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

[joevt]

I can type in the command all day, but none of the files are created.

The file names start with a period . so they may be invisible. Press Command-Shift-Period in the Finder to toggle showing invisible files.

FYI: I am typing in the command in the :BOOT command line in Terminal as it won't go to /disklabel since it is prompting met 'Not a directory'

What is ":BOOT command line in Terminal"? What is the exact error message? Copy and paste or screenshot your work please.

An alternative method for creating the label:
sudo bless --folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT --label "Label"

 

[zzzachi]

@Reefwalker :
you can also examine the preboot volume... see here:

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

@PeterHolbrook video artefacts --> This is normal ---> hm, ok.. at least i solved the mystery with my doubled mojave in the boot picker. .-) it was actually coming from my catalina disk, not from the mojave disk. i had ccc'ed my catalina backup onto a former mojave disk (without formatting it...

forums.macrumors.com

if you have more than one entry (folder) in the preboot volume, this might be the cause of yr issue.
but take care not to delete the wrong folder or your system wont boot anymore

 

[LFO8]

The file names start with a period . so they may be invisible. Press Command-Shift-Period in the Finder to toggle showing invisible files.


What is ":BOOT command line in Terminal"? What is the exact error message? Copy and paste or screenshot your work please.

An alternative method for creating the label:
sudo bless --folder /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT --label "Label"

Thank you. The files were indeed hidden. Is creating these files enough to show the custom drives names in the boot picker or is there another step needed?

 

[Reefwalker]

you can also examine the preboot volume... see here:

I checked and only have one UUID folder in the Preboot volume.

 

[nobullone1964]

I mistakenly created a Big Sur volume in the same APFS container where I’d installed Catalina creating a number of problems I only read about afterwards. I reformatted my drive and went through the whole OC and Catalina install from scratch, which wasn’t terrible, but now the BootPicker is showing three drives: Catalina, EFI, and Mojave. I’ve tried the Bless command a few times with no change. How can I remove the EFI disk from the picker?

Make sure you have a startup disk selected in system preferences. That EFI may be OpenCore showing because no startup is selected.

 

[Reefwalker]

Make sure you have a startup disk selected in system preferences. That EFI may be OpenCore showing because no startup is selected.

Tried that. I’ve even removed my SSD and only have the Highpoint installed with the Catalina boot disk and a RAID0 data disk. There are EFI volumes on each of the three NVMe drives which are part of the RAID0 data disk, but none of those can be mounted so I don’t think it’s identifying them and if it was, I would assume it would identify all of them.

 

[Reefwalker]

Update...after thinking about my last post and my previous experience trying to mount the EFI partitions of the three disks in my RAID0 I went back and tried it again. All of them mounted, but one of them would not display in the Finder, which is strange. Most importantly though one of them did have previous version of my OC EFI folder on it. I must have been careless during one of my previous reinstallation attempts. Anyway, I deleted it and no more EFI in the Picker. OC is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, following Scan Policy 0. Thanks for everybody's suggestions! They helped me think through the problem.

 

[joevt]

Thank you. The files were indeed hidden. Is creating these files enough to show the custom drives names in the boot picker or is there another step needed?

The .disk_label files can be used by OpenCore (graphical boot picker) - or you may want to have a .disk_label.contentDetails if you're using the OpenCore text boot picker.
printf "Label" > .disk_label.contentDetails

If you're using the Apple boot picker (hold option key at boot), also called the Startup Manager https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255 , then the following applies:

On my MacPro3,1, the .disk_label file is only used on file systems that have bless info. Only HFS+ and APFS partitions can have bless info. You can see the bless info with the following command:
bless --info /Volumes/YourHFSVolume
The .disk_label file should be in the same folder as the blessed system file.

bless has special behavior for APFS volumes. If you want to bless or check bless info for a APFS volume, it will usually substitute the Preboot volume (unless you specified the Preboot or Recovery volume). In that case, you may want to use my modified bless command (directbless):

GitHub - joevt/bless: modified macOS bless command

modified macOS bless command. Contribute to joevt/bless development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

macOS disk labels, mounting partitions

macOS disk labels, mounting partitions. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

source "~/DiskUtil.sh"
directbless --info /Volumes/YourHFSorAPFSVolume

Newer Macs may use .disk_label (or .disk_label_2x for HiDPI displays) even for non-HFS+/APFS volumes (i.e. FAT partitions such as the EFI partition).

In any case (new or old Mac), every item shown by the Startup Manager can have a custom icon if it's not a legacy Windows item. So if you can't give an item a custom label, you can at least give it a custom icon (for old Macs, the .VolumeIcon.icns file needs to contain an icon of type it32).

 

[joevt]

Update...after thinking about my last post and my previous experience trying to mount the EFI partitions of the three disks in my RAID0 I went back and tried it again. All of them mounted, but one of them would not display in the Finder, which is strange. Most importantly though one of them did have previous version of my OC EFI folder on it. I must have been careless during one of my previous reinstallation attempts. Anyway, I deleted it and no more EFI in the Picker. OC is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, following Scan Policy 0. Thanks for everybody's suggestions! They helped me think through the problem.

It may help to put a folder in each EFI partition to describe what disk it belongs to.
Use mount to get a list of mount points.
Use open mountpointpath to view the contents of the mount point in the Finder.

For example, I have a disk in each of my MacPro3,1's drive bays. I can mount all EFI partitions and open the EFI partition that I want using that folder name without knowing the mount point name (usually "/Volumes/EFI #" where # is a unique number that may not always be the same).

source "~/Downloads/DiskUtil.sh"
mountEFIpartitions
open /Volumes/EFI*/EFI_Multimedia_TOSHIBA5TB_bay1/..
open /Volumes/EFI*/*bay2/../EFI/BOOT

 

[Reefwalker]

It may help to put a folder in each EFI partition to describe what disk it belongs to.

Great idea! Thank you.

 

[nobullone1964]

Update...after thinking about my last post and my previous experience trying to mount the EFI partitions of the three disks in my RAID0 I went back and tried it again. All of them mounted, but one of them would not display in the Finder, which is strange. Most importantly though one of them did have previous version of my OC EFI folder on it. I must have been careless during one of my previous reinstallation attempts. Anyway, I deleted it and no more EFI in the Picker. OC is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, following Scan Policy 0. Thanks for everybody's suggestions! They helped me think through the problem.

You know, I figured that later and didn't have time to post back. But, yeah, an EFI will pop up in bootpicker if there was one left over or no startup disk is selected after blessing an EFI. Glad you figured it out.

 

[LFO8]

The .disk_label files can be used by OpenCore (graphical boot picker) - or you may want to have a .disk_label.contentDetails if you're using the OpenCore text boot picker.
printf "Label" > .disk_label.contentDetails

If you're using the Apple boot picker (hold option key at boot), also called the Startup Manager https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255 , then the following applies:

On my MacPro3,1, the .disk_label file is only used on file systems that have bless info. Only HFS+ and APFS partitions can have bless info. You can see the bless info with the following command:
bless --info /Volumes/YourHFSVolume
The .disk_label file should be in the same folder as the blessed system file.

bless has special behavior for APFS volumes. If you want to bless or check bless info for a APFS volume, it will usually substitute the Preboot volume (unless you specified the Preboot or Recovery volume). In that case, you may want to use my modified bless command (directbless):

GitHub - joevt/bless: modified macOS bless command

modified macOS bless command. Contribute to joevt/bless development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

macOS disk labels, mounting partitions

macOS disk labels, mounting partitions. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

source "~/DiskUtil.sh"
directbless --info /Volumes/YourHFSorAPFSVolume

Newer Macs may use .disk_label (or .disk_label_2x for HiDPI displays) even for non-HFS+/APFS volumes (i.e. FAT partitions such as the EFI partition).

In any case (new or old Mac), every item shown by the Startup Manager can have a custom icon if it's not a legacy Windows item. So if you can't give an item a custom label, you can at least give it a custom icon (for old Macs, the .VolumeIcon.icns file needs to contain an icon of type it32).

Thank you for taking the time to explain. I’m on a 5,1 with a RX580 8GB so no Startup Manager for me. I am using the OpenCore graphical bootpicker.

I have have Mojave installed on my main internal drive (nvme) and Big Sur installed on my secondary internal drive (sata ssd).
The Mojave drive is the one with OpenCore in the EFI and it has been blessed.

On that drive I have created the ‘name files’ using the command:
sudo ./disklabel -e "YourLabel" .disk_label .disk_label_2x

I applied this naming as a test to see if it would work but upon reboot the drive is still called MacOs Mojave (it’s original name) in the OpenCore graphical boorpicker.

I have checked the BOOT folder in the EFI just to be sure, but the files are there. The name just doesn’t show in the bootpicker.

 

[joevt]

I have checked the BOOT folder in the EFI just to be sure, but the files are there. The name just doesn’t show in the bootpicker.

I haven't gotten around to trying the graphical boot picker of Open Core yet.
The text mode doesn't have scrolling which causes two problems:
1) the default text mode only has 24 lines but I have more boot items than that so it doesn't draw nicely.
2) even if I change the text mode to add more lines, it only supports 35 items (1-9A-Z) but I have more boot items than that so I can't boot all of them.

Anyway, back to the graphical boot picker, the config documentation is at

Configuration

It says PickerAttributes contains a bit OC_ATTR_USE_DISK_LABEL_FILE that forces the disk label to be used.
If the bit is not set, then the text in the .disk_label.contentDetails file is used.

 

[LFO8]

I haven't gotten around to trying the graphical boot picker of Open Core yet.
The text mode doesn't have scrolling which causes two problems:
1) the default text mode only has 24 lines but I have more boot items than that so it doesn't draw nicely.
2) even if I change the text mode to add more lines, it only supports 35 items (1-9A-Z) but I have more boot items than that so I can't boot all of them.

Anyway, back to the graphical boot picker, the config documentation is at

Configuration

It says PickerAttributes contains a bit OC_ATTR_USE_DISK_LABEL_FILE that forces the disk label to be used.
If the bit is not set, then the text in the .disk_label.contentDetails file is used.

Indeed. I found someone was researching the same question on a Hackintosh forum. He proposed the following:

1) Go here (this topic on macrumors) for the procedure on creating custom files called .disk_label and .disk_label_2x which both live in each disk's EFI/BOOT folder, using a utility called disklabel which is included as part of the OpenCore distribution. In using the disklabel utility, you can use whatever name you choose to identify your disk. Spaces are fine.

2) In each disk's EFI/OC/config.plist change the PickerAttributes to a value of 3 (which instructs the picker to use custom boot icons, 0x0001 and to use the disk label files created in step 1 above, 0x0002. Adding these two hex values gives you "3" for this parameter. (For details, refer to the OpenCore reference guide and search for PickerAttributes.)


What I am picking up from that is that:

A) each disk in my multiboot setup will need to have OpenCore (and blessed) in the EFI partition and in each, the files .disk_label and .disk_label_2x should be created (with the chosen disk name inside) in the BOOT folder.

B) The config file (in the OC folder of the EFI partition) should be edited as suggested above in step 2 (this should be done for each disk in the multiboot setup).

I'm not quite sure about step 2 though.. do I just switch the PickerAttributes to a value of 3 or do I need to mess around with hex value's?

 

[amgad_012]

I Have Sound issu on mac pro 2009 running big sur, the sound working but have lagging on any sound track i play from my disk or my browser, any one have same issu? any one knows how to fix it?

 

[joevt]

A) each disk in my multiboot setup will need to have OpenCore (and blessed) in the EFI partition and in each, the files .disk_label and .disk_label_2x should be created (with the chosen disk name inside) in the BOOT folder.

You only need one Open Core - unless you want to have different config files for each to do different things or work for different computers?

EFI partitions don't get blessed. I mean, the bless command can be used to create disk_label files in an EFI partition, and the bless command can set some nvram boot variables that point to the EFI partition or a file on the EFI partition but otherwise there's no other modification made to the EFI partition.

The bless command can do the same for HFS+ and APFS volumes, but also it can set bless info in the file system header which points to the default boot file for that file system (the default boot file for an EFI partition is always at /EFI/Boot/Bootx64.efi). The bless command can do other stuff like embed the apfs.efi driver into the APFS container (when you want do --setBoot).

B) The config file (in the OC folder of the EFI partition) should be edited as suggested above in step 2 (this should be done for each disk in the multiboot setup).

I'm not quite sure about step 2 though.. do I just switch the PickerAttributes to a value of 3 or do I need to mess around with hex value's?

The documentation says it's an integer, so enter the integer value, 3. Maybe add mouse control 0x10 with 19.
Verify the file with plutil config.plist
plutil accepts hex as integers, but does that mean OpenCore will too? The documentation does not mention support for hex when describing the plist integer type, so I would stick with base 10 numbers.

 

[LFO8]

I did it.

What finally worked for me was the following:

1) Create the custom files called .disk_label and .disk_label_2x which both live in each disk's EFI/BOOT folder, using a utility called disklabel (this utility needs to be place into the EFI/EFI/BOOT folder) which is included as part of the OpenCore distribution. In using the disklabel utility, you can use whatever name you choose to identify your disk. Spaces are fine.

Do: cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/ in terminal and run:

sudo ./disklabel -e "YourLabel" .disk_label .disk_label_2x

2) Set the PickerAttributes. Go to EFI/OC/config.plist and change the PickerAttributes to a value of 3 (which instructs the picker to use custom boot icons and to use the disk label files created in step 1 above.

3) Re-bless the OpenCore



Now that I have it all setup, I am wondering if there is any harm in using the 'Maintenance' part of OnyX (for Big Sur) set to default when I have OpenCore up and running?

 

[haralds]

Has anybody update to 11.2 on OC?

 

[h9826790]

Has anybody update to 11.2 on OC?

 

[chrisrm9208]

11.2 up and running with OC0.6.3, without any tweaks. The reboot from Software Update looped, so I rebooted from the Apple menu. The update sort of went cleanly after the first reboot hung, with the Boot Picker pointing, not at Big Sewer as expected, but at the same drive now called Pre-Boot. Once past that, another couple of reboots and then an attempt to get me to switch Siri on...

 

[Dayo]

The documentation does not mention support for hex when describing the plist integer type, so I would stick with base 10 numbers.

Keys that take integers for hex items require entering the Base 10 conversion values.

 

[torr]

Something to note in the Windows 10 install - Appendix 3rd Party Installation

At this step,

Copy /USB/EFI/Microsoft to /Volumes/EFI/EFI

/USB/EFI does not exist. The only file you have is efi.bak (since you renamed that on the USB volume a few steps before)

In the end, I replaced the above step with this:

Copy /Volumes/Windows/EFI/Microsoft to /Volumes/EFI/EFI

Would be nice to update the tutorial with this relevant info.

 

[joevt]

1) Create the custom files called .disk_label and .disk_label_2x which both live in each disk's EFI/BOOT folder, using a utility called disklabel (this utility needs to be place into the EFI/EFI/BOOT folder) which is included as part of the OpenCore distribution. In using the disklabel utility, you can use whatever name you choose to identify your disk. Spaces are fine.

Do: cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/ in terminal and run:

sudo ./disklabel -e "YourLabel" .disk_label .disk_label_2x

A command can be placed anywhere, doesn't need to be in EFI/BOOT folder. You just need to enter the correct path to the command when invoking it.

You don't need to cd to the destination directory if you use full path for the file names.

. means the current directory.
.. means the parent directory.
/ separates directories and files in a path.
A path that starts with / means it's an absolute path starting from the root file system.
A path that starts with ~ means it's a path starting from your home directory.

So if you're in your home directory ~ or anywhere else, and disklabel is in your Downloads folder, then you can do this command:
sudo ~/Downloads/disklabel -e "YourLabel" /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/.disk_label /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/.disk_label_2x

 

[cdf]

/USB/EFI does not exist. The only file you have is efi.bak (since you renamed that on the USB volume a few steps before)

It should exist because we created it after renaming the one from the installer.

 

[torr]

It should exist because we created it after renaming the one from the installer.

In which step? Can you please quote it?