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

[Dayo]

Is it OS issue or My SSD have problem

Take the messages you are getting as literal.

1. Your SSD is Damaged/Corrupted
2. Move whatever data you have on it to another disk
3. Reformat the SSD completely

 

[heero503]

Take the messages you are getting as literal.

1. Your SSD is Damaged/Corrupted
2. Move whatever data you have on it to another disk
3. Reformat the SSD completely

Thx I have done

 

[DigitaLife]

Hi,

I’ve been running Catalina 10.15.3 For a while on Mac Pro 5.1 after following thread #1.

Yesterday I enabled VMM and upgraded to 10.15.4, after the reboot I could see OC boot list, I chose Catalina, and it continued booting up for a bit but then went into a reboot cycle without successfully booting up 10.15.4.

On the 3rd reboot I chose my Mojave drive and it booted up fine...

I disabled VMM from Mojave them rebooted it into 10.15.4 without issues.

Anyone seeing something similar?

Thanks!

Could you tell me what steps I need to do to disable VMM from Mojave?

 

[Dayo]

Could you tell me what steps I need to do to disable VMM from Mojave?

Step 4b in Post 1 shows how to enable it.
To disable, change the "C" in Cpuid1Mask to "A", or leave both Cpuid1Data and Cpuid1Mask blank, and reboot.

 

[DigitaLife]

Step 4b in Post 1 shows how to enable it.
To disable, change the "C" in Cpuid1Mask to "A", or leave both Cpuid1Data and Cpuid1Mask blank, and reboot.

Thanks but to do this I must necessarily install OC again with the modified config.plist file (step 3) or is there an easier way?

 

[cdf]

Thanks but to do this I must necessarily install OC again with the modified config.plist file (step 3) or is there an easier way?

Just follow the steps in section 8.

 

[DigitaLife]

Just follow the steps in section 8.

Thanks so much!

 

[Slehc84]

First of all many thanks for all this great work by all.
I have installed open core 0.5.6 on my 2010 12 core 3.46.
I have a Vega 56 and 96 gigs of ram.
Mojave sits on a name drive and works perfectly with the boot picker.
I then followed the steps to enable VMM , all good so far.
Then went to install the latest version of Catalina on a 1tb SSD on an excelsior pic card.
It then failed saying I needed to have a firmware upgrade???
I believe I have the latest version as I have an NVME asa boot drive.
Any pointers anyone ??

Just as a foot note , I hope everyone is staying safe and blessing all those people having to work and care and protect and feed us anywhere in the world, you truly are special people

 

[heero503]

First of all many thanks for all this great work by all.
I have installed open core 0.5.6 on my 2010 12 core 3.46.
I have a Vega 56 and 96 gigs of ram.
Mojave sits on a name drive and works perfectly with the boot picker.
I then followed the steps to enable VMM , all good so far.
Then went to install the latest version of Catalina on a 1tb SSD on an excelsior pic card.
It then failed saying I needed to have a firmware upgrade???
I believe I have the latest version as I have an NVME asa boot drive.
Any pointers anyone ??

Just as a foot note , I hope everyone is staying safe and blessing all those people having to work and care and protect and feed us anywhere in the world, you truly are special people

I think you may follow it~

 

[Slehc84]

I think you may follow it~

Many thanks , , its the little things , I didn't see that video.

 

[cdf]

The final step is to swear profusely when, for no apparent reason, the boot spinner won't appear when firing up Windows - most likely after Windows has applied a mandatory patch in the background which you weren't expecting.

Hopefully that's enough to keep your expectations low. If you have greater success with alternative methods or config.plist files, please post.

I was able to reproduce this issue and fix it by configuring the SMBIOS and PlatformNVRAM with

<key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
<data>A1QM4A==</data>
<key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
<data>P/8f/w==</data>

As described in the OC manual, this enables proper UEFI bootability for Windows installed on a drive with the EFI partition being the first partition on the disk.

 

[startergo]

I was able to reproduce this issue and fix it by configuring the SMBIOS and PlatformNVRAM with

<key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
<data>A1QM4A==</data>
<key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
<data>P/8f/w==</data>

As described in the OC manual, this enables proper UEFI bootability for Windows installed on a drive with the EFI partition being the first partition on the disk.

I set that before but was still unable to upgrade to win 1909. Then I used easyuefi and rebuild the EFI partition:

After that I upgraded Windows:

I checked my EFI partition after upgrade and I found out that bootx64.efi was recreated, so I renamed to .bac again:

You can find easyUEFi and other very useful programs along with Paragon APFS and HFS+ for Windows in this Windows PE environment:

Download Sergei Strelec's WinPE - MajorGeeks

WinPE creates a bootable DVD or thumb drive for computer maintenance, partitioning, backup and restore, diagnostics, data recovery, and more. Backups include Acronis, Nortons Ghost, Disk2vhd, Macrium and more. Drive utilities include MiniTool, Macrorit, Defraggler, Auslogics Disk Defrag...

www.majorgeeks.com

Here is my config features:

<key>PlatformInfo</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Automatic</key>
        <false/>
        <key>SMBIOS</key>
        <dict>
            <key>BoardProduct</key>
            <string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
            <key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
            <data>
            N+EP6AAAAAA=
            </data>
            <key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
            <data>
            P/8f/wAAAAA=
            </data>
        </dict>
        <key>UpdateDataHub</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateNVRAM</key>
        <false/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOS</key>
        <true/>
        <key>UpdateSMBIOSMode</key>
        <string>Create</string>
    </dict>

 

[cdf]

Here is my config features:

Well, bit 29 is what you want. You can read the firmware features back to check. Also, you're missing the PlatformNVRAM part.

 

[Draeconis]

Hey all, gave this a go a few days ago and it works really well under Catalina. GTX 1080 that was installed isn't compatible with Catalina obviously, but have a Mac Edition 680 to fall back on, to used that for testing. Only WiFi wasn't working, but that's a known issue.

Ordered a 5700 XT which just turned up and it works beautifully, even see the OC bootpicker, which I'd read about working, but it was still amazing to see.

Currently pulling additional power from the 2 ODD SATA ports, Mac Pro will power on but won't show an image without both the 8-pin and 6-pin powered (reference model).

Next step is to see how it works under Linux, and if OC picks it up. Would be nice to configure this as dual-boot. Would ideally move back to macOS, but I've got used to having Steam Proton, not sure I can live without it now lol

 

[cdf]

Only WiFi wasn't working, but that's a known issue.

You might want to look into using OpenCore to inject kexts from previous Mac OS versions.

Ordered a 5700 XT which just turned up and it works beautifully, even see the OC bootpicker, which I'd read about working, but it was still amazing to see.

Nice. Could you check if DirectGopRendering is needed with this card? See section 9 in the guide.

Next step is to see how it works under Linux, and if OC picks it up. Would be nice to configure this as dual-boot.

You can definitely boot Linux with OC, but be careful with the installation. GRUB is installed quite aggressively and might overwrite the EFI partition.

 

[w1z]

Nice. Could you check if DirectGopRendering is needed with this card?

Not needed.

 

[startergo]

Also, you're missing the PlatformNVRAM part.

I am confused here:

g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ % nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures
4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures    %03T%0c%c0
g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ % nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask
4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask    ?%ff%1f%ff
g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ %

What am I missing? Apparently FirmwareFeatures and FirmwareFeaturesMask are injected through SMBIOS. But I see different values in your post in comparison to mine. I tried to recreate the original values.

 

[cdf]

I am confused here:

g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ % nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures
4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures    %03T%0c%c0
g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ % nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask
4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask    ?%ff%1f%ff
g5@G5s-Mac-Pro ~ %

What am I missing? Apparently FirmwareFeatures and FirmwareFeaturesMask are injected through SMBIOS. But I see different values in your post in comparison to mine. I tried to recreate the original values.

I believe that %03T%0c%c0 there corresponds to the original FirmwareFeatures value. You want to see %03T%0c%e0, which is A1QM4A== in base64. According to the manual, both SMBIOS and PlatformNVRAM have the FirmwareFeatures and FirmwareFeaturesMask properties.

 

[startergo]

So I did some experiments and here are the results:
I tried renaming config.plist to config.plist.bac with the hope that it will disable OC and I can go back to Apple boot.
That did not work and I just ended up on a grey screen (with an EFI video card). This was done after NVRAM reset opt+P+R 3 times.
The reason it did not work is because the boot loader labeled EFI (OC boot loader) is still there. If you boot with the option button pressed it is the default entry and it survives NVRAM reset. All you need to do is rename bootx64.efi loader of OpenCore.efi driver. Then, EFI entry disappears from the boot screen and your default boot drive is as follows:
PCIE 0,1,2,3
SATA II (internal) 1,2,3,4
You have to be aware that if one of your first boot partitions is Catalina, after NVRAM reset it will not boot.
You have to go to recovery mode and set boot-args="-no_compat_check".
There is another challenge here for booting without EFI rom video card. If you don't have HFS+ partitions (like HS) the recovery partition is not visible and I am not sure if you can boot to recovery blindly with Command (⌘)-R.
As I mentioned before if you rename the bootx64.efi on your Windows 10 EFI partitions that will prevent it from accidental booting to Win10 without OC, even if Win10 is on the first bootable drive. So to conclude if you want to disable temporarily a boot option rename its corresponding bootx64.efi.
Next I checked the values of my FirmwareFeatures and FirmwareFeaturesMask in the original unmodified system ROM:

nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeatures | awk '{split($NF,chars,""); for(n=0;n<256;n++){ord[sprintf("%c",n)]=n}; i=1; j=0; while(i<=length($NF)){if(substr($NF,i,1)=="%"){printf "%s",toupper(substr($NF,i+1,2)); i=i+2} else {printf "%x",toupper(ord[chars[i]])} j=j+2; i++} print("")}' | xxd -r -p | base64
F1QMwA==
nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:FirmwareFeaturesMask | awk '{split($NF,chars,""); for(n=0;n<256;n++){ord[sprintf("%c",n)]=n}; i=1; j=0; while(i<=length($NF)){if(substr($NF,i,1)=="%"){printf "%s",toupper(substr($NF,i+1,2)); i=i+2} else {printf "%x",toupper(ord[chars[i]])} j=j+2; i++} print("")}' | xxd -r -p | base64
P/8f/w==

 

[cdf]

Makes sense. As for FirmwareFeatures, I've seen both F1QMwA== and A1QMwA== as original values. It's very interesting that there is a 1-bit difference between machines. See AppleFeatures.h.

 

[startergo]

Makes sense. As for FirmwareFeatures, I've seen both F1QMwA== and A1QMwA== as original values. It's very interesting that there is a 1-bit difference between machines. See AppleFeatures.h.

I wonder what is in here (bit26):

// Supports 64-bit ExtendedFirmwareFeatures/ExtendedFirmwareFeaturesMask variables.
// Lower 32-bits are same as FirmwareFeatures, and higher 32-bits contain new information.
//
#define FW_FEATURE_SUPPORTS_EXTENDED_FEATURES         0x02000000U // 25
#define FW_FEATURE_UNKNOWN_BIT26                      0x04000000U // 26

[automerge]1586918959[/automerge]
If we set this bit in the firmware features we can get native Bootcamp support for Windows 10 (UEFI):

// Supports Windows UEFI boot (Windows 8 and newer).
// DMIsPreBootEnvironmentUEFIWindowsBootCapable
//
#define FW_FEATURE_SUPPORTS_UEFI_WINDOWS_BOOT         0x20000000U // 29

 

[tommy chen]

....

Nice. Could you check if DirectGopRendering is needed with this card? See section 9 in the guide.

but there is no section 9 left in the instructions on page 1 ; -)

 

[cdf]

but there is no section 9 left in the instructions on page 1 ; -)

Just click on "Further Adjustments" at the bottom.

 

[cdf]

I wonder what is in here (bit26):

// Supports 64-bit ExtendedFirmwareFeatures/ExtendedFirmwareFeaturesMask variables.
// Lower 32-bits are same as FirmwareFeatures, and higher 32-bits contain new information.
//
#define FW_FEATURE_SUPPORTS_EXTENDED_FEATURES         0x02000000U // 25
#define FW_FEATURE_UNKNOWN_BIT26                      0x04000000U // 26

I'm not sure about bit 26. The different one is bit 2 (target disk mode).

If we set this bit in the firmware features we can get native Bootcamp support for Windows 10 (UEFI):

// Supports Windows UEFI boot (Windows 8 and newer).
// DMIsPreBootEnvironmentUEFIWindowsBootCapable
//
#define FW_FEATURE_SUPPORTS_UEFI_WINDOWS_BOOT         0x20000000U // 29

Well, yes. That's what I've been talking about (see posts #1,861 and #1,863). But just to be clear: its about bootability, rather than Boot Camp Assistant.

 

[tommy chen]

Just click on "Further Adjustments" at the bottom.

oops, I missed that one +g*