Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

Status
The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
macosdon said:
Hi, is this the Aluminium MacBook 2008? Did you install APFS patch before installing Catalina since this model doesn't support APFS boot natively? Could you share the APFS patch you applied? Thank you!
Click to expand...

Yup it is MacBook 5,1 Unibody, patched ROM first, then installed Catalina
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
0403979 said:
You have to use the APFS ROM Patcher. Here’s an excerpt from the Mojave forum about it:

“APFS ROM Patcher:
Warning: This tool could irreversibly brick your EFI chip. Please exercise caution with machines that have multiple EEPROM definitions. Relevant information can be found here and here. The APFS ROM patcher can be found here. Use the password apfs to decrypt the ZIP.”

Hopefully this works for you. It should run without issue on the MB4,1 as it did with mine.
Click to expand...
Hi, Julian, I firstly installed 10.14.5 on an external USB hard disk attached to my MB 4.1. but it says the system is not supported when I try to install this APFS rom patch downloaded from the link you provided. Any ideas? Thank a lot again!
[doublepost=1562139213][/doublepost]
mnsiw said:
Yup it is MacBook 5,1 Unibody, patched ROM first, then installed Catalina
Click to expand...
What APFS rom did you apply? And what is the OS version of your notebook when installing this patch?
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
macosdon said:
Hi, Julian, I firstly installed 10.14.5 on an external USB hard disk attached to my MB 4.1. but it says the system is not supported when I try to install this APFS rom patch downloaded from the link you provided. Any ideas? Thank a lot again!
[doublepost=1562139213][/doublepost]
What APFS rom did you apply? And what is the OS version of your notebook when installing this patch?
Click to expand...

The one @0403979 mentioned in his post, by @dosdude1. It was on Mojave 10.14.5 HFS+
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
avz said:
Another logical question if it is possible to manually patch and install the standalone update(downloaded from the supported Mac I guess).
[doublepost=1562125397][/doublepost]

Suggesting what? A non-working OTA?
Click to expand...

During APFS Mojave the OTA updates worked and installed directly through "Software Update".

Only for HFS+ Mojave was required a package editing Distribution and then it worked too, so surely both ways will work, the only issue currently on unsupported Catalina Mac is that the Czo softwareupdate-patch doesn't work more, but there is the source code, so someone with good skills could enable it again for Catalina.

The OTA update is just a "stage2 installer", so from "Software Update" should work directly OOB without any pkg Distribution editing using an APFS Catalina.

Personally I prefer the OTA updates for many reasons, especially for those who have a limited bandwitch plan, but all the others that want to download a full installer at every Catalina minor beta update feel free.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DuncanGarp, TimothyR734, webg3 and 1 other person
jackluke said:
During APFS Mojave the OTA updates worked and installed directly through "Software Update".

Only for HFS+ Mojave was required a package editing Distribution and then it worked too, so surely both ways will work, the only issue currently on unsupported Catalina Mac is that the Czo softwareupdate-patch doesn't work more, but there is the source code, so someone with good skills could enable it again for Catalina.

The OTA update is just a "stage2 installer", so from "Software Update" should work directly OOB without any pkg Distribution editing using an APFS Catalina.

Personally I prefer the OTA updates for many reasons, especially for those who have a limited bandwitch plan, but all the others that want to download a full installer at every Catalina minor beta update feel free.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was referring to, in case Czo patch never gets fixed, there should be a way to install the update manually. No doubt that OTA is always a better way if it is still possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734 and jackluke
jackluke said:
During APFS Mojave the OTA updates worked and installed directly through "Software Update".

Only for HFS+ Mojave was required a package editing Distribution and then it worked too, so surely both ways will work, the only issue currently on unsupported Catalina Mac is that the Czo softwareupdate-patch doesn't work more, but there is the source code, so someone with good skills could enable it again for Catalina.

The OTA update is just a "stage2 installer", so from "Software Update" should work directly OOB without any pkg Distribution editing using an APFS Catalina.

Personally I prefer the OTA updates for many reasons, especially for those who have a limited bandwitch plan, but all the others that want to download a full installer at every Catalina minor beta update feel free.
Click to expand...

Up until the first Catalina seed that starts to add firmware updates (which will probably arrive soon after 10.14.6 ships).
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734 and jackluke
DaniloGeekDude said:
Thanks. I will try and install this later tonight.

I already have an unsupported Mac and used version 1.0b5 of your MacOS Catalina Patcher.
Do you suggest an OTA and reboot to apply the patches needed or Re-install OS via your patcher?

Much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Successfully updated to the latest dev beta 3 using @dosdude1's macOS Catalina Patcher 1.0b6

Screen Shot 2019-07-03 at 1.21.49 AM.png

Steps followed:
  • Before update, I installed DeveloperBetaAccess Utility thinking OTA SoftwareUpdate will work since the new version is a dev beta. I guess my assumption was wrong.
  • So I used @dosdude1's patcher to download the latest beta version.
  • Re-created my external USB again using the above tool to patch the just downloaded version.
  • Booted to the USB and did a reinstall Mac OS.
  • Rebooted to the USB again and ran the post install patches that were applicable.
  • Rebooted to the SSD partition where beta 3 was installed and patched.
Working well, at least so far so good.

Thanks again to @dosdude1 and others who contributed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: olad, DuncanGarp, TimothyR734 and 1 other person
dosdude1 said:
Run "sudo mount -uw /" first (ignore "//AppleInternal" error), then it should work.
Click to expand...
Run this command first then trimforce enable, it run normally and restart automatically, but after bootup , Trim still not enable , I am running M.2 SATA SSD , it work at Mojave before.

And Command +R can’t boot to recovery mode, or is there any other way to do it, want to disable SIP ..

Thanks
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
avz said:
This is exactly what I was referring to, in case Czo patch never gets fixed, there should be a way to install the update manually. No doubt that OTA is always a better way if it is still possible.
Click to expand...

You can easily check from a supported Catalina Mac "Software Update", right after downloaded the OTA update, before restart (that is not a real restart since it updates in-place from stage2 installer), check this folder /Library/Updates/ and you should find the *update*.pkg that you can take apart, expand the Payload, edit Distribution and then re-package, it should work as it did for Mojave.

Or find the 10.15 pkg url here: https://swscan.apple.com/content/ca...ion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz

just search for similar naming: "macOSUpd10.15.pkg" , "macOSUpd10.15.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg"

there is even this: "macOSUpd10.15Patch.pkg"
but not sure for what is it
[doublepost=1562149816][/doublepost]
jhowarth said:
Up until the first Catalina seed that starts to add firmware updates (which will probably arrive soon after 10.14.6 ships).
Click to expand...

Through OTA "Software Update" the *firmware*.pkg should be automatically skipped, as it was been for APFS Mojave, older machines are not targeted from "stage2 installer" for firmware updates.
 
  • Like
Reactions: olad, TimothyR734 and avz
@avz don't forget that from Catalina the current path for /Library/ is this /Volumes/APFS Data/Library/

to not be confused with /System/Library/ that is for "APFS System" volume only.

Hence you may check for OTA downloaded updates there (APFS Data volume) from supported mac.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734 and avz
waimtrp said:
Run this command first then trimforce enable, it run normally and restart automatically, but after bootup , Trim still not enable , I am running M.2 SATA SSD , it work at Mojave before.

And Command +R can’t boot to recovery mode, or is there any other way to do it, want to disable SIP ..

Thanks
Click to expand...

For me it's working. I did just like dosdue said, and trim is enabled which I checked in System Report. @dosdude1 i have problem with boot on my MacBook6,1. When I power macbook, I get symbol with question mark. But when I power MacBook while holding "alt" button and select "macOS" (bootable partition) system normally boots up. Is there any fix for that without reinstalling system?
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
0403979 said:
You have to use the APFS ROM Patcher. Here’s an excerpt from the Mojave forum about it:

“APFS ROM Patcher:
Warning: This tool could irreversibly brick your EFI chip. Please exercise caution with machines that have multiple EEPROM definitions. Relevant information can be found here and here. The APFS ROM patcher can be found here. Use the password apfs to decrypt the ZIP.”

Hopefully this works for you. It should run without issue on the MB4,1 as it did with mine.
Click to expand...

Hi, Julian,Tried again to install the APFS patch to the internal disk of MB 4.1 which running 10.14.5, but failed. It says the system is not compatible with the rom patch! Don't know why! Could you help again or share the successfully installed on your MB 4.1? Many thanks!

And another good news is that the APFS rom patch was successfully installed on MB 5.1 with no problem.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734 and 0403979
macosdon said:
Hi, Julian,Tried again to install the APFS patch to the internal disk of MB 4.1 which running 10.14.5, but failed. It says the system is not compatible with the rom patch! Don't know why! Could you help again or share the successfully installed on your MB 4.1? Many thanks!

And another good news is that the APFS rom patch was successfully installed on MB 5.1 with no problem.
Click to expand...
You have to modify the support plist to get it working on the MB4,1.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734 and macinfo
Althiometer said:
I know this is a weird question, but how do we update?
Is it safe to update it from an existing Catalina install?
Click to expand...

If you are using the patched full installer, you'll need to reboot from the patched full installer afterward to reapply the patches with a forced rebuild of the cache. The auto installation of the post installation patches currently assumes a clean install with its resulting automatic cache rebuild.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TimothyR734
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back