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When you're in the boot loader, your drive says SFOTT and not Mac OSX Base System?

Is there something else that I'm supposed to do once I've created the key using the terminal?

I must be missing a step here...
 
I will personally PayPal $100 to the first person who uploads a screen cast of them using SFOTT to create an installer USB from start to finish.

I have mavericks on my 2009 mac pro and I copied it directly to the computer that I want to use. Hopefully that's not creating the issue.

The only option that's not working for me is the "replace dummy key"... it says "no sfott key found"... so I'm really not sure what the hell is going on there.

--Trav
 
I will personally PayPal $100 to the first person who uploads a screen cast of them using SFOTT to create an installer USB from start to finish.

I have mavericks on my 2009 mac pro and I copied it directly to the computer that I want to use. Hopefully that's not creating the issue.

The only option that's not working for me is the "replace dummy key"... it says "no sfott key found"... so I'm really not sure what the hell is going on there.

--Trav

Hello again,

How recent is your copy of SFOTT? I downloaded a copy of 1.3.9.7.

I did my install with a copy of Mavericks from my MacBook Air(!?!)

I dropped the Mavericks installer into Applications, and that was it really, apart from making sure that I'd chosen the USB key to install SFOTT onto.

================================================

Setup SFOTT so it knows what machine you've got. (Mac Pro 1,1 so it will patch your board id in properly)

Make sure that SFOTT knows where the Mavericks installer is (in Applications)

Make sure that SFOTT knows where your USB key is.

After that it's Option 4(?) Create/re-patch SFOTT key.

Don't bother with anything else.
 
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Any recommendations for a replacement video card? Probably looking for the least expensive that would yield decent performance under ARD, the new ATI's seem a bit overkill.

Dougyy. I installed Nvidia GTX660, and very happy with it. It cost 170 Euro. You can check benchmarks and compare with other here:

http://www.javimontero.com/blog/2014/01/instalando-nvidia-gtx660-en-macpro11/

It is in spanish, but the benchmarks numbers are self-explanatory.

Hope this helps.
Javi
 
Dougyy. I installed Nvidia GTX660, and very happy with it. It cost 170 Euro. You can check benchmarks and compare with other here:

http://www.javimontero.com/blog/2014/01/instalando-nvidia-gtx660-en-macpro11/

It is in spanish, but the benchmarks numbers are self-explanatory.

Hope this helps.
Javi

Hello Javi,

I ran your page through the google translator - which did a very good job.

Such a good job that I too have bought a GTX 660 and fitted it to my MP - it gives just the right balance of performance! :)

My wife blames you… :p

-Rob
 
Regarding the ARD problems: I've downgraded the admin software to 3.6.1 which has helped, but the performance is still bad.

Connection is via wired gigabit, interestingly a ping test gives an average round trip of .408. Booting the machine into SnowLeopard with everything else the same gives me .325.

Interestingly on another switch, again hardwired, a MacBookPro with Mavericks averages .449 while a MacMini on SnowLeopard is .216.

Is the problem Mavericks itself?

Dogyy, one more thing that I discovered some days ago is the performance impact of the slot position and lanes assigned to the video card. Do you have the GPU in slot number 1, correct?

More details here (again in spanish, sorry):
http://www.javimontero.com/blog/2014/02/como-exprimir-al-maximo-las-ranuras-pcie-del-macpro/

Javi

----------

Hello Javi,

I ran your page through the google translator - which did a very good job.

Such a good job that I too have bought a GTX 660 and fitted it to my MP - it gives just the right balance of performance! :)

My wife blames you… :p

-Rob

I am really happy that this helped you.

You can say your wife that with the new GPU you don't have to invest in the new MacPro until maybe 1 or 2 years :D:D:D:D:D

Javi
 
When I access the bootloader, what should the volume say that I'm clicking?

Right now I have Mac OSX Base System... I click that and I get grey... should I see an installer of some kind?

---Trav
 
When I access the bootloader, what should the volume say that I'm clicking?

Right now I have Mac OSX Base System... I click that and I get grey... should I see an installer of some kind?

---Trav

When I use SFOTT it renames the USB stick to 'SFOTT'.

When I reboot with USB stick in place whilst holding down the 'alt' key, I see any bootable volumes appear in the boot loader, and the USB key named SFOTT but also, it has the big black SFOTT logo with 64 and 32 on it.

When I click on it, the mouse and keyboard stop responding, and the screen remains light gray for a short time, before turning dark gray with the Mavericks installer displayed on it ready to begin installation.
 
Well I just wasted another night trying to make this work. SFOTT is a complete failure for me. I follow the steps to a T and when I boot from the volume, I get a grey screen and a crash.

I do the whole thing manually using rastafabi's method and I get a little further... I boot from the USB and get the apple to pop up before a kernel panic pops up and the whole thing quits.

I tried a method using chamelion which was a complete disaster.

Honestly, the feeling I have right now is horrible. I'm a grown ass man, and a former professional fighter and I want to cry... I feel physically weak.

If anyone can help me out there, I will hire and pay you. I will give you my board ID and whatever other info you need to make this work. I need to put this disaster behind me... I've wasted so much time that I feel sick.

Anyone.... please........... help...........................
 
Well I just wasted another night trying to make this work. SFOTT is a complete failure for me. I follow the steps to a T and when I boot from the volume, I get a grey screen and a crash.

I do the whole thing manually using rastafabi's method and I get a little further... I boot from the USB and get the apple to pop up before a kernel panic pops up and the whole thing quits.

I tried a method using chamelion which was a complete disaster.

Honestly, the feeling I have right now is horrible. I'm a grown ass man, and a former professional fighter and I want to cry... I feel physically weak.

If anyone can help me out there, I will hire and pay you. I will give you my board ID and whatever other info you need to make this work. I need to put this disaster behind me... I've wasted so much time that I feel sick.

Anyone.... please........... help...........................

I know how you feel. I couldn't create a bootable USB installer, either manually or with SFOTT, after many hours of driving myself nuts. I'm going to try again sometime, but in the meantime I got Mavericks running on my 1,1 by the method described briefly in this earlier post: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18631166/

Basically, as long as you have access to another, officially supported Mac, and some way to mount your intended boot drive on it (e.g., via Firewire target disk mode or temporarily putting it in an external enclosure or dock), you can just install Mavericks the normal way (which bypasses the need to edit any .plist files to fool the installer) and then manually replace the boot.efi file in the two locations.

Hope this helps.
 
Woooowwwwwwww.... so basically, I can install Mav onto any sata drive, drop the boot EFI in there, stick the sata in my 1,1, and I would theoretically be good to go????

Holy crap I'm all excited again! I just ordered a sata hard drive enclosure and I can't wait to make this work.

I like my chances a LOT better considering I'm bypassing the entire damn install drive process. This is going to be SWEEEEET!
 
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Woooowwwwwwww.... so basically, I can install Mav onto any sata drive, drop the boot EFI in there, stick the sata in my 1,1, and I would theoretically be good to go????

Holy crap I'm all excited again! I just ordered a sata hard drive enclosure and I can't wait to make this work.

I like my chances a LOT better considering I'm bypassing the entire damn install drive process. This is going to be SWEEEEET!

Yes, but note the big prerequisite -- you need (at least temporary) access to a newer Mac that officially supports Mavericks. You use that Mac to install Mavericks onto your intended boot drive and to replace the two boot.efi files. Then you just put the drive back in your 1,1 and you're in business.

If you can get the two Macs in the same room together, you don't need to bother with an external enclosure and you don't have to remove the boot drive from your 1,1 -- just use Firewire target disk mode to make the other supported Mac see it as an external drive.
 
If you have a 2009 Mac Pro, you should be able to take the drive out of your old Mac Pro and put it in your 2009. Alternatively if the two computers are close enough together you can use a firewire cable and target disk mode.

This is how I did it.

2009 & 2006 have different depths so drives poke out of one and aren't long enough in another but you can figure out.

The permissions on the Boot.efi file are tricky and you have to think/google a little but once done, easy as pie.

It is at that point you wonder why Apple didn't have boot file this way to begin with. I can slide it back in 2009 and works fine with modded boot file.
So all those campuses, all those employees, and nobody could do the work that one man did? Or is Tiamo literally smarter than anyone that works at Apple?

Try this, look for info on Airport Extreme. All of their articles are about old "N" model, for some reason those thousands of employees are too busy designing IOS 8 or iPad brochures or laying out restroom policies or whatever they do to update Airport support to include 802.ac models that are out now.

If it isn't an iPhone or iPad, it's a hobby and can wait.
 
It is at that point you wonder why Apple didn't have boot file this way to begin with. I can slide it back in 2009 and works fine with modded boot file.
So all those campuses, all those employees, and nobody could do the work that one man did? Or is Tiamo literally smarter than anyone that works at Apple?

I'd guess, that the problem for Apple is not a technical one, but one of liability and support.
The much bigger issue here is having an GPU with support for EFI32 & EFI64, because you don't know in which machine these cards will be dropped. You should know it best ;-)
So, my guess is, Apple didn't want this support hell.
 
So all those campuses, all those employees, and nobody could do the work that one man did? Or is Tiamo literally smarter than anyone that works at Apple?
I don't know if he wants it, but he deserves to be hired and well paid by Apple right away.
[edit]...but not as a way to eradicate his effort to allow Mavericks on the 1,1/2,1...
 
[OT] [but related] Question about thunks and drivers

it built a thunk between EFI64 and EFI32, forwarding EFI64 call from kernel to EFI32 firmware.

I know nothing about programming so I hope this isn't a stupid question, and apologies for being off-topic (but related, at least in my mind).

As I understand it, tiamo basically built a bridge (a "thunk"?) to allow 64-bit kernel to talk to 32-bit firmware.

Is similar magic possible with drivers? For example, I have a wonderful TASCAM Firewire mixer/sound interface/control surface (FW-1884) which can't be used with any OS after Lion because TASCAM refuses to release a 64-bit OS X driver for it (although they have done so for Windows). There are probably thousands of us around the world who are very upset about this. There is nothing else that can replace the FW-1884 except at many times the price. While we can still use it with SL or Lion if we boot into the 32-bit kernel, we are shut out from using the current versions of a lot of music production software, including Logic, MainStage, and GarageBand, because they require Mavericks.

If it is possible to write a "thunk" to allow the 32-bit TASCAM driver to run under Mavericks this would make a lot of people happy. I'm sure most of us would happily pay $50 or more for this. I've even thought of trying to crowd-source funding for this, if there's a programmer who could do it.

But first: (1) is it even possible (maybe without access to the source code because I don't think TASCAM has any interest in cooperating) and (2) how can I find someone to do it? Tiamo, are you interested?
 
Does it matter that my 2009 is a MacBook Pro?

Well, you can't swap your drive into your MacBook Pro, as a couple of people have just suggested -- but that's because you said it was a 2009 Mac Pro, not a MacBOOK Pro.

If it's a MacBook Pro all you need is a firewire cable to connect the two machines. Then restart your old Mac Pro (not MacBOOK Pro) while holding down the T key on its keyboard. You should see a floating firewire logo on the Mac Pro display and any drives in your Mac Pro will now appear as external firewire drives to the MacBook Pro. (This is known as target disk mode.)

Now just run the Mavericks installer from your MacBook Pro and when it asks you which disk to install to, choose the disk in your Mac Pro that you want to use as your boot drive.

When the installation is complete, leave the two machines connected and replace the two boot.efi files on the other disk (which should still be appearing as an external firewire disk).

Then you should be able to reboot your Mac Pro into Mavericks.
 
Looks like mzb posted as I was writing!

Does it matter that my 2009 is a MacBook Pro?

Can't hurt to give it a go!

Temporarily take out all the other HDs apart from the disk you want Mavericks on from your MP (just slide them out on their caddies) and start up the MP in target disk mode - hold down T the press the power key, when you see a firewire sign on the MP screen (use the 1900XT as the vid card) plug a firewire cable between the MP and the MBP, then boot the MBP. When it's all up and running, start up the installer for Mavericks and CAREFULLY choose the drive in MP.

Assuming some level of success, the MBP will reboot running Mavericks on the drive that's IN the MP - when you get access to OS proper, go to system preferences, and choose startup disk, and choose the disk INSIDE the MBP and reboot. When you reboot the MP's HD should still be mounted on the MBP as an external drive - navigate on that drive (the one in the MP in target disk mode) to the two places on the drive to swap the Tiamo boot.efi, do it. Shut down the MBP. Reboot the MP - cross fingers!

See how you get on?

I'll admit I've never done it that way, but the theory's sound
 
Does it matter that my 2009 is a MacBook Pro?

No, as you have bought an external SATA enclosure (USB or Firewire) you can just use that to connect the drive to your MacBook Pro.
The alternative which would achieve the same thing is a firewire cable to connect the two machines together.

You can then run the original Mavericks installer application and point it to install onto the drive in the external SATA enclosure.

After it has finished installing you can boot back into OS X on your MacBook Pro's internal drive and then swap over the boot.efi files on the drive in the external SATA enclosure.
 
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