MP 1,1-5,1 Catch-22?? Mac Pro 3,1 corrupt disk problem

[LookToWindward]

Hi,

It seems that support for APFS is not supported by El Capitan 10.11.6 and was introduced in Sierra 10.12.4. It also seems that I cannot officially update my MacPro 3,1 past El Capitan.

I have a OC enabled version of Monterey on a separate APFS HDD.
I have a OC enabled version of Sonoma on another APFS HDD which has a corrupt OC EFI partition.

If I try to boot from any OC enabled drive with the corrupt drive installed, it freezes as soon as the OC drive is selected, meaning that I can't boot Monterey (with APFS support). It boots ok if the drive is not installed.

I can boot El Capitan with the corrupt drive installed but MountEFI won't work because it's APFS!

Catch-22?

Can anyone think of a way (short of formatting) to save this drive?

All the Best
Dave

 

[sfalatko]

Well can you just nuke the drive - reformat it HFS from El Capitan and start again?

 

[LookToWindward]

Well can you just nuke the drive - reformat it HFS from El Capitan and start again?

Yes, that's the nuclear option!

 

[Dayo]

Terminal is your friend.

Run the command below in El Capitan to list the available disks
While APFS might not be recognised, the ESP should be

$ diskutil list

Look for the suspect ESP; which should have a Disk ID with a "disk#s1" format
Once identified, mount it (example below assumes the ID is disk0s1)

$ sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1 && open /volumes/efi

Once mounted, it would be displayed in the Finder as "EFI"
Disable the bad OC setup by deleting the "Boot" and "OC" folders in the Finder
Copy in the "Boot" and "OC" folders from the good OC setup you prepared beforehand and go from there

 

[LookToWindward]

I was wrong about MountEFI, it does "see" APFS drives under El Capitan. APFS drives only show when you switch to full display. I followed the OCLP un-install instructions and deleted the EFI/OC and System folders (e.g. trashed and empty trash) and now I can boot Monterey with that drive installed.

However, having the drives doesn't mount under Monterey after doing this, any ideas?

 

[LookToWindward]

Ahhh, I think you have answered my question, I need to copy in from another OC disk.

 

[LookToWindward]

After removing the EFI/OC and System folders, the disk didn't mount under Monterey, so I was going to try to copy the folders but non MountEFI no will no longer work on that drive.....

What to do now? It's looking like the nuclear option.....

 

[LookToWindward]

Weirdly, the drive in question is called "TeethingProblem", it's certainly feels like pulling teeth trying to access it! lol

 

[LookToWindward]

Ok, I got the EFIs of both drives open, I copied from the Monterey EFI to the Sonoma EFI. I then reset PRAM and booted with all 3 drives installed, El Cap, Monterey and Sonoma, now I'm back to the freezing as soon as any OC is accessed. This really is a nightmare, why oh why did I update to 1.3.0? Probably because it kept being pushed at me.....

 

[LookToWindward]

BTW, I never want to boot from this drive again without formatting it, I just want one folder from it. It's getting to the point when I might just give up and format the drive. I'm sure the data is all there it's just the OC/EFI bit that's killing it. I still don't understand why just having that drive installed causes it to freeze? I don't even access it!

 

[Dayo]

Ahhh, I think you have answered my question, I need to copy in from another OC disk.

Well, when I gave the answer, I didn't realise you were trying to run two active ESP's at the same time. It appears you have set OpenCore up via the OCLP on one disk with Monterey and then set another one up on another disk with Sonoma again via the OCLP.

Two active OpenCore ESPs is a bad idea in the best of cases and a total disaster waiting to happen with OCLP setups given that the OCLP stores misc crud in your nvRAM and has a crazy versioning setup where you shouldn't use a "too new" release for some versions of Mac OS. I'll wager that the recent "Sonoma-Only" OCLP instance is conflicting with your "Monterey-Also" OCLP instance ... which might actually even be a "Really-for-Ventura" OCLP instance.

BTW, you don't need the OCLP to run Monterey on a cMP (including MP31 ... with suitable tweaks) as long as you have a suitable GPU (which should be considered a minimum hardware requirement). A standard RX580 (not weird ones like the "Nitro") is a suitable GPU.

I'll call it a lost cause and nuke the Sonoma disk ... especially the OCLP instance there and do a Deep NVRAM reset. As an aside, you probably want to have DosDude Catalina available for managing running unsupported Mac OS on the MP31.

 

[LookToWindward]

Well, when I gave the answer, I didn't realise you were trying to run two active ESP's at the same time. It appears you have set OpenCore up via the OCLP on one disk with Monterey and then set another one up on another disk with Sonoma again via the OCLP.

Two active OpenCore ESPs is a bad idea in the best of cases and a total disaster waiting to happen with OCLP setups given that the OCLP stores misc crud in your nvRAM and has a crazy versioning setup where you shouldn't use a "too new" release for some versions of Mac OS. I'll wager that the recent "Sonoma-Only" OCLP instance is conflicting with your "Monterey-Also" OCLP instance ... which might actually even be a "Really-for-Ventura" OCLP instance.

BTW, you don't need the OCLP to run Monterey on a cMP (including MP31 ... with suitable tweaks) as long as you have a suitable GPU (which should be considered a minimum hardware requirement). A standard RX580 (not weird ones like the "Nitro") is a suitable GPU.

I'll call it a lost cause and nuke the Sonoma disk ... especially the OCLP instance there and do a Deep NVRAM reset. As an aside, you probably want to have DosDude Catalina available for managing running unsupported Mac OS on the MP31.

Yes, you can't install Sonoma from El Capitan, so I made an intermediate Monterey and used this to install Sonoma. I didn't realise it was bad juju to have > 1 OCLP installed, if I had I could have taken the Monterey drive out or re-formatted it.

Yes, lesson learned, time to nuke the drive.

I asked on here about the best RX580 and someone said that the Nitro version was the way to go so I have one of those coming, hopefully this will work?

 

[sfalatko]

Yes, you can't install Sonoma from El Capitan, so I made an intermediate Monterey and used this to install Sonoma. I didn't realise it was bad juju to have > 1 OCLP installed, if I had I could have taken the Monterey drive out or re-formatted it.

Yes, lesson learned, time to nuke the drive.

I asked on here about the best RX580 and someone said that the Nitro version was the way to go so I have one of those coming, hopefully this will work?

The Apple recommended version is the Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580. The Nitro version is over two slots wide so will preclude you from using your #2 PCIe slot. If I recall it also can demand more power than the cMP can provide so you might need the Pixlas mod. Take a look at the GPU thread -

GPU Compatibility List for cMP

Content: 1. Summary 2. Information on common GPUs that can be used in cMP 3. GPU power consumption 4. Color compatibility 5. Flashing nuances 6. What to choose? 7. Useful links. 1. Summary 1.1. There are 50+ GPU types that are compatible with cMP (classic MacPro = Mac Pro 1.1-5.1/...

forums.macrumors.com

And search for RX 580 Nitro

 

[LookToWindward]

I'll call it a lost cause and nuke the Sonoma disk ... especially the OCLP instance there and do a Deep NVRAM reset. As an aside, you probably want to have DosDude Catalina available for managing running unsupported Mac OS on the MP31.

What is a Deep Reset? I've reset the "PRAM", Command+Option+P+R

 

[LookToWindward]

The Apple recommended version is the Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580. The Nitro version is over two slots wide so will preclude you from using your #2 PCIe slot. If I recall it also can demand more power than the cMP can provide so you might need the Pixlas mod. Take a look at the GPU thread -

GPU Compatibility List for cMP

Content: 1. Summary 2. Information on common GPUs that can be used in cMP 3. GPU power consumption 4. Color compatibility 5. Flashing nuances 6. What to choose? 7. Useful links. 1. Summary 1.1. There are 50+ GPU types that are compatible with cMP (classic MacPro = Mac Pro 1.1-5.1/...

forums.macrumors.com

And search for RX 580 Nitro

I'll have a look when it arrives. About the 2 slot thing, at the moment I have 2 x 8800 GT's giving 4 monitor output, the RX 580 supports 4 monitors, so I'm no worse off. One thing, can I put the RX 580 in slot #2 or must it go in slot #1?

 

[Dayo]

You can't install Sonoma from El Capitan, so I made an intermediate Monterey and used this to install Sonoma.

Not sure how come Monterey can be installed from El Capitan but not Sonoma.
I thought installation was by creating an install USB and running this ... that is, independent of any specific Mac OS version and that whatever steps were used to install Monterey should apply to Sonoma but I might be wrong

I didn't realise it was bad juju to have > 1 OCLP installed

The issue is not about having one than one OCLP instance per se, but in having more than one OpenCore ESP regardless of whether created via the OCLP of not. So, you can have 100 Mac OS instances set up to run via OpenCore without issue as long as they are run from one ESP.

I suppose the version info and stuff stored in the nvRAM by the OCLP could result in it behaving funky. Not sure, but as said, Monterey does not need OCLP in the first place and OCLP use should be limited to Ventura/Newer.

You do need the OCLP if running a legacy GPU that is not supported on Monterey however.

I run Tiger to Monterey on my MP31 without OCLP.
I could use the OCLP for Ventura and/or Sonoma but all will be in one ESP.
The setup is explained here by @JedNZ: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/32392419

Yes, lesson learned, time to nuke the drive.

Main thing is to nuke OpenCore in the ESP of the drive and leave the Monterey one in place
You can adapt the answer I gave you earlier to do this via the Ternimal.
You should also be able to mount the drive from the Terminal in Monterey.
Worst case, you should be able to access the disk using UEFI shell from OpenCore and move the files/folders you need to another disk

I asked on here about the best RX580 and someone said that the Nitro version was the way to go so I have one of those coming, hopefully this will work?

You were told the Sapphire variant of the RX580 was a good one to go for. I suppose it did not explictily say to avoid the Sapphire Nitro which has issues in terms of size and power draw as others have advised.

While the size might not be of concern, a cMP is unlikely to be able to provide the power needed by the Nitro without implementing the Pixlas Mod as was advised but almost all documentation on this is for MP51. Some have implemented the mod on MP31 but details are sparse. The EVGA thingy might help but chances are slim.

What is a Deep Reset?

The "PRAM" is long obsolete and does not exist on cMP which have an "NVRAM" instead. This is also reset by pressing Command+Option+P+R. The so called "Deep Reset" involves holding the keys down until you hear the chime four/five times.

 

[LookToWindward]

Hi,

My mistake on the type of RX 580, I can sell it again if it doesn't work well in my system and get something else. I paid 100 euros for it, I'm sure I could sell that locally here in Spain for about the same or more, so nothing lost.....

When I tried to make a Sonoma OCLP USB from El Capitan it gave a warning about being incompatible, so I thought that meant I should install Big Sur or Monterey. I think I decided to give Monterey a try and then flushed with confidence decided to go further with Sonoma. I didn't really expect it to work so well or at all!