macOS boot.efi developer's thread

[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

 

[PeterHolbrook]

The SMC upgrade procedure is explained in http://forum.netkas.org/index.php?topic=5454.0. You'll need to register to download all the relevant files.

Edit: Actually, the following page and the links it provides might be a better choice for you: http://boeglin.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry130109-013629

 

[Inspector42]

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.

I have only upgraded the ROM of my MacPro 1,1 to MP21.007F.B06 but since I never upgraded the CPUs, I left SMC at 1.7f10.
Installer created with the script posted earlier, worked 2 times on an internal hard drive and once on an USB stick.
My Mac has Dual Xeon 5150 @ 2.66 Mhz with 12 MB RAM.

 

[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.

With the 3.1 EFI (Black)... do you know if these work?

• Hold down Command-S for single-user mode.
• Hold down Command-V for verbose mode.

EDIT: Have confirmed that Command-V for verbose mode works.

- David

 

[dgwilson]

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

Now have SMC version changed.

  Model Name:    Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:    MacPro2,1
  Processor Name:    Dual-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:    2.66 GHz
  Boot ROM Version:    MP21.007F.B06
  SMC Version (system):    1.15f3

- David

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Now have SMC version changed.

Has that actually helped solve the issue you're having with Essentials.pkg?

 

[rthpjm]

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.

PIKIFY has moved
​

I've moved this post to the original Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and El Capitan thread.

If you are looking for my pikify3.1 installer creator, you will find them updated at the '2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X El Capitan' thread at page 56 post 1390...

 

[dgwilson]

Has that actually helped solve the issue you're having with Essentials.pkg?

Install still terminates on the Essentials.pkg - or has a Kernel Panic.

Incidentally had a Major Kernel Panic today on 10.11.1 with 3.1 efi. So bad that I was able to reboot into any instance of 10.11 that I had on the machine. I have a video of the verbose load.
I was able to get back into 10.9.3 (it's the one I can always get back into).
I did the SMC update at this point - already had the USB key built for it.

Anyway - long story short - I erased all 10.11 drives that I had, Did a firewire install of 10.11.1 to the SSD, put on boot.efi 3.1 and I'm back up and running. The important point here is that I've got rid of any cruff that might have been around, strange as that might seem... and there was a chance that the install would work...

Next step. New RAM. That's in transit. May be a while.

EDIT: I started a clone with Carbon Copy Cloner of the SSD (it only has 10.11.1 on it, and Google Chrome). The Machine rebooted itself during the copy. As I was into the machine via remote access - I could see that 5.65GB of data had been copied, after 2 minutes, 53 seconds, to the point where it rebooted.


- David

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I started a clone with Carbon Copy Cloner of the SSD (it only has 10.11.1 on it, and Google Chrome). The Machine rebooted itself during the copy. As I was into the machine via remote access - I could see that 5.65GB of data had been copied, after 2 minutes, 53 seconds, to the point where it rebooted.

Something's definitely wrong with your computer. What you describe is far from normal, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with boot.efi. Apart from possibly bad RAM, your target disk might be damaged. Have you tried using different blank media?

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Just a few words about Pike's health. I've just learnt that he underwent brain surgery (last night?) to try and control a ruptured aneurysm. What the prognosis might be, I don't know. I strongly encourage believing members of the forum to pray for his recovery and well-being, and to include his family in your thoughts.

 

[Rustynova]

Just a few words about Pike's health. I've just learnt that he underwent brain surgery (last night?) to try and control an aneurysm. What the prognosis might be, I don't know. I strongly encourage believing members of the forum to pray for his recovery and well-being, and to include his family in your thoughts.

Praying!!!

 

[MacUser2525]

Just a few words about Pike's health. I've just learnt that he underwent brain surgery (last night?) to try and control a ruptured aneurysm. What the prognosis might be, I don't know. I strongly encourage believing members of the forum to pray for his recovery and well-being, and to include his family in your thoughts.

Well damn not much for religion but here's to hoping he pulls through they have much better grasp on that sort of thing now a days than when my grandfather died of that some forty odd years ago now. A buddy's brother I went to school with had one while playing hockey ten-fifteen years ago he was just fine after they operated on him.

 

[javirnat]

Quiero que sepáis tú y tu familia que rezaré por vosotros y que siento mucho lo que te esta pasando (pikeralpha)

 

[dgwilson]

Something's definitely wrong with your computer. What you describe is far from normal, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with boot.efi. Apart from possibly bad RAM, your target disk might be damaged. Have you tried using different blank media?

I have tried different target disks, and different install media. And I've got 2 x MacPro's here - so have tried different hardware in that regard too. The one common element that I cannot change at this point is the Graphics card (only have one) - ATI Radeon HD 4870.

- David

 

[dgwilson]

Just a few words about Pike's health. I've just learnt that he underwent brain surgery (last night?) to try and control a ruptured aneurysm. What the prognosis might be, I don't know. I strongly encourage believing members of the forum to pray for his recovery and well-being, and to include his family in your thoughts.

Oh wow. Wishing Pike all the best and a very speedy recovery.

- David

 

[iMattux]

Hi Inspector42, I'm glad you were able to use my script. I like your rsync idea!

Here is a new script and accompanying files. This one is based around Apple's createinstallmedia script.

The unique feature of this script is that it builds an installer which will pre-patch the resulting El Capitan volume. What this means is that the installer can be run, and then the reboot will work without any further modification. You have a working installation of El Capitan directly from the installer.

Download the zip file.
Unzip it.
You should have a folder named pikify3.1
In that folder should be a number of files, the script is createpikeinstallmedia

Pre-requisites:

• As per Peter's guide, you will need a volume that can be overwritten by the installer
  • This could be a USB memory stick
  • A small disk partition from one of your hard drives (not the disk that you intend to use for El Capitan)
    • You need to be able to boot from this volume
• The installer volume needs to be at least 8GB
• Your copy of 'Install OS X El Capitan.app' should be located in your /Applications folder

Usage:

• Open a terminal window
• Change directory to the pikify3.1 folder from the zip file
• You need to run the script as the root user
  • sudo -s
  • [your password]
  • ./createpikeinstallmedia /Volumes/[InstallerVolumeName]
• or
  • sudo ./createpikeinstallmedia /Volumes/[InstallerVolumeName]
  • [your password]

Once the script competes you should have an installer volume named 'Install OS X El Capitan'

• Reboot your machine
• Hold the ALT key down immediately after the startup chime to enter the boot chooser
• Choose the Install OS X El Capitan volume

Your machine should boot into the Installer, run the installer
You may need to click the Reboot button at the end of the install (for some reason, the 10 second countdown doesn't seem to automatically start)

Your machine should reboot into the new El Capitan Installation and begin the OS X setup procedure.

I have only tested this script as a clean install onto an erased destination disk. I don't know if it will work for an upgrade.
If you are upgrading I would suggest a clean install of El Capitan onto a spare disk, then use the Apple Migration Assistant to migrate your previous system and user files.
If you are brave and want to try an in-place upgrade, make sure you backup your current system first...

Detail:

I created an additional package (pikify.pkg) which handles the post-install modification of the boot.efi files on the destination volume. The script puts pikify.pkg into the InstallESD.dmg, along with OSInstall.collection.
OSInstall.collection overrides the default behaviour of the Installer Assistant, it calls the default OSInstall.mpkg and appends pikify.pkg to the install chain.

In effect I'm running the exact same installation as an unmodified Apple install with the addition of my pikify.pkg.

Because the default behaviour has been overridden, there are a few differences:

• An unmodified Apple installer will open with the /System/Installation/CDIS/OS X Utilities.app
  • The modified installer goes straight into the Installer
• An unmodified Apple installer will automatically reboot 10 seconds after the installation completes
  • The modified installer doesn't, you will have to click the Reboot button

I've included both versions (black and grey) of Pike's 3.1 boot.efi file. If you want to change the colour, overwrite the boot.efi file in the pikify3.1 folder with the coloured version of your choice. The zip file unpacks with the grey version in place.

Enjoy...

Your instructions are very clear and concise. The only problem is that you haven't included them as a README text file in the package. Cheers and thanks. I'll run it and give a report when I get my new ram and hard drive.

 

[wwanthony]

Good thoughts to Pike.

 

[Inspector42]

Hi rthpjm,

Wow, this is brilliant! I will try it as soon as I am back from a business trip. Thanks for mentioning my humble contribution.
When I thought about making a package, I didn't even think of modifying the existing packages like you managed to do.

Is the addition of the board-ID still required with Pike's boot loader 3.1 ? I though it was masquerading the true board-ID to show up as MacPro 3,1.

 

[iMattux]

If anyone can glean any troubleshooting info from the installer log, please enlighten me.

This is after running rthpjm's script to create an installer on an 8GB partition of a physically separate internal drive to a 500 GB partition on a brand new, physically separate drive.

It failed while extracting Essentials.pkg. I'm attaching the install log with several thousand lines about missing unicode pruned. The beginning and the end might give us some clues when compared to a successful install.

Cheers

 

[rthpjm]

If anyone can glean any troubleshooting info from the installer log, please enlighten me.

This is after running rthpjm's script to create an installer on an 8GB partition of a physically separate internal drive to a 500 GB partition on a brand new, physically separate drive.

It failed while extracting Essentials.pkg. I'm attaching the install log with several thousand lines about missing unicode pruned. The beginning and the end might give us some clues when compared to a successful install.

Cheers

Hello iMattux

I have only very quickly looked through your log file. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't look like a transcript from one of the installers created by my script. There's no mention of the pikify.pkg which usually gets logged early in the session, certainly within the section of the log before you encountered the crash.

Can I ask you to clarify some things for me please? I can see the disk checks in the log:

• You have a single disk and you have it partitioned into two volumes
  • ElCapitan
  • Yosemite

Is that correct?

Then it looks like you might have another disk with 1 volume also called ElCapitan - is that correct?

Where is the installer volume? Is it on external media (e.g. USB memory stick)?

I'm going to run through the process end-to-end on my machine and save the log file. I'll then compare your log file with mine, so we can find the differences...

 

[iMattux]

Hello iMattux

I have only very quickly looked through your log file. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't look like a transcript from one of the installers created by my script. There's no mention of the pikify.pkg which usually gets logged early in the session, certainly within the section of the log before you encountered the crash.

Can I ask you to clarify some things for me please? I can see the disk checks in the log:

• You have a single disk and you have it partitioned into two volumes
  • ElCapitan
  • Yosemite

Is that correct?

Then it looks like you might have another disk with 1 volume also called ElCapitan - is that correct?

Where is the installer volume? Is it on external media (e.g. USB memory stick)?

I'm going to run through the process end-to-end on my machine and save the log file. I'll then compare your log file with mine, so we can find the differences...

I have 2x1TB installed internally. One physical drive has the 8GB installer on a partition (along with various backup partitions, as labeled). The other physical drive is the target for the El Capitan installation, along with a Yosemite partition and a Raid that will be used later on when everything is stable.
Here are my disks:

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12:22 AM
imatt is on Yosemite in ~ which has       19 files using 160 K
=> list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS buElCapitan             332.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Install OS X El Capitan 8.0 GB     disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS installYosemite         8.0 GB     disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS buYosemite              150.0 GB   disk0s5
   6:                  Apple_HFS buPhotos                125.0 GB   disk0s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS buMusic                 125.0 GB   disk0s7
   8:                 Apple_RAID                         250.0 GB   disk0s8
   9:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s9
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS ElCapitan               597.7 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Yosemite                149.5 GB   disk1s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s5
   6:                 Apple_RAID                         250.0 GB   disk1s6
   7:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s7
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS speedyRaid             *500.0 GB   disk2
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12:26 PM
imatt is on Yosemite in ~ which has       19 files using 160 K

I began the process by zeroing the first 2GB (dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk0 bs=16M count=128) of disk0, an internal 1TB Hitachi, then reformatting with the partitions you see. The labels clearly designate each partition's intended purpose. All partitions on disk0 were empty.

I was booted from "Yosemite" (disk1s4)

I ran your script with disk0s3 as the target on which the pikified installer was created. The script ran without error, I saw all the echos of each successful step. Very friendly; nice work.

I manually confirmed that everything was in it's proper place just to be 3x sure.

I rebooted and chose the "Install Mac OS X El Capitan" drive (disk0s3). Installation failed while extracting Essentials.pkg

(I did create a striped Raid using disk0s8 and disk1s6, but that is not a part of this installation. I'm planning to use the Raid to run whichever OS is the most reliable at the end of this operation, but that's after. I've used a Raid as my boot drive for years without issue. At any rate, the Raid is not part of this equation. It's just another partition.)

I'm eager to see and compare the logs from a successful installation.

Cheers,

matt

 

[rthpjm]

I'm eager to see and compare the logs from a successful installation.

Cheers,

matt

Hey Matt

Attached are your log and my log files. I've edited out the entries tagged as unknown (they tend to be font entries). It makes the log files a bit easier to read. The logs are pretty similar except if you look at mine at around line 222 you will see differences (you will see the reference to pikify.pkg). Your log contains no similar reference.

Let us double/triple check things....

Can you (using Finder) open /Volumes/Install OS X El Capitan
You should just see the app Install OS X El Capitan
Right-click the app and choose Show Package Contents
double-click the Contents and SharedSupport folders
You should see the InstallESD.dmg disk image here, double-click it to open/mount it (you can click the Skip button to speed things up a bit)
You should now have the disk image mounted as OS X Install ESD (usually shows on the desktop unless you've turned that off in the Finder preferences)
Double-click to open the mounted image
You should now see a Packages folder AND the BaseSystem.dmg (because I don't hide the BaseSystem image after I modify it)
go into the Packages folder and confirm that the pikify.pkg file and the OSInstall.collection file are present.



Let me know what you find...

 

[rthpjm]

Hi rthpjm,

Wow, this is brilliant! I will try it as soon as I am back from a business trip. Thanks for mentioning my humble contribution.
When I thought about making a package, I didn't even think of modifying the existing packages like you managed to do.

Is the addition of the board-ID still required with Pike's boot loader 3.1 ? I though it was masquerading the true board-ID to show up as MacPro 3,1.

Strictly speaking the board-id mods are not required with the 3.x boot.efi files (because the 3.x boot.efi file reports the MacPro as a MacPro3,1 as you state, which is still on the supported list, but it's only just hanging in there as the last supported model so it will soon fall off the end of the list). I keep them in my scripts in case someone has a need/desire to use v2.x files (and out of habit because we needed to do this for Yosemite)

 

[rthpjm]

Install still terminates on the Essentials.pkg - or has a Kernel Panic.

- David

It failed while extracting Essentials.pkg. I'm attaching the install log with several thousand lines about missing unicode pruned. The beginning and the end might give us some clues when compared to a successful install.

Cheers

So we have two people experiencing similar issues. Are there any similarities with your MacPro setups?

I'm running a MacPro1,1, modded to a MacPro2,1 with 2x XEON E5345 Quad Core CPUs, 32G of RAM, and an
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with modded BIOS+EFI firmware (now with boot screens). My boot drive is a 4Tb Seagate hybrid drive, and I have 3 further 2Tb HDDs (not much room left in my chassis!). It's one of the reasons why I'm so grateful to the guys here and over at the Netkas forums for helping me keep this thing running with the most up to date OS. It's still a great machine.

Graphics cards are a known source of trouble. What are you guys running in your rigs?

 

[the bug]

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

I wish pike and his family lots of power!

Whoa ! I haven't been around for a while, and just saw this while getting caught up reading posts !
That is absolutely horrible !

I'm not much of the praying type, but I will be praying for Pike and his family !
I read the posts on Pike's page too, and I can't even imagine what the family is going through.

All my thoughts and prayers are with you Pike R. Alpha, please get through this one !

- Jay