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macOS High Sierra (10.13) Unsupported Macs Thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
amstel78 said:
Would you happen to have a link to dosdude's APFS BootROM patch? The last I heard, it was still a few weeks out from release. I also haven't seen it on his website. I suppose if there was a way to revert the patch however, one could always clone a spare drive and give it a shot.
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It's in here, no? Don't take my word for it though
http://dosdude1.com/apps/

There's one here, too, but this is under Mojave
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/beta/

I'm really confused now, because @dosdude1's Mojave (I'd wrongly stated High Sierra) patcher page says that older than Late 2009 machines won't boot from APFS volumes.

Edit: I mis-spoke above. That comment about Late 2009 is on the Mojave Patcher page. It says
ONLY use APFS on Late-2009 and later machines. Currently, older machines will not be able to boot from an APFS volume.
Whether that's still true, I don't know, but I don't really care about Mojave at this point.

@dosdude1's own YT video shows HS booting from an SSD, after applying the APFS Rom post-install patch (on exactly the same laptop as I have). That's not the same as patching the BootROM - as I understand it. With the post-install patch, you see the verbose output when booting, whereas if you patch the ROM, you don't. Prepared to be wrong though.
 
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Yes, the post-install patch is what allows booting from an APFS volume but with verbose output. Collin's new patch which I understand to still be in the works physically rewrites the BootROM to natively support APFS volumes in non-supported Macs. At least this is how I understood his email to me a few weeks ago.
 
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amstel78 said:
Yes, the post-install patch is what allows booting from an APFS volume but with verbose output. Collin's new patch which I understand to still be in the works physically rewrites the BootROM to natively support APFS volumes in non-supported Macs. At least this is how I understood his email to me a few weeks ago.
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Yes, that how I understand the difference too. But I thought the APFS ROM Patcher that I pointed you to, and which is referred to on the Mojave on unsupported macs thread, was the tool that rewrites the BootROM (hence the warning about bricking your machine). People have been running it - see the Mojave on unsupported Macs thread. Unless that one's only for Mojave? Maybe ask @dosdude1 again?
 
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mrploppy said:
Yes, that how I understand the difference too. But I thought the APFS ROM Patcher that I pointed you to, and which is referred to on the Mojave on unsupported macs thread, was the tool that rewrites the BootROM (hence the warning about bricking your machine). People have been running it - see the Mojave on unsupported Macs thread. Unless that one's only for Mojave? Maybe ask @dosdude1 again?
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It's not just for Mojave, it'll allow you to boot any APFS volume, whether it's High Sierra or Mojave.
 
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dosdude1 said:
It's not just for Mojave, it'll allow you to boot any APFS volume, whether it's High Sierra or Mojave.
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I just checked the APFS ROM Patcher.zip file on your website and it came back as containing OSX.Trojan.Gen. Can you please check?
Capture.JPG
 
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dosdude1 said:
Odd... I think I got it resolved. Download and scan it again and make sure it doesn't show you that.
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Thanks. Looks to be OK now.

Sorry if it's been asked before though, but is there any documentation available for this patch? Haven't been able to find much through Google. I'm interested in how this can be applied to a 3,1 Mac Pro already running HS on an SSD formatted for HFS+. Specifically, would it be possible to convert an existing boot volume to APFS using Disk Utility? Would this affect my ability to boot into Windows 10 if Windows was located on a separate physical drive?
 
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amstel78 said:
Thanks. Looks to be OK now.

Sorry if it's been asked before though, but is there any documentation available for this patch? Haven't been able to find much through Google. I'm interested in how this can be applied to a 3,1 Mac Pro already running HS on an SSD formatted for HFS+. Specifically, would it be possible to convert an existing boot volume to APFS using Disk Utility? Would this affect my ability to boot into Windows 10 if Windows was located on a separate physical drive?
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The ONLY thing the APFS ROM Patcher does is add support for booting APFS volumes natively to your system's BootROM. It does not affect anything else. Once applied, you can re-install High Sierra onto an APFS volume, and it will boot natively. There will be no need to apply the APFS Patch using the Post Install tool (as that is designed to allow the High Sierra APFS volume to boot on machines that DON'T have APFS support in the BootROM).
 
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dosdude1 said:
The ONLY thing the APFS ROM Patcher does is add support for booting APFS volumes natively to your system's BootROM. It does not affect anything else. Once applied, you can re-install High Sierra onto an APFS volume, and it will boot natively. There will be no need to apply the APFS Patch using the Post Install tool (as that is designed to allow the High Sierra APFS volume to boot on machines that DON'T have APFS support in the BootROM).
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So a reinstall would be required and the ability to convert an existing HFS+ volume to APFS from within the OS still isn't feasible?

What are the risks of installing the patch? @mrploppy mentioned a few posts back that there was a possibility of bricking the hardware, hence my question. Can the BootROM be flashed back to its original state?
 
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amstel78 said:
So a reinstall would be required and the ability to convert an existing HFS+ volume to APFS from within the OS still isn't feasible?

What are the risks of installing the patch? @mrploppy mentioned a few posts back that there was a possibility of bricking the hardware, hence my question. Can the BootROM be flashed back to its original state?
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It is flashing the EEPROM, so there is a small chance it could brick the system if something goes wrong. If it does get bricked, you'll have to desolder your EEPROM from the logic board, and use an external EEPROM programmer to write on the backup dump that the tool saves before making any modifications.
 
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amstel78 said:
So a reinstall would be required and the ability to convert an existing HFS+ volume to APFS from within the OS still isn't feasible?
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This seems to be another area of confusion. I see some people saying that using "convert to APFS" within Disk Utility wipes the drive, and others saying it shouldn't. @dosdude1 is saying you need to re-install HS.

So, which is it?

So far, the steps required to replace the internal drive formatted as HFS+ with a SSD formatted as APFS seem to be (although some steps don't have to be strictly in this order).

1. Connect new SSD using a supplied SATA to USB cable.

Either
2. Format the SSD as APFS.
3. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (others are available) to clone the internal drive.
OR
2. Format the SSD as HFS+.
3. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (others are available) to clone the internal drive.
4. Using Disk Utility, "convert to APFS" the SSD. ???????? (This one seems to be in doubt)

Then,
5. Replace the internal drive with the SSD.

Then, depending how brave you are
Either
6. Modify your EEPROM, using the APFS ROM Patcher tool
Or
6. Install the APFS post-install patch (and put up with the verbose output when booting).

Corrections welcome.
 
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mrploppy said:
This seems to be another area of confusion. I see some people saying that using "convert to APFS" within Disk Utility wipes the drive, and others saying it shouldn't. @dosdude1 is saying you need to re-install HS.
Click to expand...

Having read several articles, it's my understanding that an existing HFS+ volume can be converted to APFS from within the OS via Disk Utility. Data corruption or loss should not occur unless something like a like a power outage shuts the machine down mid-process.

At this stage however, I question my own need to move to APFS. In some instances, it's faster and in others, slower than HFS+. The one thing I do like is its ability to create (and I'm really paraphrasing here) highly efficient backups which are time-stamped at the nanosecond level. For all intents and purposes however, just migrating everything to an SSD in my Mac Pro already brought with it a significant performance increase.

I'd be willing to try APFS if I could convert within OS. I'm not thrilled about having to reinstall everything again just to be a guinea pig.
 
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amstel78 said:
Having read several articles, it's my understanding that an existing HFS+ volume can be converted to APFS from within the OS via Disk Utility. Data corruption or loss should not occur unless something like a like a power outage shuts the machine down mid-process.

At this stage however, I question my own need to move to APFS. In some instances, it's faster and in others, slower than HFS+. The one thing I do like is its ability to create (and I'm really paraphrasing here) highly efficient backups which are time-stamped at the nanosecond level. For all intents and purposes however, just migrating everything to an SSD in my Mac Pro already brought with it a significant performance increase.

I'd be willing to try APFS if I could convert within OS. I'm not thrilled about having to reinstall everything again just to be a guinea pig.
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I can confirm a conversion within an installed OS went well and fast without problems. I just used disk utility. There was no need afterwards to reinstall the OS.
 
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roronl said:
I can confirm a conversion within an installed OS went well and fast without problems. I just used disk utility. There was no need afterwards to reinstall the OS.
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Thanks for confirming. What Mac are you using and did you install dosdude's APFS BootROM patch?
 
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roronl said:
iMac 9,1 on a Samsung 850 ssd, and yes I installed the above patch you named.
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Great. May I ask one more question? I assume you were on HFS+ before. Did you install the APFS BootROM patch and then do the APFS conversion from Disk Utility? Presently, that option is greyed out on my Mac Pro but I believe that to be because the BootROM currently doesn't support native APFS on my Mac. Was yours greyed out as well prior to the patch?
 
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amstel78 said:
Great. May I ask one more question? I assume you were on HFS+ before. Did you install the APFS BootROM patch and then do the APFS conversion from Disk Utility? Presently, that option is greyed out on my Mac Pro but I believe that to be because the BootROM currently doesn't support native APFS on my Mac. Was yours greyed out as well prior to the patch?
Click to expand...

I remember I did the APFS conversion before I applied the ROM-patch.
You have to Unmount the disk, then you can select it en start the proces.
(veel succes gewenst :))
 
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My take is if you don’t need to flash the bootrom for APFS then don’t risk it, considering that some people here with earlier versions of the bootrom patcher have gotten bricked machines. It’s great that option is offered and I appreciate all the hard work, but I suspect for a lot of people here it is simply not necessary. They’ve been using HFS+ for the last decade so there’s nothing really inherently wrong with running HFS+ with High Sierra either. Some of the APFS features are nice but they are not critical for most, and in fact HFS+ is more compatible for some old legacy software.

Or they could run APFS with the verbose boot, but that looks a bit unMac-like and scares some non-techy types.
 
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EugW said:
My take is if you don’t need to flash the bootrom for APFS then don’t risk it, considering that some people here with earlier versions of the bootrom patcher have gotten bricked machines. It’s great that option is offered and I appreciate all the hard work, but I suspect for a lot of people here it is simply not necessary. They’ve been using HFS+ for the last decade so there’s nothing really inherently wrong with running HFS+ with High Sierra either. Some of the APFS features are nice but they are not critical for most, and in fact HFS+ is more compatible for some old legacy software.

Or they could run APFS with the verbose boot, but that looks a bit unMac-like and scares some non-techy types.
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I guess I'm coming to that conclusion too. This is my main, and only, laptop/desktop so bricking it would be catastrophic for me.

I'm still tempted to install an SSD though, just for sh!ts 'n' grins really. So then my only decision would be whether to leave as HFS+ or convert to APFS but with the apfs post-install patch. I'm an old Unix guy (old guy, not old Unix) so seeing verbose output doesn't bother me at all. I see lots of people saying that upgrading to SSD is worthwhile, even with HFS+. I'm maxed out on RAM so this is all I have left in terms of performance improvement.

Thoughts?
 
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Has anyone who has flashed the ROM with the APFS ROM patcher for Mojave tried the following on a patched High Sierra drive which has the Recovery Partition patch applied? I am wondering if from Mojave's Disk Utility, selecting the Convert to APFS... menu option on the patched High Sierra volume would convert both that volume and its associated Recovery Partition? This web page...

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/upgrade-mac-apfs-after-high-sierra/

would seem to suggest that it should. If it does convert the Recovery Partition to APFS, is there any reason why it wouldn't be usable on an APFS ROM patched machine?
 
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mrploppy said:
I guess I'm coming to that conclusion too. This is my main, and only, laptop/desktop so bricking it would be catastrophic for me.

I'm still tempted to install an SSD though, just for sh!ts 'n' grins really. So then my only decision would be whether to leave as HFS+ or convert to APFS but with the apfs post-install patch. I'm an old Unix guy (old guy, not old Unix) so seeing verbose output doesn't bother me at all. I see lots of people saying that upgrading to SSD is worthwhile, even with HFS+. I'm maxed out on RAM so this is all I have left in terms of performance improvement.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
You should have put an SSD in your Mac laptop 5 years ago. ;) The performance boost is HUGE! Which machine do you have though?

And don't put in any old SSD you have lying around either. Put in one with reasonable performance even by 2018 standards. While you don't need the fastest, up to a certain point, the faster the SSD, the faster your machine will feel. A moderately fast recent model should suffice.

See my post on the subject earlier in the thread, here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ed-macs-thread.2048478/page-163#post-26387075
 
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