macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jasoncarle]

The script just needed to integrate or to type before running in Catalina Terminal: sudo mount -uw /

However keep in mind that the "CMD+R" associated to your machine is only the latest macOS installed or re-installed or beta updated.

For example, if on internal disk I have two APFS containers with Mojave and Catalina, and I install/update Catalina, then "CMD+R" Recovery is Catalina, if instead I re-install or update Mojave to its next beta then APFS Recovery becomes the Mojave one.

I tried that and this happened. I wasn't asked for my password and upon reboot with CMD+R, nothing. The computer froze and needed to be hard reboot.

So then Continuity Activation tool, I get this warning when I run it...

And this when I reboot into my admin account. I normally use a standard user account, like I am now.

Nowhere in my settings do I have a check box to enable Handoff as I did in previous OS's

 

[0134168]

Fuc

I tried that and this happened. I wasn't asked for my password and upon reboot with CMD+R, nothing. The computer froze and needed to be hard reboot.

View attachment 845955

So then Continuity Activation tool, I get this warning when I run it...

View attachment 845956

And this when I reboot into my admin account. I normally use a standard user account, like I am now.
View attachment 845957

Nowhere in my settings do I have a check box to enable Handoff as I did in previous OS's

Those two different volumes.

 

[0403979]

@jackluke Is there an AirDrop for all models in Catalina that can be included in an automated patcher tool?

 

[jhowarth]

@jackluke Is there an AirDrop for all models in Catalina that can be included in an automated patcher tool?

AirDrop and Handoff work out of the box in Catalina on a MacPro 3,1 with a BCM94360CD. So it should only be patched for configurations that aren't working.

 

[jamccor]

After multiple reboots I am getting a failure screen. What can I do?

 

[0403979]

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 3 has now been released. This is the description from the macOS Patcher releases page:

"This is the third beta of macOS Patcher 3.0, the first version of macOS Patcher to support macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Release notes for macOS Patcher beta 3:

• Add MacBook4,1 installer support
• Remove NVRAM boot arguments requirement
• Rework installer implementation

Important notes:
This is a beta release of macOS Patcher with support for a beta release of macOS. If you discover an issue, please make sure it’s an issue with macOS Patcher 3.0 and not with macOS 10.15 Catalina. If your issue is with the macOS Patcher 3.0, then contact us on Discord or MacRumors Forums, or create an issue on the macOS Patcher GitHub page.

You have to run macOS Patcher with the -legacy-prelinkedkernel flag when creating a patched installer for the MacBook4,1.

You can read about the removal of the integrated utilities, and the future of macOS Patcher, here."

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 3 is available here.

 

[jackluke]

I tried that and this happened. I wasn't asked for my password and upon reboot with CMD+R, nothing. The computer froze and needed to be hard reboot.

View attachment 845955

So then Continuity Activation tool, I get this warning when I run it...

View attachment 845956

And this when I reboot into my admin account. I normally use a standard user account, like I am now.
View attachment 845957

Nowhere in my settings do I have a check box to enable Handoff as I did in previous OS's

You should use an administrator account for both the scripts.

Maybe you have a Catlaina APFS empty Recovery, could you check from Terminal:

diskutil mount Recovery
open /Volumes/Recovery/

and check inside if there are basesystem files.

 

[indigotheory]

dosdude1 you freakin’ legend...

I bit the bullet earlier and flashed the APFS Rom Patch on my Late 2008 MacBook 5,1 with the Nvidia Chipset thinking f*** it - I’ve had this Maschine 10 years...

It worked!

I’m now setting up Catalina on my 10 year old MacBook...

THIS is how it’s done!

Thank you thank you thank you, and thank you to the rest of the people who have made all of this possible, your all f****** superstars!!!

There’s one small thing - since I ran the ‘risky’ patch there’s a single bleep every time I turn the MacBook on. Is this a standard issue thing from now on?

 

[jackluke]

@jackluke Is there an AirDrop for all models in Catalina that can be included in an automated patcher tool?

At moment only for Airport Wifi Broadcom 14E4, 0x9* (pci 14e4,4353) that can use instead of AirPortBrcm4331 the AirPortBrcm4360 (still present in Catalina with a little patching), while later Airport Broadcom (pci 43ba, 43a3, 43a0) that use the AirPortBrcmNIC support it OOB.

Seems Broadcom 14E4, 0x8* pci 14e4,432b 14e4,4331 (or earlier) have an hardware limitation or use a too legacy driver.

Also seems Atheros Wifi are excluded from apple for this feature on recent macOS.

 

[0403979]

At moment only for Airport Wifi Broadcom 14E4, 0x9* (pci 14e4,4353) that can use instead of AirPortBrcm4331 the AirPortBrcm4360 (still present in Catalina with a little patching), while later Airport Broadcom (pci 43ba, 43a3, 43a0) that use the AirPortBrcmNIC support it OOB.

Seems Broadcom 14E4, 0x8* pci 14e4,432b 14e4,4331 (or earlier) have an hardware limitation or use a too legacy driver.

Also seems Atheros Wifi are excluded from apple for this feature on recent macOS.

I guess that’s gonna be removed from my sidebar for now.

 

[GSXB]

is there , or will there be a patch to make pci m2 ssd drives to be recognised as internal.
as at the moment its external with the wrong icon
also why can't you change icons ?

 

[bogdanf]

Just finished installing Catalina using dosdude's patcher on a 3,1 using a non-metal EFI card, applied the legacy card patch and it worked flawlessly (full acceleration and all). Thanks !!!

Now, I'd want to use a Metal compatible card instead, but nothing shows on the monitor. Is this an expected behaviour when the legacy card patch is installed ? Is there a way to remove it without reinstalling ?

 

[dosdude1]

Just finished installing Catalina using dosdude's patcher on a 3,1 using a non-metal EFI card, applied the legacy card patch and it worked flawlessly (full acceleration and all). Thanks !!!

Now, I'd want to use a Metal compatible card instead, but nothing shows on the monitor. Is this an expected behaviour when the legacy card patch is installed ? Is there a way to remove it without reinstalling ?

Yeah, you can't use a Metal card with the Legacy Video Card Patch applied. As of now, you'll need to re-install Catalina to remove it.

 

[Starplayr]

I purchased a red Inateck® USB 3.0 PCIe card. It sports 4 USB 3.0 ports. The card is 1x width and runs up to 5.0GT/s. You can put it on a 4x slot on the Mac Pro 3,1 but it will run at 2.5GT/s. It is too bad you can't configure the slots on the MP3,1. It did not require additional drivers to operate on Mac; works well with whichever Catalina USB drivers uses along with Parrotgeek's USB Legacy Injector (this is all I use for USB). The card does not require additional power. It runs about $29 and the seller offers volume discounts.

eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Inateck-Inateck-4-Ports-PCI-E-to-Interface-USB-3-0-Expansion-Card-for-Mac-Pro/272407976946?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

on eBay it says it's Incompatible with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or above, which is untrue.

 

[flygbuss]

View attachment 845993

Did you try to replace it manually like I wrote earlier?

 

[Starplayr]

dosdude1 you freakin’ legend...

I bit the bullet earlier and flashed the APFS Rom Patch on my Late 2008 MacBook 5,1 with the Nvidia Chipset thinking f*** it - I’ve had this Maschine 10 years...

It worked!

I’m now setting up Catalina on my 10 year old MacBook...

THIS is how it’s done!

Thank you thank you thank you, and thank you to the rest of the people who have made all of this possible, your all f****** superstars!!!

There’s one small thing - since I ran the ‘risky’ patch there’s a single bleep every time I turn the MacBook on. Is this a standard issue thing from now on?

The beep I don't think is standard on any box. You could try zapping the PRAM or resetting the SMC. I have yet to get a machine to reset the SMC, they are all different. Be careful if you reset the PRAM because if your install is relying on some boot flags, it will wipe them out. But I think Dosdude1 fixed that in his latest series of patchers. I would check first before proceeding.

Yes, or you can apply this: Mojave VolumeIcons for apple boot manager
[doublepost=1561962152][/doublepost]


The script just needed to integrate or to type before running in Catalina Terminal: sudo mount -uw /

However keep in mind that the "CMD+R" associated to your machine is only the latest macOS installed or re-installed or beta updated.

For example, if on internal disk I have two APFS containers with Mojave and Catalina, and I install/update Catalina, then "CMD+R" Recovery is Catalina, if instead I re-install or update Mojave to its next beta then APFS Recovery becomes the Mojave one.

Has anyone tried extracting Catalina's Recovery Partition and applying it to another volume? Also a basic USB Installer is pretty much the same thing. So it would probably be best to just keep a USB Installer handy.

 

[thicla01]

Did you try to replace it manually like I wrote earlier?

I have the same problem. All external disks display the wrong icon. Even with a .VolumeIcon.icns in the root of the USB disk, it still display the wrong icon. If I try to customize the icon of an internal disk it doesn't work either. But at least, the default icon is shown. When I boot in Mojave, the same USB key and hard drive display the proper icons. Seem to be a Catalina bug.

 

[indigotheory]

The beep I don't think is standard on any box. You could try zapping the PRAM or resetting the SMC. I have yet to get a machine to reset the SMC, they are all different. Be careful if you reset the PRAM because if your install is relying on some boot flags, it will wipe them out. But I think Dosdude1 fixed that in his latest series of patchers. I would check first before proceeding.

Thanks, only thing I really thought of at the time was it’s still in the mode you put it in before using the APFS Rom Patcher as you hold the power button down until it either bleeps or the power light flashes multiple times.

It’s not a major problem

 

[macosdon]

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 3 has now been released. This is the description from the macOS Patcher releases page:

"This is the third beta of macOS Patcher 3.0, the first version of macOS Patcher to support macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Release notes for macOS Patcher beta 3:

• Add MacBook4,1 installer support
• Remove NVRAM boot arguments requirement
• Rework installer implementation

Important notes:

• This is a beta release of macOS Patcher with support for a beta release of macOS. If you discover an issue, please make sure it’s an issue with macOS Patcher 3.0 and not with macOS 10.15 Catalina. If your issue is with the macOS Patcher 3.0, then contact us on Discord or MacRumors Forums, or create an issue on the macOS Patcher GitHub page.
• You must use the -legacy-prelinkedkernel flag when creating a patched installer for the MacBoo4,1.

You can read about the removal of the integrated utilities, and the future of macOS Patcher, here."

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 3 is available here.

Many thanks, @0403979, I'm very glad to try this on my MB 4.1, but could you explain how to use the -legacy-prelinkedkernel flag? Any detailed steps? Thanks again for your wonderful work!

 

[Minh_Ton]

Yes, or you can apply this: Mojave VolumeIcons for apple boot manager
[doublepost=1561962152][/doublepost]


The script just needed to integrate or to type before running in Catalina Terminal: sudo mount -uw /

However keep in mind that the "CMD+R" associated to your machine is only the latest macOS installed or re-installed or beta updated.

For example, if on internal disk I have two APFS containers with Mojave and Catalina, and I install/update Catalina, then "CMD+R" Recovery is Catalina, if instead I re-install or update Mojave to its next beta then APFS Recovery becomes the Mojave one.

Just curious: How can you patch these icons?

 

[DuncanGarp]

Yeah, you can't use a Metal card with the Legacy Video Card Patch applied. As of now, you'll need to re-install Catalina to remove it.

Hello awesome @dosdude1!,

Just noticed you have released 1.0b6 of your excellent macOS Catalina Patcher tool. Saw on the revision change log that it has to do with a "Legacy Video Card Patch" update. What exactly was this update for?

Also, most important (for my selfish reason) is the APFS Patch, which you "promised" ;-) is coming, and can I "wishfully" expect it on the next release, say 1.0b7?

Thank you Collin, Sir !!!

 

[0403979]

Many thanks, @0403979, I'm very glad to try this on my MB 4.1, but could you explain how to use the -legacy-prelinkedkernel flag? Any detailed steps? Thanks again for your wonderful work!

Use the instructions for Mojave on the RMC website but with the newer patcher downloaded and put -legacy-prelinkedkernel at the end. So an example command would be: “sudo ~/Downloads/release-10.15/macOS\ Patcher.sh -legacy-prelinkedkernel”

 

[adamman648]

Well this is nice, Thanks @dosdude1 for the patcher, Catalina works surprisingly well on a machine that will be 10 years old in October. Not to mention only 4 gigs of RAM.

 

[mnsiw]

MacBook 5,1 Unibody Late 2008 (8Gib+SSD), running Mojave 10.14.5 on HFS+, it does not support APFS boot natively. Is there a way to upgrade it to Catalina without losing data? Or fresh install. I think current available options are for device with native APFS boot, right?

 

[0134168]

AirDrop and Handoff work out of the box in Catalina on a MacPro 3,1 with a BCM94360CD. So it should only be patched for configurations that aren't working.

What Wifi/Bluetooth card?