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MP 1,1-5,1 Multiple MacOS installations on Mac Pro 3,1

C

cyberjunkie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2010
8
0
I have a few questions regarding the installation of unsupported Mac OS versions on an old Mac Pro 3,1 (2008).
For now I'm starting with two simple questions, but I guess that at first I got to report about my configuration.
Hardware wise, I upgraded the RAM to 22GB (from the original configuration of 6GB), all modules 800Mhz.
At first I used an old AMD HD 5770 with Mac firmware, then I installed an XFX FX 580 GTS (with 8GB video RAM, oddly recognised as 6GB),
using a dual GPU configuration, and now I finally managed to get rid of the old graphic card, using the boot picker provided by OCLP.
Before trying to install Catalina I removed the wireless module from the motherboard, but the Bluetooth module didn't come out.
The screws were stuck and eventually I ended up stripping one of them. I found that I could disable it plugging an old USB Bluetooth dongle.
Now Bluetooth seems to work.
I have 5 HDs, two SSDs and three magnetic. The fifth is a SATA SSD lying inside the CD/DVD drawer, along a PATA DVD reader/burner that replaced the (broken) original one.
At first I installed High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina using DosDude patcher.
The only installation that gave no problems at all was High Sierra. Originally the computer was gifted to me with Yosemite, I immediately updated to El Capitan but it was practically unusable on the web. No compatible browser supporting HTTPS certificates.
I decided to just jump Sierra and installed High Sierra using DosDude patcher on a different HD.
Installing Mojave was more difficult, but I ended up with a working installation that I still keep to use 32bit apps.
Catalina was a real nightmare. I regularly ended up back at step one, restarting again and again the installation process.
I tried almost everything. I swapped graphic cards (powering the 580 externally), disks, USB/DVD install medium, etc etc.
In the end I managed to have Catalina installed, but there must be an additional EFI partition , because it can be booted from two separate options in the boot picker.
One has the label of the disk it sits on, and the other looks different from all the others and is called "EFI".
While I was busy with all that, I ordered a Fervi FV8303 PCI-E card with a recent wireless a/b/g/n chip and a Bluetooth 4.0 chip (check the EDIT at the end about it).
Yesterday I also got a dual mini 6-pin to standard 8-pin GPU power cable, that allowed me to get rid of the external PS and power the GPU internally.
Now I have Mojave and Catalina on two separate disks, both available from the OCLP boot picker.
Big Sur is installed on two other disks. One is the main install on the bigger SSD, the other one has a minimal installation of Big Sur, and has OCLP EFI boot installed.
This way I don't need to have the USB thumb drive to get the boot picker.
The small (64GB) boot SSD disk sits on top of the CD/DVD drive, using a molex>SATA power adapters,
and one of the two SATA cables that I routed through a small hole, and are connected to the two SATA connectors that are available on the mainboard.
I intend to replace the 64GB soon, using a new 1TB SSD disk that could be either used for a Windows 11 installation, or maybe Monterey...

I hope my lengthy description has given an accurate picture of my current config. Here comes the first question:
can I also install OCLP EFI boot on the main SSD disk that hosts the full scale installation of Big Sur?
In practice, I'm asking if multiple Open Core EFI boot partitions can coexist in the same system.
If I can do that, I could remove one of the two disks without any adverse effect, and still have a bootable Open Core boot that gives me the boot picker..

Second question:
When I was using El Capitan (and probably also High Sierra) I had one of the four Mac Pro main disk drawers dedicated to a Windows 11 installation.
Everything worked great. At the time I had the AMD HD 5770 GPU, and I could either boot MacOS or Win11.
Since then I took the drawer out of the case, to avoid potential interactions with all my tentatives to install successive MacOS versions.
Today I tried to put the disk back, and surprise surprise, the Open Core boot picker cannot see it!
Of course if I load Big Sur the disk is perfectly visible (and readable).
Am I missing something? Is there a simple way to make the Win 11 installation available again?
I kind of remember I read that somebody bricked his Mac Pro booting off a Windows disk with EFI boot.
I find it strange. Is it true? Any specific caveat I should be aware of?

EDIT:
It seems that the FV8303 PCI-E card won't work on my Mac Pro 3,1.
I just purchased an FV-T919, which has four (!) antennas and also comes with the cable to connect the card to a USB header. This card is sold as Mac/Hackintosh compatible, so I guess I will be OK with it.


Thanks in advance to whoever will be so gentle to answer my questions.

Cheers
Paolo
 
You can use the tool in my signature to check at least for Uefi Windows certificates.

As I (and Alex, afaik) dont take the risk to repair MP3,1 firmwares its just a diagnose, not a cure.

Sometimes (dont tested for 3,1) the certs get wiped by a multiple NVRAM reset. This is something you can test.
 
cyberjunkie said:
Unsupported Mac OS versions on MacPro3,1.
Click to expand...
Your MP31 can run 10.4 Tiger to 13.x Ventura and apparently, 14.x Sonoma.
What you need is OpenCore and not DosDude patched installations.

You need to drop back to a natively supported Mac OS version and GPU, set OpenCore up and then use this to install and run the other versions to work with your RX580.
  1. Download some assets you will need later and save to a USB stick:
  2. Swap your HD5770 GPU in and boot into ElCapitan
  3. Run the Install_USB_Maker script to create a USB installer and use this to install 10.8 MountainLion
  4. Install TenFourFox on MountainLion, use this to follow the link in my signature to the MyBootMgr guide and install a RefindPlus|OpenCore setup
  5. Swap your RX580 GPU back in, boot into MountainLion using the relevant OpenCore instance created by MyBootMgr and rerun the Create Setup step in the MyBootMgr guide to set things up for the RX580
  6. Format all the other disks from MountainLion to remove DosDude/OCLP patched installations
  7. Follow the instructions in the MyBootMgr guide under HINTS AND TIPS >> How Do I Install Mac OS 'XYZ' to install as many of whatever Mac OS versions you want

Misc Notes:
  • You can install Windows later by following the instructions in the MyBootMgr guide under HINTS AND TIPS >> How Do I Install Windows 'XYZ'
  • See this for what RX580 works well with: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/32557896
  • See this for browser versions that work well on misc Mac OS versions: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/32459627
  • The stock bluetooth module in the MP31 works well up to Catalina. It actually works on BigSur as well but often triggers a panic and for some reason, cannot be switched off.
 
Last edited:
Hi Dayo.
Thanks for your informative reply.
In reality I don't need to restart from scratch following your guide, cause Mojave and Catalina (installed with Dosdude1.com patch) and Big Sur (installed with OCLP) work great.
Especially Big Sur, which is very reactive and gives surprisingly good benchmarks. Never had restarts or protracted beach balls with any operative systems. I will probably overwrite Catalina sooner or later, but I will keep Mojave for sure cause sometimes I need a few 32bit apps.

What I need is:
1) green light to install OCLP's EFI boot partition on more than one disk
2) a way to boot off a Windows 11 hard disk that could be run from boot picker when I had Yosemite or El Capitan (not sure about High Sierra). I strongly prefer not to reinstall.
It's a Win11 legacy installation, I would prefer to leave it the way it is, cause I have read that booting off a Windows EFI disk might mess with the Mac Pro boot code.
Maybe the disk is still available pressing Option at boot, but my Metal GPU has no Mac firmware, so maybe that's the reason I can't see it. Maybe the Win11 installation doesn't show up among the other Open Core boot picker choices because Open Core doesn't like a legacy (BIOS) Windows boot disk.
I have to find a way to configure Open Core, or I might even use a boot manager sitting on an old 1GB USB thumb drive. It has to be visible from the Open Core boot picker and support my Win11 installation.
Any suggestion?
I will carefully check the option you suggested at the end of the message and see if I can skip the installation altogether and use the info you provided to try to solve my problem.


Regarding Bluetooth support, leaving OCLP default MP 3,1 config, the on board module can't be seen. If I use a cheap USB BT 4.0 dongle I get full Bluetooth support with the few peripherals I have at hand.
The WiFi module has been removed, so I have no wireless support, but I'm going to install a cheap Atheros based (Atheros AR5BWB22 chipset) PCI-E card with dual band WiFi and BT 4.0. I just need to find out which pins have to be connected to enable Bluetooth. I intend to cut a standard USB cable, connect three wires to the relevant pins, and route the extremity with the USB A plug outside the case and connect it to one of the USB 1.1/2.0 sockets at the back of the Mac Pro. I just need to find a diagram that explains how to do the right connections.

I just saw that OCLP 1.01 has been released.
I don't know if it makes any difference regarding my specific configuration. I used 0.68 to install Big Sur if I remember correctly.

I hope my further clarifications make sense.
Any help is super appreciated
 
You could try adding BootKicker to your OpenCore setup. This will restart your Mac with Startup Manager active and you can then select Legacy Windows. Only downside is that you need two startups each time.

You should be able to find instructions on adding BootKicker by searching the forum.
 
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