macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[IbrahimFmc]

first of all: thanks for publishing my little manual, on the other hand I think it would have been friendly to tell from where you got it...

Thanks to You and Mr Barry

 

[Payne Mononymous Bachman]

Anyone know if dosdude1 is working on this project and also thank you everyone for all of your hard work. Also has anyone been able to successfully get Big Sur on a early 2013 iMac?

 

[galadriann]

SIP disabled?

I ran the setvar.sh which I believe does that. didn't have an issue on previous install.
I will try with the "compat_check" command and report back.
Thank you

 

[galadriann]

...and perhaps you should have a look whether you also set. >>csrutil authenticated-root disable<< I myself would have a look to there..

to check status :>>csrutil status<<

i forgot

have you tried other hardware / usb drive

Try indeed another USB thumb drive. also format it using macOS Journalized with GUID. then use the "createmedia" tool.
I had trouble with one of my USB from which I could never boot. had to get another one. .. just FYI

 

[galadriann]

I ran the setvar.sh which I believe does that. didn't have an issue on previous install.
I will try with the "compat_check" command and report back.
Thank you

All,
I tried to re-disable SIP and set the compat_check but no luck.
Text in French sorry : Installation cannot proceed because the installer is damaged

Any thoughts ?
Thanks

 

[Ausdauersportler]

All,
I tried to re-disable SIP and set the compat_check but no luck.
Text in French sorry : Installation cannot proceed because the installer is damaged
View attachment 952712
Any thoughts ?
Thanks

The installer is damaged? Happens all the time while downloading and copying 12GB of data. Bit errors may occur while writing and USB thumb drives are more rubbish than a data storage... it may even be the downloaded installer file which is damaged and you can create as many new USB thumb drives as you want without having success.

And please add the hardware and software you are playing with to you signature. I am done with guessing and scrolling up several pages just to find our what your real problem is.

 

[galadriann]

The installer is damaged? Happens all the time while downloading and copying 12GB of data. Bit errors may occur while writing and USB thumb drives are more rubbish than a data storage... it may even be the downloaded installer file which is damaged and you can create as many new USB thumb drives as you want without having success.

Good point. I already tried 3 times but 4th the charm . will do it from another machine. Even from official channels.
I added the Mac I am using the signature .. sorry about that.
is there a checksum I can compare with ?

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Good point. I already tried 3 times but 4th the charm . will do it from another machine. Even from official channels.
I added the Mac I am using the signature .. sorry about that.
is there a checksum I can compare with ?

Honestly I do not remember if Apple provided a checksum. Just downloaded it and did the installation. But I had this "corrupted installer" issue several times with all MacOS versions I installed on unsupported machines during the last five years or more and it made it to the general FAQ on @dosdude1 own website, too. This seems to be a really common issue. Lately I used SD cards (more reliable) or 16GB partitions on external USB connected SSD drives with more success .

 

[bige12]

I hope we see the next beta today for Big Sur

 

[galadriann]

I had this "corrupted installer" issue several times with all MacOS versions I installed on unsupported machines during the last five years

Funny as for me this is really the first I even see this error and been doing these since a few years too now. There is always a first I guess
Just download again from my iMac this time. Will post back results. Thx again for your help

 

[galadriann]

The adventure continues
I think I have a working USB now and the machine shuts down now (??) but I have a forbidden sign when trying to boot.
I did reboot again on the USB to run the patch-kext.sh but still getting it..
the set-var script did gave me an error with the nvram boot-args not found ..
Selecting the boot disk doesn't help either ... unless someone has an idea I will try reinstall officially supported OS and reattempt this later.

 

[thatsmeonlyme]

The adventure continues
I think I have a working USB now and the machine shuts down now (??) but I have a forbidden sign when trying to boot.
I did reboot again on the USB to run the patch-kext.sh but still getting it..
the set-var script did gave me an error with the nvram boot-args not found ..
Selecting the boot disk doesn't help either ... unless someone has an idea I will try reinstall officially supported OS and reattempt this later.

so, when I understand right, you could install until the reboot process of BS. If I am right try to boot back into the installer and set then boot-args. restart, boot into the installer again type the set-vars and have a look whether you can boot.
for future threads please specify your probs by exactly description of your prob.


#3,555

 

[justperry]

The installer is damaged? Happens all the time while downloading and copying 12GB of data. Bit errors may occur while writing and USB thumb drives are more rubbish than a data storage... it may even be the downloaded installer file which is damaged and you can create as many new USB thumb drives as you want without having success.

And please add the hardware and software you are playing with to you signature. I am done with guessing and scrolling up several pages just to find our what your real problem is.

Hmmm, happens all the time, more likely you have a crap provider, I never run into these problems...never.

 

[xgregious]

Can I put Big Sur on my 2013 MacBook Air? Where can I haz a patch??





=========

[kidding!! ?]

Hey guys! New, but not noob here.

I want to give a super huge thanks to everyone’s hard work on this endeavor - you know who you are, and there are so many of you.

I wanted to throw this out there for others in my situation. My machine is supposedly supported (barely): Mid 2013 MBA, 500GB/8GB. Like some others, I had the reboot at ‘12 minutes remaining’, and a long delay at ‘less than a minute remaining’, but for me the latter didn’t finish for the 3 hours that I waited. Naturally, I couldn’t boot to the drive after aborting the install.

I wanted more control over my System partition/container anyway, so I found you fine folks. (actually, I wanted to avoid APFS completely, but I haven’t seen any talk of that with BS) I used @Barry K. Nathan ’s patch, and the install completed beautifully. All hardware seems to be happy.

In short: stock install of BS DB 6 hangs on Mid 2013 MBA, but patch and tips here made it work like a charm.

...and any info on BigSur without APFS much appreciated!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hmmm, happens all the time, more likely you have a crap provider, I never run into these problems...never.

USB drives for less than a dollar are the most likely reason. The transport protocol has several checks to avoid transportation of corrupted data, but with limited check bits you cannot detect every error.
I barely had to to do a download twice, mostly because I decided to reboot before finishing the download, but I often had to rewrite a cheap USB stick. Guess your provider theory just collapsed...

 

[justperry]

USB drives for less than a dollar are the most likely reason. The transport protocol has several checks to avoid transportation of corrupted data, but with limited check bits you cannot detect every error.
I barely had to to do a download twice, mostly because I decided to reboot before finishing the download, but I often had to rewrite a cheap USB stick. Guess your provider theory just collapsed...

That was an assumption..relax, your explanation above makes sense, I myself bought a cheap SD card for my camera while I was away in Indonesia, didn't want to buy a better one since I had decent ones at home (back then I resided in Indonesia), never again, lost some photo's, a few of them showed half the picture, the rest was corrupted.

The essence of your post and now mine, do NOT buy cheap/unbranded USB or SD cards.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

That was an assumption..relax, your explanation above makes sense, I myself bought a cheap SD card for my camera while I was away in Indonesia, didn't want to buy a better one since I had decent ones at home (back then I resided in Indonesia), never again, lost some photo's, a few of them showed half the picture, the rest was corrupted.

The essence of your post and now mine, do NOT buy cheap/unbranded USB or SD cards.

When I ran the first time into this bad installer problem I could hardly believe it, too. Never had an obvious problem with data corruption, but the main developer of Sun ZFS blogged about the probability to have bit rot in these days. I guess we simply do not see these problems when 90% of data is pictures and movies on our discs and 90% of the internet traffic is unwanted email

 

[LuisN]

Can I put Big Sur on my 2013 MacBook Air? Where can I haz a patch??





=========

[kidding!! ?]

Hey guys! New, but not noob here.

I want to give a super huge thanks to everyone’s hard work on this endeavor - you know who you are, and there are so many of you.

I wanted to throw this out there for others in my situation. My machine is supposedly supported (barely): Mid 2013 MBA, 500GB/8GB. Like some others, I had the reboot at ‘12 minutes remaining’, and a long delay at ‘less than a minute remaining’, but for me the latter didn’t finish for the 3 hours that I waited. Naturally, I couldn’t boot to the drive after aborting the install.

I wanted more control over my System partition/container anyway, so I found you fine folks. (actually, I wanted to avoid APFS completely, but I haven’t seen any talk of that with BS) I used @Barry K. Nathan ’s patch, and the install completed beautifully. All hardware seems to be happy.

In short: stock install of BS DB 6 hangs on Mid 2013 MBA, but patch and tips here made it work like a charm.

...and any info on BigSur without APFS much appreciated!

MBA mid 2013 is a supported Mac. You must have another problem. I have both a MBA 2013 8 gb and a 4GB and I had no problem installing Big Sur. Is your firmware updated? Try to reset PRAM and/or SMC? Why do you use a patcher? AFAIK APFS is mandatory with Big Sur

 

[galadriann]

so, when I understand right, you could install until the reboot process of BS. If I am right try to boot back into the installer and set then boot-args. restart, boot into the installer again type the set-vars and have a look whether you can boot.
for future threads please specify your probs by exactly description of your prob.


#3,555

I tried what you suggested to same result. Given the error messages I am wondering if I don't have a nvram issue :
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found

I noticed also on boot that the Primary partition is not showing anymore.
I am starting from scratch again ..

 

[justperry]

I tried what you suggested to same result. Given the error messages I am wondering if I don't have a nvram issue :
nvram: Error getting variable - 'boot-args': (iokit/common) data was not found

I noticed also on boot that the Primary partition is not showing anymore.
I am starting from scratch again ..

Try a PRAM/NVRAM reset and/or a SMC reset.

 

[galadriann]

Update .. Found a post (I wasn't sure if Could post it here) stating that Apple "killed" the nvram command on BS so you cannot set it anymore. workaround is to use a recovery or another installer to do it.. I will try this and report back.

 

[galadriann]

Try a PRAM/NVRAM reset and/or a sac reset.

I tried that .. same ..

 

[galadriann]

Update .. Found a post (I wasn't sure if Could post it here) stating that Apple "killed" the nvram command on BS so you cannot set it anymore. workaround is to use a recovery or another installer to do it.. I will try this and report back.

OK, this is confirmed. I booted using a Mojave disk and I was able to set the nvram.
I rebooted again on BS installer and ran the setvar.sh .. restart and the installer continued ... yeahh
So I think this is definitely a requirement to set in place. I had reset my nvram a while back so this needs to be accounted for.
Will report on progress for this installation.

 

[Th3odor3]

Anyone know if dosdude1 is working on this project and also thank you everyone for all of your hard work. Also has anyone been able to successfully get Big Sur on a early 2013 iMac?

I have sucessfully installed on late 2013 iMac 27" and have found no problems.

 

[KillCoffee]

cMP 5,1 mid 2012 testing with Public beta 20A5343j to update Developer beta 4 20A5343i, Big Sur developer beta 4 SSD not format. Update took less than 25 minutes.
I downloaded Public beta 20A5343j, used Barry micropatcher 0.0.20 to update the developer beta 4.
Here are the steps.

1. Download http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...9ja9cbqfp4scme3bzlaurv8v/InstallAssistant.pkg

2. Download https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatche

3. Install the “InstallAssistant.pkg”

4. Follow Barry “Quick instruction for use” step 1 - 8.

This all I used in Recovery Terminal “/Volumes/Image\ Volume/set-vars.sh” without quote.
Checked all working fine, accept not show the year of my Mac Pro.

Hi do you know why I can't download the installAsisstant.pkg? I tried in every way, from different links also.. I can't download Big Sur since it is not officially supported so when I go in settings I can't find the upgrade (I'm running Big Sur RN, but don't know how to download last version for make again the bootable USB and upgrade)..

Thanks for your help

OK, this is confirmed. I booted using a Mojave disk and I was able to set the nvram.
I rebooted again on BS installer and ran the setvar.sh .. restart and the installer continued ... yeahh
So I think this is definitely a requirement to set in place. I had reset my nvram a while back so this needs to be accounted for.
Will report on progress for this installation.

oh, that's the bad side to do things so early... apple can fix and try to obstacle the process... thanks for the info anyway