macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Dilli]

USB2 has higher theoretical speeds than FW400, but the speeds in practice could be higher for FW400 depending on the use case.

FW800 is faster than both of those. FW800 came in 2009, I think and users of machines from 2009 and 2010 (with FW800 but pre-Thunderbolt) and going to benefit the most from booting from Firewire. Users with 2011 machines whilst they may have FW800 have Thunderbolt which is much faster so should probably use Thunderbolt for booting if booting off an external. 2012 and later adds USB3 as a good cheap alternative to Thunderbolt.

Rather than using an IDE 100GB drive it would be better to use an external SSD. For example there's a version of the OWC Mercury On The Go Pro that can be used with USB3/USB2/FW800/FW400 which takes a 2.5" SATA SSD (note if you get the Mercury on the Go Pro you would need to get a FW800 to FW400 cable separately to test it with FW400). It would be interesting to hear how USB2 performance compares with FW400 using that kind of a setup.

The main reasons to boot off an external is to either (or both):
1. Get some of the speed boost from using a SSD without having to open up the machine and risk breaking it
2. Avoid messing with the internal drive which you may want to leave running a supported version of OS X.

Well since both my 2011 machines have thunderbolt 1 I bought an apple adapter thunderbolt to firewire 800 for my firewire 800 hdd enclosure. Perhaps it would work for me . Hope the speeds will be in par. Firewire 400 is not worth it. Usb 2.0 will give 480 mbps, however firewire 800 could be a challenge to use in BigSur. Thunderbolt will give 10gbps speed but there aren’t many devices or external hdd having dedicated thunderbolt ports.

i have decided to use thunderbolt cable with my iMac attached to thunderbolt 3 apple adapter having Usb C port and one can attach usb 3.0 or USB -c devices with good speeds. This setup may not require the kext injection in 0.1.7 for firewire probably. Just my thoughts. Cheers

 

[mdgm]

2011 machines have TB(1) not TB2.

I use 2011 Mac -> TB(1/2) cable -> Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter -> TB3 dock -> TB3 NVMe drive.

Waiting on the Terascale 2 patches to mature a bit before trying this with Big Sur.

 

[Dilli]

2011 machines have TB(1) not TB2.

I use 2011 Mac -> TB(1/2) cable -> Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter -> TB3 dock -> TB3 NVMe drive.

Waiting on the Terascale 2 patches to mature a bit before trying this with Big Sur.

Yes. Tb1/2 is almost similar. Regarding connection you are using is exactly what I mentioned in my post above 👍

 

[internetzel]

Well since both my 2011 machines have thunderbolt 2 i bought a apple adapter thunderbolt to firewire 800 for my firewire 800 hdd enclosure. Perhaps it would work for me . Hope the speeds will be in par. Firewire 400 is not worth it. Usb 2.0 will give 480 mbps, however firewire 800 could be a challenge to use in BigSur. Thunderbolt will give 10gbps speed but there aren’t many devices or external hdd having dedicated thunderbolt ports.

i have decided to use thunderbolt cable with my iMac attached to thunderbolt 3 apple adapter having Usb C port and one can attach usb 3.0 or USB -c devices with good speeds. This setup may not require the kext injection in 0.1.7 for firewire probably. Just my thoughts. Cheers

Firewire 400 should still be somewhat faster than USB 2.0, because USB has a higher protocol overhead.
But the most important thing Firewire offers (as well as Thunderbolt) is DMA transfer from the drive to the host's main memory.

However, APFS volumes on HDDs result in low performance no matter what you do.

 

[Dilli]

Firewire 400 should still be somewhat faster than USB 2.0, because USB has a higher protocol overhead.
But the most important thing Firewire offers (as well as Thunderbolt) is DMA transfer from the drive to the host's main memory.

However, APFS volumes on HDDs result in low performance no matter what you do.

Is thee a way I can use the firewire drive with BigSur without using OCLP 0.1.7. Reason is OCLP did not gel well with my BigSur update and I had to use another patcher as in my signature. I just need the steps and kext files or whatever so that I can have it replaced in BigSur to have Firewire devices working.

As of now I am using apple thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter to connect the external drive but after sometime it gets ejected by BigSur.

 

[internetzel]

Is thee a way I can use the firewire drive with BigSur without using OCLP 0.1.7. Reason is OCLP did not gel well with my BigSur update and I had to use another patcher as in my signature. I just need the steps and kext files or whatever so that I can have it replaced in BigSur to have Firewire devices working.

As of now I am using apple thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter to connect the external drive but after sometime it gets ejected by BigSur.

You can download the kexts from the OCLP github repository:
https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/tree/main/payloads/Kexts/FireWire
But you'll have to find out yourself how to make your Big Sur install use those kexts; it's not going to be easy.

 

[dhinakg]

Hello everyone, we're proud to release OpenCore Legacy Patcher v0.1.7! And with it, work in progress macOS Monterey support!

Currently, Monterey support is very much in active development with many previously working hardware in Big Sur now broken. However, we've put great effort into restoring these patches with the aid of @jackluke, EduCovas, @khronokernel, and I by re-introducing Intel HD 4000 iGPU support.

Please do note that with macOS Monterey, Intel HD 4000 iGPU users will need to have their root volumes patched to achieve full acceleration meaning no more FileVault or SIP support. 2012 iMacs with supported Nvidia GPUs are however excluded as they can have their internal iGPUs disabled with little consequence.

Additionally, other legacy hardware has been dropped from Monterey. This includes the following hardware:

• All BRCM2046-based Bluetooth cards no longer function
• All Mojave and older era wireless Cards no long function
  • BCM94322, BCM94328, and Atheros series included
  • BCM943224, BCM94331, BCM94360 and BCM943602 still work great with OpenCore Legacy Patcher

For more information regarding the Bluetooth and wireless issues such as models affected, we recommend reading through the macOS 12 on Unsupported Macs thread. Please remember this is still beta 1 of macOS Monterey and that we've implemented very early beta support. Things can change at any time so please be respectful and understand we developers are still pouring hours into getting all your old machines up and running again.

Additionally, we've also added FireWire boot support, courtesy of @internetzel's testing, as well as TeraScale 2 Acceleration in Big Sur, courtesy of @ASentientBot!

We've got quite a jam-packed build, hope everyone enjoys the new release!

 

[buckrock]

New MacOS beta release! As usual, no InstallAssistant.pkg download available for just yet.

macOS Big Sur 11.5 beta 3 (20G5042c)​

June 14, 2021

 

[amishallin]

I updated OCLP 0.1.6 to 0.1.7 and... bad things happened. The 5,1 went into a boot loop (rebooted seconds after selecting anything). What I did to fix it is shut it off, unplug it, remove PRAM battery, remove RX 580, install the venerable GTX 680 Mac Edition, install battery, plug machine in, reboot while holding down ALT to bring up boot menu. From there I booted back into Mojave (always keep the last supported OS) and reinstalled OCLP 0.1.6 and everything is back to normal.

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

 

[cm3]

Question... I installed MacOS 11 on my MacBook Air 2012 model and used big-sur-micropatcher.

When you first run it, you have to boot to EFI and MacBook powers off. This allows the MacBook to boot Big-Sur.

My question is this... If I reset PRAM on the MacBook after it's all up and running with MacOS 11, I can't boot anymore. I have to use my flash drive I made and use the EFI boot trick. Then I can boot again.

Is there anyway to add the EFI boot trick onto the internal drive of my MacBook incase I reset the PRAM and don't have my flash drive with me?

 

[Muckd]

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

I didn’t have any problems on my cMP going to 0.1.7 from 0.1.6

 

[mwidjaya]

Is there anyway to add the EFI boot trick onto the internal drive of my MacBook

Of course.

See

Post-Installation | OpenCore Legacy Patcher

 

[bbb555]

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

yep, same here.
I upgraded OCLP on my internal SSD from 0.1.6 to 0.1.7, failed to start with similar experience.
had to boot off my usb flash drive running 0.1.6 and install 0.1.6 back onto the internal SSD.
PRAM resets galore and now back up and running again.

 

[Dilli]

You can download the kexts from the OCLP github repository:
https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/tree/main/payloads/Kexts/FireWire
But you'll have to find out yourself how to make your Big Sur install use those kexts; it's not going to be easy.

I replaced the 3 firewire kexts from the link above in my BigSur extensions folder but after booting things did not go well. Got black screen on boot with looping to bootpicker screen. So I replaced the kexts back with original BigSur kext
and restarted to @jackluke 's BixSurfix and ran the terminal cmd to fix boot snapshots fix and that solved the issue.

So I am keeping my hands off the firewire for now.

 

[Pri-est]

I updated OCLP 0.1.6 to 0.1.7 and... bad things happened. The 5,1 went into a boot loop (rebooted seconds after selecting anything). What I did to fix it is shut it off, unplug it, remove PRAM battery, remove RX 580, install the venerable GTX 680 Mac Edition, install battery, plug machine in, reboot while holding down ALT to bring up boot menu. From there I booted back into Mojave (always keep the last supported OS) and reinstalled OCLP 0.1.6 and everything is back to normal.

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

Same on MacPro 3.1, reverted back to 0.1.7 NB

 

[StephN999]

Bonjour,

Big Sur 11.5 Beta 3 (20G5042c) + OCLP v0.1.6 + OC v0.7.1 (24214b8) => OK

Bonne journée. 😉

 

[Pri-est]

Hi!

Successfully Updated to MacOS 11.5 Beta3 on my CMP 3.1

Mac Pro 3.1
CPU - 2xE5462
RAM - 24GB DDR2 6400
SSD - 480GB HyperX Predator
Expansion card -ThunderBolt Adapter GC-Apine Ridge
GPU- R9 280 3GB (Flashed Mac Efi)

OCLP 0.1.7NB

Terrible work after i tryed to update to OCLP 0.1.7 - PCI-Express SSD unworkable

After Back to 0.1.7NB - some issues with freezes and forbiden sign
After i remove GC-Alpine Ridge - update finished normally
After reset SMC and move GC-Alpine Ridge back - work normally... ...some time
Final Issue - mac can't wakeup.

 

[supisupi]

iMac late 2012 27"

CPU - 3.4 GHz Quad core Intel Core i7
RAM - 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
SSD - Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2 GB
WIFI - Upgraded BCM94360CD

macOS 11.4 OK

AppleTV HD Mirroring.
OCLP 0.1.6:OK

OCLP 0.1.7:NG
OCLP 0.1.9:NG

I want you to support mirroring.

 

[hvds]

LaTeX is a standard tool to write physics etc papers - the progress towards Metal is good but not for me with my MBP5,2. Need to be more careful nowadays before applying upgrades from the Appstore. Back to a backup version...

 

[dhinakg]

I updated OCLP 0.1.6 to 0.1.7 and... bad things happened. The 5,1 went into a boot loop (rebooted seconds after selecting anything). What I did to fix it is shut it off, unplug it, remove PRAM battery, remove RX 580, install the venerable GTX 680 Mac Edition, install battery, plug machine in, reboot while holding down ALT to bring up boot menu. From there I booted back into Mojave (always keep the last supported OS) and reinstalled OCLP 0.1.6 and everything is back to normal.

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

Same on MacPro 3.1, reverted back to 0.1.7 NB

Please try 0.1.8, we've updated Lilu to include a bugfix causing kernel panics

 

[0134168]

Please try 0.1.8, we've updated Lilu to include a bugfix causing kernel panics

So OpenCore Legay patcher 0.1.8 is out! What was the probem with kernel panics?

 

[borp99]

I updated OCLP 0.1.6 to 0.1.7 and... bad things happened. The 5,1 went into a boot loop (rebooted seconds after selecting anything). What I did to fix it is shut it off, unplug it, remove PRAM battery, remove RX 580, install the venerable GTX 680 Mac Edition, install battery, plug machine in, reboot while holding down ALT to bring up boot menu. From there I booted back into Mojave (always keep the last supported OS) and reinstalled OCLP 0.1.6 and everything is back to normal.

Anybody else with a MacPro 5,1 experience this?

I haven't been able to boot OCLP 0.1.5 or 0.1.6, after installing and blessing them on my 5,1, for some time - which seems contrary to most other members comments, or lack of negative comments anyway. I had to use the recent Martin Lo 0.69 and 0.70 packages to keep OpenCore usable day to day.

To my surprise, OCLP 0.1.7, which I downloaded and installed last night, 'did' boot to the picker screen on my Mac. However, my first choice was to try booting into a test install of 12.0b (on a 5400 rpm SATA HD), rather than my usual 11.2.3 drive (on an NVMe SSD). Well, the verbose screen went crazy - hundreds and hundreds of lines of nvram 'updates', 'patches' and 'rebuild trees' code rolled by for more than 5 minutes, but I was ultimately left with a frozen screen and then couldn't boot back into 11.2.3 or the new test partitions of 11.5b and 12.0b. Each of these OS boots stopped early after showing the 2 ethernet port verbose lines. I was rather worried that all of this intense nvram rebuilding (presumably for Monterey support?) would permanently stuff up my original backplane chip (while I am waiting for a new Chipmunk card to arrive from Germany).

I deep reset my nvram, booted to the Apple picker and back into 11.2.3 and replaced OCLP 0.1.7 back to a Martin Lo package in the meantime. I'll shortly try OCLP 0.1.8, just posted on GitHub, and see if that triggers any verbose screen gynmastics!

UPDATE: OCLP 0.1.8 (for me) is thankfully working well and booting into 11.2.3 just fine. I can also boot into 12.0b (now cloned to an SSD drive), after much less nvram reconfiguring on-the-fly (compared with OCLP 0.1.17). However, I did have to manually shutdown the 1st attempt, wait a minute, then try again in order to get to the desktop - so is far from any conclusive advancement in the 5,1 problem of booting into 11.3+. It this stage, my 11.5b2 partition is still stalling during the boot process. I've yet to try 11.4, but am hopeful the latest OCLP works with that version of BS.

 

[Muckd]

0.1.7 was good for me on my cmp flashed 5,1.
0.1.8 boot gets stuck, gave up after a couple of goes.

back on 0.1.7 no problems with BS11.4 with the usual pull the plug before boot.

 

[khronokernel]

0.1.7 was good for me on my cmp flashed 5,1.
0.1.8 boot gets stuck, gave up after a couple of goes.

back on 0.1.7 no problems with BS11.4 with the usual pull the plug before boot.

Could you please enable verbose mode in OpenCore Patcher settings and send us the kernel panic or wherever it gets stuck?

 

[amishallin]

Looking at the recent responses to 0.1.7 and 0.1.8 it seems a little wild right now. I'll have to enable verbose mode in 0.1.8 this weekend when I have more time (still doing fine on 0.1.6).

It seems a little hit and miss for the 5,1. Could it be our different/upgraded hardware setups? Anyone still have a "stock" 5,1?