Catalina on MP 3,1

[txuss32]

Hoping someone can help me out. Tried running Catalina patcher (Dosdude) but when getting to install Post install patches get a warning message saying “there’s no valid copy of Catalina on the drive”.... did follow all steps - and re-tried - numerous times, same outcome.
Currently running Mojave on MP 3,1.

 

[X-Housed]

Have you flashed your MP for full APFS support?

 

[txuss32]

Please forgive my ignorance but how do I got about doing that? I’m not that tech savvy.

I did, however, create a partition of my main SSD Drive and formatted it as APFS using disk utility to use for this install. Could that be the problem? Just didn’t want to erase my main SSD Drive in case something like this would happen..

 

[X-Housed]

From Dosdude:

"APFS BootROM Support: If you have a machine that supports High Sierra natively, you MUST ensure you have the latest version of the system's BootROM installed. If you have NOT previously installed High Sierra, you can download and install this package (if running OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later) to install the latest BootROM version (you MUST reboot after installing the package to apply the firmware update). When installing, ensure your system is plugged in to power, or the update will not be installed."

Had the same issue, download and apply the patch from the link above and install catalina, worked for my MP 3,1

 

[txuss32]

Awesome. Thank you! I will give that a try later today and report back.

Good to see another fellow MP 3,1 user =)

 

[txuss32]

UPDATE: I followed the instructions on the link above to get BootROM installed and still getting message that says " The Volume .... does not appear to contain a valid copy of macOS Catalina. Are you sure you want to apply patches to this volume?"..

So...stuck.

Again, this is what I've done to get Catalina on my MP 3,1 running Mojave via @dosdude1
- Created partition off of my main SSD drive to install Catalina (formatted to APFS and installed BootRom Install package onto it as well).
- Created (external) bootable drive using Dosdude1 Catalina package and instructions.
- When running the install all seems to go well until the "macOS Post Install" step. This is where I get the message above.

Any suggestions/feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[X-Housed]

Can you confirm that you have flashed your Mac with the APFS ROM Patcher?
Here is a Video about the process:

 

[txuss32]

Just followed the video and installed APFS ROM Patcher. Still having same issue..."not valid copy catalina on the volume selected"..

I checked and the volume (partition I created for this specifically) does show "content: Apple_APFS". My current boot drive shows "content: Apple_HFS".

 

[X-Housed]

Have you tried to reinstall Catalina after flashing the ROM? Previous installation won't work.

 

[txuss32]

Yeah and still stuck. This is - in order - the steps i've taken after Installing APFS Rom patcher as explained on the video you provided/referenced to above,

- Installed APFS ROM Patcher per video link provided
- Using disk utility erased and formatted partition to APFS.
- Booted machine using Catalina bootable disk (dosdude1) and re-installed catalina onto drive (mentioned on previous step).
- Proceeded to macOS Post Install patch - then get that message of ".. not valid copy of Catalina in Volume..".