MP 1,1-5,1 Help getting my 5,1 to update with OpenCore

[Beitie]

Hello everyone. I'd like to try to update my Mac Pro 5,1 with macOS from my current 10.14.6 Mojave to Monterey 12.7.4 by using Martin Lo's OpenCore package. My current issues are as follows:

1) I'm not able to get into any of the recovery portions of my OS. I currently have three macOS's on different hard drives in this machine. macOS Mojave on my Samsung NVME (main). Snow Leopard on a SATA SSD, and Catalina on a different SATA SSD (Catalina installed by following a thread from a few years ago, don't fully remember it all off hand, and hasn't been booted into in many years.) I'm also using a Logitech Windows keyboard, so I may be pressing the wrong keys?

2) What drive would you all suggest putting the OpenCore onto? I've heard that putting it on the NVME isn't the greatest idea. So the Snow Leopard or Catalina drive could be an option.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dayo]

I'm not able to get into the recovery. I'm using a Logitech Windows keyboard

Are you able to use your keyboard to do an nvRAM reset? If not, then the keyboard is not fully "Mac Compliant" and this may be why you cannot boot into recovery by pressing keys with this.

Try this Terminal command instead: sudo nvram "recovery-boot-mode=unused" && sudo reboot recovery.

What drive would you suggest putting OpenCore on?

It is typically better to use a disk that does not hold an operating system for OpenCore so that you can pull it out if you have issues and still be able to boot into Mac OS. I see that your data disks are HDD however and therefore better skipped as HDD is glacially slow.

So between the two you mentioned, I would go for the Snow Leopard one since your Catalina instance is likely a DosDude instance and can therefore serve as an avaliable relatively recent natively bootable Mac OS instance in case you ever need to disconnect OpenCore. It sitting on a SATA port makes it more of a banker.

EDIT: Run the command from Mojave as DosDude Catalina probably does not have recovery and Snow Leopard similarly will not as recovery appeared with 10.7 Lion IIRC.

 

[Beitie]

Oh, thanks much! I think you are correct on my keyboard issue. I seem to be able to NVRAM reset once, but then it auto boots into Snow Leopard, and that's what confuses me.

The disk drive info is also very helpful. Though I think I'll go with the one that currently has Catalina on it then, because I have no desire to use Catalina OS, and I can erase that drive fully with no worries. It's also in one of my drive sleds vs the Snow Leopard that is mounted under my optical drive.

 

[haralds]

I would keep a minimal Mojave installation on one of your drives for recovery.

 

[Dayo]

I seem to be able to NVRAM reset once, but then it auto boots into Snow Leopard, mounted under my optical drive.

The Optical Disk Drive ports take priority when a default boot option is not set, such as after an nvRAM reset. IOW, this is the expected behaviour after an nvRAM reset (boot options cleared) with a bootable volume on one of the ports. For this reason, having a default Mac OS volume on an ODD port is a good way to make sure you can get back in if things go funky and putting OpenCore there is a great way to make sure it is selected after an nvRAM reset.

I suppose I should have said that you need to try a so called "Deep Reset" where you keeping holding the keys down and hear the chime repeating. With a fully compliant keyboard, it will chime again and again until you let go.

 

[Beitie]

Okay, I will reformat the Catalina disk, and put a bare bones version of Mojave on it. Then I'll use that drive for the OpenCore as well. I do prefer the main OS to be on my NVME drive.

 

[Dayo]

You can do that but it doesn't make much sense really and you might as well leave Catalina alone.

The idea of the bare bones install is so that you can boot it if you need to bypass OpenCore. Can't really serve that purpose when OpenCore is on the same disk.

In reality, you don't need another Mojave install as you already have one that will not coexist with OpenCore on the same disk, you have bootable Catalina and Snow Leopard. No harm if you are hellbent on this though.

Good luck!

 

[Beitie]

So far it seems that OpenCore is properly installed. When starting the Mac Pro I get the OpenCore boot picker. When I select my Mac Pro NVME (with my main Mojave) it goes to a black screen with the Apple logo, but it just stays there and doesn't seem to boot into it.

 

[Beitie]

Hmmm... Okay, I can get into the Mojave that is installed on my SATA SSD, but I cannot get into the Mojave installed on my NVME.

 

[tsialex]

Hmmm... Okay, I can get into the Mojave that is installed on my SATA SSD, but I cannot get into the Mojave installed on my NVME.

Are you sure that you already have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0? Double check it booting native without OC, you could have an earlier version and OC is lying to you (is very common to have OC spoofing the System Firmware Version).

The NVMe blade is one that is tested and confirmed working with a Mac Pro? Not all Samsung blades are compatible.

 

[Beitie]

Yep, I'm on BootROM 144.0.0.0.0, and I have been booting from this NVMe since 2021. Today is my first exploration into OC.

I could try removing the drive with OC, and see if it boots from the NVMe again?

 

[Beitie]

So today I had time to revisit this. I pulled out the OpenCore SATA SSD, and booted with the NVMe being the only physical hard drive in the machine. So I can confirm that I'm on the proper 144.0.0.0.0 Boot ROM. I'm also sharing the about this Mac screen incase it helps solve any more questions about the system. The GPU is a Sapphire RX 580 that is Mac Flashed (I did this back in 2020), but it does have the dual BIOS so I can switch to an un-flashed version as well.