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
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