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

[rthpjm]

Hi rthpjm,

Thank you very much for the info, so can I ask you if I want to use boot64 can I go and simply install it over my El Capitan or should I do the steps 1-2-3-4 you mention in terminal ? can I just install boot64 standalone and be done with that I am afraid that I make a mistake and ruin my computer ? can you please guide me about this please

You should probably follow steps 1 - 4.
You will not ruin your computer.

 

[iMattux]

Don't tell me you got the 7950 for that! BTW, not many for sale unless for a little much.

No Sandleford, my Gigabyte 7950 was $150 - used on eBay. With the 3 fans, my box is all but silent. I LOVE it!

But I've got a few PC 5750's & 5770's on my watch list. They go for as little as $15.

The Mac versions usually go for well over $100.

 

[macguyincali]

So. I am a successful El Capitan graduate. I have been running El Cap for at least 4-5 days and feel like my MacPro has a new lease on life. Thanks RTHPJM! You are the man!! (or woman if that is the case... gender neutral user name an so forth).

There are a few areas that I am still working on that maybe you or others have an answer to. The most important one is the first one, I believe:

1. I can't boot into Recovery Mode. I have three 10.11.2 recovery disks in my boot selector. One, I believe was created during the original installation process. The other two, I believe, were created by Carbon Copy Cloner. The original one, just hangs when I try to select it (when I restart and hold down Option key and then select it). The other two simply boot directly back into my El Capitan Installation. I've reset PRAM. I've also tried booting into Recovery mode (Command-R) and made it as far as the Language selection screen, then it froze. Not sure if I'm doing anything wrong here. I need to boot into Recovery because I need to disabled SIPS temporarily (see issue #3). Not sure if there is a way to do this without being in recovery mode.
   
   
2. Ethernet seems to disconnect from the network seemingly randomly (about every 3-4 hours), but appears to be associated with a Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule connected via Ethernet. I have to deactivate the Network interface and then reactivate it to connect back to the network again.
   
   
3. Drobo won't connect via iSCSI (on the other port), because the iSCSI initiator is not on the system due to the fresh install. I can't install the iSCSI initiator because SIPS is enabled. I can't disable SIPS because I can't get into Recovery Mode (which goes back to issue #1). If anyone is having problems with installing Drobo iSCSI on El Capitan, here is the solution I found (as long as you can boot into Recovery mode):
   
   http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/196153/low-no-cost-cross-platform-alternatives-to-iscsi-and-fibre-channel/208987#208987

These issues are likely related to El Capitan in general, not necessarily the Pikify installation process (except maybe the Recovery Disk issue). I've troubleshooter this fairly extensively and am at a standstill. Any help would be much appreciated.

macguyincali

 

[iMattux]

So. I am a successful El Capitan graduate. I have been running El Cap for at least 4-5 days and feel like my MacPro has a new lease on life. Thanks RTHPJM! You are the man!! (or woman if that is the case... gender neutral user name an so forth).

There are a few areas that I am still working on that maybe you or others have an answer to. The most important one is the first one, I believe:

1. I can't boot into Recovery Mode. I have three 10.11.2 recovery disks in my boot selector. One, I believe was created during the original installation process. The other two, I believe, were created by Carbon Copy Cloner. The original one, just hangs when I try to select it (when I restart and hold down Option key and then select it). The other two simply boot directly back into my El Capitan Installation. I've reset PRAM. I've also tried booting into Recovery mode (Command-R) and made it as far as the Language selection screen, then it froze. Not sure if I'm doing anything wrong here. I need to boot into Recovery because I need to disabled SIPS temporarily (see issue #3). Not sure if there is a way to do this without being in recovery mode.
   
   
2. Ethernet seems to disconnect from the network seemingly randomly (about every 3-4 hours), but appears to be associated with a Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule connected via Ethernet. I have to deactivate the Network interface and then reactivate it to connect back to the network again.
   
   
3. Drobo won't connect via iSCSI (on the other port), because the iSCSI initiator is not on the system due to the fresh install. I can't install the iSCSI initiator because SIPS is enabled. I can't disable SIPS because I can't get into Recovery Mode (which goes back to issue #1). If anyone is having problems with installing Drobo iSCSI on El Capitan, here is the solution I found (as long as you can boot into Recovery mode):
   
   http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/196153/low-no-cost-cross-platform-alternatives-to-iscsi-and-fibre-channel/208987#208987

These issues are likely related to El Capitan in general, not necessarily the Pikify installation process (except maybe the Recovery Disk issue). I've troubleshooter this fairly extensively and am at a standstill. Any help would be much appreciated.

macguyincali

Hey MacGuy,

Your immediate issue is easily fixed:

1. Boot from the Install media (I forget if you're using USB or internal partition, doesn't matter). Rather than proceed with the install, select Terminal from the utilities menu. No need for sudo bc you ARE su/root. You can do damn near everything including disabling SIP (and bricking your system - be careful). Disable SIP, reboot, install your iSCSI drivers (do you know they're compatible with EC? I'll assume you do and they are...), reboot from the Installer media, re-enable SIP, reboot again and you are Good To Go...

I hope that by now you're comfortable navigating with and using the terminal. You're here among friends and we all encourage you to get to know the terminal. If you're not and you don't want to learn and be comfortable with it, you can do everything below in the GUI DiskUtilty of Yosemite. Skip ahead if you'd rather install Yosemite and use a GUI.

1. diskutil list

   will show you all the partitions on all your connected devices.
   
2. Figure out which recovery partition you want to keep and delete the other 2 - or delete all 3 of them and let CCC create another for you after you're finished installing your iSCSI drivers - probably a good idea. CCC will not trump rthpjm's boot64 script and the new recovery partition will be Pikified...
   
3. The case-sensitive command is

    eraseDisk /dev/diskxsy

   where x is the device # and y is the partition you want to delete i.e.

    eraseDisk /dev/disk1s3

   Devices start at 0, partitions start at 1. The 0 device is the device you are booted from. Remember - you are the Super User. Be super careful!

If you want to delete the Recovery partitions from a Yosemite install, all you have to do is boot into Yosemite, open a terminal and enter the non-scary:

 defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

This will enable the previously hidden Debug menu in Yosemite's GUI Disk Utility. Select "Show All Partitons" from that menu and you can mount and manipulate partitions from a familiar GUI.

Now, on to my recommendation:

Don't worry about having a Recovery partition at all - as long as you can keep a copy of the full-blown pre-patched Pikified installer, there is no need to install a Recovery partition. In fact, it will be FAR slower and more painful to use the Recovery partition than it will be to use the install media you have. If you try to reinstall from Recovery, you'll have to wait for the full download of Install OS X El Capitan and then it won't be Pikified.

I find it amusing that so many peeps on here feel the need to have a Recovery partition on a cMP. To each his own...

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

 

[yadongzhu]

Hi, I have successfully installed El Capitan and upgraded to 10.11.2, thanks to all of you who contributed to this great solution. Now everything works except the bluetooth 4.0 LE. My new bluetooth card is recognized correctly in Yosemite as bluetooth 4.0 LE (System report -> Hardware -> Bluetooth -> LMP Version: 0x6 ), while the in my El Capitan installation, it is recognized as : System report -> Hardware -> Bluetooth -> LMP Version: 0x3, which is NOT 4.0 LE anymore, I now have both Yosemite and El Capitan in two different partitions and I can switch them back and forth and the bluetooth works as 4.0 in Yosemite but NOT in El Capitan, any idea? thanks in advance!

my machine: Mac Pro 1,1, 16G Ram, Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB,

 

[macguyincali]

Hey MacGuy,

Your immediate issue is easily fixed:

1. Boot from the Install media (I forget if you're using USB or internal partition, doesn't matter). Rather than proceed with the install, select Terminal from the utilities menu. No need for sudo bc you ARE su/root. You can do damn near everything including disabling SIP (and bricking your system - be careful). Disable SIP, reboot, install your iSCSI drivers (do you know they're compatible with EC? I'll assume you do and they are...), reboot from the Installer media, re-enable SIP, reboot again and you are Good To Go...

I hope that by now you're comfortable navigating with and using the terminal. You're here among friends and we all encourage you to get to know the terminal. If you're not and you don't want to learn and be comfortable with it, you can do everything below in the GUI DiskUtilty of Yosemite. Skip ahead if you'd rather install Yosemite and use a GUI.

1. diskutil list

   will show you all the partitions on all your connected devices.
   
2. Figure out which recovery partition you want to keep and delete the other 2 - or delete all 3 of them and let CCC create another for you after you're finished installing your iSCSI drivers - probably a good idea. CCC will not trump rthpjm's boot64 script and the new recovery partition will be Pikified...
   
3. The case-sensitive command is

    eraseDisk /dev/diskxsy

   where x is the device # and y is the partition you want to delete i.e.

    eraseDisk /dev/disk1s3

   Devices start at 0, partitions start at 1. The 0 device is the device you are booted from. Remember - you are the Super User. Be super careful!

If you want to delete the Recovery partitions from a Yosemite install, all you have to do is boot into Yosemite, open a terminal and enter the non-scary:

 defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

This will enable the previously hidden Debug menu in Yosemite's GUI Disk Utility. Select "Show All Partitons" from that menu and you can mount and manipulate partitions from a familiar GUI.

Now, on to my recommendation:

Don't worry about having a Recovery partition at all - as long as you can keep a copy of the full-blown pre-patched Pikified installer, there is no need to install a Recovery partition. In fact, it will be FAR slower and more painful to use the Recovery partition than it will be to use the install media you have. If you try to reinstall from Recovery, you'll have to wait for the full download of Install OS X El Capitan and then it won't be Pikified.

I find it amusing that so many peeps on here feel the need to have a Recovery partition on a cMP. To each his own...

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Wow... I had not even thought of that. Of course! I will try booting off the Install disk. I guess I don't need a recovery partition after all.

Will report back in the next few days on this issue.

Thanks iMattux. Have a merry christmas and talk soon!

-JP

 

[Rick W.]

For those who don't care about SIP.
Disable it before installing the package.
Packages contain boot.efi v3.1 DL'd from Pike's website and updated launch daemon.
Click "Install anyway". Rest is the same as with PikeYoseFix.
Report back if it does work for you.

With deep bow to Pike.

I clicked Install Anyway and the installation failed.

Rick.

 

[iMattux]

Ethernet seems to disconnect from the network seemingly randomly (about every 3-4 hours), but appears to be associated with a Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule connected via Ethernet. I have to deactivate the Network interface and then reactivate it to connect back to the network again.

I'm not sure about this one. My work is generally not so critical that I need to backup more than once a day and many days I don't do anything that requires backup. I stopped using Time Machine a long time ago. It made my system sluggish whenever it ran and it was copying gigs of data when all I'd done was write a few emails and browse the web. My entire digital world occupied ~650gigs and Time Machine filled the 1TB backup and needed manual attention every few months.

Have you ever used Time Machine to recover something? Do yourself a favor and pretend that you lost something important from, say July 15, 2015. Try to restore the file and not hose yourself in the process. Time it. If your work is time-sensitive, it's a very wise thing to know how long disaster recovery actually takes. Using Time Machine to go back 30 minutes ago is one thing, 6 weeks or 6 months ago is another. It's amazing to me that among the few who do backup regularly, even fewer have done a data-recovery fire drill.

You paid for CCC. I recommend you do a full (bootable) backup once you have your system configured the way you want it. Schedule a full incremental backup every month, or every week at the most. If you make major changes like System updates or installing new applications, do a manual backup on top of the scheduled backups. Schedule a backup of your entire Home folder once a week or every day if your stuff changes that much. Schedule a backup of your Documents folder (or whatever files you are actively working on) as often as really makes sense.

I have done rehearsal disaster recoveries. Following the advice above, I'm up and running in as long as it takes to reboot from the backup drive and drop my home folder into place - less than 10 minutes. I would be hosed if my house burned down. I keep saying I'll do a backup and drop it a friend's house.

Maybe tomorrow ;-)

 

[iMattux]

I clicked Install Anyway and the installation failed.

LOL. We need a bit more info, Rick.

1. What/where is your install media? USB, Firewire, a partition?
2. How did you create it - step-by-step, please. Did you get any errors when creating the media?
3. How much RAM is installed? The installer requires 12GB minimum - and details of the modules (512MB dimms are problematic for sure, maybe 1GB as well)
4. Does the install fail right away or when? Again, any errors?

Cheers,

iMatt

 

[666sheep]

I clicked Install Anyway and the installation failed.

Rick.

Disable SIP and try again.

 

[rthpjm]

Ethernet seems to disconnect from the network seemingly randomly (about every 3-4 hours), but appears to be associated with a Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule connected via Ethernet. I have to deactivate the Network interface and then reactivate it to connect back to the network again.

I have noticed a loss of Ethernet connectivity a couple of times on my system. It has only happened since updating to 10.11.2. I've used System Preferences : Network, changed a value and hit Apply ( actually I have 2 locations, and I switch between them). This has brought the Ethernet connection back. I haven't done any web searches to see if it is affecting other Mac users (yet). It might be Time Machine related, or it might be wake-from-sleep related, not sure yet because it isn't happening repeatedly, nor regularly enough to be certain. (I hate tracking down apparently random issues).

Pikify3.1 usually creates a fully usable Recovery HD. However, 10.11.2 update included a Recovery HD update too. If this has been run, it's likely that the /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/boot.efi file will need to be replaced with a Pike version. The BaseSystem.dmg was also updated so it might need modifying too. If I find the time over the next few days I'll try to publish a RRHD(™) (recover the Recovery HD)....

 

[rthpjm]

Thanks RTHPJM! You are the man!! (or woman if that is the case... gender neutral user name an so forth).

rthpjm is partly an acronym of the initials of the first names of myself, my wife, and my son. So yes, definitely THE man!

 

[rthpjm]

Wow... I had not even thought of that. Of course! I will try booting off the Install disk. I guess I don't need a recovery partition after all.

You might need to re-bless the installer volume, by the end of a successful install the installer volume is blessed with /S/L/C, and doesn't boot the second time of use (I haven't figured out where/when this happens so I haven't been able to fix it)

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan/.IABootFiles --file /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan/.IABootFiles/boot.efi

 

[tarkie]

Banging my head here. Did a test install of 10.11.2 onto a 64Gb USB 3.0 Key - worked fine, boots etc. Used the same process to install an SSD. However, its not working. The process used was the build on an El Cap mac (Macbook air) onto a USB connected SSD. (Using this method http://www.caradimas.org/john/?p=193)

Did a live install onto a new SSD, and although i can select the drive as a boot drive within System Preferences / Startup disk, the Mac Pro 2,1 wont boot the drive. If i hold down Options and get the boot select menu up, the SSD doesn't appear.

Drive appears to be blessed ok:

bash-3.2# bless --info /Volumes/El\ Capitan\ SSD/

finderinfo[0]: 199 => Blessed System Folder is /Volumes/El Capitan SSD/System/Library/CoreServices

finderinfo[1]: 424458 => Blessed System File is /Volumes/El Capitan SSD/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi

finderinfo[2]: 0 => Open-folder linked list empty

finderinfo[3]: 0 => No alternate OS blessed file/folder

finderinfo[4]: 0 => Unused field unset

finderinfo[5]: 199 => OS X blessed folder is /Volumes/El Capitan SSD/System/Library/CoreServices

64-bit VSDB volume id: 0x2D2ECE6C0DBE1F49

 

[pgrif]

I just got El Capitan running on my 2006 Mac Pro and am currently running a GT 7300 video card. Most things work except for Google Chrome and DVD player.
Can I expect these to work when I get a supported video card?

 

[rthpjm]

Banging my head here. Did a test install of 10.11.2 onto a 64Gb USB 3.0 Key - worked fine, boots etc. Used the same process to install an SSD. However, its not working. The process used was the build on an El Cap mac (Macbook air) onto a USB connected SSD. (Using this method http://www.caradimas.org/john/?p=193)

Did a live install onto a new SSD, and although i can select the drive as a boot drive within System Preferences / Startup disk, the Mac Pro 2,1 wont boot the drive. If i hold down Options and get the boot select menu up, the SSD doesn't appear.

Drive appears to be blessed ok:

bash-3.2# bless --info /Volumes/El\ Capitan\ SSD/

finderinfo[0]: 199 => Blessed System Folder is /Volumes/El Capitan SSD/System/Library/CoreServices

finderinfo[1]: 424458 => Blessed System File is /Volumes/El Capitan SSD/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi

It looks like the disk is correctly blessed. That just leaves the boot.efi files. Please double check that you have the Pike versions in place (hint: if you perform a long list you can check the sizes of the files, pike versions usually start with a 3....., Apple versions usually start with a 6..... - I can't remember the exact sizes and I am away from home for the holiday season so I can't easily check)

 

[rthpjm]

I just got El Capitan running on my 2006 Mac Pro and am currently running a GT 7300 video card. Most things work except for Google Chrome and DVD player.
Can I expect these to work when I get a supported video card?

Almost certainly. You will be lacking hardware acceleration using that original Mac Pro card. It is highly recommended that you get a graphics card upgrade. Don't go overboard though, there is no point buying the latest and greatest card, you will just be wasting money. Look for cards circa ATI Radeon HD 5770 and perhaps up to 7970. Do some research first, some cards can now be flashed with additional efi data and can give you digital boot screens (not all, hence the research). You can look for manufacturer "Mac Editions" but you will usually pay a premium for these compared to a PC equivalent and a bit of your own time to flash the card.

 

[tarkie]

It looks like the disk is correctly blessed. That just leaves the boot.efi files. Please double check that you have the Pike versions in place (hint: if you perform a long list you can check the sizes of the files, pike versions usually start with a 3....., Apple versions usually start with a 6..... - I can't remember the exact sizes and I am away from home for the holiday season so I can't easily check)

Well, accidentally stumbled across the fix by booting in verbose mode. This didnt show any errors per se, but did then boot the drive successfully. Very odd, but i think that updating the PRAM with the need to boot into verbose mode just fixed something and away it went. Been solid ever since. However, I could have done with not having to find that at 2am!

 

[californian]

No Questions, Just a genuine Thank You to all of you who originally and continually work on this. You have saved me thousands of dollars and extended the life of my 2.1 Mac beyond anything I could have imagined. I also wanted to share my experience.

I just updated my Yosemite installation to El Capitan 10.11.2 using the instructions at post #1390, #1391. I used pikify3.1 v7. My Mac now runs El Cap with no issues. I could not get the installer to upgrade my current in place Yosemite Installation so here is what I did.

1. RTFD then, RTFD again (Read the F'n directions)
2. On another computer (iMac) i created the installer on a 16GB USB Flash Drive.
3. On the MacPro I removed all the drives except a blank HPS partitioned HD.
4. Inserted the USB Installer and rebooted.
5. Followed the El Capitan OS installation instructions on the screen and a short time later the machine rebooted into a working copy of 10.11.2!!!!!
6. I then put my former Yosemite drive back into the MacPro and booted into the new ElCap OS. I then ran Apples Migration Assistent and moved my data from the Yosemite drive over to the El Cap drive and now my machine is running flawlessly on ElCap with all my former settings and data.

You Guys/Gals rock! Merry Christmas.

 

[californian]

No Questions, Just a genuine Thank You to all of you who originally and continually work on this. You have saved me thousands of dollars and extended the life of my 2.1 Mac beyond anything I could have imagined. I also wanted to share my experience.

I just updated my Yosemite installation to El Capitan 10.11.2 using the instructions at post #1390, #1391. I used pikify3.1 v7. My Mac now runs El Cap with no issues. I could not get the installer to upgrade my current in place Yosemite Installation so here is what I did.

1. RTFD then, RTFD again (Read the F'n directions)
2. On another computer (iMac) i created the installer on a 16GB USB Flash Drive.
3. On the MacPro I removed all the drives except a blank HPS partitioned HD.
4. Inserted the USB Installer and rebooted.
5. Followed the El Capitan OS installation instructions on the screen and a short time later the machine rebooted into a working copy of 10.11.2!!!!!
6. I then put my former Yosemite drive back into the MacPro and booted into the new ElCap OS. I then ran Apples Migration Assistent and moved my data from the Yosemite drive over to the El Cap drive and now my machine is running flawlessly on ElCap with all my former settings and data.

You Guys/Gals rock! Merry Christmas.

View attachment 607309

***UPDATE*** So all is still well with an odd exception. My prior Yosemite installation, apps, and data fit on a 500GB HD. I just noticed that my El Capitan installation and migration from that Yosemite HD consumed 900GB!

I'm not exactly sure why. I'll update this post once I figure it out.

 

[pgrif]

Almost certainly. You will be lacking hardware acceleration using that original Mac Pro card. It is highly recommended that you get a graphics card upgrade. Don't go overboard though, there is no point buying the latest and greatest card, you will just be wasting money. Look for cards circa ATI Radeon HD 5770 and perhaps up to 7970. Do some research first, some cards can now be flashed with additional efi data and can give you digital boot screens (not all, hence the research). You can look for manufacturer "Mac Editions" but you will usually pay a premium for these compared to a PC equivalent and a bit of your own time to flash the card.

Will a Geforce GT120 work in my 2006 Mac Pro? I can get one for free.

 

[rthpjm]

Will a Geforce GT120 work in my 2006 Mac Pro? I can get one for free.

The answer is "maybe". The Netkas forum is the usual source of graphics card info. This thread is inconclusive http://forum.netkas.org/index.php?topic=8721.0

On the other hand MacVidCards sells modified cards, so it is definitely possible. http://www.macvidcards.com/store/p25/Nvidia_GT_120_.html

Note: the mods usually enable boot screens ( the boot picker and/or verbose mode) before Mac OS X takes over. Typically, once the OS is loaded and takes over from the EFI you get the desktop/login screen.

Unmodified will show no output until the OS takes over then typically it's okay from there.

 

[ededoad]

If you think anyone is selling pre-loaded hard drives & SSD on eBay for a $5 premium, then you aren't aware of how cheaply you can get old hard drives and even new SSD drives in bulk:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-Lot-of...274219?hash=item3d02ff0beb:g:igoAAOxyHBBSO0oT

There's 10 for $6.50 each and that was the 2nd item on the list. I didn't even try to find better deals. Here's the 2nd listing for bulk SSDs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-Of-3-In...136018?hash=item1a0b15ed12:g:yJQAAOSwo3pWd8ea

So I'd guess the profit is somewhere closer to $25/drive,but that's beside the point.

The point is that the jerk you bought the pre-loaded drive is profiting from someone else's work. You paying him means that you're part of the problem. It's unfortunate that you don't understand that.

And you can still come here, ask questions and get answers. Some people get it, others never will.

Peace and Merry Christmas

So I guess I'm going to hell. I have never used a MAC before, spent the last years on PC since the 8088's and thought this would be an easy way to get it started. I didn't make a dime on the deal by the way. Sorry I can still come here to ask questions. 5 days with a Mac 1.1 and never had so much crap for buying anything.

 

[Ant3000]

I think the point is that many people have given their time and expertise to help others get the OS to run on their machines and not to provide a method for others to profit from their work. Mac or PC has nothing to do with it, but taking the work of others for profit, without consent cannot be a good thing. If the vendor was giving a percentage back to the people who made this work, then it would be slightly more acceptable I guess. Some would buy software that has been pirated - others would not - we all make the choice we find acceptable.

 

[ededoad]

What I get out of it is I am an A.H. for buying this hard drive knowing nothing about a mac, I bought the hard drive before the Mac and before visiting this site. So I am part of the problem.