened Terminal, and typed this command, and press Enter to show hidden files ( Without Quotes):

"defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES"

To make the command take effect, you need to restart the Finder. One way to do this is to hold down the Option key, then click and hold on the Finder icon in the Dock. When the contextual menu appears, select Relaunch and the Finder will restart. When it does, you’ll find that you can now see every single file and folder on your Mac.

12) The I Downloaded the boot.efi from:
http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/
13) I choose the one with black background and white Apple logo.
14 Then first I go to: "/usr/standalone/i386" and replaced the original boot.efi with the one I downloaded from Pikers.
Once I did that then I go to "System/Library/CoreServices" and again inside there is the original boot.efi but this one was locked so I unlocked it by going to get info of that file and uptick the locked option. and replaced it with the same boot.efi from Pikers.
15) Finally I put the Hard Disk to my Mac Pro 2,1 and it booted right up with no problems up until now.

 

[artooks]

Is it ok to turn on automatic update after installing El Capitan

 

[chackett]

Is it ok to turn on automatic update after installing El Capitan

The boot.efi files may be overwritten when you update (they will be for the 10.11.2 update). If so, your Mac Pro will boot into your Snow Leopard drive. From there replace the two boot.efi files with Pike's, and you'll be able to boot into El Capitan again. So yes, it's OK.

 

[dickmnixon]

A small reminder to all.

Donating some money to Pike through his website, feels good. Not only for him, but for you too! Makes him feel some kind of gratitude for all his hard work. Gives him courage for the future projects he is working/will work next for all of us.

So, to all of you and me, a small reminder is to head over here http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/ and give whatever you can/want/feel for his weekly/monthly/annually stock of "tea" he consumes while coding

Thanks again Pike and to all the team involved!
VAG

I agree and donated this past weekend myself.
Thanks to Pike and many others who have made my 2006 Mac Pro like new again.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Has anyone gotten Handoff and Continuity to work under El Capitan? I had it working under Yosemite but it doesn't seem to be working under the new install of El Cap.

If you haven't solved your issue yet and you've tried the most obvious steps (such as logging out of iCloud and logging back in, et cetera), you might try going to /private/var/db/CoreDuet, trashing all cureduet.* files and rebooting. Chances are that will restore handoff functionality. Good luck.

 

[leoiv]

Hey Guys, I made a disk image from an fresh-installed-but-not-yet-signed-up OS X El Capitan that is ready to restore to any drive in Disk Utility. You can find it here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-uFsu7HWmRgVDg1aDFoQ2lYWHM/view?usp=sharing
All you need to do after restoring is to replace both boot.efi with Piker's in the two directories:
System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi and usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi

Thanks a lot mate, it worked flawlessly here on my (former 1,1) 2,1 MacPro, on a second partition of the SSD (already hosting Yosemite). And it was pretty fast too.
I also updated to 10.11.1, so full success thanks to your ready-to-go El Cap image and to Pike's boot.efi.

Only one con: this way no recovery partition gets created, and thus i'm not able to disable the SIP via Terminal.
Any solutions? TIA

 

[iMattux]

I am modding all these things from within Yosemite, so that may be the key....

I think that's a very likely candidate. Constantly switching between the Lion boot.efi and Pike's - literally 20-30 times/day - can not be advisable/safe, even zapping PRAM in-between, if you want a stable system. I'm delighted to be stable in Yosemite 10.10. This partition will remain untouched for comparison of console output as I move forward to 10.10.5 and then 10.11.1

I got a wild hair and messed with the "legacy" installer partition - I won't bore you with the details, but that failed and I wiped the partition. I don't have a screenie, but I checked and the permissions were imatt:staff when it wasn't the boot drive and root:wheel when it was.

Thanks for your help. I sincerely appreciate it. I'll keep you updated.

 

[splifingate]

...Constantly switching between the Lion boot.efi and Pike's - literally 20-30 times/day - can not be advisable/safe, even zapping PRAM in-between, if you want a stable system.

I've been doing much the same for quite a while now (let me tell you, Brother!), and teh 1,1 just keeps going, and going, and … I squint at it sideways, at times, and listen for anything 'hitting the fan' (if you know what I mean), but it still performs as well (or better) as it did in December of '06 when I took the shrink-wrap off

--8<------

I'm delighted to be stable in Yosemite 10.10. This partition will remain untouched for comparison of console output as I move forward to 10.10.5 and then 10.11.1

[...user:group stuff...]

Sounds good.

Thanks for your help. I sincerely appreciate it. I'll keep you updated.

You're welcome.

Regards, splifingate

 

[leoiv]

Thanks a lot mate, it worked flawlessly here on my (former 1,1) 2,1 MacPro, on a second partition of the SSD (already hosting Yosemite). And it was pretty fast too.
I also updated to 10.11.1, so full success thanks to your ready-to-go El Cap image and to Pike's boot.efi.

View attachment 597658

Only one con: this way no recovery partition gets created, and thus i'm not able to disable the SIP via Terminal.
Any solutions? TIA

Found the way to create the missing Recovery partition: there's a cool script named

Recovery Partition Creator 3.8
thanks to Christopher Silvertooth
http://musings.silvertooth.us/2014/07/recovery-partition-creator-3-8/

which only requires the original El Capitan install file (the one you get on the AppStore)

On Yosemite/El Capitan the script gives an alert (saying El Capitan isn't supported - it officially supports up to Mavericks), but it actually works fine, simply ignore the error message and go on; when required, select "10.9" (since 10.10 and 10.11 aren't in the list of the possible OSX versions to choose from).

Now you have to replace the original boot.efi in the newly created Recovery partition, else you can't access the Recovery mode by holding cmd R at the boot and you can't disable the SIP; in order to do that, you have to mount the partition with Terminal like this:

diskutil list (press Enter) (only to see the names of the several partitions - the Recovery one is usually "disk0s3" or disk1s3, disk2s3 etc when your Mac has got more HDs/SSDs)

then:

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3 (or different unit, see above) (press Enter)

that way the hidden partition will show up on your desktop and can be opened in Finder.

The original boot.efi has to be replaced with Pike's one, but to do that you have to unblock it via Terminal:

sudo chflags nouchg and drag on the cursor prompt the file, before pressing Enter

now it's unblocked, you can rename it boot.efi.bkp

and replace it it with Pike's one, that has also to be blocked:

sudo chflags uchg and drag on the cursor prompt the file, before pressing Enter


Now you still have to unmount the Recovery partition with:

diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s3 (or the like)


then you can reboot by holding cmd R and in the Recovery utility open Terminal and type:

csrutil disable followed by Enter

in order to disable SIP.

That's all, hope it helps.

 

[Mystere65]

Hello everyone, I'm new and I apologize for my English (translated) .
I want to thank Pike (world number one), and all employees for the great work that has been done.

 

[Mystere65]

Hey Guys, I made a disk image from an fresh-installed-but-not-yet-signed-up OS X El Capitan that is ready to restore to any drive in Disk Utility. You can find it here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-uFsu7HWmRgVDg1aDFoQ2lYWHM/view?usp=sharing
All you need to do after restoring is to replace both boot.efi with Piker's in the two directories:
System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi and usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi

I hope this can help those who are like me doesn't happen to have another Mac.

I tried this after reading tu154's #post1090, I thought it makes sense to do so, when you don't have another compatible Mac Pro lying around (I trust most of us don't.)

After failing to create my own modified installer (honestly I really don't know where I can find the steps to do it...), I began to scanning through this thread. I see some people just updated from App Store? Now sure how they were able to do it because mine before even let me start installing, it says "can't be installed on this Mac" something. I don't know if those who did it are on a different Mac Pro or they changed system information or something, and I didn't have the patience to really read through people's posts to find a solution...

So I decided to try tu154's method to install El Capitan in a virtual machine and clone the drive out. After messing around with it a bit I actually was able to pull out a fresh and yet to set up system disk image and when I tried it on my SSD, everything worked like charm.

(Just ignore that hilarious 7GB RAM... One of my memory stick is not working...)

I have only tested this on my Mac Pro 1,1, but theoretically is should work with all Macs, right? I'm not sure though.

My question is: is there now a way yet to prevent boot.efi from being overwritten by a system update?

Also, please donate to Piker cuz he is awesome.

Many thanks for having made available the file to restore ... but how did you clone out of the virtual machine? I can not find a guide to this ... hello and thanks again

 

[jt_69.V]

Hi, just a note to tell that I had random (but frequent) kernel panics on a Mac Pro 1,1 after installing El Capitan with boot.efi 3.1. This Mac had no problem at all previously under Yosemite. After replacing four 512MB FB-DIMM with two 2GB ones, the kernel panics are gone...

 

[MaverickWong]

All, thanks again for this great community and make my Mac Pro up-to-date.

I have a strange situation and I hope to get some help. My Mac Pro is 1,1 flashed to 2,1. Has been running with 32bit boot.fi since the original work with no issue.

1. When 10.11 came out, I upgraded my Mac Pro 1,1 without issue following steps to replace the boot.efi (V2.0).
2. Running for 2+ weeks stable.
3. In preparing to upgrade to 10.11.1, I first tested the boot.efi (V3.1) in my working 10.11 install. It boots fine, and stable for 1+ day.
4. I did the upgrade from the Mac App Store to 10.11.1 and following the same steps to replace the 2 boot.efi files (V3.1). And it could not boot successfully. (It went thru the boot progress bar very slowly and at about 75%, the screen turn blank (Greg with nothing on screen as I use the greg boot.efi) and no activity or error for 15+ mins.
5. I try to use the V2.0 boot.efi, same behavior.
6. When I take the 10.11.1 HD to a supported mac (and restore the original boot.efi), it boots correctly.
7. So I replace the boot.efi (V3.1) again and put it back to Mac Pro 1,1, it fail to boot with blank screen after 75% boot and no activity afterward.

8. I am now using my backup 10.11 copy in my Mac Pro 1,1 and it still boot successfully as before.

9. My upgraded HD 10.11.1 (with boot issue) is still available for experiment possible fix.

Any suggestion on what to try?

Thanks again in advance!