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macguru9999

macrumors 6502a
Aug 9, 2006
817
387
Off topic I know but I have decided for the time being that Catalina is a waste of time, offering little or no advantage and I dont like the way it partitions the hard drive so i think i'll give it a miss.
 

Flacko

macrumors 6502
Oct 3, 2018
309
376
UK
Yep, didn't work.
Got the message from the Catalina installer that it couldn't be installed on that drive saying something about the computer being started into Target Disk Mode. I recognize this from when I tried to do the same with High Sierra from one Mac to another using Target Disk Mode. So it's not new.
Well thanks for confirming that Target Disk mode is not an option.
 
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Engender

macrumors member
Oct 6, 2007
93
8
Off topic I know but I have decided for the time being that Catalina is a waste of time, offering little or no advantage and I dont like the way it partitions the hard drive so i think i'll give it a miss.

But if you want your ios 13 reminders to show up on your Mac Pro work station . . .
 

star-affinity

macrumors 68000
Nov 14, 2007
1,998
1,334
Just a quick question so I understand correctly:

I have to have nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check" set in NVRAM for Catalina to boot? If I reset the NVRAM I have to enter this again (in my case, start up from the recovery partition on a drive with High Sierra and out in the AMD GPU that came with the computer)?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Just a quick question so I understand correctly:

I have to have nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check" set in NVRAM for Catalina to boot? If I reset the NVRAM I have to enter this again (in my case, start up from the recovery partition on a drive with High Sierra and out in the AMD GPU that came with the computer)?
Any GPU that is supported from Recovery will work fine, you will only need to change your GPU to an older one if you have a Catalina exclusive GPU, like Radeon 5700XT.

High Sierra and Mojave Recovery supports all recent AMD GPUs, 10.13.6 only don't support Radeon VII if I remember correctly.
 

jimithing1

macrumors regular
Feb 16, 2008
184
36
Finally took the plunge on my 2012 Mac Pro 5,1. Easy peezy plugging my SSD into my wife's 2019 MBP to install Catalina on the drive and plugging it back into the Mac Pro. Catalina's running great so far!
 
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macagain

macrumors 6502
Jan 1, 2002
357
123
Do I understand you right (regarding the update): You take out the MacPRo 5,1 system SSD (where Catalina runs), connect it externally to the MBP and boot the MBP with it. Then you make the update via the MBP, shut it down, reinstall the SSD to the MacPro and boot the MacPro from the SSD?

That's the plan... I installed 10.15.1, so have not had an update yet. When 10.15.2 comes out, I'll try it and post update here...

Happy to report that it worked exactly as I'd hoped...
- removed the drive from the mp5,1 and connected to mbp with a SATA-USB cable
- booted mbp using option key
- update to 10.15.2 using system update
- shutdown mbp
- moved the drive back to the mp5,1
- booted and all up and running on 10.15.2

IMG_1261.jpeg
 

star-affinity

macrumors 68000
Nov 14, 2007
1,998
1,334
Catalina 10.15.2 runs well overall for me too on my 5,1 with a new RX 5700 XT GPU, but I did experience a Kernel Panic when waking the computer from sleep:


Maybe 10.15.3 will fix it, but after having disabled letting the computer sleep automatically and sleeping it manually I've had no problems waking it up. Also great having the computer wake much faster compared to High Sierra, which was really slow unless waking via a quick press on the power button of the computer.

In Windows 10 on the same machine I've had two glitches which seems related to the drivers from AMD, so hopefully (probably) that gets solved with driver updates down the road.
 
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trifero

macrumors 68030
May 21, 2009
2,960
2,802
Happy to report that it worked exactly as I'd hoped...
- removed the drive from the mp5,1 and connected to mbp with a SATA-USB cable
- booted mbp using option key
- update to 10.15.2 using system update
- shutdown mbp
- moved the drive back to the mp5,1
- booted and all up and running on 10.15.2

View attachment 884568
Next time just boot the MP in Target mode and boot the MB from there.
 

zemaker

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2011
295
188
So let me get this straight if I update to Catalina my WiFi / Bluetooth will not work as the drivers are no longer in the OS?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
So let me get this straight if I update to Catalina my WiFi / Bluetooth will not work as the drivers are no longer in the OS?
It's a question answered on the first post, Apple removed the kexts needed for MacPro 2009 and 2010/2012 AirPort Extremes. Or you install the kexts yourself, or you upgrade to a AirPort Extreme AC (BCM94360CD) that is supported.
 

zemaker

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2011
295
188
It's a question answered on the first post, Apple removed the kexts needed for MacPro 2009 and 2010/2012 AirPort Extremes. Or you install the kexts yourself, or you upgrade to a AirPort Extreme AC (BCM94360CD) that is supported.


Ok, ordered the new AirPort Extreme AC hardware and will proceed to install Catalina after that :)

Mainly doing it so I can get the RX 5700 to work on Mac OS.

Thanks!
 

David403

macrumors regular
Nov 5, 2017
144
136
USA
Installing Catalina from a VMWare Fusion 11.1 Catalina VM to a real disk attached to the VM (using vmware-rawdiskCreator to create/attach the disk):

View attachment 841466
View attachment 841469
screen-shot-2019-06-07-at-07-05-58-png.841483

View attachment 841473
View attachment 841474
View attachment 841475

Works beautifully and people that don't have a supported Mac to install Catalina have a way to install it to a MP5,1 without the need to do it by hand.

It's a lot more practical and faster than installing it using an USB adaptor + a supported Mac.

As explained on the first post, you just need to add -no_compat_check to the boot-args to boot your MP5,1 from the Catalina disk installed by the Catalina VM.

View attachment 841476



tsialex,

I'd like to try this and have carefully read through all the posts relating to this and every other one. (yes I read each and every post on this feed - all 30 pages).

I acquired VM Fusion Pro 11.5 and tried to install it on my cMP4.1 ->5.1 to find it will not run with my W3540 CPU. It prevents it from running. It gives me an error on install
VN FusionPro 11.5.1.png


In one of your early posts of this feed you say you too have a cMP4.1 ->5.1. How did you get to use VM Fusion 11.1 to do this?

I have a real cMP5,1 as well so I could install on that cMP and swap the SSD but in both macs the SSDs are installed on OWC Mercury Accelsior S PCI cards. Swapping between machines once would not be a hardship but for each upgrade 10.15.2 to 3, to 4 etc would become a hassle.

Advice?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
tsialex,

I'd like to try this and have carefully read through all the posts relating to this and every other one. (yes I read each and every post on this feed - all 30 pages).

I acquired VM Fusion Pro 11.5 and tried to install it on my cMP4.1 ->5.1 to find it will not run with my W3540 CPU. It prevents it from running. It gives me an error on install
View attachment 884970

In one of your early posts of this feed you say you too have a cMP4.1 ->5.1. How did you get to use VM Fusion 11.1 to do this?

I have a real cMP5,1 as well so I could install on that cMP and swap the SSD but in both macs the SSDs are installed on OWC Mercury Accelsior S PCI cards. Swapping between machines once would not be a hardship but for each upgrade 10.15.2 to 3, to 4 etc would become a hassle.

Advice?
You need a Westmere Xeon, any W36xx or X56xx will work. Nehalem Xeons won't work correctly after 10.14.3 and never supported Apple Hypervisor. That's why you can't run Fusion/Docker/Anka/OpenCore VMM flag spoofing.

I'd buy a X5677, cheap and very fast.
 

David403

macrumors regular
Nov 5, 2017
144
136
USA
You need a Westmere Xeon, any W36xx or X56xx will work. Nehalem Xeons won't work correctly after 10.14.3 and never supported Apple Hypervisor. That's why you can't run Fusion/Docker/Anka/OpenCore VMM flag spoofing.

I'd buy a X5677, cheap and very fast.
Okay - thanks for such a quick reply - about one minute !!
 

JeffPerrin

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2014
672
696
In the first post, @tsialex mentioned Catalina was (expectedly?) a little slower on the beta. How does performance on 5,1 feel now that Catalina has been out for a bit?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
In the first post, @tsialex mentioned Catalina was (expectedly?) a little slower on the beta. How does performance on 5,1 feel now that Catalina has been out for a bit?
Single tray MP5,1 works fine speed wise after Catalina was released, but people with dual CPU trays have some problems since Apple are not testing it anymore since no 10.15 supported Mac have dual CPUs.

People are having KPs with AppleIntelMCEReporter.kext, removing/blocking it resolve the problems. More info here https://github.com/khronokernel/What-s-new-in-macOS-Catalina

@startergo had problems with AppleIntelMCEReporter.kext and OpenCore, look at his posts.
 
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tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
Since most people don't know how to check if your current CPU supports Apple Hypervisor, this is how to check if your current CPU supports it and can run VMware Fusion 11.5, Docker, Anka and more importantly, spoof the VMM flag with OpenCore for having native Catalina installs and software updates.

Open Terminal:

Code:
sysctl machdep.cpu.brand_string; sysctl kern.hv_support

Apple Hypervisor supported the answer will be kern.hv_support: 1, it's a mid-2010 Mac Pro upgraded to X5680:

Screen Shot 2019-12-27 at 18.27.54.png


This is the same mid-2010 Mac Pro but back with the original W3565 Xeon Nehalem installed. Apple Hypervisor unsupported, kern.hv_support: 0,

Screen Shot 2019-12-27 at 18.53.36.png


This is a early-2008 Mac Pro, Apple Hypervisor unsupported, kern.hv_support: 0:

screen-shot-2019-12-09-at-5-42-23-pm-png.881690
 

David403

macrumors regular
Nov 5, 2017
144
136
USA
Since most people don't know how to check if your current CPU supports Apple Hypervisor, this is how to check if your current CPU supports it and can run VMware Fusion 11.5, Docker, Anka and more importantly, spoof the VMM flag with OpenCore for having native Catalina installs and software updates.

Open Terminal:

Code:
sysctl machdep.cpu.brand_string; sysctl kern.hv_support

Apple Hypervisor supported the answer will be kern.hv_support: 1, it's a mid-2010 Mac Pro upgraded to X5680:

View attachment 885112

This is the same mid-2010 Mac Pro but back with the original W3565 Xeon Nehalem installed. Apple Hypervisor unsupported, kern.hv_support: 0,

View attachment 885111

This is a early-2008 Mac Pro, Apple Hypervisor unsupported, kern.hv_support: 0:

screen-shot-2019-12-09-at-5-42-23-pm-png.881690
That was very useful - wish I'd known about it prior to starting down this road with = VMWare Fusion and Catalina VM attached to a real disk...

My output for my cMP 4,1-> cMP 5,1 was:

Screen Shot 2019-12-28 at 11.52.57 AM.png


but following your advice my replacement processor (X5677) is on it's way and should arrive between Jan 6 and 13. Plenty of time to get hardware for de-lidding and hex wrench long enough to reach the 3mm screws.

Thanks again for your advice with this.
 
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tsialex

Contributor
Original poster
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,602
That was very useful - wish I'd known about it prior to starting down this road with = VMWare Fusion and Catalina VM attached to a real disk...

My output for my cMP 4,1-> cMP 5,1 was:

View attachment 885263

but following your advice my replacement processor (X5677) is on it's way and should arrive between Jan 6 and 13. Plenty of time to get hardware for de-lidding and hex wrench long enough to reach the 3mm screws.

Thanks again for your advice with this.
Since you have a W3540, you have a single CPU tray MP4,1>5,1. Only dual CPU trays for 2009 Mac Pros use de-lided Xeons.

No need to de-lid at all for replacing your X3540 W3540.
 
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David403

macrumors regular
Nov 5, 2017
144
136
USA
I hadn't even pulled the tray out on this mac so wasn't aware of that. So not needing to de-lid will make the upgrade so much easier.


Thanks again
 

zemaker

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2011
295
188
Upgrade went great, I do have one question. Are we able to upgrade the OS now normally or will we have to pull the drive each time and connect to another Mac to get it done?
 
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