MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 4,1 with a windows hard drive, cant get back to OS X!

[tsialex]

I'm currently trying to install El Capitan on a hdd using the working 5,1 with the gt120 installed. It's doing something I suddenly recognized from earlier in the process of troubleshooting. It shows the apple logo, starts to go through the progress bar, gets halfway through, goes to black screen and then nothing else after that. My computer monitor generally goes to sleep in 10 seconds if it doesn't detect a video signal, after halfway through the apple logo progress bar when the screen goes to black, my monitor acts as if it intermittently detects a video signal and never goes to sleep. My monitor is an ultrawide 2650x1080 resolution screen. Could this have something to do with the video suddenly going out? The initial apple logo progress screen fills the entire screen until it goes black. And finally after about 10 minutes of black screen, the mac pro goes to sleep with the fading in and out power led. When I wake it, still black screen but video signal detected like before.

Side note: Please bear with me if I make mistakes or misremember something. I've had a brain injury and a large portion of my short term memory is non-functional. I usually take notes to help me remember my progress in things, but didn't expect this to be such an adventure as I'm fairly sure I've done this process in the past successfully, but not positive. Anyway, it becomes difficult to remember what I've tried and haven't tried but sometimes when you guy ask a question it sparks a memory. I've started taking notes of what I've tried now though.

If I was doing this, I'd try with a more standard monitor, up to full HD and connected via DVI.

NVIDIA GT 120 was already old when Apple released it with MP4,1, back in 2009 - GT120 it's a 9500GT rebadged. Several ultra wide monitors don't work at all with a GT120, my son LG 28M58-P don't work with this ancient GPU.

 

[MacProM@ne]

So I decided to use another computer, Macbook Pro 2014 running catalina, to install OS X El Capitan on a ssd so that I could have a bootscreen to see what was happening and so that the graphics card/resolution wouldn't be an issue.

I wiped the ssd, format osx extended journaled, used createinstallmedia in terminal to put the installer on the ssd. Rebooted using option key and select the installer. It boots past the apple logo and into the recovery/install screen (i don't know what it's called. I select install a new copy of el capitan, click through options, it starts to install, completes the progress bar, reboots into another progress screen and gives me the error "Volume contains an OS X installation which may be damaged. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again." This is a boot loop, can't get past this screen. I re-downloaded the installer media from apple, although I don't know what version of el capitan it's giving me. That didn't make a difference. I also installed the ssd into an old 2009 macbook unibody and tried the installer from there. Same result. Tried it in the Mac Pro, and I still never get past that initial apple logo with progress bar that gets to halfway followed by eternal black screen.

I'm just trying to install vanilla el capitan on a supported mac. WTF! I downloaded the el cap installer from the apple support page here. Is there another source I can get 10.11.6? App store won't let me download it from any of my computers because it's "too old." Couldn't find anywhere else that wasn't sketchy to download it. It downloads as a .pkg from that apple support page that you have to run that then installs the "Install OS X El Capitan.app" into your applications folder. I couldn't find the straight .app or a .dmg anywhere.

Sorry for my ignorance. And thank you all for your help and patience so far.

 

[tsialex]

So I decided to use another computer, Macbook Pro 2014 running catalina, to install OS X El Capitan on a ssd so that I could have a bootscreen to see what was happening and so that the graphics card/resolution wouldn't be an issue.

I wiped the ssd, format osx extended journaled, used createinstallmedia in terminal to put the installer on the ssd. Rebooted using option key and select the installer. It boots past the apple logo and into the recovery/install screen (i don't know what it's called. I select install a new copy of el capitan, click through options, it starts to install, completes the progress bar, reboots into another progress screen and gives me the error "Volume contains an OS X installation which may be damaged. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again." This is a boot loop, can't get past this screen. I re-downloaded the installer media from apple, although I don't know what version of el capitan it's giving me. That didn't make a difference. I also installed the ssd into an old 2009 macbook unibody and tried the installer from there. Same result. Tried it in the Mac Pro, and I still never get past that initial apple logo with progress bar that gets to halfway followed by eternal black screen.

I'm just trying to install vanilla el capitan on a supported mac. WTF! I downloaded the el cap installer from the apple support page here. Is there another source I can get 10.11.6? App store won't let me download it from any of my computers because it's "too old." Couldn't find anywhere else that wasn't sketchy to download it. It downloads as a .pkg from that apple support page that you have to run that then installs the "Install OS X El Capitan.app" into your applications folder. I couldn't find the straight .app or a .dmg anywhere.

Sorry for my ignorance. And thank you all for your help and patience so far.

Did you go back the system clock date? You need to for old installers since signing certificates expired October last year.

Make a createinstallmedia USB key, use 8 to 16GB USB key, then boot from it with the system clock backtracked to 2016.

 

[MacProM@ne]

After a million different tries, i finally got el cap installed on the ssd. See at the bottom of the post for how I was successful for anybody in the future.

So with el cap installed on the ssd and inserted into sata slot 1 on the mac pro 4,1 I still get nothing. No sound, no video. Tried with multiple gt120's, multiple cpu trays. It just occurred to me that I don't know where the "4,1 firmware" resides. Is it on the cpu tray, or on the motherboard. That prob seems like a dumb question. But do I need the original cpu tray with the original processors installed? They were dual 2.something gHz 4 cores. My other 2 cpu trays run on 5,1 machines. One of them has a single 3.33 gHz, and the other has dual 3.46's. I had already purchased two 3.46 processors to go into the newest tray and have already removed those original 2.something gHz processors to install the 3.46's. I have one of the 3.46's installed already, but I'm waiting on the other in the mail. Do I need to revert? I forgot that the 5,1 firmware was required for the 3.46's, is it also required for the 3.33's?

 

[tsialex]

After a million different tries, i finally got el cap installed on the ssd. See at the bottom of the post for how I was successful for anybody in the future.

So with el cap installed on the ssd and inserted into sata slot 1 on the mac pro 4,1 I still get nothing. No sound, no video. Tried with multiple gt120's, multiple cpu trays. It just occurred to me that I don't know where the "4,1 firmware" resides. Is it on the cpu tray, or on the motherboard. That prob seems like a dumb question. But do I need the original cpu tray with the original processors installed? They were dual 2.something gHz 4 cores. My other 2 cpu trays run on 5,1 machines. One of them has a single 3.33 gHz, and the other has dual 3.46's. I had already purchased two 3.46 processors to go into the newest tray and have already removed those original 2.something gHz processors to install the 3.46's. I have one of the 3.46's installed already, but I'm waiting on the other in the mail. Do I need to revert? I forgot that the 5,1 firmware was required for the 3.46's, is it also required for the 3.33's?

The BootROM is stored on the backplane SPI flash memory, U8700.

CPU trays don't have any BootROM or EFI firmwares, the trays just have SMC firmwares and SMC firmwares are not upgradeable.

MP4,1 BootROM only support Nehalem Xeon processors, Gulftown/Westmere Xeons are not supported with the MP4,1 firmware and only will work after you cross flash your MP4,1 backplane to MP5,1 firmwares.

While you still have a MP4,1 BootROM, you need to use Nehalem Xeons. Your original ones should be Nehalem, but always verify.

A CPU tray with a Westmere Xeon will not work with a MP4,1 firmware, your Mac Pro will not boot.
[automerge]1595274823[/automerge]
Don't forget that a mid-2010 or mid-2012 CPU tray is not compatible with early-2009 Mac Pros, different SMC firmware and all fans will work at full RPM in case of a firmware mismatch between the CPU tray SMC and backplane SMC.

An early-2009 SMC is 1.39f5, while mid-2010/mid-2012 SMC firmware version is 1.39f11. These SMC firmware versions are not compatible.

 

[MacProM@ne]

How I was successful installing El Cap:
Boot into working OS, I used vanilla Catalina.
Go to system preferences > date and time > disable auto set time and date
Open terminal, type sudo date 010113002016
Confirm with password.
Open disk utility, erase and format a volume on a usb stick with 16gb storage, Mac OS X Extended Journaled with the name 'Untitled'
Then go back to terminal, and type in:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

Enter password, then confirm with a Y and press enter. Wait for Done.
Restart holding option, select the el cap installer volume, wait for the installer page and instead of proceeding to install, I opened terminal from utilities in menu bar. I typed date to see if the date/time had stuck, it hadn't. So i turned off wifi in menu bar, then reentered the date: date 010113002016
Then quit terminal, then proceeded with the install of el cap installing onto my ssd formatted as OS X Extended Journaled which was connected externally via usb 3.0 to sata3 cable.

Hope that helps someone.

Now on to reinstalling the original Nehalem processors back in the original dual tray.
Thank you tsialex

 

[MacProM@ne]

Ok, I'm booted into El Cap. Had to reinstall Nehalem's, then move the whole system into the living room and use the main TV so that i would be limited to 1080p, then it would finally boot! Now the problem is that I'm trying to use the firmware updater tool but for some reason the MacPro doesn't recognize any network connections, ethernet in either port or wifi. The firmware updater tool requires internet so it keeps giving me an error. Why wouldn't it recognize ethernet? I deleted the "Ethernet 1 & 2" and re-added them in the Network page of sys prefs, didn't make a difference. This is a known working ethernet connection. How else could I connect to the internet?

 

[tsialex]

Ok, I'm booted into El Cap. Had to reinstall Nehalem's, then move the whole system into the living room and use the main TV so that i would be limited to 1080p, then it would finally boot! Now the problem is that I'm trying to use the firmware updater tool but for some reason the MacPro doesn't recognize any network connections, ethernet in either port or wifi. The firmware updater tool requires internet so it keeps giving me an error. Why wouldn't it recognize ethernet? I deleted the "Ethernet 1 & 2" and re-added them in the Network page of sys prefs, didn't make a difference. This is a known working ethernet connection. How else could I connect to the internet?

Read the threads about MP4,1>5,1 cross flash, this is explained several times with a trick to get it working again - it's a problem with the MacEFIROM updater looking at superseded locations of the Apple firmware installer package, Apple changed it when the signing certificates expired and the packages needed to be resigned.

 

[MacProM@ne]

I was following those guides already. I have sip disabled, 5,1 firmware mounted on desktop. Then I try to open the Firmware updater and it says it requires an internet connection. I just can't fix the internet connection. I know this should be posted in that thread, but since I have you already, I'm hoping we can knock this out. I'll move it to that thread if you'd rather me.

 

[tsialex]

I was following those guides already. I have sip disabled, 5,1 firmware mounted on desktop. Then I try to open the Firmware updater and it says it requires an internet connection. I just can't fix the internet connection. I know this should be posted in that thread, but since I have you already, I'm hoping we can knock this out. I'll move it to that thread if you'd rather me.

Sorry, can't help you more since I did this for the last time at least 5 years ago, probably more, before the signing certificates expired for the first time - this is the second signing certificate expiration/change of packages.

Read the threads/ask for help there.

 

[MacProM@ne]

Ok thanks for your help this far! This was extremely helpful. I appreciate it.