MP 1,1-5,1 I need help with installing a clean Mojave

[Farravi]

I have unsuccessfully attempted to install OpenCore onto my cMP 5,1 running Mojave using the several methods listed on CDF's thread 'Opencore on the Mac Pro'.

As a result i have made a butchers out of it and I feel my entire desktop has been compromised.

I would like to find out the best method how to reinstal a clean copy of Mojave and starting from there. I did make a clone copy of my Mojave drive (using the trial version of CCC thanks to Dayo's advise) however, it was a recent clone installed onto a USB stick and is pointless to reinstall.

I did try to reinstall Mojave via the Mac Recovery but it was not a clean install.

Can someone please advise?

I had upgraded my bootrom to 144.0.0.0.0 to run Mojave however, having inspected the system information whilst writing this, it seems it has somehow jumped to 9999.9.9.9.9

Currently i have 2 SATA's (2 TB each), Storage A (empty) and Storage B - Time machine.
I also have a 512GB SSD Macintosh HD connected via PCI and this is where the Mojave lives

 

[kirreip]

Go step by step:

Do you have the Mojave installer? If not, you'll have to download it from Mac AppStore.
Then - if I was you - I'd follow this tutorial to get a bootable macOS Mojave USB installer drive. (There are many ways to do this but this is the way I would do it):

How to create a macOS Mojave USB installer the easy way [Video] - 9to5Mac

How to quickly create a macOS Mojave USB installer without using Terminal commands.

9to5mac.com

Do you know where your OC installation is? On which EFI partition of which disk is the OC folder?

 

[paalb]

When you have a working USB installer you have to use Disk Utility and choose «Erase» to get an empty disk or partition to install on. Before you do that check that you have backup of all the files that is not system files, you will have to copy them back from backup.

 

[Farravi]

Go step by step:

Do you have the Mojave installer?

Ive got one ready on USB

Do you know where your OC installation is? On which EFI partition of which disk is the OC folder?

No idea what disk it's sitting on.

 

[kirreip]

You should find out. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense that you reinstall Mojave now and there is still OC somewhere on another hard drive on the EFI partition.

Because if you then have your fresh Mojave installation and everything as it should be and you want to install OC again, the problems may start if your old, non-functioning OC installation is still somewhere. You want to start clean.

Do you still have Dayos Helper Apps installed?

 

[Farravi]

I agree, it'll land me back in this mess.

I don't know on what drive I installed the OC as I tried the various methods on CDF'S thread and Dayo's method was the final one that I attempted before giving up on it.

I have the latest iteration of MyBootMgr (075D)installed.

 

[kirreip]

Okay: Now use the applicatoin called "TweakESP" which allows you to mount/unmount EFI System Partitions (which are otherwise invisible). Since you have 3 drives in your Mac, you probably have more than one EFI System Partition. Mount the EFI System Partition for every possible drive (TweakESP will show them when you run the application).

You can only mount one EFI System Partition at a time. So you mount the first one and look if there is an "OC" folder in it. If yes, please write down in which drive/partition the OC folder was found. Then unmount the first EFI System Partition and mount the next one until you have checked all EFI System Partitions (probably 3?).

When you are done, come back and let me know if and where you found an OC folder.

 

[Farravi]

When you are done, come back and let me know if and where you found an OC folder.

I found a copy of the OS folder in Disk4s1 Storage A and all the other EFI folders were either empty and one had  > Firmware > Extensions > Firmware.scap. All folders mentioned above are now empty.

BTW i had trouble installing Mojave again yesterday. I booted into recovery and used Disk utility to 'erase' Macintosh HD where the native copy of my OS *Mojave* resides and then tried installing it using the 'Install Mac OS' but it kept stalling and throwing an error. Can't seem to recall what it was.

Is there a possibility that the Install macOS Mojave is sitting on my USB (Mac OS journaled) and the target hard drive Macintosh HD is APFS is causing the issue?

On a different note, how do i get into the Mac Recovery mode? It's a hit a miss for me and i usually have to try the following key combinations using a wireless  keyboard :

Command + R
Option + Cmnd + R
Option + Shift + Cmnd + R

 

[Farravi]

So I went again into Mac recovery holding down the Command + R (connected the keyboard to the desktop via lightening cable) key combination and erased the volume Macintosh HD and formatted as AFPS.

I then went into MacOS utilities and clicked on 'Reinstall macOS' but it threw an error shortly after a few minutes into the installation process. (Image attached)

I have also attached a photo of Disk utility currently showing all the volumes.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

View attachment 1916588 So I went again into Mac recovery holding down the Command + R (connected the keyboard to the desktop via lightening cable) key combination and erased the volume Macintosh HD and formatted as AFPS.

I then went into MacOS utilities and clicked on 'Reinstall macOS' but it threw an error shortly after a few minutes into the installation process. (Image attached)

I have also attached a photo of Disk utility currently showing all the volumes.

Why format the drive? Let the install do it.

 

[Farravi]

Why format the drive? Let the install do it.

I thought i had to erase it as I have not managed to get a clean install of Mojave previously.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I thought i had to erase it as I have not managed to get a clean install of Mojave previously.

You have to erase it, in my mind, but you do not have to format it for the install to carry on. The drive is still shown, even unformatted, and install will use it, to my knowledge. Let the install handle it from there. Erase, install.

 

[Farravi]

When using the 'erase' option via the mac OS recovery, it gives you the option to format it to AFPS or Mac OS journaled. I haven't done anything outside these parameters.

 

[Soba]

When using the 'erase' option via the mac OS recovery, it gives you the option to format it to AFPS or Mac OS journaled. I haven't done anything outside these parameters.

In your situation (with your system as you say in a totally unknown state), I recommend not using the Recovery function. You should create a bootable macOS Mojave USB installer and then access the Startup Manager by holding the Option key after hearing the startup chime.

Apple has a support article explaining how to do this:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system.

support.apple.com

I also recommend that you write zeros to a portion of your "Macintosh HD" disk to resolve the problems you're seeing with erasing and partitioning the disk. (I edited this sentence for clarity, after posting.)

I also suggest removing all drives from your Mac except the "Macintosh HD" disk while you perform the install. You can reinstall the other drives after you're confident the system is working as intended.

Do the following:

1) Boot the macOS Mojave installer USB drive that you created, then open Disk Utility.

2) Select the Macintosh HD disk (or whichever disk you want to install to) and note the disk identifier that's displayed in the lower right side of the window. Example: In your screenshot above, the "Apple disk image Media" disk that you selected is shown as "Device: disk2." You should note the identifier for your Macintosh HD disk.

3) Click the "Unmount" button in the Disk Utility toolbar to unmount Macintosh HD. If there is no "Unmount" button and instead you see "Mount," do not click the button; this means the disk is already unmounted and you can go to step 4.

4) Close Disk Utility, then launch Terminal from the Utilities menu.

5) Enter the following, but replace "diskX" with the identifier you noted from step 2:

diskutil zerodisk diskX

Caution: This command destroys data. You must specify the correct disk in the Terminal command or you will erase the wrong disk. Disk identifiers can (and often do) change every time you reboot your system, so always check the identifier before running the command. If you have not removed all other disks from the system, consider shutting down to remove them and then restart this procedure from the beginning.

6) After the zerodisk command has run to about 2–3%, press ctrl+C to stop it. There is no need to write zeros across the entire disk (and doing so unnecessarily wears down SSDs).

7) Close Terminal, then reopen Disk Utility and erase the zeroed disk as you described in your post above. Format the disk as APFS. (I don't see anything wrong with what you were doing, by the way; the installer needs a formatted disk to install to.)

8) Close Disk Utility and begin the Mojave install.

Let us know how this goes. The install should complete now, especially if there's only one drive in the system.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

In your situation (with your system as you say in totally unknown state), I recommend not using the Recovery function. You should create a bootable macOS Mojave USB installer and then access the Startup Manager by holding the Option key after hearing the startup chime.

Apple has a support article explaining how to do this:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system.

support.apple.com

Further, I recommend you write zeros to your "Macintosh HD" disk to ensure the disk is in a totally clean state.

I also suggest removing all drives from your Mac except the "Macintosh HD" disk while you perform the install. You can reinstall the other drives after you're confident the system is working as intended.

Do the following:

1) Boot the macOS Mojave installer USB drive that you created, then open Disk Utility.

2) Select the Macintosh HD disk (or whichever disk you want to install to) and note the disk identifier that's displayed in the lower right side of the window. Example: In your screenshot above, the "Apple disk image Media" disk that you selected is shown as "Device: disk2." You should note the identifier for your Macintosh HD disk.

3) Click the "Unmount" button in the Disk Utility toolbar to unmount Macintosh HD. If there is no "Unmount" button and instead you see "Mount," do not click the button; this means the disk is already unmounted and you can go to step 4.

4) Close Disk Utility, then launch Terminal from the Utilities menu.

5) Enter the following, but replace "diskX" with the identifier you noted from step 2:

diskutil zerodisk diskX

Caution: This command destroys data. You must specify the correct disk in the Terminal command or you will erase the wrong disk. Disk identifiers can (and often do) change every time you reboot your system, so always check the identifier before running the command. If you have not removed all other disks from the system, consider shutting down to remove them and then restart this procedure from the beginning.

6) After the zerodisk command has run to about 2–3%, press ctrl+C to stop it. There is no need to write zeros across the entire disk (and doing so unnecessarily wears down SSDs).

7) Close Terminal, then reopen Disk utility and erase the zeroed disk as you described in your post above. Format the disk as APFS. (I don't see anything wrong with what you were doing, by the way; the installer needs a formatted disk to install to.)

8) Close Disk Utility and begin the Mojave install.

Let us know how this goes. The install should complete now, especially if there's only one drive in the system.

Zero-fill is largely overkill. If the drive is erased, it should install the OS fine. It's only been a PC drive that had anything that survived being erased. Then I had to low level it and zero-fill it. It only happened once, and I wasn't able to find out what infected it, but it was hard to get rid of. Post format, it faked a clean drive pretty well, until...

 

[Soba]

Zero-fill is largely overkill. If the drive is erased, it should install the OS fine. It's only been a PC drive that had anything that survived being erased. Then I had to low level it and zero-fill it. It only happened once, and I wasn't able to find out what infected it, but it was hard to get rid of. Post format, it faked a clean drive pretty well, until...

There are numerous instances where a drive needs to be zeroed to kill the partition table, the EFI partition, and any remaining cruft, especially in an OpenCore system or other situations where the drive has had any fancy footwork done on it. Zeroing the beginning of the drive (again, not the entire drive) is good practice in various situations—especially this one where the OP pointed out that a standard erase didn't work and the OS won't install.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

There are numerous instances where a drive needs to be zeroed to kill the partition table, the EFI partition, and any remaining cruft, especially in an OpenCore system or other situations where the drive has had any fancy footwork done on it. Zeroing the beginning of the drive (again, not the entire drive) is good practice in various situations—especially this one where the OP pointed out that a standard erase didn't work and the OS won't install.

Fine. I haven't ever had to do that, on a mac drive. It's news to me that I should have been doing it more. Zero-fill is a waste of time, unless as you point out, you do the first x-percentage of the drive. Zero-filling *every drive*, to me seems excessive. Maybe I've been lucky, and that is why I recommended against 'a zero-fill', with no qualifications or limits.

 

[Farravi]

Hello Soba, thank you for taking out the time to help me. My response to your comments below.

In your situation (with your system as you say in a totally unknown state), I recommend not using the Recovery function. You should create a bootable macOS Mojave USB installer and then access the Startup Manager by holding the Option key after hearing the startup chime.

As someone rightly pointed out, I do not have a pre-boot configuation as i am not using a standard  GPU instead using a metal compatible gpu (vega 56 with Pixlex mod)and since there is no bootpicker, the Option/Alt button is rendered useless in my particular setup.

1) Boot the macOS Mojave installer USB drive that you created, then open Disk Utility.

And there lies the problem. I cannot boot into the macOS Mojave Installer USB drive. I just get a black screen no matter how long i wait.

My Macintosh HD is sitting on a nVME PCI card, which i have attempted to remove just after i restart the system, both the 2TB SATA SSD's have been removed and the only other items connected is the Vega 56 GPU and the USB 3.0 port and obviously the Install macOS Mojave USB in order to force it to boot from the USB but still getting black screen.

Can you also comment on the disk volumes, I think i have far too many EFI folders still, any idea what i should do with them?

 

[KeesMacPro]

the only other items connected is the Vega 56 GPU and the USB 3.0 port and obviously the Install macOS Mojave USB in order to force it to boot from the USB but still getting black screen.

If this means you plugged the installer into a PCIe card with USB ports (or a hub), this will not work.
The installer should be connected to one of the native Mac Pro USB ports (2xfront/3x rear).
After about 3 minutes the MP should boot.

 

[Farravi]

If this means you plugged the installer into a PCIe card with USB ports (or a hub), this will not work.
The installer should be connected to one of the native Mac Pro USB ports (2xfront/3x rear).
After about 3 minutes the MP should boot.

The Mojave installer is on a flash USB drive.

The macOS I'm currently using (Mojave) is sitting on the SSD nVME via PCIe.

 

[KeesMacPro]

the only other items connected is the Vega 56 GPU and the USB 3.0 port

The Mojave installer is on a flash USB drive.

Yes, but what are you referring to with a USB 3.0 port?
In other words, where is the installer plugged in?

 

[Farravi]

Apologies misunderstood what you were asking. The USB is connected at the front i.e. to the native USB ports.

 

[KeesMacPro]

The Mojave installer is on a flash USB drive.

The macOS I'm currently using (Mojave) is sitting on the SSD nVME via PCIe.

Supposing you have a good backup of your data I would:
- remove the NVMe blade, install an empty drive and connect the USB installer
- do a triple NVRAM reset
- boot from the installer
- install to the empty drive
- install the NVMe blade, boot from "empty" drive and erase the blade
- download installer, and install Mojave to the blade
- recover data with Migration Assistant from a backup

 

[Dayo]

This is a classic exampe of the XY Problem.

PROBLEM	SOLUTION
Problem X - The real problem. Never asked about	Solution X - Solves Problem X. Never reached.
Problem Y - Asked about in the hope of getting Solution Y	Solution Y - Solves Problem Y not Problem X, or is a poor way to solve Problem X, but poster believes this is the answer to Problem X.

In almost every conceivable case, reinstalling Mojave has nothing to do with installing OpenCore and you were told this at least three weeks ago but you are so convinced of this being how to solve whatever issues you have with OpenCore (which you have never actually outlined) that even when you managed to reinstall Mojave as per your OP, you concluded it was "not clean" and that the re-installation was not successful as the real issue presumably remained.

Also, while you say you have been unable to install OpenCore, your BootROM showing 9999.9.9.9.9 says you were booted via OpenCore.

You need to go back to the detailed steps you were given to follow weeks ago and if you have any issues in implementing, ask specifically about those and not immediately jump into trying this and that action you think is the answer.

One thing that was repeated to you several times was to remove OC and similar boot loaders and boot into your existing Mojave (which is almost certainly perfectly fine) but you never came back on that and immediately started off on your reinstallation quest. Previously was jumping to another Opencore installation method.

This was advice given more than two weeks ago:

There is no point reinstalling Mojave. It has nothing to do with anything going on and not sure what is getting messed up in the process. I mentioned calming down before. Don't just try this or that option/method at every road block. Take things step by step.

You need to get to the point where you are able to boot into Mojave natively. This is the most important basic step that needs to be in place first. Everything else comes after this.

This is from more than three weeks ago:

You have a mishmash of conflicting setups and need to calm down, get things back to a place where your Mac is booting into Mojave natively by removing OC (and now, RP as well) and then start over.

There is no need to get into a rush on this and you need to sort the basics out first. The failure to do this is why things have not worked out with your previous attempts by other methods and your attempts to keep trying just complicate things. Sort the basics out and go from there ... but only after sorting the basics.

In addition to the above, someone posted earlier in this thread that it doesn't make sense to try reinstalling Mojave based on what you explained but you still went ahead with the attempt regardless.

Until you actually ask for help with the real issue with implementing OpenCore you believe you have, Problem X, you will just be wasting your time, and that of others trying to help, as you keep chasing Solution Y instead of the needed Solution X.

 

[Farravi]

Hello Dayo,

Thank you for the comment above, be it that it was harsh, it is nonetheless true, for most parts.

background
I grew up using PC for most of my life and made the jump a number of years ago to OSx/MacOS and although principles are the same, the mechanics of the macOS are very different to how a PC operates and is taking me time to learn and understand my way around it and I must admit there is so much to learn, from experts like yourself and others here.

My primary reason to install OC is so that I can have dual operating systems (macOS and Windows 10 or whichever version that has been tested to work harmoniously). Secondary being, to upgrade my current OS from Mojave to Monterey / Big Sur which ever is recommended for my system.

As per my posts on this thread and your thread, i unsuccessfully attempted to install OC from the various methods and ended up having a mishmash of OC and after trying to install OC / refindplus via Mybootmgr, I decided to start from scratch.

Installing a clean version of mojave was the instinctive thing to do, at least what I thought and is what I would have done on a PC.

I will however, go back to your thread and once again attempt to follow every step and report back there on any obstacles.

Once again, I appreciate all the help I received on this forum from everyone.