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macOS High Sierra (10.13) Unsupported Macs Thread

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So on my 3,1 Mac Pro I've managed to install High Sierra on an APFS-formatted AHCI SSD PCIe drive. However, I've also got a (supported) El Capitan partition on an HDD, and for some reason the custom EFI booter always defaults to El Capitan. The only way so far I've managed to boot into the APFS-High Sierra is to remove the HDD with El Capitan on it.

How can I change which OS the custom EFI boots into?
 
r6mile said:
So on my 3,1 Mac Pro I've managed to install High Sierra on an APFS-formatted AHCI SSD PCIe drive. However, I've also got a (supported) El Capitan partition on an HDD, and for some reason the custom EFI booter always defaults to El Capitan. The only way so far I've managed to boot into the APFS-High Sierra is to remove the HDD with El Capitan on it.

How can I change which OS the custom EFI boots into?
Click to expand...
There should be a "APFS Boot" preference pane in system preferences.
 
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timidpimpin said:
There should be a "APFS Boot" preference pane in system preferences.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that didn't fix it, but swapping the location of the SATA drives eventually did for some reason. Now, to see if installing the security update via the App store works (which as you pointed out the other day, didn't work for me before because I was on HFS+)...
 
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r6mile said:
Thank you, that didn't fix it, but swapping the location of the SATA drives eventually did for some reason. Now, to see if installing the security update via the App store works (which as you pointed out the other day, didn't work for me before because I was on HFS+)...
Click to expand...
I would try resetting your PRAM if you have issues like this in the future.
 
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I just got a 17" MacBook Pro 4,1 in the mail today. I have used this patch tool on machines that can run HS natively, but have never done it on an older one. Do I need to update the bootROM or does this tool work just fine without that?
 
Also, to add to the above, what does the firmwareupdater do? I installed it on a different unsupported Mac and it installed but there is no additional program. Not sure what it’s supposed to do.
 
Hello, I'am a bit late in the game, but i've just upgraded my Mac Pro 3.1 from ElCapitain to High Sierra 10.13.6 (with official AMD HD 5770 card) with @dosdude1 great patch. Everything went well except two or three anoying things:
  • Once in sleep mode, both dual screens stays black, while mac's running fine... need to force shut down and restart.
  • Have a some random appearing "red" glitch issues, mainly on finder.
  • Did @dosdude1 AMD patch several times / Reset all SMC/PRAM / reinstalled / etc., no luck.
  • Could not instal the latest 'Security Update 2020-004' as well (hang/crash during install)
I've seen many past (2018) messages on this tread and others around this similar issue but not really a clear solution about this...
Is there an "easy" fix or definitively not… or buying a used GEFORCE GTX680 seems the easiest solution (if I can find one) ?
Thx !
 
Mac Pro Convert said:
The Best way to get a clean trouble free install of DosDudes Patched OSX 10.13 and 10.14 on an unsupported Mac
is to format the drive as APFS - GUID from the start with Disk Util before you install OSX
That way you get a clean install, and no up date issues,
Not to mention that APFS format runs noticeably faster and is more secure
than a standard Mac OS Extended (Journaled) installation.
just remember to Back up your personal Data before you do the formatting.


All the GTX cards from GTX 660 to latest will run fine,
Just remember to use the GTX 680 OSX 10.13 drivers for High Sierra,
It is a good idea to used a flashed card though so you can have a boot screen.

If you are running Boot camp Windows, I would suggest installing ReFind on your OSX drive
so you don't have to hold the Option key at startup,
I would also recommend installing ReFind If you are NOT running Boot camp Windows,
as it makes it far easier to access you recovery drive and any bootable media at startup,
such as OS installer CD's-DVD's-Thumb Drives and external USB drives when you want to boot from them.

I used this method when I installed DosDudes Patched High Sierra on My Mac Pro 3,1 and MacBook Pro 4,1
and I have had no hassles at all with either machine.
Click to expand...

Late to this party, please don't come at me unhappy!
Does your advice here apply all around to 5,1 non-pro unibody late 08, with Nvidia geforce 9400m?
 
Good morning, was wondering if anyone else here has been having issues with the USB failing to copy files when running Dosdudes High Sierra patcher. Tried two different macs and but tend to get this error each time. Any suggestions? Error.jpg
 
Ikapal said:
Good morning, was wondering if anyone else here has been having issues with the USB failing to copy files when running Dosdudes High Sierra patcher. Tried two different macs and but tend to get this error each time. Any suggestions? View attachment 943141
Click to expand...
What version of macOS are you running it on? I had success making a patched USB installer on Mojave with the latest security update but I know someone who had nothing but problems trying to do the same on Catalina 10.15.6
 
As Macs are unable to boot to an OS earlier than what shipped, wondering if the patcher can be employed on a 2019 iMac that shipped with 10.14 Mojave in order to install 10.13 High Sierra?
 
Ikapal said:
Good morning, was wondering if anyone else here has been having issues with the USB failing to copy files when running Dosdudes High Sierra patcher. Tried two different macs and but tend to get this error each time. Any suggestions? View attachment 943141
Click to expand...
I had the same error, make sure your usb drive is named OS X Base System.
I know that renaming the usb drive should work, but for me it didn’t.
 
Zsolt Galantai said:
For me, this upgrade caused a weird video card issue - after restart, it started behaving like it'd lost its driver (or as if it'd restart in Secure Mode). I'd be happy if there'd be an explanation and/or a possible solution for that. Finally, I could eliminate the problem by using the appropriate Quartz Debug app (however I don't really know what I was doing), still, I can feel that the problem is still present in the system.

Mac Pro 3,1 (Mac Pro (Early 2008))
video card: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB
Click to expand...

Hi, I've just upgraded from Elcapitain (exact same hardware as you have) and now this kind of weird "red / finder window contrast on screen. Despite reinstalling OS or patch several times, no success, story here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...unsupported-macs-thread.2048478/post-28745690

What do you mean by:
"I could eliminate the problem by using the appropriate Quartz Debug app"
Click to expand...

Also can you put your mac pro on sleep — without having black screen afterwards ?

Sartup SSD is still in MacOS extended, I also tried to convert my drive to APFS, but I was not able to boot with it, despite the conversion with diskutil went well... tried updatePreboot, etc. no success, I had to erase/clone back to a previous SSD MacOs extended version.

Thx in advance for your feedback if you can.
 
I've managed to install 10.13.6 on my 3,1 (I guess I should say "miraculously" because a month ago it failed miserably repeatedly).

I'm now trying to install the 2020-004 Security Update. But it hangs at the black progress screen. The white bar has been stuck at half a centimetre for very long now.

Is this normal?
 
pullman said:
Is this normal?
Click to expand...

Just to comment, I had the same status trying to install the 2020-004 update and i wait one or two hours… then I force restart… and had to resintall osx again… Because it is said APFS is better for installing security update, i also tried to convert the drive to APFS, no luck either...

I guess my MP 3,1 is going to stay this way for now, without security udpate until I find a new better video card. Pls let me know if you find a solution ;-)
 
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sbgraphic said:
Sartup SSD is still in MacOS extended, I also tried to convert my drive to APFS, but I was not able to boot with it, despite the conversion with diskutil went well... tried updatePreboot, etc. no success, I had to erase/clone back to a previous SSD MacOs extended version.
Click to expand...

Commenting to myself I guess I did not read well enough point 6. of http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/ patch:

6. (...)
-- It is recommended that you only use APFS if the target drive is an SSD.
-- If you decide to use APFS, a custom booting method will be installed by the post-install tool, as the firmware of these unsupported machines does not natively support booting from APFS volumes. It is not quite as clean as native booting, but will not cause any issues while running High Sierra. A demo of the modified booting process can be viewed here.
Click to expand...

I did not care about this because i've udpated a 2009 MacBook Pro without issue, but i was upgrading the existing internal SSD, not a new one.

I guess my mistake was that I formatted the new SSD drive in Elcapitain and thus it was not converted in APFS when I first cloned my Elcapitain startup disk to the new SSD drive before upgrading to High Sierra (!)...

Maybe next step is I have to format this HS startupdisk in APFS again, then cloning the actual High Sierra volume on it, then installing the post-install tool, and maybe security update will be applied ?
 
Thank you for replying. I'm in a way happy I'm not alone with this result. I've now left it for almost two hours but it is solidly stuck. Luckily I did a clone of the clean install so I can go back easily but it annoys me that this update doesn't install. It also makes me wonder about any future such update, should there be one.

Will definitely write back if I find a solution. Perhaps someone else already has found one?

sbgraphic said:
Just to comment, I had the same status trying to install the 2020-004 update and i wait one or two hours… then I force restart… and had to resintall osx again… Because it is said APFS is better for installing security update, i also tried to convert the drive to APFS, no luck either...

I guess my MP 3,1 is going to stay this way for now, without security udpate until I find a new better video card. Pls let me know if you find a solution ;-)
Click to expand...
 
pullman said:
Thank you for replying. I'm in a way happy I'm not alone with this result. I've now left it for almost two hours but it is solidly stuck. Luckily I did a clone of the clean install so I can go back easily but it annoys me that this update doesn't install. It also makes me wonder about any future such update, should there be one.

Will definitely write back if I find a solution. Perhaps someone else already has found one?
Click to expand...

UPDATE 1: Well this is interesting. I did a hard reset and rebooted into High Sierra. Then I got a message that some updates did not install.

When I check in App Store it turns out that Security Update 2020-004 did, in fact, install. About this Mac reports that the OS version number has changed from 17G66 to 17G14019. Also, the App Store says that the other three updates did not install, i.e. iTunes 12.8.2, iTunes Device Support Update and Safari 13.1.2.

Of those three updates only the iTunes Device Support Update requires restart so I'm going to venture a little guess that iTunes Device Support Update is the culprit. Both the iTunes and the Safari updates installed without a problem.

UPDATE 2: I tried a Safe Boot before remembering that that's disabled by the patcher. Grrr. Then I tried with another Administrator account. The App Store in that account mentions both the Safari and iTunes updates I had just applied but does not mention the iTunes Device Support Update. Annoying. THEN I remembered that updates are stored in Library/Updates and, lo and behold, there was the MobileDeviceSU.pkg in a subfolder. The installation within the OS environment went well. Then I pressed Restart and the computer did just that as per normal, i.e. not via a black progress screen. App Store does not mention that this update but I suspect it is hidden.

Apologies for all the explanation but perhaps it helps someone shortcut a few steps in order to update High Sierra.
 
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