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

[w1z]

This is to acknowledge that I have just lost my bootdrive after applying the Opencore. I've removed it from EFI partition and reset the NVRAM. All data in the drive is still accessible thru another boot drive mounted externally, so I could still rescue all data in it.

I understand this thing is under experimental development and I don't blame anyone who contributes to this. Just want to say this thing is unsafe for now under dual boot configuration. Some boot parameters could be fatally damaged during booting A B drive configuration thru the NVRAM. Even resetting the NVRAM wouldn't help. Make sure you have a backup copy before proceeding anything on this thing.

Keep up good work.

You cannot lose a boot drive or any drive because of OC. You can cause a mac pro to become a brick if you attempt to go beyond the steps outlined in the OP's first post ie. Spoof/manipulate SMBIOS, NRAM etc without understanding the advanced options of OC or having a matt card.

Edit: I'm dual booting Catalina and Windows 10 EFI.. No issues.

 

[cdf]

I do not understand what you all have been discussing regarding the last several pages of the thread at all- Do they matter if I follow the steps exactly in Post 1???

No. Much of the discussion in this thread has been outside the scope of the first post. If you follow all the steps exactly, you should be fine. One tip that I can offer is that disk B be a SATA drive in bay 1 (that way it will always be the fallback choice after an NVRAM reset).

 

[solaris8x86]

You cannot lose a boot drive or any drive because of OC. You can cause a mac pro to become a brick if you attempt to go beyond the steps outlined in the OP's first post ie. Spoof/manipulate SMBIOS, NRAM etc without understanding the advanced options of OC or having a matt card.

Edit: I'm dual booting Catalina and Windows 10 EFI.. No issues.

I'm not sure what you are talking about but after I deleted and recreated the APFS container for that boot drive. The boot drive is back and all I needed is to reinstall OSX and restore data. I just couldn't boot it up when opencore was applied.

 

[startergo]

I'm not sure what you are talking about but after I deleted and recreated the APFS container for that boot drive. The boot drive is back and all I needed is to reinstall OSX and restore data. I just couldn't boot it up when opencore was applied.

Normally if you can boot from opencore on any drive and then select through startup disk your desired drive, next boot should be from that drive through opencore. It is only the first boot after bless when it might not select the proper drive.
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It is much easier with a boot screen, because on the first startup you can force boot to the OC boot menu and select your startup disk. But you still have to select your startup disk after booting from within OSX.

 

[solaris8x86]

I tried twice the procedure today. After the 6a step (installing Catalina 10.15.2). It stops working (after the reboot is black screen).
My HW configure is dual Xeon 3.46Ghz Mac Pro 2010. Tried twice a day. No luck. Giving up.

 

[cdf]

I tried twice the procedure today. After the 6a step (installing Catalina 10.15.2). It stops working (after the reboot is black screen).
My HW configure is dual Xeon 3.46Ghz Mac Pro 2010. Tried twice a day. No luck. Giving up.

Depending on your graphics card, when the macOS installer restarts your machine, you may get no display for a while until the drivers are loaded. This is normal. If you have ruled out this possibility, then make sure that you have properly set RequestBootVarRouting to true in the configuration file. This is important for the installation.

 

[papadj3]

cdf-thanks for the input!
Wondering if I can use one 970-PRO NVME in 7101A as Mojave-A and a second 970-PRO NVME in the 7101A as Catalina-B?? (Instead of an SSD SATA Drive in Bay 1) or both 970-PRO NVME in 7101A for (Drives A&B) and a third SSD in bay 1 for Catalina as Drive B?? Hope this statement makes sense??

 

[startergo]

I tried twice the procedure today. After the 6a step (installing Catalina 10.15.2). It stops working (after the reboot is black screen).
My HW configure is dual Xeon 3.46Ghz Mac Pro 2010. Tried twice a day. No luck. Giving up.

DisableWatchDog: (May need to be set for yes if macOS is stalling on something while booting

 

[cdf]

Wondering if I can use one 970-PRO NVME in 7101A as Mojave-A and a second 970-PRO NVME in the 7101A as Catalina-B?? (Instead of an SSD SATA Drive in Bay 1) or both 970-PRO NVME in 7101A for (Drives A&B) and a third SSD in bay 1 for Catalina as Drive B?? Hope this statement makes sense??

My recommendation is what has worked well for me, but other setups are certainly possible. I believe that @w1z has had success with just NVMe drives on a 7101A (see post #6).

 

[PowerMac84]

Thanks guys for all this help. It’s great! It’s so cool that you spend your time on the old Mac Pro.
Still I hate Open Core. It’s like Clover on Hackintosh, but here there’s not even a boot screen. I managed to make some Hackintoshes in the past, but for example with my Asus Deluxe II I never got it working. I spent like two months on this project until I gave up. I just do not have the time. But I also do not have the money. So I keep on using my old Mac Pro. I wanted to give Open Core a try. Maybe I have become too old? I watched my Mac Pro reboot like a Hundred times today. Another wasted day. I cannot read 22 pages and dive into this topics. My head is just too full. I once got Open Core to work but I didn’t understand how. It would run on my Dual 5690 but it would never properly boot with a second SSD in the Mac. Following the tutorial doesn’t make sense if you don’t have Mojave anymore. I’m super frustrated. The learning curve has become way too steep for someone stupid like me who also has another job. Like I said, like Clover but even without the bootscreen

 

[startergo]

Thanks guys for all this help. It’s great! It’s so cool that you spend your time on the old Mac Pro.
Still I hate Open Core. It’s like Clover on Hackintosh, but here there’s not even a boot screen. I managed to make some Hackintoshes in the past, but for example with my Asus Deluxe II I never got it working. I spent like two months on this project until I gave up. I just do not have the time. But I also do not have the money. So I keep on using my old Mac Pro. I wanted to give Open Core a try. Maybe I have become too old? I watched my Mac Pro reboot like a Hundred times today. Another wasted day. I cannot read 22 pages and dive into this topics. My head is just too full. I once got Open Core to work but I didn’t understand how. It would run on my Dual 5690 but it would never properly boot with a second SSD in the Mac. Following the tutorial doesn’t make sense if you don’t have Mojave anymore. I’m super frustrated. The learning curve has become way too steep for someone stupid like me who also has another job. Like I said, like Clover but even without the bootscreen

First you need to stop it from panic reboots so you can see the messages.
Try
PanicNoKextDump: Allows for reading kernel panics logs when kernel panics occurs

Also in the boot argument add:
debug=0x144 cpus=1 keepsyms=1
you can add -v for verbose booting as well

 

[lshaner]

@cdf thanks to you my Mac Pro 5,1 (2010 Westmere) has new life.
Only one small issue. The stock WiFi chip isn't working. In the status bar it shows a greyed out "Wi-Fi: On" with an option to turn it off, but doing so is a no-op. Can't see any networks.
Any suggestions?

 

[solaris8x86]

Depending on your graphics card, when the macOS installer restarts your machine, you may get no display for a while until the drivers are loaded. This is normal. If you have ruled out this possibility, then make sure that you have properly set RequestBootVarRouting to true in the configuration file. This is important for the installation.

My graphic card is Vega 56 and has no boot screen. But I had waited a long time till I heard a "Chrome" sound the system reboot itself again automatically. Then I know it failed on boot up the Catalina drive. So, it couldn't be booted up is confirmed (wait 10 minute already...)
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@cdf thanks to you my Mac Pro 5,1 (2010 Westmere) has new life.
Only one small issue. The stock WiFi chip isn't working. In the status bar it shows a greyed out "Wi-Fi: On" with an option to turn it off, but doing so is a no-op. Can't see any networks.
Any suggestions?

Oh man....., even if it can be installed successfully. It still has no wifi network... what's the point of this Mod....eeemm.....
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DisableWatchDog: (May need to be set for yes if macOS is stalling on something while booting

Are you suggesting me to give it a try for 3rd times....?
During the Catalina boot up. That drive has no LED activity and just keeps stop working. I doubt that it is not even booting into that drive after the Catalina installation.

 

[solaris8x86]

Well, I gave the 3rd try today. It has failed too. And I lost one more boot drive (no longer bootable unless deleting the APFS container and reformat) in the test. Same result. Hanged out after Catalina installation and next reboot. After the 6a step not working. Black screen.

I rescue all the data from backup. Before playing around this beta stuff. Make sure you have created backup for your disk or you may lose all data. From now on, I would stick with the old Lilu/Whatevergreen (boot-args shikigva=96 shiki-id=Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94) for Vega 56 hardware acceleration in Mojave. Using of the Opencore beta may just ruin the entire disk and kill all data. I understand it is still a beta.

3 sessions learnt in 2 days. Not my cup of tea for now.
But keep up good work till it can be a release software to public.

 

[cdf]

@cdf thanks to you my Mac Pro 5,1 (2010 Westmere) has new life.
Only one small issue. The stock WiFi chip isn't working. In the status bar it shows a greyed out "Wi-Fi: On" with an option to turn it off, but doing so is a no-op. Can't see any networks.
Any suggestions?

Catalina no longer supports the original Wi-Fi card. You can read about it here:

Obsolete, Use OpenCore instead | What you need to do to make Catalina work with MacPro5,1

Obsolete, please use OpenCore to have native installs of Catalina with MP5,1. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/

forums.macrumors.com

However, you should still be able to get Wi-Fi to work by using the kext from Mojave. OpenCore can even load the kext for you!

 

[h9826790]

Well, I gave the 3rd try today. It has failed too. And I lost one more boot drive (no longer bootable unless deleting the APFS container and reformat) in the test. Same result. Hanged out after Catalina installation and next reboot. After the 6a step not working. Black screen.

I rescue all the data from backup. Before playing around this beta stuff. Make sure you have created backup for your disk or you may lost all data. From now on, I would stick with the old Lilu/Whatevergreen (boot-args shikigva=96 shiki-id=Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94) for Vega 56 hardware acceleration in Mojave. Using of the Opencore beta may just ruin the entire disk and kill all data. I understand it is still a beta.

3 sessions learnt in 2 days. Not my cup of tea for now.
But keep up good work till it can be a release software to public.

1) You can still use OpenCore with Mojave to achieve full HWAccel (including HEVC hardware encode), and activate DRM streaming (Netflix on Safari, or iTunes movies, etc)

2) How many monitor you have? It seems multiple monitors setup may cause nothing to display during OS installation / upgrade for non flashed graphic cards.

3) If you have spare test drive. You don't need to use that A / B hard drives method. You can simply install OpenCore onto the test boot drive (which already had Mojave onboard), and boot to OpenCore Mojave. Then you can upgrade that Mojave to Catalina if you want to. If anything goes wrong, simple remove that test drive.

For your info, my primary boot drive now is OpenCore Mojave. This give me the best support for everything (My radeon VII, HWAccel, 32bit apps, etc). I only do tests in OpenCore Catalina. Which still not attractive enough for me to upgrade my primary boot drive (especially the Chinese input method is quite broken in Catalina).

 

[solaris8x86]

1) You can still use OpenCore with Mojave to achieve full HWAccel (including HEVC hardware encode), and activate DRM streaming (Netflix on Safari, or iTunes movies, etc)

2) How many monitor you have? It seems multiple monitors setup may cause nothing to display during OS installation / upgrade for non flashed graphic cards.

3) If you have spare test drive. You don't need to use that A / B hard drive method. You can simply install OpenCore onto the test boot drive (which already had Mojave onboard), and boot to OpenCore Mojave. Then you can upgrade that Mojave to Catalina if you want to.

For your info, my primary boot drive not is OpenCore Mojave. This give me the best support for everything (My radeon VII, HWAccel, 32bit apps, etc). I only do tests in OpenCore Catalina. Which still not attractive enough for me to upgrade my primary boot drive (especially the Chinese input method is quite broken in Catalina).

I know opencore can do the same for hardware acceleration in Mojave. I tried. It worked. But considering how catastrophic it can be after these 2 days for playing around. Production use of this beta stuff is banned for sure.

So we will stick with the old method to enable h264/HEVC hardware acceleration for Vega in Mojave. It least it couldn't ruin the entire drive (when Lilu/WhateverGeen method goes wrong, just resetting to NVRAM solves the problem, but opencore beta cannot do the same and data in the entire disk could be lost. I lost data in 2 drives in just two days with open core. Luckily I have backups).

So open core is over for now. A year or two when it finalises as a release. We may give it a try again. For now. No, thank you. Shxt storm can happen to the data in my Mac if I go on this beta stuff.

 

[startergo]

OC is not changing anything on the partitions it is not installed. Whoever has problems booting may reset NVRAM and select boot disk through recovery. But recommendation is to install OC on an USB/pluggable SSD for easy removal. Don't install it on internal hard drive if you don't have means to debug or troubleshoot it. Boot screen is highly recommended.
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Remember OC is a bootloader. Once the system is booted it is no longer needed. If you have it on USB you can remove the USB when system is booted.

 

[Ludacrisvp]

This is how the Westmere is handled:

  //
  // TODO: handle package count...
  //
}

Guess that explains why the dual proc machines have OC show 1 pkg during boot.
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Any instructions for OC on a 3,1?

No instructions but I’ve got it working on mine. It currently has no bootscreen with our GOP cards like it does with refind but once it finally hands off from OC to the Mac OS boot I see my verbose boot.
Seems to take about 2 minutes from poweron to the start of the verbose boot. Not sure why this is. I’ve continued tweaking my config file (which is why I now have my GTX 650 EFI card installed again because I can’t get OC to boot again, I think due to version 0.5.3 of OC. I’ve not had time to debug it lately... busy time of year).

 

[solaris8x86]

Catalina no longer supports the original Wi-Fi card. You can read about it here:

Obsolete, Use OpenCore instead | What you need to do to make Catalina work with MacPro5,1

Obsolete, please use OpenCore to have native installs of Catalina with MP5,1. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/

forums.macrumors.com

However, you should still be able to get Wi-Fi to work by using the kext from Mojave. OpenCore can even load the kext for you!

Today, I gave it 4th try and it works out this time!

The trick that caused the problem is the OpenCore couldn't see the external SAS drive (LUN). In my previous hardware configuration. Disk A is an internal SATA3 SSD and Disk B is a SAS SSD connected thru an Acrea SAS RAID controller. However, I would like to say that this dual boot configuration has been supporting natively by OS X since 10.10 till 10.14. Booting from a SAS controller and its external boot drives has been no problem. But it doesn't work out in OpenCore. My pre-conception caused the failure in the past few days when attempting to play around the OpenCore. Once after I installed another internal Disk B SATA drive. The Opencore works out for the Catalina installation.

However, I have got no wifi card recognized even after copying the AirPortBrcm4331.kext from Mojave 10.4.6 to Catalina 10.15.2. Same path in the /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirportBrcm4331.kext

With the ownership assigned to [sudo chown -R root:wheel AirportBrcm4331.kext]. Still no luck. Wifi card is still not recognized.

Anyone can point me to make the Wifi work on this?

I also hope that the next release of OpenCore can support to Areca or ATTO (major bands) SAS controllers and their external boot drives if any presents. If OpenCore is a project to extend lifetime support to the old Mac. Please make it close or even identical to the dual boot (inclusive external boot drives) functionality like working on a real old Mac. Thanks.


EDITED: I found out the Startup Disk selection in the Preference is not working for my parent Mojave drive. When I selected the Mojave bootdrive. The Mac still boots into Catalina.... ???!! I also notice the boot speed is very fast to my Catalina drive thru OpenCore. It's much faster than the native speed on my another NVMe drive (Mojave) and external SAS boot drive (Mojave) when without opencore installed. I doubt, is there a Timeout value for scanning drive hardware in the OpenCore configuration which causing the problem. The scanning window just doesn't have enough time to scan out all drives especially those connected thru the external PCI bus. As a result. OpenCore cannot recognise all those external drives. Causing the Catalina installation failure. (just a theory.)

 

[h9826790]

However, I have got no wifi card recognized even after copied the AirPortBrcm4331.kext from Mojave 10.4.6 to Catalina 10.15.2. Same path in the /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirportBrcm4331.kext

With the ownership assigned to sudo chown -R root:wheel. Still no luck. Wifi card is still not recognized.
Anyone can point me to make it work on this?

I have an upgrade wifi card. So, no need to deal with this problem. However, if you want to try something.

1) You may try to fix all ownership, permission, and codesign.

Or

2) Load that kext via OpenCore.
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I found out the Startup Disk selection in the Preference is not working for my parent Mojave drive. When I selected the Mojave bootdrive. The Mac still boots into Catalina.... ???!!

This is expected, and why we have this step.

If you want that selection work again, you can switch it back to "false"

HOWEVER, before you perform any Catalina OS update, you MUST turn this back on.

 

[solaris8x86]

I have an upgrade wifi card. So, no need to deal with this problem. However, if you want to try something.

1) You may try to fix all ownership, permission, and codesign.

Or

2) Load that kext via OpenCore.
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This is expected, and why we have this step.
View attachment 884450

If you want that selection work again, you can switch it back to "false"

HOWEVER, before you perform any Catalina OS update, you MUST turn this back on.

Oh I see, I also tried loading the kext via OpenCore (putting the AirportBrcm4331.kext into the kext folder in EFI/OC/kext). No luck and still not working. I've also checked out other forums. Other users also have this problem after OS X 10.15.1 upgrade. It seems Apple finally has permanently disabled it. However, I have 2 AirPort Extreme dual band routers... I can deal with it with using one of my AirPort Extreme dual bands router as a wifi adapter to my Mac connected to ethernet then --> wifi extend bridging.. but seem weird and too luxurious....but it should work. Ugly config....

Of course, we need dual boots. As Catalina cannot run 32bit application. I have some legacy enterprise applications such as DTS Master Audio Suite Encoder is 32bit stuff with Java 6 JRE..... Need to fall back to Mojave sometimes.

 

[h9826790]

Oh I see, I also tried loading the kext via OpenCore (putting the AirportBrcm4331.kext into the kext folder in EFI/OC/kext). No luck and still not working. I've also checked out other forums. Other users also have this problem after OS X 10.15.1 upgrade. It seems Apple finally has permanently disabled it. However, I have 2 AirPort Extreme dual band routers... I can deal with it with using one of my AirPort Extreme dual bands router as a wifi adapter to my Mac connected to ethernet then --> wifi extend bridging.. but seem weird and too luxurious....but it should work. Ugly config....

Of course, we need dual boots. As Catalina cannot run 32bit application. I have some legacy enterprise applications such as DTS Master Audio Suite Encoder is 32bit stuff with Java 6 JRE..... Need to fall back to Mojave sometimes.

1) You have to tell OC to load that kext in config.plist, but not just put the kext into position.

2) For info, to boot Catalina again, you need to re-bless OpenCore, cannot select that in system preference

 

[solaris8x86]

1) You have to tell OC to load that kext in config.plist, but not just put the kext into position.

2) For info, to boot Catalina again, you need to re-bless OpenCore, cannot select that in system preference

So labour intensive. I decide to step back to Mojave for now and I've removed the Catalina drive already minutes ago. You guys have fun.

 

[h9826790]

So labour intensive. I decide to step back to Mojave for now and I've removed the Catalina drive already minutes ago. You guys have fun.

Of course, we need dual boots. As Catalina cannot run 32bit application. I have some legacy enterprise applications such as DTS Master Audio Suite Encoder is 32bit stuff with Java 6 JRE..... Need to fall back to Mojave sometimes.

Yeah, it seems you should stay at Mojave. Catalina only for fun / testing purpose at this moment.