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

[antonlinus]

i have done that everytime an installation failed but during the install i have to repartition the drive gpt anyway?

also after an install craashed i'll boot into macOS and use Clover to inspect all my EFI partitions and i will frequently find some ubuntu files in my OC EFI as well as in the boot folder within that partition. this is although i am clearly creating a /boot partition on the drive i want to install Linux to.

 

[0134168]

Ill give it a try then

You won´t regret. Simply I can´t tell any difference between my Mac Pro 5,1 and my Macbook Pro, native Monterey supported. Everything works. Only to tell you I have a different graphic card, and a new wifi/bluetooth module. Also I have Thunderbolt card and USB 3.1/ESATA card. And an PEXM2-130. All working perfect. Been using Catalina as you till recently. I have been trying Monterey for months, different OCLP versions, till I have seen all runs perfect.

 

[tsialex]

macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52) update is already available on Apple Software Update Service for all users.

No direct download link for the full installer yet.

 

[Enricote]

macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52) update is already available on Apple Software Update Service for all users.

No direct download link for the full installer yet.

Thanks tsialex.
Try this link for full InstallAssistant from MrMacintosh, it took 5 min to download:

InstallAssistant.pkg

OTA Update is very busy at the moment (more that one hour in Spain right now).

 

[prefuse07]

Hi prefuse,

If you installed OC as explained in this thread , Windows is installed in UEFI mode.
This means that Windows will write Certificates to the BootROM of the MP and (if repeated) will corrupt or even brick it.
OpenCore prevents this, but (ofcourse) only when it's working as it should.
Make sure you got OC running before you reinstall the Windows drive.

Short: reinstall OC without the Windows drive installed and when 100% confirmed it works , you can insert the Windows drive again.

Yeah, that's correct, my Windows 11 is installed in UEFI mode; and I did just that -- Replaced my EFI volume contents (except Apple) with BOOT and OC from Martin's 0.7.6 file (I know, should've only been OC, but I jumped the gun), reblessed, now 0.7.6 bootpicker shows @ boot as normal, but as soon as I reconnect my Windows drive, my cMP automatically boots into Windows without any OC bootpicker, which is odd, but it does sort of point to what you mentioned in a different thread about boot order, and corrupted bootROMs. I have NOT performed an NVRAM reset, and I don't plan to.

To the comment about legacy -- thanks for the suggestion, but I'm running Windows 11, so it HAS to be in UEFI mode.

Just need to figure out how to bless from a Windows standpoint, I think? (I did something like this per @cdf's Windows instructions on page 1), I just don't know where I would start from, because his instructions are to do it while windows install is occurring, and I don't want to have to reformat and reinstall Windows 11 again...


I had this all running so flawlessly before on 0.7.5, and am kicking myself for getting curious about 0.7.6.

Anyway, now I do have 0.7.6, and just have to figure out how to get Windows to show up on the bootpicker again.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Yeah, that's correct, my Windows 11 is installed in UEFI mode; and I did just that -- Replaced my EFI volume contents (except Apple) with BOOT and OC from Martin's 0.7.6 file (I know, should've only been OC, but I jumped the gun), reblessed, now 0.7.6 bootpicker shows @ boot as normal, but if I connect any other drives, my cMP automatically boots into Windows without any OC bootpicker.

It seems that OC is only working when I ONLY have my mac drive inserted and nothing else, which is odd, but it does sort of point to what you mentioned about boot order. I have NOT performed an NVRAM reset, and I don't plan to.

To the comment about legacy -- thanks for the suggestion, but I'm running Windows 11, so it HAS to be in UEFI mode.

Just need to figure out how to bless from a Windows standpoint, I think? (I did something like this per @cdf's Windows instructions on page 1), I just don't know where I would start from, because his instructions are to do it while windows install is occurring, and I don't want to have to reformat and reinstall Windows 11 again...


I had this all running so flawlessly before on 0.7.5, and am kicking myself for getting curious about 0.7.6.

Anyway, now I do have 0.7.6, and just have to figure out how to get Windows to show up on the bootpicker again.

First I would make a BootROM dump (if you didnt already), before inserting the W disk again.
You can do that with RomTool or the dumper made by @Macschrauber .

Another point is , personally I would stay with one method to install OC, and not mix different approaches.
So, I'd post in Martin's thread your issue, or start from scratch as described in post #1 here.
Just a suggestion , hang in there !

 

[chrisrm9208]

Thanks tsialex.
Try this link for full InstallAssistant from MrMacintosh, it took 5 min to download:

InstallAssistant.pkg

OTA Update is very busy at the moment (more that one hour in Spain right now).

This from an OTA update that was offered without any options being set/changed, and Parallels just loaded with the Win10 VM ready to run. Smooth as you like. Took about 30+ minutes (I'd been creosoting today so needed a shower, so I missed much of the progress), but nothing behaved out of place. Progress messages appeared and stuff worked.

 

[antonlinus]

also after an install craashed i'll boot into macOS and use Clover to inspect all my EFI partitions and i will frequently find some ubuntu files in my OC EFI as well as in the boot folder within that partition. this is although i am clearly creating a /boot partition on the drive i want to install Linux to.

so although the installer crashes identical to the debian installer after a forced reboot i can see a Ubuntu Partition in the boot picker. As mentioned the linux install leaves a mess in my OC EFI partition but i backed it up and replaced the messed up one by the backed up one. Reboot and Linux still works.So i still don't know why the installer crashes everytime it tries to install GRUB but at least it seems to work...
no luck with debian11 thou...

 

[antonlinus]

I have Windows 11 installed on a separate SSD following the instructions in post #1.
It was working fine until i noticed i could't get my sound to work so i used brigadier to install the bootcamp drivers. After reboot the sound works (i am getting system sounds) but after a couple seconds i'm getting a black sreen with a sad smiley telling me the system failed and needs to reboot now.
anyone else had this happen before?

 

[prefuse07]

First I would make a BootROM dump (if you didnt already), before inserting the W disk again.
You can do that with RomTool or the dumper made by @Macschrauber .

Another point is , personally I would stay with one method to install OC, and not mix different approaches.
So, I'd post in Martin's thread your issue, or start from scratch as described in post #1 here.
Just a suggestion , hang in there !

I'm trying to dump with BootROM tool but keep getting this error, SIP is disabled:

Google search has not come up with many answers.

Has anyone here accidentally replaced both EFI>BOOT and OC when updating their OpenCore on a dual-boot dual-disk setup and lived to tell about it?


Starting to dread that I may have to reformat/wipe my Windows drive and start from scratch. I am not doing that!

 

[zzzippp]

I am having trouble achieving default boot OS persistence in the OpenCore boot picker, and after a lot of reading in this and other threads, and the OpenCore documentation, I need to ask the experts here!

I am chain-loading OpenCore via RefindPlus, allowing me to boot MacOS BigSur (my daily-use system), MacOS Mojave (booted "natively" through RefindPlus as a fallback / older app system), and Windows 10 (also booted "natively" through RefindPlus).

My goal is boot into BigSur "automatically", except if I press the correct keys to allow me manually choose what to boot from. I've got this working great in RefindPlus, but the OpenCore picker keeps defaulting to my MacOS Mojave install.

Things that probably help to know about my particular set up:

• BigSur and Mojave are installed on different drives, Big Sur on an PCIe card -> NVMe, and Mojave on an internal SATA bay -> SSD.
• The EPS/EFI boot loader partition with RefindPlus / OpenCore is on the Mojave drive.
• The Mojave install is HFS+ formatted
• In my OpenCore config:
  • ShowPicker = YES & PickerMode = builtin
  • LauncherOption = Disabled, to make sure RefindPlus loads first on reboot/startup
  • RequestBootVarRouting = true
• My native boot option has not been set, resulting in the RefindPlus boot manager EFI named BOOTx64.efi always loading on startup / reboot. I can verify this in terminal with sudo systemsetup -getstartupdisk returning null.
• I have tried selecting the BigSur MacOS instance in System Preferences -> Startup Disk while booted into BigSur, and I have also tried control-enter in the OpenCore picker to select BigSur as the OpenCore default boot instance (though I later read posts in this thread explaining that RequestBootVarRouting will prevent control-select from working.) Neither of those things worked.

So is there a correct / safe way to set my BigSur MacOS instance as the default in OpenCore with my set up?

Attached is my config.conf and OpenCore log showing what happened after shift-selecting my BigSur instance in the OC picker and then rebooting.

 

[cdf]

Has anyone here accidentally replaced both EFI>BOOT and OC when updating their OpenCore on a dual-boot dual-disk setup and lived to tell about it?

Not accidentally, but intentionally. In fact, replacing those folders is part of the standard updating procedure. See the guide.

I have also tried shift-enter in the OpenCore picker to select BigSur as the OpenCore default boot instance (though I later read posts in this thread explaining that RequestBootVarRouting will prevent shift-select from working.)

Make sure that AllowSetDefault is enabled, and try Control-Enter. RequestBootVarRouting is also necessary (otherwise, you'd be blessing the selection, rather than setting it as the default boot instance for OC). Note that OC not being blessed (because of the chain loading) might be problematic here.

 

[cMP beginner]

Can anyone already confirm that macOS 12.1 is not a problem for our cMP? VMM activated while updating I guess, right?

Edit: worked like a charm. Had VMM flag on and the update worked well. Was once stuck at the boot process but a forced reboot brought me back into the system and I am now on 12.1

 

[PeterHolbrook]

This morning I updated to Monterey 12.1. No issues. And, following the guidelines in post #1, no VMM flag either.

 

[KeesMacPro]

I'm trying to dump with BootROM tool but keep getting this error, SIP is disabled:

Not sure why it's not working , you could run macschrauber's ROM dumper.
Here's a link and he explains a bit starting at post #3:

Booting Mojave and Windows 10 on a Mac Pro 5,1 with NVMe drives - some questions

it's really basic Mac tech sip: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling_and_enabling_system_integrity_protection dumper: That tool that reads out the content of a firmware chip. The Firmware is what's been loaded first to get the machine alive when you turn it on. It's in...

forums.macrumors.com

Starting to dread that I may have to reformat/wipe my Windows drive and start from scratch. I am not doing that!

I've done a reinstall of OpenCore from scratch without having to reformat the W drive.
Once OC works , the W drive can be inserted again, that is following the approach as in this thread.

Anyway, I would focus on the BootROM health first, which has a much higher priority .

EDIT: make sure you booted a supported Mac OS without OpenCore and do a triple NVRAM reset before you dump the BootROM.

 

[antonlinus]

I have Windows 11 installed on a separate SSD following the instructions in post #1.
It was working fine until i noticed i could't get my sound to work so i used brigadier to install the bootcamp drivers. After reboot the sound works (i am getting system sounds) but after a couple seconds i'm getting a black sreen with a sad smiley telling me the system failed and needs to reboot now.
anyone else had this happen before?

I reinstalled Windows 11 and instead of brigadier i just installed the available drivers from this site.

No Issues so far...

 

[Macschrauber]

I'm trying to dump with BootROM tool but keep getting this error, SIP is disabled:

View attachment 1927969

Google search has not come up with many answers.

Has anyone here accidentally replaced both EFI>BOOT and OC when updating their OpenCore on a dual-boot dual-disk setup and lived to tell about it?


Starting to dread that I may have to reformat/wipe my Windows drive and start from scratch. I am not doing that!

you can try my Dumper, it works with supported systems since Mavericks (no Yosemite) and unsupported (Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey)

It needs SIP disabled for Systems since El Capitan and the kext approved in Security Settings since Catalina.

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

 

[prefuse07]

Not sure why it's not working , you could run macschrauber's ROM dumper.
Here's a link and he explains a bit starting at post #3:

Booting Mojave and Windows 10 on a Mac Pro 5,1 with NVMe drives - some questions

it's really basic Mac tech sip: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/disabling_and_enabling_system_integrity_protection dumper: That tool that reads out the content of a firmware chip. The Firmware is what's been loaded first to get the machine alive when you turn it on. It's in...

forums.macrumors.com

I've done a reinstall of OpenCore from scratch without having to reformat the W drive.
Once OC works , the W drive can be inserted again, that is following the approach as in this thread.

Anyway, I would focus on the BootROM health first, which has a much higher priority .

EDIT: make sure you booted a supported Mac OS without OpenCore and do a triple NVRAM reset before you dump the BootROM.

I think I may have bricked it / Windows may have corrupted my BootROM.

After 4x NVRAM resets (just went with 4 to be safe), I removed all drives, and installed my spare HDD which contains a fresh copy of BigSur [NO OPENCORE]. Then I was trying to use dosdude's ROMTool to pull the BootROM to check if Windows had indeed written secure certs over it, but I couldn't disable SIP (I couldn't get my spare drive to boot into recovery, no matter how long I waited -- it did however boot to BS no problem, just have to wait since no boot screen).

Then after shutting down, my cMP started to act really weird -- it would basically act as if it was in KP during boot, and would just shut off after a few minutes instead of booting into BS (similar to overheating), so I unplugged all peripherals to see if maybe my pixlas mod was causing it to overheat etc... Nope, still doing it even without a GPU connected.

I'm going to leave it for 24 hours to see if the resettable fuses do the trick, but it may be that Windows did indeed corrupt my BootROM, and the best part of all -- I don't have a BootROM dump to try and recover it (really hating myself right now).

We'll see what happens in a day or so -- i'll keep you guys updated.

In the meantime, i'm going to read up and learn how to use the LED's to diagnose, and I might reach out to @tsialex / the BootROM thread to see if this is a symptom of BootROM failure, or if I still have any hope.

Also @Macschrauber Thank you for your hard work!

We'll see what happens.

 

[zzzippp]

I'm trying to dump with BootROM tool but keep getting this error, SIP is disabled:

SIP status can be checked by opening up terminal and typing csrutil status.

Also, I may have missed it looking through your previous posts, but absolutely do not dump your BootROOM while running any flavor of MacOS booted via OpenCore. The process should be to boot "natively" (without OpenCore) into Recovery, open terminal, type csrutil disable to disable SIP, and then reboot into MacOS Mojave (or older) natively to run either the ROMTool or macschrauber's ROM dumper. After a successful ROMTool dump, make sure to reenable SIP by booting into Recovery again and typing csrutil enable.

Beyond this, for all issues / questions about how to dump your BootROM, checking it's health, and what to do if issues are revealed, I highly highly recommend posting in the MP5,1: BootROM thread and getting advice from @tsialex, MacRumors community's #1 expert on the Classic Mac Pro's BootROOM.

EDIT: I see you posted while I was typing my message, @prefuse07, and are going to reach out to @tsialex for help. I'm really sorry to read that you are having these issues and hope you are able to work through it. My first suggestion is to only install a drive with a non-OpenCore instance of Mojave to set aside any interference from OpenCore / Windows and just focus on getting that BootROM dump so that you hopefully get @tsialex's help reconstructing it to a totally "clean" state for safekeeping.

 

[prefuse07]

EDIT: I see you posted while I was typing my message, @prefuse07, and are going to reach out to @tsialex for help. I'm really sorry to read that you are having these issues and hope you are able to work through it. My first suggestion is to only install a drive with a non-OpenCore instance of Mojave to set aside any interference from OpenCore / Windows and just focus on getting that BootROM dump so that you hopefully get @tsialex's help reconstructing it to a totally "clean" state for safekeeping.

That's what I hope too! except, as funny as this sounds, I actually use a HDD with a non-OpenCore instance of BigSur 11.6.1, and it seems to work on my machine (just have to wait for it to boot up, similar to HS, since no boot screen).

If I can disable SIP and pull the BootROM dump, I will be so happy!

Otherwise, eBay here I come (while crying inside)

 

[Macschrauber]

That's what I hope too! except, as funny as this sounds, I actually use a HDD with a non-OpenCore instance of BigSur 11.6.1, and it seems to work on my machine (just have to wait for it to boot up, similar to HS, since no boot screen).

If I can disable SIP and pull the BootROM dump, I will be so happy!

Otherwise, eBay here I come (while crying inside)

How on earth will Big Sur run on a Mac Pro without Open Core and with reseted nvram ?!

You need at least -no_compat_check in the boot-args to start it up.

Get Mojave or High Sierra, whatever is compatible to your GPU (or swap it if you have one in the drawer).

Even an instant Linux stick like grml (Full) is capable to boot and has flashrom inside to dump the rom. You will need another FAT Stick or partition to mount and store to with

sudo flashrom -p internal:laptop=this_is_not_a_laptop -r /mnt/mymountpoint/myrom.bin

Go supported for diagnoses. Stock GPU, stock OS.

Btw, this gets OT, better make your own thread.

 

[Capricorn1965]

Yesterday I finished to setup OC 0.7.6 and successfully using it. So I downloaded Monterey 12.0.1 like recommended on page 1 with the Python script. My Mac is on Mojave so I'm using the settings for installing Monterey:

SecureBootModel disabled
VMM Flag eneabled
Hybridization enabled

Starting the the installer is working, when installer restarts the Mac the Bootloader has macOs Installer choosen. But booting from this installer volume results in: support.apple.com/mac/startup and that's it.

After powering off and on and choosing my Mojave volume the Mac boots.

Any idea? My actual config.plist is attached.

 

[AmazingPudding]

Hi Everyone,

First of all, thank you all for this amazing job keeping good old 4,1 and 5,1 MacPro alive and up to date with new OS.

I'm running studios and the software we use push us to go to Catalina for the beginning of 2022. Thanks to you I was able to install Catalina on the MacPros we have.

I'm posting today because I experience the same problems than @Dewdman42 with OC 0.7.5+ with Catalina.
By following the guide, I confirm that Catalina does not boot.
Fortunately, I had done the guide a couple of months ago while it was still OC 0.7.4 (and recommendations for Catalina), so i'll just continue to use OC 0.7.4 I have on this drive and duplicate it to the other computers I have.

For records, I follow the actual guide with OC 0.7.6, without installing SurPlus.
Results : while booting in Catalina, progress bar stop at around 90% and the MacPro reboots.

Maybe a disclaimer in the guide saying "Problems with OC 0.7.5 and later were reported for Catalina. If you plan to use Catalina, stock with OC 0.7.4 for the moment.".

I can do few tests if requested to help find the problem with Catalina and OC 0.7.5+.

Thanks again to everybody involve in this project.

 

[cdf]

Any idea? My actual config.plist is attached.

I went through your config, and I don't see anything obviously wrong. You might want to try again: I recall encountering something like this once during testing. (Note that a clean install from Mojave to a newly formatted disk with VMM enabled was one of the tested scenarios.) If it still doesn't work, perhaps you could try with Lilu, WhateverGreen, and FeatureUnlock disabled. There have been a few reports of what appear to be Lilu-related panics.

By following the guide, I confirm that Catalina does not boot.

Is SecureBootModel is disabled?

 

[MacNB2]

Hi Everyone,

First of all, thank you all for this amazing job keeping good old 4,1 and 5,1 MacPro alive and up to date with new OS.

I'm running studios and the software we use push us to go to Catalina for the beginning of 2022. Thanks to you I was able to install Catalina on the MacPros we have.

I'm posting today because I experience the same problems than @Dewdman42 with OC 0.7.5+ with Catalina.
By following the guide, I confirm that Catalina does not boot.
Fortunately, I had done the guide a couple of months ago while it was still OC 0.7.4 (and recommendations for Catalina), so i'll just continue to use OC 0.7.4 I have on this drive and duplicate it to the other computers I have.

For records, I follow the actual guide with OC 0.7.6, without installing SurPlus.
Results : while booting in Catalina, progress bar stop at around 90% and the MacPro reboots.

Maybe a disclaimer in the guide saying "Problems with OC 0.7.5 and later were reported for Catalina. If you plan to use Catalina, stock with OC 0.7.4 for the moment.".

I can do few tests if requested to help find the problem with Catalina and OC 0.7.5+.

Thanks again to everybody involve in this project.

A while back I reported an issue with Lilu version 1.5.6 that crashed Catalina.
Lilu version 1.5.8 has it fixed.
That is, make sure that you are using latest Lilu.