macOS boot.efi developer's thread

[PeterHolbrook]

Have built the legacy installer.
Have attempted install - fails at the same place with the essentials.pkg error.

Are you sure your "Install OS X El Capitan.app" is NOT corrupt? Are you sure your "essentials.pkg" is not corrupt? Are you confident your RAM is not bad? Al least one of the three things (perhaps all three) seem obvious suspect to me.

 

[mikeboss]

this is very, very sad news: I had everything… and now this…

I wish pike and his family lots of power!

 

[PeterHolbrook]

this is very, very sad news: I had everything… and now this…

I wish pike and his family lots of power!

So do I.

 

[OGNerd]

this is very, very sad news: I had everything… and now this…

I wish pike and his family lots of power!

Doubble-ditto to the twenty-second power!

 

[OGNerd]

Ignore

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Given the serious nature of Pike's eyesight ailment, I think we should all refrain from asking when/how the "PikeYoseFix" replacement procedure is to be effected, which is, as far as I can see, the only thing missing in Pike's superb effort to make this wonderful bootloader available for the community. If he were to follow my advice, Pike would keep his computer as far away as possible. His eyesight should be his paramount concern right now, not software development. So, Pike, my friend, I hope someone reads this to you. Don't waste your eyesight reading these pages. Look at your wife, at your son and all your family. Go sightseeing. Give long walks. Eat well and have plenty of sleep.

Thinking about the rest of the community, it seems to me that some of us who have contributed our experience in this thread should wrap up our knowledge into something like a general guide to help less experienced users install Pike's boot.efi the way it is now (and, in my opinion, the way it should remain for the foreseeable future). What do you guys think? If there are no objections or further observations, I might contribute a revised version of a guide I posted weeks ago in the days of version 2.0 or even before that. Naturally, once posted, other users could suggest improvements, et cetera. And may be other users can even polish the final result even with screenshots or whatever needs to be added. I'll wait until tomorrow to see how you all feel about this.

 

[iMattux]

Given the serious nature of Pike's eyesight ailment, I think we should all refrain from asking when/how the "PikeYoseFix" replacement procedure is to be effected, which is, as far as I can see, the only thing missing in Pike's superb effort to make this wonderful bootloader available for the community. If he were to follow my advice, Pike would keep his computer as far away as possible. His eyesight should be his paramount concern right now, not software development. So, Pike, my friend, I hope someone reads this to you. Don't waste your eyesight reading these pages. Look at your wife, at your son and all your family. Go sightseeing. Give long walks. Eat well and have plenty of sleep.

Thinking about the rest of the community, it seems to me that some of us who have contributed our experience in this thread should wrap up our knowledge into something like a general guide to help less experienced users install Pike's boot.efi the way it is now (and, in my opinion, the way it should remain for the foreseeable future). What do you guys think? If there are no objections or further observations, I might contribute a revised version of a guide I posted weeks ago in the days of version 2.0 or even before that. Naturally, once posted, other users could suggest improvements, et cetera. And may be other users can even polish the final result even with screenshots or whatever needs to be added. I'll wait until tomorrow to see how you all feel about this.

My how things have changed in 24 hrs... I want to help in any way I can. As I offered before, I'll take screenshots and explain terminal commands and the works. I'm sad for our leader, guru and friend in that online sort of way. By all means, this should go as far back on Pike's burner as he wants.

I don't know what else to say...

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Preliminary draft of an installation procedure of Pike's boot.efi (version 3.1) on an old Mac Pro.

Please, notice that, as indicated, this is a draft. It may contain errors and it should be revised by knowledgable developers/users, who can, and should, add to it or modify it as they see fit. DO NOT QUOTE this guide outside of this thread.


Guide for installing OS X 10.11 El Capitan on a Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 with the boot.efi method without directly resorting to a more modern computer

Based on Hennesie2000’s similar guide for OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Although there are at least two more methods to achieve the same results, this one, pioneered by Tiamo and Jabbawok, is presented as probably the easiest. The others require either a second computer to effect the installation or modification of the installer itself during the installation procedure, which requires several reboots in that version. In addition, the single-step “createinstallmedia” method has been confirmed by several users to damage hardware in certain circumstances.

I have tried to be as complete and clear in this guide as possible. Although the installation itself requires only one reboot, this is an intricate procedure. I am not responsible for any damage that may occur as a result of this guide.

Things you will need

1. A Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 with an upgraded video card (7300GT or X1900XT will not work), assumed to be running Yosemite.

2. An 8GB or larger thumb drive or, preferably, an 8GB blank partition in one of the Mac Pro internal drives.

3. The latest version of Pacifist. It can be downloaded from charlessoft.com.

4. A copy of the El Capitan Installation application from the App Store. Unless you’ve managed to somehow fake its board identifier (for instance, using Pike’s boot.efi version 3.1 in Yosemite), you can’t use your old Mac Pro to download it. Only for this you will need either a virtual machine running Yosemite or a more modern Mac.

5. Choose either the “black” or the “grey” version of Pike’s boot.efi. It can be downloaded from http://piker-alpha.github.io/macosxbootloader/.

Creation of a universal stand-alone self-booting El Capitan installer

1. In Terminal you will need to show hidden file using the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

killall Finder

2. Right-click on the downloaded El Capitan Installer app and click Show Package Contents.

3. Browse to the folder /Contents/SharedSupport.

4. Double-click to mount “InstallESD.dmg”.

5. Open up Disk Utility and drag BaseSystem.dmg to the side bar (in Disk Utility).

6. Click on BaseSystem.dmg in Disk Utility and select the Restore tab.

7. Set the BaseSystem.dmg as the source and choose the thumb drive or the 8GB internal blank partition (formatted as HFS+) as the destination.

8. Restore the image to that destination.

9. If you so desire, rename the thumb drive or the internal partition. For instance, I named mine “Install”.

10. Use the Finder to browse the newly restored installer. Go to the folder /System/Installation on the installer and delete the “Packages” alias file.

11. Go back to the mounted InstallESD.dmg and drag the “Packages” folder to the installer into the /System/Installation folder where the alias file used to be.

12. Copy the “BaseSystem.dmg” and “BaseSystem.chunklist” files to the root of the installer.

13. On the installer, go to /System/Installation/Packages/ and right-click on Essentials.pkg. Open it with Pacifist. Within Pacifist, navigate to /System/Library/Kernels/. There you will see a file named “kernel”.

14. Using the Finder, on the installer, create a folder named “Kernels” [without the quotation marks] in /System/Library/ and open the new folder.

15. Drag the “kernel” file from Pacifist to the Finder window where the “Kernels” folder is open.

16. To hide the hidden files again, enter this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

killall Finder

Modification of the universal stand-alone self-booting El Capitan installer so that it will run on an old Mac Pro (after which it will no longer be “universal”, but specifically tailored to the 32-bit EFI of these Mac Pro models)

Although some of the following steps may be carried out using the Finder and additional applications, using the Terminal accomplishes all that is required without extra aid. For the sake of explanation, it is assumed that your installer disk is named “Install” and that your copy of boot.efi is located in your Downloads folder on your Yosemite disk. Adapt names and paths if yours are different. The first time you enter “sudo”, you’ll be prompted for your administrative password.

Some of the steps below might not be strictly necessary, or they might be executed slightly differently, or in a different order, but these are known to work as posted.

1. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock boot.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in /usr/standalone/i386 of the installer disk, and give it the normal rights and ownership:

cd /Volumes/Install/usr/standalone/i386

cp ~/Downloads/boot.efi .

chmod 644 boot.efi

sudo chown root:wheel boot.efi

2. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock bootbase.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in /System/Library/CoreServices of the installer disk:

cd /Volumes/Install/System/Library/CoreServices

cp ~/Downloads/boot.efi bootbase.efi

chmod 644 bootbase.efi

sudo chown root:wheel bootbase.efi

3. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock boot.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in /System/Library/CoreServices of the installer disk (this assumes you are still in the same folder as above):

chflags nouchg boot.efi

cp ~/Downloads/boot.efi .

chflags uchg boot.efi

chmod 644 boot.efi

sudo chown root:wheel boot.efi

Installation of El Capitan on an old Mac Pro using the modified installer

This guide does NOT address “special” cases, such as installation on RAID systems or Fusion drives. It is assumed that users advanced enough to use such configurations will know how to adapt the following instructions to their particular case.

1. Boot from the installer by holding option after the boot chime.

2. Follow the normal OS X install process.

3. Make sure you are in front of your computer when the process is about to end. Don’t let it reboot, because, if it does, your Mac Pro will fail to boot, as the installer does not install Pike’s boot.efi to the target disk. So, when the installer says your computer is going to restart, go to the installer Utilities menu and launch Terminal. The following instructions assume that your target disk (the one El Capitan has just been installed on) is named “Macintosh HD” and that your installer name is “Install”. Adapt names if yours are different. Some of the steps below might not be strictly necessary, or they might be executed slightly differently, or in a different order, but these are known to work as posted. There’s no need to use “sudo” or change permissions, since the installer is the superuser and it has all possible rights (there’s no “rootless” in this setting).

4. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock boot.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in /usr/standalone/i386 of the target disk, and give it the normal rights and ownership:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/standalone/i386

cp /Volumes/Install/usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi .

5. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock boot.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in /System/Library/CoreServices of the target disk:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/ System/Library/CoreServices

chflags nouchg boot.efi

cp /Volumes/Install/usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi .

chflags uchg boot.efi

6. Use the Terminal to replace Apple’s stock boot.efi with Pike’s boot.efi in your newly created Recovery HD.

a. Find out what the identifier of that partition is. Enter the following

diskutil list

A list of disk/partitions will be presented. Locate one named “Recovery HD” located on the same disk as your newly installed El Capitan live partition. The last column of that “Recovery HD” will show the name of its identifier. Let’s assume it is “disk3s3”.

b. Mount the Recovery HD:

diskutil mount disk3s3

c. Effect the replacement:

cd /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot

chflags nouchg boot.efi

cp /Volumes/Install/usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi .

chflags uchg boot.efi

cd /Volumes

d. Unmount the Recovery HD:

diskutil unmount disk3s3

7. Although this might not be necessary, using the installer, choose Startup Disk and select your new El Capitan partition and reboot. Enjoy.

Final observations

With the above procedure an old Mac Pro (1,1 or 2,1) will behave as if it were a Mac Pro 3,1, capable of natively running El Capitan (and of downloading it from the App Store). Everything will work, but there’s ONE problem: If an El Capitan system update were to include a newer version of Apple’s stock boot.efi, it would overwrite Pike’s version, thereby rendering your El Capitan disk/partition non-bootable. For now, for this scenario there are four possible solutions:

1. The first solution, which is NOT recommended, nor will it be explained in detail, would consist in disabling SIP, thereby downgrading El Capitan’s security to the level of Yosemite’s. Once SIP is disabled, a launch daemon, such as the “PikeYoseFix” could trivially be run on every launch, whereby Pike’s boot.efi would overwrite whatever stock boot.efi might have been installed by a system update.

2. The second solution, which is NOT recommended, nor will it be explained in detail, would use a hack (there is at least one) to interactively disable SIP without rebooting, again making it possible for a launch daemon to do its job. After rebooting, the hack could be run once more to turn SIP on again.

3. The third solution, which won’t be explained in detail, would be to temporarily disable SIP the official way (that is, from the Terminal of the Recovery HD), reboot into the live El Capitan environment, where the PikeYoseFix or a similar daemon would be able to do its job after a system update. Once the update ended and El Capitan booted safely once again, the user would need to go back to the Recovery HD, enable SIP and reboot once again. Since this process would require something like five reboots, I fail to see its advantage over the fourth solution.

4. The fourth solution has the advantage of being straightforward and not requiring fiddling with SIP, but it requires the use of the Terminal. These are the steps that the user should follow:

a. When a system update is released, download and install it as usual. If you are certain the system update DID NOT contain a newer version of boot.efi, the procedure has ended. Reboot as usual and go about your business. However, if you know that it contained a newer boot.efi or are uncertain about it, there’s the chance that the system update might have overwritten not just your live El Capitan copies of Pike’s boot.efi, but the Recovery HD copy as well. Therefore, we are going to use the Install disk/partition to restore them.

b. When you hear the chime at boot time, press Option (Alt). Choose your Install disk/partition.

c. The installer will boot. Go to its Utilities menu and launch Terminal.

d. Assuming that your target disk (the one El Capitan has just been updated on) is named “Macintosh HD” and that your installer name is “Install” (adapt names if yours are different), follow steps 4-7 of the previous section.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

As a follow-up of the above guide, there is at least one area that might not be required anymore: Version 2.0 and earlier of Pike's boot.efi required the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file on the installer, but perhaps version 3.1 doesn't require it. If so, Pacifist wouldn't be required, and steps 13-15 of the "Creation of a universal stand-alone self-booting El Capitan installer" would be unnecessary. Other elements are certainly optional (I think), such as the use of chmod and chown. So, by all means, edit, simplify or expand the above as you deem necessary. In addition, I don't know if replacing bootbase.efi on the installer is actually necessary.

The above takes it for granted that users are running Yosemite, but they might be running anything from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, so perhaps that should be addressed, too. It would be interesting to find out whether Pike's boot.efi 3.1 is capable of booting Lion (yes, I actually mean Lion, not Mountain Lion) on an old Mac Pro.

Edit: On second thought, even if version 3.1 of Pike's boot.efi might not require the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file, the stock boot.efi might still require it. If we don't include the instruction regarding Pacifist, et cetera, the installer we are creating wouldn't be actually "universal" or self-booting before the replacement of boot.efi, as indicated in the section title. In any case, the installer ends up being "universal" for old Mac Pros, NOT for more modern Macs.

 

[splifingate]

As a follow-up of the above guide, there is at least one area that might not be required anymore: Version 2.0 and earlier of Pike's boot.efi required the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file on the installer, but perhaps version 3.1 doesn't require it. If so, Pacifist wouldn't be required, and steps 13-15 of the "Creation of a universal stand-alone self-booting El Capitan installer" would be unnecessary.

/Volumes/Installer/System/Library/Kernels/kernel is necessary.

I'm a register user of Pacifist, and it works very well, but I really like the simplicity of Pike's LZVN to extract the kernel from /Installer/System/Library/PrelinkedKernels/prelinkedkernel

https://github.com/Piker-Alpha/LZVN

splifingate$ ./lzvn -d /Volumes/Installer/System/Library/PrelinkedKernels/prelinkedkernel kernel
splifingate$ sudo mkdir /Volumes/Installer/System/Library/Kernels
splifingate$ sudo cp kernel /Volumes/Installer/System/Library/Kernels

But, as often happens, I find myself drawn further and more comfortably into the Terminal cli with every day's usage (which is more and more, it would seem).

Other elements are certainly optional (I think), such as the use of chmod and chown.

Yes (unless permissions have been drastically (mistakenly, perhaps) changed).

So, by all means, edit, simplify or expand the above as you deem necessary. In addition, I don't know if replacing bootbase.efi on the installer is actually necessary.

One I still have yet to re-try. thx for reminding me.

[edit]

I re-ran the 10.11.1 legacy installer, but with the stock 600kb+ bootbase.efi, and everything performed and installed, as expected, so it seems as if it is not needed (however, I have not deleted it before an install, yet, so 'not needed' may be hasty).

[/edit]

The above takes it for granted that users are running Yosemite, but they might be running anything from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, so perhaps that should be addressed, too. It would be interesting to find out whether Pike's boot.efi 3.1 is capable of booting Lion (yes, I actually mean Lion, not Mountain Lion) on an old Mac Pro.

Tiamo said his would not work with 10.7:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-2-1-and-os-x-mavericks.1598176/page-2#post-18423059

but things have certainly changed, of course.

I have a few Lion images around here . . . I'll get one up, and switch the boot.efi's, for a lark...

[edit]

Bails (no KP; only re-boot) very early in the boot process, so I'm guessing "No." to this question.

[/edit]

Edit: On second thought, even if version 3.1 of Pike's boot.efi might not require the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file, the stock boot.efi might still require it. If we don't include the instruction regarding Pacifist, et cetera, the installer we are creating wouldn't be actually "universal" or self-booting before the replacement of boot.efi, as indicated in the section title. In any case, the installer ends up being "universal" for old Mac Pros, NOT for more modern Macs.

Maybe name it "Galaxy-Wide Installer", or something <smile>

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Thank you for those tests, splifingate. So, we know for certain that version 3.1 is good for Mountain Lion onwards. This means Snow Leopard and Lion users can't use Pike's boot.efi to make the MAS believe their old Mac Pro is 64-bit-EFI compatible.

As for using LZVN and running it from the Terminal, that could probably be simpler than downloading and using Pacifist, but I suppose a Unix-executable version of it should be in some repository, or otherwise we would be imposing knowing how to use a compiler to the users, which would probably not be justified. We'd better retain the Pacifist reference, I think.

 

[Inspector42]

I have been following Pike`s blog as well as this thread for quite a while and must say that I am impressed by Pike's ingenuity as well as your great teamwork. Thank you all for this great work.
I also wish Pike all the best for coping with his personal challenge.

My focus so far has been on running OS X on PC-Hardware, but I got a hold of this MacPro and wanted to find out, how far I got.

In order to give something back to the community, I compared the script from rthpjm in #451 with Peter`s guide above and there were only a few things to be changed.
I have attached the result - it uses pbzx to extract the kernel, but contrary to Pike`s LZVN I found a binary on the internet.
The only thing is, that it takes forever to extract the kernel, but the script can run unattended, so it does not really matter.
I have tested it and installed El Capitan 10.11.1 successfully.
Of course an automatic download of boot.efi and pbzx could be included and one could even think about bundling this in a nice package, but I have never done this before, so it will take some time to get that working.
The script could also copy itself and the above files into a separate folder on the installer disk/stick in order to facilitate easy access for replacing boot.efi and transferring to other computers. That could also include clawfinger's replacement script in #600, which worked for me so far.

 

[readyfordustoff]

As a follow-up of the above guide, there is at least one area that might not be required anymore: Version 2.0 and earlier of Pike's boot.efi required the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file on the installer, but perhaps version 3.1 doesn't require it. If so, Pacifist wouldn't be required, and steps 13-15 of the "Creation of a universal stand-alone self-booting El Capitan installer" would be unnecessary. Other elements are certainly optional (I think), such as the use of chmod and chown. So, by all means, edit, simplify or expand the above as you deem necessary. In addition, I don't know if replacing bootbase.efi on the installer is actually necessary.

The above takes it for granted that users are running Yosemite, but they might be running anything from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, so perhaps that should be addressed, too. It would be interesting to find out whether Pike's boot.efi 3.1 is capable of booting Lion (yes, I actually mean Lion, not Mountain Lion) on an old Mac Pro.

Edit: On second thought, even if version 3.1 of Pike's boot.efi might not require the presence of an explicit Kernels/kernel file, the stock boot.efi might still require it. If we don't include the instruction regarding Pacifist, et cetera, the installer we are creating wouldn't be actually "universal" or self-booting before the replacement of boot.efi, as indicated in the section title. In any case, the installer ends up being "universal" for old Mac Pros, NOT for more modern Macs.

I have also taken a stab at creating draft based on other's fine work as a part of my contribution to this effort. I have incorporated my own successful procedural experiences too, as well as incorporated my omissions after ready your draft write-up this morning. I used the TextEdit app from El Capitan 10.11.1 to draft this version, so anyone can easily make edits.

One constructive criticism is that not all users may be as familiar or comfortable with using the Terminal app, so with that thought in mind, I tried to provide a balance between using the Terminal app (where necessary) and the Finder. All credit has been given to Piker-Alpha, so I hope other's will not be offended. The draft is attached in Rich Text Format.

 

[splifingate]

After a failed attempt at using Pike's v.3.1 boot.efi to boot into the 10.7.5 (Lion) environment, I tasked myself with d/l the Install Mountain Lion.app and creating an installer whereby I could test whether the v.3.1 boot.efi could be successfully used in a legacy ML installer...

I imaged the BaseSystem.dmg located within Install Mountain Lion.app > /InstallESD.dmg/SharedSupport to a partition...

I copied BaseSystem.dmg, BaseSystem.chunklist, mach_kernel, and kernelcache over to the installer.

I copied the v.3.1 boot.efi to the / of the installer, as well as /System/Library/CoreServices and /usr/standslone/i386

I got a successful boot into the installer, and I am currently booted in Yosemite to check what's-what before I boot into Stage 2 of the ML installer on the target disk.

 

[splifingate]

After a failed attempt at using Pike's v.3.1 boot.efi to boot into the 10.7.5 (Lion) environment, I tasked myself with d/l the Install Mountain Lion.app and creating an installer whereby I could test whether the v.3.1 boot.efi could be successfully used in a legacy ML installer...

I imaged the BaseSystem.dmg located within Install Mountain Lion.app > /InstallESD.dmg/SharedSupport to a partition...

I copied BaseSystem.dmg, BaseSystem.chunklist, mach_kernel, and kernelcache over to the installer.

I copied the v.3.1 boot.efi to the / of the installer, as well as /System/Library/CoreServices and /usr/standslone/i386

I got a successful boot into the installer, and I am currently booted in Yosemite to check what's-what before I boot into Stage 2 of the ML installer on the target disk.

Stage 1 'OS X Install Data 'pseudo-erratum':

 

[splifingate]

Stage 1 'OS X Install Data 'pseudo-erratum':

The stock (ML) boot.efi was placed into /OS X Install Data by the installer, and that failed (upon re-boot)…I just-now copied-over v.3.1 to said, and am re-booting....

 

[splifingate]

The stock (ML) boot.efi was placed into /OS X Install Data by the installer, and that failed (upon re-boot)…I just-now copied-over v.3.1 to said, and am re-booting....

"circle-slash" after three re-boots (with the addition of 'UseKernelCache=Yes' to /{ML-installer}/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist) . . . I am at a loss, and at the end of my day.

This 'should' work . . . t'will have to wait, on the 'morrow, or after....

 

[dgwilson]

I have been following Pike`s blog as well as this thread for quite a while and must say that I am impressed by Pike's ingenuity as well as your great teamwork. Thank you all for this great work.
I also wish Pike all the best for coping with his personal challenge.

My focus so far has been on running OS X on PC-Hardware, but I got a hold of this MacPro and wanted to find out, how far I got.

In order to give something back to the community, I compared the script from rthpjm in #451 with Peter`s guide above and there were only a few things to be changed.
I have attached the result - it uses pbzx to extract the kernel, but contrary to Pike`s LZVN I found a binary on the internet.
The only thing is, that it takes forever to extract the kernel, but the script can run unattended, so it does not really matter.
I have tested it and installed El Capitan 10.11.1 successfully.
Of course an automatic download of boot.efi and pbzx could be included and one could even think about bundling this in a nice package, but I have never done this before, so it will take some time to get that working.
The script could also copy itself and the above files into a separate folder on the installer disk/stick in order to facilitate easy access for replacing boot.efi and transferring to other computers. That could also include clawfinger's replacement script in #600, which worked for me so far.

Very impressive script. Thank you!

 

[dgwilson]

Are you sure your "Install OS X El Capitan.app" is NOT corrupt? Are you sure your "essentials.pkg" is not corrupt? Are you confident your RAM is not bad? Al least one of the three things (perhaps all three) seem obvious suspect to me.

I completed an install over Firewire with the MacPro in Target disk mode. Thus proving that the installer is not corrupt.
MacPro subsequently had the appropriate boot.efi files replaced and is running.

I have not achieved a successful install with an installer that I've built myself. Checked and doubled checked the instructions - all installs fail when performing an activity on the Essentials.pkg file.
For good measure I swapped the hard drives and SSD into the 2nd Mac Pro1,1 that I have.
I also change the RAM configuration so that it only has 1GB DIMM's.
I've also removed the WiFi card (had one in both machines) and the Firewire card from the second machine.

I've also rebuilt the installer using the 'buildInstallerDrive' script developed by "Inspector42". I checked the script first to validate it has the actions required in the documented instructions. Never the less - the install fails in the same place.

Have by chance you guys upgraded your MacPro's so that they're a 1,2 ????

I'm happy to continue to test installations - I'm out of ideas of what to do next at this stage.

As a side note... when I use Carbon Copy Cloner ... I eventually end up with a Kernel Panic - the measure seems to be copying a large amount of data. Which makes me think the same for the Essentials.pkg file as it's over 5GB. Why this would be different for me vs. you - I have no idea.

- David

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Have by chance you guys upgraded your MacPro's so that they're a 1,2 ????

Yes, I updated its firmware (not the processors) long ago, so it's been a Mac Pro 2,1 for many years. Boot ROM version MP21.007F.B06. SMC version 1.15f3.

 

[dgwilson]

Yes, I updated its firmware (not the processors) long ago, so it's been a Mac Pro 2,1 for many years. Boot ROM version MP21.007F.B06. SMC version 1.15f3.

I achieved the firmware upgrade today. Could not do it from El Capitan... I went back to 10.9.3 to achieve it. The outcome:

 Boot ROM Version:    MP21.007F.B06
 SMC Version (system):    1.7f10

Have retried the El Capitan install - same issue on Essentials.pkg

- David

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Have retried the El Capitan install - same issue on Essentials.pkg

I don't think this should be the answer to your problem, but try to upgrade the SMC version (information somewhere in netkas.org). My hunch is that you are using bad RAM or a disk with bad sectors.

 

[dgwilson]

I don't think this should be the answer to your problem, but try to upgrade the SMC version (information somewhere in netkas.org). My hunch is that you are using bad RAM or a disk with bad sectors.

Cheers. New RAM on order. ETA end of Nov for delivery. Hoping delivery expectations are exceeded.

- David

 

[OGNerd]

I don't think this should be the answer to your problem, but try to upgrade the SMC version (information somewhere in netkas.org). My hunch is that you are using bad RAM or a disk with bad sectors.

On my 2,1 with identical Boot ROM/SMC to your upgraded machine, using a Createinstallmedia generated flash drive, I experienced the same installation failure that David does relating to a problem with Essentials.pkg. The failed install attempt was to a brand new SSD which subsequently accepted a Target Disk installation without incident.

 

[dgwilson]

On my 2,1 with identical Boot ROM/SMC to your upgraded machine, using a Createinstallmedia generated flash drive, I experienced the same installation failure that David does relating to a problem with Essentials.pkg. The failed install attempt was to a brand new SSD which subsequently accepted a Target Disk installation without incident.

If we can get some details on the SMC upgrade ... I can do that to... and re-attempt the OS install. my registration attempts at netkas.org have been unsuccessful. :-(

- David