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

[ducman916]

Thanks rthpjm.

 

[rthpjm]

Thanks for the links. I will check it out.

Unfortunately my old graphics card is no longer working. That was the reason why I bought the ATI Radeon 5770 couple years ago.
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Hmm ... I checked that out, the USB drive was not shown as one of the startup disks to choose from. Same thing for the small partition in my internal hard drive. Both not shown as a startup disk options.

Hello dphotog and owbp,

For completeness and understanding. When the USB key is created (by Apple's createinstallmedia binary) it creates some hidden files and a hidden folder at the root of the USB volume. The important one is .IABootFiles folder. This is the folder that is initially "blessed", and therefore the contents of this folder are used for the initial boot sequence when you select the USB key to boot from.

The current System Preferences > Startup Disk panel does not look for a Volume with a blessed .IABootFiles folder, and therefore does not present it as an option. However the EFI boot selector (hold ALT after the chime) does recognise the USB key as bootable....

 

[owbp]

Thanks for clarification!

 

[Zlobnick]

Hi! I'm running 10.11.3 on MacPro1,1 flashed to 2,1, everything works with boot.efi replaced. I wonder what's the update procedure to 10.11.4? Update via Software update? Does the 10.11.4 update reverts boot.efi to original versions? Thanks!

 

[Shiiro]

Hi,
First of all, a big thank for the great job done so we can still use our 10-year old Macs.

I run Yosemite 10.10.5 and was wondering whether I can install El Capitan right away from the software update without re-installing the boot.efi. file. I did use the script from Pike so I could update Yosemite with no need but just update.
But will it allow to upgrade to El Capitan or will I have to install the new boot.efi file before ?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

[owbp]

Hi! I'm running 10.11.3 on MacPro1,1 flashed to 2,1, everything works with boot.efi replaced. I wonder what's the update procedure to 10.11.4? Update via Software update? Does the 10.11.4 update reverts boot.efi to original versions? Thanks!

Yes, the 10.11.4 update replaces boot.efi files on your HD, so you'll have to boot into other OS X (or connect drive to another Mac/Hackintosh) after the update to put them back. Or you could install that deamon from this topic that replaces boot.efi on every reboot. But i ran it last time when i was on Yosemite, on El Cap I'm doing it manually.

BTW, after 10.11.4 update i replaced boot.efi from Recovery HD (didn't know it wasn't replaced by the update) and since then i cannot boot to Recovery. An idea on that?

 

[Shiiro]

Alright.
So, I followed the instructions from that post: #1390 and created a bootable installer on a USB. All seems to have worked properly but my Mac refuses to install El Capitan (10.11.4).

I'm a MacPro2,1 with Yosemite 10.10.5 installed, 14GB RAM, SSD, GC from PC world.
I have no clue why.

Any hint to help me solve that would be great.

 

[owbp]

What is the error?

 

[Shiiro]

What is the error?

"This version of Mac OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer" :-/

Sounds like I should find an earlier version... but where ???

 

[dphotog]

Hello dphotog and owbp,

For completeness and understanding. When the USB key is created (by Apple's createinstallmedia binary) it creates some hidden files and a hidden folder at the root of the USB volume. The important one is .IABootFiles folder. This is the folder that is initially "blessed", and therefore the contents of this folder are used for the initial boot sequence when you select the USB key to boot from.

The current System Preferences > Startup Disk panel does not look for a Volume with a blessed .IABootFiles folder, and therefore does not present it as an option. However the EFI boot selector (hold ALT after the chime) does recognise the USB key as bootable....

Hello rthpjm, thank you for clarification. Appreciate that.
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Good question!

That's a whole new ball game. I worked through the Netkas.org forums. Here's where I started....
The thread that Fl0r!an started where we got my 5770 to display boot screens is here....


An easier alternative might be to temporarily revert back your original graphics card (that does show boot screens, my MacPro had an Nvidia GTX 7300). Once you can see the boot screens, when you hold down the ALT key after the boot chime, you should get to a grey background boot selector. There will be some icons, you need to select the Install OS X El Capitan disk drive to boot from. Once you have completed the install, shutdown and re-insert your 5770....

----------- edit. ----------

I completely forgot to mention. Even an un-flashed 5770 will be able to display boot screens, using a DVI-to-VGA adaptor. If your display has a VGA port, and you can put your hands on a DVI-VGA adaptor, you should be able to get boot screens without the need to swap to another card.

5770---DVI/VGA------VGA-cable--------VGA-input---monitor

Hi rthpjm ,
My MacPro 2006 1,1 has been running fine on El Capitan for few days now. But I notice that the boot time is very slow. It takes about 4-5 minutes to boot.

I have been thinking about your earlier suggestion to flash the graphics card. I am using ATI Radeon HD 5770 that I bought from Apple couple years ago. So, mine is a Mac edition.
Do I still need to flash the graphics card even though it's already a Mac edition?
Does the slow boot up time have anything to do with this?
Anything else I should check?

Thanks a ton!

 

[redheeler]

I have been thinking about your earlier suggestion to flash the graphics card. I am using ATI Radeon HD 5770 that I bought from Apple couple years ago. So, mine is a Mac edition.
Do I still need to flash the graphics card even though it's already a Mac edition?
Does the slow boot up time have anything to do with this?

If yours is already a Mac edition you don't need to flash it.

 

[dphotog]

If yours is already a Mac edition you don't need to flash it.

Thank you redheeler.
I wonder what caused that unusually long boot up time. Will keep searching for the answer.

 

[rthpjm]

Thank you redheeler.
I wonder what caused that unusually long boot up time. Will keep searching for the answer.

Hello dphotog,

Since you have an Apple brand gfx card, you can see the initial boot screens. Therefore try a reboot, when you hear the chime, hold Apple V key combination to enable a verbose boot. During the boot sequence you should see text log entries scrolling on the screen (instead of the Apple logo and the progress bar).

Watch it to see if you can find the point where it "stalls".
Some things that might explain it are, network configuration, and disk checking.
Let us know what you find...

 

[hwojtek]

Or boot disk not set properly in System Preferences.

 

[owbp]

"This version of Mac OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer" :-/

What do you get in Terminal for this
ioreg -lp IOService | grep board-id
It should be
"board-id" = <"Mac-F42C88C8">
Since new boot.efi hardcodes 1,1 to show 3,1's board id.
Maybe thats the problem, but I'm sure you can find answer in this thread. I installed ElCap to HDD on another Mac (Hacintosh actually) so I'm not quite sure what can it be.

 

[Shiiro]

What do you get in Terminal for this
ioreg -lp IOService | grep board-id
It should be
"board-id" = <"Mac-F42C88C8">
Since new boot.efi hardcodes 1,1 to show 3,1's board id.
Maybe thats the problem, but I'm sure you can find answer in this thread. I installed ElCap to HDD on another Mac (Hacintosh actually) so I'm not quite sure what can it be.

My board-id is Mac-F4208DC8, and is already part of the plist in the installer package...I had a look...
Actually my mac is a MacPro2,1.
Found a 10.11 version and will maybe try the whole process again...

edit: none of the different versions (10.11, 10.11.3, 10.11.4) could install... sth probably wrong with my Yosemite... I remember, I launched once the pikify3.1 and/or the boot64 pkg... I was unsure what to do... don't know if that had some incident...

 

[cbelldina]

OK, running Yosemite on my MacPro 1,1 w/32GB RAM (unflashed nVidia card) , replaced my Boot.efi with the most current Pikify 3.8 (system has be running flawlessly) after following instructions on the post to update to the newest pikify and just download El Cap from the App store. I'm getting the message that my mac isn't supported. Sure enough, My mac is still identified as a Mac 1,1. Did I miss something??
EDIT: I did miss something. I have a script running, com.666sheep.pkg.PikeYoseFix that automatically repopulates my boot.efi file to protect me from bad updates... HOW do I remove or disable this script?

 

[cbelldina]

Thanks! my boot.efi files are being over written because i have
com.666sheep.pkg.PikeYoseFix installed, this was protecting me from Apple Updates that would over write the Boot.efi. But now, that's causing my newer Boot.efi to be reset.

How do I remove this
com.666sheep.pkg.PikeYoseFix package? Or disable it?

 

[creepyTowel]

Hi everyone

As OS X 10.11.5 is now at beta 3, I wondered if any brave soul has yet tried to upgrade and how you got on. The App Store keeps nagging me to do it and I may not be able to resist much longer!

Thanks

Peter.

 

[mmonse_de]

Hi everyone

As OS X 10.11.5 is now at beta 3, I wondered if any brave soul has yet tried to upgrade and how you got on. The App Store keeps nagging me to do it and I may not be able to resist much longer!

Thanks

Peter.

Maybe you should be the "brave soul". Please don't forget to make a backup with TimeMachine or CCC...
And please tell us here what has happened during and after the update....

 

[creepyTowel]

OK, I just did. Smoothest update ever. It hasn't touched the modified boot.efi files. It hasn't even re-enabled SIP:

So I'd say that's a result!

Peter.

 

[F1Mac]

OK, I just did. Smoothest update ever. It hasn't touched the modified boot.efi files. It hasn't even re-enabled SIP:

View attachment 629293

So I'd say that's a result!

Peter.

Cool! Tx. ...any noticeable improvement over 10.11.4?

 

[creepyTowel]

No, I haven't noticed anything different or improved yet. Of course, as it's a public beta, any crash diagnostic data is always sent to Apple, albeit anonymously. I wonder what they think when the see the model number...

 

[F1Mac]

I wonder what they think when the see the model number...

"Maybe if we upgraded the Pro line every once in a while people wouldn't have to rely on 10y.o hardware to run our latest OS" would be a good start.

 

[owbp]

@creepyTowel , just out of curiosity, why don't you flash your HD 7950/90?