Boot OSX on a NVMe Card

[atonaldenim]

Check this thread. People shared how to boot from nvme ssd guide, mod tool etc. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mp51-0084-b00-rom-dump-request.2119496/

Thanks but I think I'm too paranoid to hack my own firmware. The OP's non-destructive disk based methods seem safer, but I'm just curious about what maintenance would be required with the foxfoobar or Next Loader methods over the long run.

The Fusion Drive approach is attractive as it uses core OS features only, would be understood by future OS updaters, less maintenance required by me. Unattractive as it's more risky like a RAID 0, if either drive fails the whole Fusion drive is dead. Also can't completely control if data lives on the faster or slower drive.

Can't find much good information on minimum Fusion drive partition sizes online, might just have to tinker around with it. What I'd like is the inverse of what Fusion Drive is designed for - a small HDD partition combined with a large SSD. To force most of the drive's data to live on the fast SSD.

Just thinking out loud... ideally I could make a small partition on the HDD and a small partition on the SSD, make that a Fusion Drive for booting, OS and apps. Those are things that would be nice if they ran fast generally, but performance is not mission critical. Then have the remainder of the SSD partitioned as a pure SSD where I could keep video editing projects and scratch files, stuff that needs to be fast always. And the remainder of the HDD partitioned for longer term media / data storage that doesn't need the speed.

Also would put recovery partitions on the HDD in case something goes south with the NVMe drive.

 

[Japi]

For OP or anyone who's using foxfoobar's method of copying system files to a bootable drive while the full OS is installed on a non-bootable NVMe drive: how do you handle OS updates?

If you're copying the kernel from the non-bootable NVMe drive onto the bootable drive, I'm guessing you have to redo the process whenever there's a kernel/OS update? Has anyone automated this?

Trying to decide whether to pursue this method or a Fusion Drive.

Let's say my bootable drive is a 6TB SATA HDD which I will use for long term media storage. The non-bootable NVMe drive would be like a 1TB drive for system, apps, scratch disk for video editing projects. Better to make a 100MB partition on the 6TB HDD to keep the boot files separate from the media? Or all in one partition is fine?

If I were to go the Fusion Drive route, could I create a small <1GB partition on the HDD and only join that partition with the NVMe SSD as a Fusion Drive? (Thereby forcing the system to keep 99% of the data on the SSD.) And use the remaining 5.9TB HDD partition as a separate media storage drive?

Very intriguing possibilities, both!

Actually I would be also interested how the OS updates work with foxfoobar's method? Because I tried to update High Sierra from 10.13.4 to 10.13.5, the update install started to run, but it just rebooted and it didnt update the OS. I have Mac Pro 5,1 and I'm using foxfoobar's method (M.2 SSD + USB stick).

Do I have to basically clone the M.2 SSD to a SATA SSD and run the OS update there (and then clone the SATA SSD to M.2 SSD back)? (If I dont want to try the firmware hack mentioned already) Or has anybody succesfully updated their OS with the foxfoobar's method?

 

[MIKX]

FoxFooBar + Anyone

Hi!
Note: Change the UUID (in my case 69D67D3F-908E-39B1-B284-BB796536406D) to match the UUID from your 950Pro's root partition! Open "Disk Utility.app", click the 9050Pro's partition to where you cloned your OSX onto and press CMD+i. Now copy the number where it says "Universal Unique Identifier:" and paste it to com.apple.Boot.plist "boot-uuid=" line.

That should be it, reboot and check it out. Would be nice if someone could test this.

===========================================

I HAD Sierra 10.12.6 booting & running in a Fusion setup with my 960 EVO . . .

It appears that in flashing my cMP 4,1>5,1 for NVMe booting that the 960 EVO's UUID has changed. In my former fusion setup .. at Option Key at bootup I could see BOTH the "NVMeBoot" USB stick .. AND the 960 EVO 10.12.6 install. Selecting the 960 resulted in a 10.12.6 bootup into the 960 via the NVMe USB 3. drive's redirection.

===============================================

Can anyone tell me which is the correct UUID I should select to be copied into my USB 3.0's "NVMeBoot's "config.plist.

=========================================================

NOTE : I have CCC cloned 10.12.6 to the 960 EVO and it is recognized by 10.12.6 installed on a spinner HDD ). I used the same cloning in the former working setup.

==========================================================

Should I use the UUID in the EFI . .. or the UUID in the 960 EVO ?

Example :The UUID's shown are from System Information/ NVMe Express

 

[expede]

Hi, MIKX!

Mine looks like this?

This is strange! I have only one UUID not two.

/Per

FoxFooBar + Anyone


===========================================

I HAD Sierra 10.12.6 booting & running in a Fusion setup with my 960 EVO . . .

It appears that in flashing my cMP 4,1>5,1 for NVMe booting that the 960 EVO's UUID has changed. In my former fusion setup .. at Option Key at bootup I could see BOTH the "NVMeBoot" USB stick .. AND the 960 EVO 10.12.6 install. Selecting the 960 resulted in a 10.12.6 bootup into the 960 via the NVMe USB 3. drive's redirection.

===============================================

Can anyone tell me which is the correct UUID I should select to be copied into my USB 3.0's "NVMeBoot's "config.plist.

=========================================================

NOTE : I have CCC cloned 10.12.6 to the 960 EVO and it is recognized by 10.12.6 installed on a spinner HDD ). I used the same cloning in the former working setup.

==========================================================

Should I use the UUID in the EFI . .. or the UUID in the 960 EVO ?

Example :The UUID's shown are from System Information/ NVMe Express

View attachment 766302

 

[MIKX]

Hi Per,

Probably something to do with your 960 being formatted to APFS ?

 

[ellaosx]

It will always be the uuid of the desired partition you want to boot

 

[expede]

Do I get an extra Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID) when I change from HFS+ to APFS?

/Per

 

[JedNZ]

I think APFS creates extra partitions (a virtual one for snapshots etc) so I imagine it creates new UUIDs for each partition.

 

[MIKX]

FoxFooBar wrote

Hi!
Note: Change the UUID (in my case 69D67D3F-908E-39B1-B284-BB796536406D) to match the UUID from your 950Pro's root partition! Open "Disk Utility.app", click the 9050Pro's partition to where you cloned your OSX onto and press CMD+i. Now copy the number where it says "Universal Unique Identifier:" and paste it to com.apple.Boot.plist "boot-uuid=" line.

That should be it, reboot and check it out. Would be nice if someone could test this.

=============================================================

After a horrible week struggling to get my Samsung M.2 960 NVMe 256Gb EFI booting without success despite a lot of help from members of the NVMe Efi boot thread. I gave up and decided to stay with booting via USB stick + M.2 960 Fusion. The problem is that the 960 was not booting up.


Problem :

I had no idea that UUID's change !
I followed FoxFooBar's guide religiously ( had it working well prior to this attempt ).
I mistakenly assumed that the 960's UUID in my first attempt would be the same . . . .
Somehow through the many bootROM re-flashes with the XDE driver, my 960's UUID changed TWICE !

========================================================
Solution :

This Terminal command gave me the "current" UUID for the "Sierra partition" on the 960 EVO.

IMPORTANT : Use the UUID for the partition that eg: Sierra is installed to on the M.2 SSD
Don't use the "EFI UUID".

Terminal command :

Mikes-Mac-Pro:~ mikesmith$ diskutil info /Volumes/960EVO |grep UUID

Note : My drive is "960EVO" put in your own drive name ( not drive number ).

(1) Volume UUID: B23D0BEE-1187-339F-9E7F-8ECB4E2974Ap
( 2 ) Disk / Partition UUID: D0FC898C-E776-7353-A9D6-0B275FBE90F0

(No. ( 2 ) ) is the correct UUID for my M.2 960 EVO in the fusion setup.

==========================================================

I live and learn.

I would really like to be able to boot from the M.2 NVMe 960 EVO but I'm missing some important step in the process and just cannot afford the time to perfect my skills at the moment.

I also feel strongly that a truly comprehensive, step by step guide for those who are not Terminal experts is essential if we want to prove that the DXE injection is reliable.
Moreover. there is the risk of bricking my cMP to consider.

Having said that I take my hat off to dosdude1, Gilles and the other talented and courageous members for giving our 4,1>5,1 cMP''s a wonderful, life extending upgrade.

FoxFooBar too of course !

This Fusion 960 EVO setup leaves my internal Sandisk SATA 2.5" for dead.

 

[expede]

Hi!

Some motivation picture of my cMP 5.1 booting on NVMe. Sorry they are big. Do not klick on them.

Just because I love my old cMP 5.1

/Per

 

[Socket]

Direct link to an easy to follow, step-by-step guide for adding NVMe Boot support to the 3,1 / 4,1 / 5,1 cMP

Hi,
these operations are mandatory at EVERY future OSX upgrade? Or it's one time job?

 

[Pressure]

Hi,
these operations are mandatory at EVERY future OSX upgrade? Or it's one time job?

Whenever you update the firmware.

 

[Socket]

Whenever you update the firmware.

Another question: after this procedure, I could boot directly into High Sierra with a 960 EVO without boot screen? Or I have to press Command at start and to choice the disk?
Because I have a non-apple graphic card, so I haven't a boot screen visibile
Thanks for answers

 

[expede]

Hi!

There has been some rumoer that you will need a EFI Graphic card while doing this ”flashing” thing. You will need to disable the SIP within the recovery mode. (csrutil disable-command). This to be able to flash your Boot-rom. So to be absolutely sure, I would recommend you to put a EFI-card in.
But afterwards there should not be any problem booting directly onto the NVMe-blade. You select your blade in preference and let the OS boot directly onto the blade. And so...! No bootscreen selection at startup.

/Per

 

[misanthrophy]

Hi,

I successfully flashed my EFI on my Mac Pro to natively boot from a NVMe SSD.

Thanks to all the people involved into thag process.

But now I am hungry for more. Would it be possible to use the Amfeltec 4 slot PCIe card with 4x1TB SSD in a Raid0 to maximize the performance?

Or in general is there a way to boot from a SSD Raid?

Thanks in advance!

 

[crjackson2134]

Hi,

I successfully flashed my EFI on my Mac Pro to natively boot from a NVMe SSD.

Thanks to all the people involved into thag process.

But now I am hungry for more. Would it be possible to use the Amfeltec 4 slot PCIe card with 4x1TB SSD in a Raid0 to maximize the performance?

Or in general is there a way to boot from a SSD Raid?

Thanks in advance!

Yes you can do that. The card is designed for it. I don't do RAID anymore, but as I understand it, you need to set up as HPFS+, then clone your current system drive over to it. You can do it other ways, but this is the easiest and fastest AFAIK.

 

[Skogsguden]

Hi,

I successfully flashed my EFI on my Mac Pro to natively boot from a NVMe SSD.

Thanks to all the people involved into thag process.

But now I am hungry for more. Would it be possible to use the Amfeltec 4 slot PCIe card with 4x1TB SSD in a Raid0 to maximize the performance?

Or in general is there a way to boot from a SSD Raid?

Thanks in advance!

How did you do that?

 

[misanthrophy]

Yes you can do that. The card is designed for it. I don't do RAID anymore, but as I understand it, you need to set up as HPFS+, then clone your current system drive over to it. You can do it other ways, but this is the easiest and fastest AFAIK.

Yea, have read that in another thread. I was just not sure if it works with NVMe cards too, as this method with booting from them on cMP's is not so old, but using SSD's in Raid it is.
[doublepost=1534503007][/doublepost]

How did you do that?

With this method:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNkM9LuGPq1sArO9EedWBHYq14NU7m-mDBLAWWJipyM/mobilebasic

 

[Kriss Parker]

Yea, have read that in another thread. I was just not sure if it works with NVMe cards too, as this method with booting from them on cMP's is not so old, but using SSD's in Raid it is.
[doublepost=1534503007][/doublepost]

With this method:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNkM9LuGPq1sArO9EedWBHYq14NU7m-mDBLAWWJipyM/mobilebasic

Hi misanthropy, following the link you provided, Chrome blocked the dl of the 2 files (ROMTool and DXEInject) and then when forced the dl I received a warning from avast that the 2 files are infected ... have you noticed the same problem?

 

[handheldgames]

Hi misanthropy, following the link you provided, Chrome blocked the dl of the 2 files (ROMTool and DXEInject) and then when forced the dl I received a warning from avast that the 2 files are infected ... have you noticed the same problem?View attachment 777519

The files are not infected. Sounds like you have an issue with your mac.

 

[Kriss Parker]

The files are not infected. Sounds like you have an issue with your mac.

Hi handheldgames, thanks for your quick reply ... I'm new to this, so can you explain to me why Chrome manages these two files as a threat? and then avast is doing the same? I'm confused...

 

[handheldgames]

Hi handheldgames, thanks for your quick reply ... I'm new to this, so can you explain to me why Chrome manages these two files as a threat? and then avast is doing the same? I'm confused...

Interesting... The block of download from dosdude1's site in chrome is new from the doc. Perhaps it's because the tools are for hacking roms from MacOS. The files are also blocked from his site:

http://dosdude1.com/apps/

The files still download from safari. I'm not sure what's going on...

 

[crjackson2134]

Yes it’s because it’s seen as a file to modify the firmware and wrongly assumed to be Malware. Bitdefender was marking it as Malware and removing it from my machine until I reported it. It hasn’t done that here anymore after definition updates.

After a few definition updates, it’s doinf it again

 

[wingyiulam]

It works well, but I am having an issue connecting the iMessage and FaceTime. they both work if I boot normally, An error occurred during authentication will pop up while re-routing from USB 2.

Hi!

I read about the NVMe cards that aren't bootable because the EFI rom (off course) doesn't list them at the boot manager. The first thing i learned when fiddling around with a hackintosh (back in '05 with deadmoo image) was the "rd=" option. So since i already successfully booted OSX from an USB3.0 stick on a cMP3,1 (where booting from USB3.0 isn't supported), here's how it should also work with a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe.

Note: I haven't got an 950Pro to test this, but it should work just like doing this with a USB-Stick on an cMP with USB3.0 cards. The NVMe driver must already be installed and kernelcache rebuilded!
Note2: I did this long ago on a MountainLion system, so the procedure might vary, e.g. files are laying somewhere else on the source disk etc.

1. Partition your 950Pro and clone an already installed system to your 950Pro, e.g. your running system.

2. Use a spare SSD (USB stick would also work) and partition it as:
Partition Map Scheme: GUID Partition Table
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Partition Name: NVMeBoot

3. Now do the following on the Terminal to make the SSD/USBStick bootable:
mkdir -p /Volumes/NVMeBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/
mkdir -p /Volumes/NVMeBoot/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
mkdir -p /Volumes/NVMeBoot/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/

cp /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist /Volumes/NVMeBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/
cp /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi /Volumes/NVMeBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/
cp /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist /Volumes/NVMeBoot/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
cp /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache /Volumes/NVMeBoot/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/NVMeBoot/ -label NVMeBoot

4. Change /Volumes/NVMeBoot/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist so it reads

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel Cache</key>
<string>/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>boot-uuid=69D67D3F-908E-39B1-B284-BB796536406D rd=*uuid -v</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Note: Change the UUID (in my case 69D67D3F-908E-39B1-B284-BB796536406D) to match the UUID from your 950Pro's root partition! Open "Disk Utility.app", click the 9050Pro's partition to where you cloned your OSX onto and press CMD+i. Now copy the number where it says "Universal Unique Identifier:" and paste it to com.apple.Boot.plist "boot-uuid=" line.

That should be it, reboot and check it out. Would be nice if someone could test this.

 

[handheldgames]

Yes it’s because it’s seen as a file to modify the firmware and wrongly assumed to be Malware. Bitdefender was marking it as Malware and removing it from my machine until I reported it. It hasn’t done that here anymore after definition updates.

After a few definition updates, it’s doinf it again

Hmmmmm. Bitdefender? Honestly, since dumping windows as my daily operating system of choice in 2008, I've been running 10 years without slowing my machine down with antivirus/malware software.

What has Bitdefender caught / saved your mac from?