MP 1,1-5,1 OCLP - Monterey, WIN10 and new NVME SSD

[MNissen]

Once again, I come to the source of all knowledge, to see if I can be helped. 😃

I'll write a brief description of how I come to be here. I have a Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 - 48Gb RAM - AMD Sapphire RX590 Nitro+ 8Gb - OCLP 2.0.2 - Monterey 12.7.6 on a 2Tb SSD - Sequoia 15.0.1 on a 500Gb SSD - a Bootcamp WIN10 install on a 1Tb SSD (made in the Catalina Dosdude patch days and used for DCS World). This all seems to work.

To boot into Windows, I shut down then remove the SSD trays for Monterey and Sequoia, the Mac then boots into Windows happily. To return to Monterey or Sequoia, I shut down, replace the drives and boot via OCLP to Monterey or Sequoia, I can't see Windows in OCLP.

I got a 2Tb M.2 NVME SSD and a PCIe to NVME adapter card and put it into the Mac's top PCIe slot. It works fine, I can partition and erase the 2Tb to my heart's content.

I then use Winclone (after paying for an upgrade to 10) to clone the Win10 SSD and then "restore" the clone to the new NVME SSD (formatted as MS-DOS FAT32) - after hours of restoring, 3 times, each time I get this message:

"The Windows partition could not be mounted Read/Write to create the boot folder at the root of the Windows partition. Mount the Windows partition Read/Write, delete hiberfil.sys, and then try setting legacy bootable manually."

- I do as suggested, mounted the Windows partition Read/Write, but there is no hiberfil.sys file (yes I looked - cmd shift .) and the windows install was shut down before cloned.

After much trawling of the Winclone - Two Canoes forums and Perplexity.ai, I'm now doing a Winclone block to block (4th) restore and hopefully this will work.

I'm hoping that one of the experts here, will recognise my issue/s and point me at a solution to get the Win10 Bootcamp install onto and working on the new NVME SSD. Maybe even in the OCLP boot picker 😃

If this 4th restore fails I might try the solution referenced here - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...rom-internal-hdd-to-ssd.2418010/post-32907136

Or maybe I'm better off installing Win11 fresh onto the NVME SSD as described elsewhere and manually rebuilding the DCS world and apps I have in the Win10 SSD. It's bound to be quicker... Lucky I'm retired and have the time.

Comments and advice gratefully received.

 

[Macschrauber]

Take care, with all this Windows tinkering, you dont catch certificates in your firmware / nvram.

Those come from unprotected starts of a Windows ESP. Regardless, of from a booted UEFI Installer, or from an UEFI Windows drive.

Even an "empty" leftover ex Windows system disk with an UEFI Windows ESP can get you one.

Check that before,
a) to check
b) to have a firmware backup, in case you get certificates in that progress.

Tool to check the firmware: https://github.com/Macschrauber/Macschrauber-s-Rom-Dump
download with: https://github.com/Macschrauber/Mac...d/Release/Download.the.Dumper.from.github.zip

 

[MNissen]

Thank you Macshrauber

I'm not sure if I'll change my set up now, for three reasons -

1 - the Win10 BOOTCAMP on a SSD has been working fine for some years now.

2 - I don't know, if I've had any "unprotected starts of a Windows ESP. Regardless, of from a booted UEFI Installer, or from an UEFI Windows drive."

3 - Two Canoes gave me an un-asked for refund of the Winclone 10 for reason "OCLP changes how Windows boots and Winclone is not compatible with the changes. "

As all I was wanting to do, was move the existing and working Win10 BOOTCAMP, from a SSD in a SATA slot, to a NVME SSD on the PCIe card, for something like 3 x the speed, it's all looking too hard for an amateur like me.

in terms of what I've done:
A/. made a Winclone of the Win10 SSD
B/. tried to restore it to the NVME SSD 4 times now, all failed with error message.

I haven't tried to boot into the NVME and now I'm close to giving up and repurposing the NVME for perhaps my Monterey daily driver

 

[Dayo]

As all I was wanting to do, was move the existing and working Win10 BOOTCAMP, from a SSD in a SATA slot, to a NVME SSD on the PCIe card, for something like 3 x the speed, it's all looking too hard for an amateur like me.

Legacy BIOS Boot, as used by your instance of Windows, is not supported on the PCIe slots on cMP.

This is not related to WinClone, OCLP, or any other software item but a simple hardware limitation. You need the SATA ports to run Legacy BIOS Boot.

Windows instances that use Legacy BIOS Boot are usually called Legacy Windows and the other, UEFI Windows.

If you must use a disk on a PCIe slot for Windows, you need to install UEFI Windows.

Some adapters might provide the hardware support needed for such NVME Boot but you would need to be investigating something made around the same time as your cMP. Not sure any exist

Legacy Windows does not have issues with certificates, a UEFI requirement that cMP cannot directly handle, but is not supported on PCIe slots on cMP.

UEFI Windows comes with the certificates that needs to be managed on cMP and is supported on PCIe slots on cMP.

Choose your poison basically.

As an aside, booting Windows from NVME is likely to give little to no benefit on cMP. If you really want to feel good about using NVME, use it as a data drive for your existing Windows.

That is, a small SATA instance to boot to as C Drive, and a D Drive holding data.

 

[MNissen]

Thank you Dayo, that's a solution. The reason I'm after the speed, is for precious frame rates, in my 3 monitor set up and DCS World.

May I ask, am I able to install Win11 on the NVME, and be able to boot Win11 from the NVME, or Monterey from SATA, or Sequoia from SATA - via OCLP - Is this possible?

Does the certificate management issue or other, preclude this? Am I missing something?

I can see an install of Win11 and the reinstalling of DCS World, as a path.

I have of course seen youtubery - I don't expect you to watch all of this, but I note the existence of the install of Win11 on a Mac Pro 5,1 - Win11 on Mac Pro 5,1 at

and also this one that suggest that drivers may be interesting -

Comments and advice gratefully received.

 

[Dayo]

Can I install Win11 to NVME and then boot this via the OCLP?

As was mentioned, what you are able to boot from NVME on cMP is not so much about the version of Windows but whether it is a Legacy or UEFI Windows installation. A legacy installation of Windows 11 will not work from NVME but a UEFI installation of Windows 8 will.

With UEFI Windows, the issue with certs needs to be managed by installing and booting via means such as OpenCore; which can be installed and configured via the OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP).

I saw stuff on YouTube

Sorry, but I don't watch, and cannot even remember ever watching, such YouTube videos.

Not to say there is anything wrong with them btw and the source seems to be well regarded.
It is just that I don't watch videos on this genre at all and prefer reading on similar subjects.

IMPORTANT: Running anything related to UEFI Windows, including the installation file, needs to be managed for certs on cMP.

 

[Macschrauber]

I remember reading, NVMes dont work when Windows booted in csm/legacy mode, even as a data disk.

 

[Dayo]

The reason why Legacy BIOS Boot does not work on NVME with cMP is an absence of BIOS Interrupt Call 13hex on the PCIe slots on cMP. INT 13h is needed for accessing the disk boot sector to load the OS.

Once loaded however, the OS does not need or use the interrupt calls but an Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) along with drivers needed for storage devices. As long as the drivers needed for NVME access are present, it would read such.

So unless Legacy Windows versions have NVME drivers specifically and separately removed, they should read such.
It could be someone trying to run old versions of Windows that did not have the required drivers in the first place.

 

[Macschrauber]

May you remember this discussion: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...12-with-pcie-ssd-sata-3.2358395/post-31461305

 

[MNissen]

Thank you Dayo and Macschrauber. Without your good advice I would have killed my Mac by now.

The discussion of Legacy Bios, 13Hex Hal etc is way too technical for me. (disclosure - Stroke in 2017, Brain surgery in 2022 - I'm doing OK but don't have the knowledge I used to have)

A wrinkle has occurred, my Monterey daily driver 2Tb SATA SSD delevoped a "hash doesn't match you should re-install" error.

So I spent all night installing and migrating from back up to the NVME SSD.

I'll now nuke the SATA SSD and install and migrate from back up, to it.

I'm now proceeding to set up the whole thing as follows -

SATA SSD 2Tb Monterey (again)
SATA SSD 1Tb Win10 and DCS (existing)
SATA SSD 500Gb Sequoia (experiment)

USB 1Tb HDD x 2 RAID0 back up for Monterey

and storage for various video and sound projects

SATA HDD 2Tb
SATA SSD 1Tb x 2
NVME SSD 2Tb via PCIe
___

I also don't place a lot of faith in youtubery because I feel: popularity ≠ truth

...and the two examples I posted above are indicative of this, the first shows a quick and easy install of Win11 onto a Mac Pro 5,1 then 2 days later a follow up to show how to get some drivers installed to make it work properly.

I'm not suggesting the install doesn't work, but I'm cautious and I think I'll wait a couple of months and see if I can get proof of life before I approach this again.

On the other hand I could follow the youtubery and keep my Monterey and Win10 drives out of the machine whilst trying the WIN 11 on NVME
____

Lastly and Im' sorry if I'm belabouring the question:

My existing instance of Win10 won't go on an NVME - lot of reasons.

A Win11 new install could go on the NVME and be bootable, but the jury is out on longevity.

 

[Dayo]

May you remember this discussion: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...12-with-pcie-ssd-sata-3.2358395/post-31461305

Do remember that now but still not clear why that should be the case unless as said, the OS drivers are somehow specifically not included for those ... which doesn't make sense on the surface if the firmware supports NVME and the OS supports this ordinarily.

Need to mark this below for testing on cMP at some point:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bootcamp-mac-pro-2012-with-pcie-ssd-sata-3.2358395/post-31462799

 

[Macschrauber]

If someone provides me some easy steps, I can boot legacy Windows on a MP51 and check if I see my NVMe with various MacOs.

GUID / APFS formatted.

 

[Macschrauber]

booted Windows 10 21H2 from a spinner in bios/csm mode, connected to 2nd ODD Sata port on a MP5,1

and I have seen the NVMe. Not the content, as it is APFS only.

 

[Macschrauber]

Also I had mounted the ESP from that NVMe disk in Windows

 

[Dayo]

I can access my NVMe disk from Legacy Windows.

Cool. The assertion that such could not access NVME didn't make sense. Nice it is confirmed as invalid.
I suppose it is "true" when an old version of Windows is in use or the required driver is not activated.