MP 1,1-5,1 Manually Configured OpenCore on the Mac Pro

[startergo]

No mouse/keyboard, nor any spare ones working either.

Big Sur has issues with old USB ports, especially if you unplug the keyboard/mouse from it or during sleep. Normally plugging back to a USB 3 hub or a USB 3 card works. In Mojave I found random disconnects of my PCIE NVME cards appearing as external cards. For this reason I make external drives appear as internal through OC device property injection.

 

[kkinto]

Big Sur has issues with old USB ports, especially if you unplug the keyboard/mouse from it or during sleep. Normally plugging back to a USB 3 hub or a USB 3 card works.

OK thats interesting. Nothing was unplugged - last time I was watching a video fullscreen and when time came to shrink it - no reaction from mouse. In the end swapping USB ports did the trick so I'll try that again next time ('old' ports ie built in ones). My NVMe drives are also marked as internal with OC.

 

[startergo]

I noticed disk ejection in Mojave, but not in CAT or Big Sur (without OC).

 

[Dayo]

I'd really like to be able to constrain a particular OC configuration to only work with one well known volume using it as the one and only default...or behave like it can't find any boot volume if that particular one can't be found.

Is there a way?

Not at this point in time unless you amend OpenCore yourself.

 

[Outface]

Hi guys, I got a Mac Pro 5,1 with a 6 core Xeon 3,46 and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 (incl. Bootscreen) running Mojave 10.14.6. I want to upgrade to Catalina and got a few question.

1. Would it be possible to upgrade to Catalina using another natively supported Mac (my Macbook Pro mid 2012) without using Opencore? (Simply putting my OS SSD in it, upgrading to Catalina and putting it back in my 5,1?)

2. All manuals I found explain how to install Catalina from scratch but this is my music production machine with tons of software, plug ins, etc - I dont want to start installing everything again - so if my question 1 is no possible way - is there a way upgrading from Mojave to Catalina using opencore without reinstalling everything from scratch - but updating it? I got a few disks laying around if that helps.

kind regards & thx for your help!

 

[Dewdman42]

In Mojave I found random disconnects of my PCIE NVME cards appearing as external cards. For this reason I make external drives appear as internal through OC device property injection.

Hmmm this may have happened to me last night on catalina. I have two ssd on a pcie card (sonnet). The Mac froze up or became very unresponsive and then after reboot one of the two drives on that card was not seen, including in disk utility. After more reboots its back. Paranoid now about what is broke. It had been working perfectly for a week before that.

I did not bother with those pcie drive hacks because I dont card about the icons but it sounds like I should look more closely at that

 

[Dewdman42]

Not at this point in time unless you amend OpenCore yourself.

Thanks I was afraid that was the case. :-(

 

[Eweie]

Hi guys, I got a Mac Pro 5,1 with a 6 core Xeon 3,46 and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 (incl. Bootscreen) running Mojave 10.14.6. I want to upgrade to Catalina and got a few question.

1. Would it be possible to upgrade to Catalina using another natively supported Mac (my Macbook Pro mid 2012) without using Opencore? (Simply putting my OS SSD in it, upgrading to Catalina and putting it back in my 5,1?)

2. All manuals I found explain how to install Catalina from scratch but this is my music production machine with tons of software, plug ins, etc - I dont want to start installing everything again - so if my question 1 is no possible way - is there a way upgrading from Mojave to Catalina using opencore without reinstalling everything from scratch - but updating it? I got a few disks laying around if that helps.

kind regards & thx for your help!

you can use carbon copy cloner on your other machine running Catalina to clone it to another SSD but you will have to put Open Core onto the EFI partition and configure it as the guide in the first page says, but it all works as intended.

 

[Eweie]

Did you copied the mojave.kext file into the OC kext folder (where Lilu and WEG are)?

yes. I also did it on my other machine running Catalina, it also didn't work.

 

[Outface]

you can use carbon copy cloner on your other machine running Catalina to clone it to another SSD but you will have to put Open Core onto the EFI partition and configure it as the guide in the first page says, but it all works as intended.

Thx! But would upgrading it on my 5.1 work as well (from Mojave to Catalina) using Opencore somehow?

 

[Eweie]

Thx! But would upgrading it on my 5.1 work as well (from Mojave to Catalina) using Opencore somehow?

I've never tried Mojave to Catalina but I did upgrade Catalina to Big Sur just fine on the 5,1 with open core installed.
it most likely works just fine.

 

[Outface]

Thx! But would upgrading it on my 5.1 work as well (from Mojave to Catalina) using Opencore somehow?

So that means you suggest installing opencore on my running Mojave and upgrading it normally to Catalina then?

 

[Eweie]

So that means you suggest installing opencore on my running Mojave and upgrading it normally to Catalina then?

I would suggest to clone the Mojave installation to another drive and install open core onto the clone following the guide. if you don't want to mess with your current installation, but you can.

 

[paalb]

Hi guys, I got a Mac Pro 5,1 with a 6 core Xeon 3,46 and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 (incl. Bootscreen) running Mojave 10.14.6. I want to upgrade to Catalina and got a few question.

1. Would it be possible to upgrade to Catalina using another natively supported Mac (my Macbook Pro mid 2012) without using Opencore? (Simply putting my OS SSD in it, upgrading to Catalina and putting it back in my 5,1?)

2. All manuals I found explain how to install Catalina from scratch but this is my music production machine with tons of software, plug ins, etc - I dont want to start installing everything again - so if my question 1 is no possible way - is there a way upgrading from Mojave to Catalina using opencore without reinstalling everything from scratch - but updating it? I got a few disks laying around if that helps.

kind regards & thx for your help!

Here is what I did.
First, I upgraded my Mojave install to the latest version.
Then I got a new disk same size as the Mojave install.
Then I followed the instructions on page one, part one.
Now I had a clean Catalina on my mac and knew that it worked.
Then I started Migration assistant in Catalina and choose the setting “From Startup Disk”. Choosed the Mojave disk. Everything got transferred nicely.
I still got my Mojave disk so I could have rolled back or copied over things if anything was missing.

Be aware of one thing. You must have one Mojave disk or bootable USB stick handy in case you get into trouble. Mine is an old small SSD placed in the Upper CD-drive connector. I have a fresh install of Mojave there.

 

[Outface]

Hmm I followed the guide but when I want to check the open core version with:
nvram 4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version

I get back:
nvram: Error getting variable - '4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version': (iokit/common) data was not found


In another forum I read I have to set the expose setting in the config.plist file.

The only thing I found was:

<key>ExposeSensitiveData</key>
<integer>2</integer>

But I don't know how to set it correctly.
Can anybody help me with my error please?

 

[TECK]

@Outface yes you need ExposeSensitiveData set to 2, default is 6. This is set under Misc dictionary > Security dictionary, something like:

    <key>Misc</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Security</key>
        <dict>
            <key>ExposeSensitiveData</key>
            <integer>2</integer>

 

[Outface]

@Outface yes you need ExposeSensitiveData set to 2, default is 6. This is set under Misc dictionary > Security dictionary, something like:

    <key>Misc</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Security</key>
        <dict>
            <key>ExposeSensitiveData</key>
            <integer>2</integer>

It is already set to 2 in my config.plist - but I get this error message anyway (see above)

 

[TECK]

It's a no fuss 15 min project

Until things break with a new OC release or macOS upgrade. I'm sure @h9826790 agrees with me. The only reason myself and @cdf insist on taking the time to understand OC is because you will not be dependent on someone else to fix your Mac.

 

[TECK]

It is already set to 2 in my config.plist

Did you follow the first post instructions?

 

[OneyedK]

Hmm I followed the guide but when I want to check the open core version with:
nvram 4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version

I get back:
nvram: Error getting variable - '4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version': (iokit/common) data was not found

If you followed the guide to the letter, it should be ok.

Did you bless the EFI volume in de computer that the disk is supposed to boot opencore in?
--> this part cannot be done in another machine

 

[TECK]

Did you bless the EFI volume in de computer that the disk is supposed to boot opencore in?

@Outface to be sure you bless the right disk, once you are in recovery, run:

~# diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1
~# ls -lah /Volumes/EFI/EFI
~# bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot

If you see the OC directory, you mounted the correct disk. If you have multiple disks, when you reboot in recovery or other OS, the disk number might change. For example, in Mojave the OC disk was showing as disk0 while in Big Sur is disk1:

~$ diskutil list /dev/disk1
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk2⁩         499.9 GB   disk1s2

 

[Outface]

If you followed the guide to the letter, it should be ok.

Did you bless the EFI volume in de computer that the disk is supposed to boot opencore in?
--> this part cannot be done in another machine

Yes I did it exactly as mentioned in part 1 and I did not get any error message before

nvram: Error getting variable - '4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version': (iokit/common) data was not found

as answer to

nvram 4D1FDA02-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B30102pencore-version

 

[Outface]

@Outface to be sure you bless the right disk, once you are in recovery, run:

~# diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1
~# ls -lah /Volumes/EFI/EFI
~# bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot

If you see the OC directory, you mounted the correct disk. If you have multiple disks, when you reboot in recovery or other OS, the disk number might change. For example, in Mojave the OC disk was showing as disk0 while in Big Sur is disk1:

~$ diskutil list /dev/disk1
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk2⁩         499.9 GB   disk1s2

Maybe this is the problem ?!

ls -lah /Volumes/EFI/EFI

This step is not mentioned in the guide in step 1, is it necessary?

 

[TECK]

is there a way upgrading from Mojave to Catalina

If you have a spare disk to try, you can test it. Install a fresh Mojave on a new disk, this will become your disk B, the rescue disk. Then set OC on the disk you plan to upgrade. You will get a Big Sur upgrade notification, not Catalina. If you have such a complex setup, a CarbonCopy backup is a MUST.

 

[TECK]

This step is not mentioned in the guide in step 1, is it necessary?

This just shows you the mounted disk contents, so you know you actually bess the disk where OC is present.If the OC directory is missing, you mounted the wrong disk. You can do this from your current OS, mount the disk and try it. Are you in OC Big Sur or still in Catalina.