MP 1,1-5,1 Booting Mojave and Windows 10 on a Mac Pro 5,1 with NVMe drives - some questions

[tsialex]

So what does this mean? Do I need bootrom reconstruction even if I do not set it up for multi-boot?

Yes. Garbage collection failure overtime have noting to do with booting other OS. SecureBoot just exacerbate the issue and people look at it like as it was the main culprit when it's really a coadjutant.

All Mac Pros early-2009 to mid-2012 will fail/brick because of it, it's a design that fails over time and no mitigations were employed by Apple like they did with late-2013 and 2019 Mac Pros.

 

[Dayo]

The aim of the first look at your ROM was purely to look for evidence of certificates to determine whether you are running UEFI Windows or not. As there are no certificates evident, it appears you are not running UEFI Windows.

You can therefore continue with the steps outlined in Post 17 starting with re-running the dumper after resetting your NVRAM as described in that post:

shut down your Mac, disconnect any drives containing Windows or Linux, restart the Mac and immediately hold down the "COMMAND", "OPTION", "P" and "R" keys until you hear at least four chimes, then let go and load Mac OS. Once in Mac OS, run the dumper again to get a ROM version as "clean" as possible without needing special reconstruction.

The reset should make clear what/if other ROM related issues exist as this would "clean" the ROM (at a shallow/basic level) and reveal whether things like the garbage collection is working etc. That is now a separate item from multi-booting that is best dealt with by PM and has no bearing on multi-booting at this point.

Send that updated ROM file by PM to either @tsialex and/or @Macschrauber for further evaluation and guidance on any other ROM related issues that may be present.

As for the multi-boot, a separate and unrelated item at this point as pointed out, the steps required have been provided earlier in Post 17. You will find a link to MyBootMgr in my signature ... just follow the steps outlined there.

PS: If you use MyBootMgr to set RefindPlus and OpenCore up, it will provide NVMe support regardless of whether your firmware has this capability or not. This is not as good as having such support in the firmware but is often good enough.

 

[James Murray]

The aim of the first look at your ROM was purely to look for evidence of certificates to determine whether you are running UEFI Windows or not. As there are no certificates evident, it appears you are not running UEFI Windows.

You can therefore continue with the steps outlined in Post 17 starting with re-running the dumper after resetting your NVRAM as described in that post:


The reset should make clear what/if other ROM related issues exist as this would "clean" the ROM (at a shallow/basic level) and reveal whether things like the garbage collection is working etc. That is now a separate item from multi-booting that is best dealt with by PM and has no bearing on multi-booting at this point.

Send that updated ROM file by PM to either @tsialex and/or @Macschrauber for further evaluation and guidance on any other ROM related issues that may be present.

As for the multi-boot, a separate and unrelated item at this point as pointed out, the steps required have been provided earlier in Post 17. You will find a link to MyBootMgr in my signature ... just follow the steps outlined there.

PS: If you use MyBootMgr to set RefindPlus and OpenCore up, it will provide NVMe support regardless of whether your firmware has this capability or not. This is not as good as having such support in the firmware but is often good enough.

I did this, but after waiting for the four chimes all I see is a blurry mountain background. Mojave is no longer loading. I tried booting in safe mode (holding shift), but it still brought me to the same blurry mountain background and wouldn't load. I tried booting into recovery mode and I just got a plain black screen. Did I just brick my mac?

 

[tsialex]

I did this, but after waiting for the four chimes all I see is a blurry mountain background. Mojave is no longer loading. I tried booting in safe mode (holding shift), but it still brought me to the same blurry mountain background and wouldn't load. I tried booting into recovery mode and I just got a plain black screen. Did I just brick my mac?

Power on and press, and keep pressed, the DIAG button. Check if EFI_DONE LED is fully lit, if it's off or blinking, you have a brick.

I've warned you about the failed garbage collection.

 

[Dayo]

@tsialex is an expert on BootROM and if the issue with this that he suspected was in play has indeed now manifested, he can guide you on how to recover. Some of the details will private so you could PM him.

 

[James Murray]

View attachment 1880289

Power on and press, and keep pressed, the DIAG button. Check if EFI_DONE LED is fully lit, if it's off or blinking, you have a brick.

I've warned you about the failed garbage collection.

Not necessary, I just reset the pram again and it loaded. That was scary though. I just saved a clean bootrom as Dayo suggested. Not sure I want to mess around too much with this anymore and risk a brick. But I'll send you the results.

 

[Dayo]

I just reset the pram again and it loaded. That was scary though.

You can do a basic check yourself using the dumper. Just compare the log from the first run (the file with the long name ending in ".log") with that from a second run.

You had 19 MemoryConfigs and 23300 (or so) bytes available on the first run. If the "19" value has dropped significantly and the 23300 similarly increased, the garbabe collection is working. Basically, the first run just happened to be at a point in the collection cycle when garbage had accumulated, pending collection.

There are other BootROM related considerations that a detailed evaluation by knowledgeable persons like @tsialex and @Macschrauber can point you to if you want to take that further. As mentioned earlier, that is best taken to a PM.

Either way, you can proceed with setting your multi-boot environment up.

 

[James Murray]

You can do a basic check yourself using the dumper. Just compare the log from the first run (the file with the long name ending in ".log") with that from a second run.

You had 19 MemoryConfigs and 23300 (or so) bytes available on the first run. If the "19" value has dropped significantly and the 23300 similarly increased, the garbabe collection is working. Basically, the first run just happened to be at a point in the collection cycle when garbage had accumulated, pending collection.

There are other BootROM related considerations that a detailed evaluation by knowledgeable persons like @tsialex and @Macschrauber can point you to if you want to take that further. As mentioned earlier, that is best taken to a PM.

Either way, you can proceed with setting your multi-boot environment up.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to go with multi-boot. It's starting up fast enough now that switching isn't such a hassle and I don't want to risk screwing up my nvram anymore than it is.

I also learned that the reason it failed to start was because I had left my high sierra HD in when I tried to reset the NVRAM, and it tried to boot from that drive instead of my Mojave nvme drive. Strange because I had it in before the reset and it didn't have that problem. But now whenever I try to boot it up with that drive in there it tries to boot to high sierra and freezes on that blurry mountain screen. No biggie, I just took the drive out since I don't really need it anymore and it seems to be booting up fine now.

 

[Dayo]

Select the Mojave disk in System Preferences -> Startup Disk, then click the "restart" button there.

 

[James Murray]

Still running Windows on my SSD, but one thing I've noticed lately is that Windows tends to be "jumpy". It will freeze for a bout a half second then jump to catch up. It's particularly noticeable when watching videos, but even when I'm just moving my mouse, or typing things on my keyboard it freezes briefly then jumps to catch up. I think it was doing it occasionally before, but ever since I flashed my bootrom it's doing it a lot more frequently, probably every minute or so. It doesn't do it in mojave though, only windows 10. Any idea what could be causing this and how to fix it? I suppose I could reinstall windows, but I'm wondering if you've seen this before on a mac pro and if there's another fix for it.

 

[thisguyiknow]

Btw, people focus too much on UEFI Windows SecureBoot and forget the real underlying issue.

The UEFI Windows Secure Boot certificate/public key/db combo won't damage your BootROM, the issue is that SecureBoot occupy valuable real state inside the NVRAM making the garbage collection work more to compensate. Then two different failures can happen overtime:

• the garbage collection fails, the VSS store circular log corrupts itself and you have a software brick (that can be revived with some questionable tricks like hot flashing from a MATT card).
• the NAND cells that store the VSS store region of the NVRAM volume are overused by the frequent cycles of erase/rewrite and the whole SPI fails and now you have a hardware defect to repair - the SPI flash memory needs replacement.

Anyway, garbage collection fails overtime even without ever being touched by Windows UEFI SecureBoot, like your dump. The NVRAM volume was designed back in 2008ish with early-2009 Mac Pro and used until mid-2012 and is not resilient enough for today's usage of the NVRAM by modern macOS releases - it's the Achilles heel of Mac Pro. Apple used a much improved design with late-2013 Mac Pro, where the usage is spread and not localized like with early-2009 to mid-2012 Mac Pros.

I understand I am responding almost a year later so if all I hear is a chorus of crickets I understand………first off I appreciate the more technical explanation as I am confused / intrigued by these bootrom issues as I have been somewhat of a multiboot aficionado/addict since the first coreduo MacBook pros. The bios emulation aka Mac’s version of a CSM layer was titillating at first but eventually EFI installs were the carrot to chase especially for pre 2013 Macs since they were pre UEFI compliant but still could ’play nice’ (sometimes; with some work) with pure efi installs. Not just for some personal glory, but as an IT professional it posed interesting learning challenges that brought incredible insight into the booting process for Apple machines. That being said it would be disingenuous of me if I didn’t acknowledge that part of the appeal was thwarting Apple’s recommended practices since their ’guided experience‘ often obscured the truth and possibiliTy of their hardware. I am wondering if someone can point me to more documented non anecdotal accounts of bricked macs due to UEFI installs of operating systems. My 2011 MBP runs multiple versions of OSX, Windows 10 UEFI, Linux Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse, FreeBSD, Haiku Android etc. I have never had a problem. My Mac Pro 5,1 runs Windows UEFI on an NVME drive and i have not had any issues ( other than the fact that it’s a bitch to get it to install > it was cloned from a generic installation and boot files manually created from the install usb. On the Mac Pro I use the OG version of rEFInd (I have dabbled with plus). On the Macbook Pro I create small hfs+ partitions and trick the system to boot by blessing and renaming efi executables as boot.efi so I can use the built in boot picker. So what I am asking is an even more detailed explanation of the danger- I want the white papers on the why. It’s not that I don’t believe it. I just am fascinated by it and considering my own avoidance, whether by luck or not of these issues makes me even more intrigued. Insert end of diatribe

 

[dommng]

Guys, take care of the bootrom, most important make a backup of it.

I made a tool for this. It makes some basic checks of the bootrom health, too.

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Nvme booting in Win needs Uefi mode but you will need OpenCore or RefindPlus for protecting the bootrom due false written certificates. Also you might get a bootscreen with it.

dont even run the Windows installer thumb drive without protection or you get those certs what will need certain help to get ridd of (without a flashing back a bootrom backup).

If I boot into the windows installer with martin lo's OC on a usb, and then remove the usb so that windwos can isntall (partitioning errors ocurre when I have any other drives plugged in aside form the disk I want to write to and the installer disk) am I making a mistake?

Does the OC drive need to be plugged in the entire time?

If it is a mistake, and I've already installed my windows (windows 11 in this case) is there something I need to do to remedy the situation? Or is everything gonna be ok now that it's already passed?

 

[dommng]

Yes. Garbage collection failure overtime have noting to do with booting other OS. SecureBoot just exacerbate the issue and people look at it like as it was the main culprit when it's really a coadjutant.

All Mac Pros early-2009 to mid-2012 will fail/brick because of it, it's a design that fails over time and no mitigations were employed by Apple like they did with late-2013 and 2019 Mac Pros.

When this happens what is the approach I can take to remedy the situation and unbrick my 5,1?

 

[Macschrauber]

when there are certificates detected you can flash back an old rom backup

if you have none you may ask @tsialex for a firmware reconstruction service, he is the one here to do the perfect job.

 

[dommng]

when there are certificates detected you can flash back an old rom backup

if you have none you may ask @tsialex for a firmware reconstruction service, he is the one here to do the perfect job.

do you know the answer to my other question? :

If I boot into the windows installer with martin lo's OC on a usb, and then remove the usb so that windwos can isntall (partitioning errors ocurre when I have any other drives plugged in aside form the disk I want to write to and the installer disk) am I making a mistake?

Does the OC drive need to be plugged in the entire time?

If it is a mistake, and I've already installed my windows (windows 11 in this case) is there something I need to do to remedy the situation? Or is everything gonna be ok now that it's already passed?

 

[jrstrong69]

if the dumper has not reported certificates you have at least a good rom file to flash back if you get certificates.

Check regulary if you use Uefi Windows.

We are in circles. Check RefindPlus or OpenCore as the boot loader to go.

RefindPlus can load csm/legacy/bios windows and chainload OpenCore for protected Uefi Windows booting
OpenCore can load protected Uefi Windows and chainload rEFInd or Refindplus for csm/legacy/bios windows.

both of them can provide a bootscreen if your GPU has a valid GOP bios.

Mac Pro 1.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, MBP31, MBA31, MBA61, iPhone SE, iPad 8, loads of iPods, Powerbooks, MacBooks, PPCs, 68Ks and other silly Apple junk

No 'Wunderputer!' Apple Performa 640CD running MacOS 8.6 AND Win98 on a Daystar 586dx4/125mhz card CONCURENTLY! I also got PDS 601/100 Card for it, but I never got MacOS X running stably on it! Not until 10.2.8 on a B/W 604, then I went to Windoze for 10+ yrs, before coming Bac to Mac with a 2012 MBP 16g/1tb ssd up to Catilina, until my 2009 MacPro Dual 5680W 3.33mhz Xeons is 'booting' Monterey 12.6.6 from a 1tb WD Black nVme PCI drive!