MP 1,1-5,1 RefindPlus|OpenCore by MyBootMgr

[Dayo]

Why?

Because I have nothing else to add to everything said before and think if you reset everything, point any friend or family member to Post 1 and ask them to follow it step by step literally implementing the recommended steps, tell them what cMP type you have and no more, take the dog out for a walk or something, they would have everything up and running by the time you get back.

The less they know about computers the better.

 

[papadj3]

Ha-Ha- You are right!!
But
I will reset and try again-I Must Be As Literal As Possible!
"The less they know about computers the better.” Very True about me-
Hope I can show you it works w/one more reply

 

[JedNZ]

Not important. Your GPU is compatible.

The logs don't show anything of note.
There is a trick to make it create one in USB Mode but I don't remember this right now and IIRC, it is not compatible with the BootBlesser App so not supported at this time in any case.

I have gotten the flickering screen thing before and not sure what causes it.
In my case, it settled each time after a few seconds and never gotten it for 10 mins.
View attachment 951720
I have not had it for quite a while now and not sure what the answer is to be honest but maybe try a few things to try to see what might be the issue:

• Clear NVRAM
• Remove "OsxAptioFix3Drv_x64.efi" from the "/EFi/BOOT/drivers_x64" folder
• Try another (Lower Rez) monitor if available.
• Try booting from a SATA Drive and with all the drives connected to PCIe Slots disconnected if possible.

Rename or delete the log file so that a new one is created.

Finally got it going. I reset the NVRAM - no success.
I removed "OsxAptioFix2Drv_x64.efi" - no success.
I tried connecting by HDMI cable - no success.
I changed my boot macOS drive to my SSD in Bay 1 - no success.

I have been following this and the OpenCore threads for a while, so poked my nose into the /Volumes/EFI/Boo/refind.conf file for a sneaky look. I uncommented uga_pass_through false
and started back up and… voila! I got my RefindPlus GUI.

I have reinstalled "OsxAptioFix2Drv_x64.efi", changed back to DisplayPort cable, and changed my boot macOS back to my PCIe M.2 NVMe, and everything is working great. Soft and Firm Bless work as expected.

One issue: cMP wouldn't restart (after a Firm Bless) when I had my iPad Air 2 connected via a USB hub. Unplugged the iPad it and no more problems.

Windows 10 Pro (on separate SSD in direct connect Bay) works seamlessly, including upgrades (2004-09 + latest September updates). Reboots to RefindPlus, so it's really easy to boot back to Windows to complete the software updates.

And I finally have full HW acceleration with OpenCore.

@Dayo Thank you for helping me problem solve. I really was ready to give up, but was saved with your patience and helpfulness. And I absolutely agree with what you and others have said – reading through the guide a few times does help you understand the bigger picture. I did get caught up by the "Skip if installing in EFI mode…" a couple of times – my brain isn't so good with the positive-negative statements. But all good in the end.

 

[Dayo]

I uncommented uga_pass_through false and started back up and… voila! I got my RefindPlus GUI.

Two things:

1. Don't edit refind.conf. It is supposed to stay as is with the defaults and edits should go into the /EFI/BOOT/chainloader/config.conf override file.
2. uga_pass_through false should not have that impact and to eliminate the possibility that something else did in fact get sorted, you should try to restore it back to what it was and see what happens. Concurrence does not neccesarily mean Causation. I will like to dig more into this one.

One issue: cMP wouldn't restart (after a Firm Bless) when I had my iPad Air 2 connected via a USB hub. Unplugged the iPad it and no more problems.

Two things:

1. You probably should not have Firm Blessed yet and should operate things with Soft Bless for a few days until certain all is good. This would obviously mean every other reboot would not go through RefindPlus but worth the short term hassle.
2. On the IPad when firm blessed, this is almost certainly just coinicidence. Again, Concurrence does not neccesarily mean Causation.

Windows 10 Pro works seamlessly ... I finally have full HW acceleration.

Great. Enjoy!

 

[JedNZ]

Two things:

1. Don't edit refind.conf. It is supposed to stay as is with the defaults and edits should go into the /EFI/BOOT/chainloader/config.conf override file.
2. uga_pass_through false should not have that impact and to eliminate the possibility that something else did in fact get sorted, you should try to restore it back to what it was and see what happens. Concurrence does not neccesarily mean Causation. I will like to dig more into this one.

Thanks for that @Dayo.

I have changed commented out the uga_pass_through false, and everything is working fine, so you're right about concurrence vs causation. I'll stay clear of playing with /EFI/BOOT/chainloader/config.conf unless I have further issues.

Two [more] things:

1. You probably should not have Firm Blessed yet and should operate things with Soft Bless for a few days until certain all is good. This would obviously mean every other reboot would not go through RefindPlus but worth the short term hassle.
2. On the IPad when firm blessed, this is almost certainly just coinicidence. Again, Concurrence does not neccesarily mean Causation.

I've gone back to Soft Bless - I was running before I actually tested my walk. I'll see how things pan out over the next few days before trying Firm Bless.

Ditto 😌 on the iPad thing. I was premature to jump to conclusions, however I have had this issue a number of times with very slow (sometimes stalled) shutdown or restart when my iPad is connected.

Just one question though, if you don't mind:
I want to test out macOS Catalina on my primary cMP that has RefindPlus now working on it. I have installed Catalina using OpenCore on one of my other cMP 5,1 with success. So if I wanted to install Catalina on my primary cMP (with RefindPlus) do I just follow the same procedures (when booting into OpenCore from the RefindPlus GUI) using these OpenCore instructions? Or does RefindPlus - or the version of OpenCore that comes with RefindPlus) prevent me from installing Catalina via that method, in which case what instructions would I need to follow?

 

[Dayo]

Just one question though

"myBootMgr" is just fancy name for a process to make two totally independent elements, Opencore and RefindPlus, work together. It is not a piece of software itself and once the process is implemented, you can do whatever you want on each element as normal (subject to one caveat with OpenCore).

I.E., "RefindPlus" is just rEFInd with some additional features and the distributed OpenCore is just the normal OpenCore apart from that the instance in "/EFI/OC_ALT" has a patch to make it work out of that folder (OpenCore expects to be in an "/EFI/OC" folder). OUTDATED

You can overwrite the OpenCore instance in "/EFI/OC" with that from the upstream source (don't bother .... it's the same file).

So you can configure each as in any other case and that's why Post 1 refers config issues to the respective threads. It's not relevant that they are linked. Each one actually works independently as if installed alone.

You just need to consider the folder structure which is specific to make them work together in this way when reading something elsewhere.

The only caveat is Item 3 of STAGE 3 - POST INSTALLATION:

Also see this recent modification of Item 1 of STAGE 3 - POST INSTALLATION:

 

[Dayo]

I did get caught up by the "Skip if installing in EFI mode…" a couple of times – my brain isn't so good with the positive-negative statements.

Not your brain ... It was worded wrongly.
Fixed ... Thanks.

 

[JedNZ]

So you can configure each as in any other case and that's why Post 1 refers config issues to the respective threads. It's not relevant that they are linked. Each one actually works independently as if installed alone.

So I could configure EFI/OC_ALT with the VMM mod on which would allow for upgrades to Catalina, then after applying a system update boot back into EFI/OC on the next boot instead of having to go back in and turn VMM off after applying updates like I have to do on my other (non-RefindPlus) cMP. That’s awesome.

Not your brain ... It was worded wrongly.
Fixed ... Thanks.

That works much better for my logic. Really appreciate that.

 

[papadj3]

Should the EFI Partition used have 4 folders? (Apple, OC, OC_ALT and Boot)

 

[papadj3]

My Apple folder has Extensions to Firmware.scap along side the 3 Misc Folders OC,OC_ALT,&Boot??

 

[Dayo]

Please refer back to this earlier response to you about what is relevant or not relevant: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/thread.2231693/post-28821142

 

[jjsanderson]

Huge thanks for this, @Dayo. I have this set up and running nicely on my 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 with AMD RX580. Greg Gant's excellent Mac Pro upgrade guide was also extremely useful for choosing hardware and the initial (patched) Catalina install. OpenCore is booting nicely, I have a boot picker back, and booting from my Windows 10 Bootcamp drive is smooth too. I've two remaining issues to troubleshoot:

• In the boot picker, the non-OpenCore Mac OS option is for my MyBootMgr drive, not my default Mac OS install. This wasn't the case before I firm blessed, so I'm not sure what I messed up here. It's not an issue day-to-day, however, and may turn out to be useful.
• Not at all an issue with this guide, but something Mac Pro 3,1 owners might wish to know: the majority of Homebrew packages are now compiled against a more recent target CPU generation. As a result, very common packages like PHP, Node etc crash with an illegal instruction error. The solution is (apparently - I haven't yet done this) to install all Homebrew packages using --build-from-source, which is at best inconvenient. These old workhorses can still be useful, but their glory days are clearly behind them and I feel like mine's perpetually one failure away from retirement.

I found the guide in post #1 very clear and specific. My only point of confusion was understanding when I was supposed to do the actual (patched) Catalina install - for anyone hesitating, the answer really is as obvious as you think: you do that before you start any of the guide. This is about getting OpenCore (for proper video acceleration) and a boot picker working, the underlying OS install isn't touched by MyBootMgr. Which also means that this is less intrusive than it appears - in my tests, I can pull the MyBootMgr drive and still boot into usable Mac OS, just without the boot screen and with some video acceleration limitations.

Thanks again, this is excellent work.

 

[PsychoSync]

Hi

I followed the instructions and got rEFInd to work (though i am only seeing the 2 OC entries...) and i can chainload OpenCore from there and it boots my Catalina patched install (cMP 3,1) just fine.

But, the colors are all messed up in rEFInd and OpenCore.

My GPU is a AMD Radeon RX 550. It is working in Catalina with full acceleration.

 

[Dayo]

@PsychoSync
Can you attach a debug log?

 

[PsychoSync]

Sure. Attached refind.log. Anything else i should attach?

 

[Dayo]

Set WriteFlash to false in the OpenCore config files, restore the default chainloader/config.conf and BOOT/refind.conf files, shut down and reset NVRAM when rebooting.

 

[PsychoSync]

Thanks for your help!

I did what you said, i set the flag in opencore.plist to false, i copied the original config.conf and refind.conf files from original package from first post. I still get this 70's psychedelic color scheme!

I also tried another monitor through the hdmi connector, same thing.

Also about no boot drives showing up in refind, i just recently started using one of my hdd as a time machine backup and it now shows as an option in refind. So there must be something wrong with the EFI partition on my main Catalina disk that refind does not like but OpenCore is fine with?

 

[Dayo]

Two issues. Lets look at, and try to solve, the straightforward one first

... about no boot drives showing up in refind, i just recently started using one of my hdd as a time machine backup and it now shows as an option in refind. So there must be something wrong with the EFI partition on my main Catalina disk that refind does not like but OpenCore is fine with?

Nothing wrong with your partition and there must be a configuration issue (Presume you also reset NVRAM)
1. Go into terminal, type "diskutil list" and share a screenshot of the output.
2. Delete your current debug log file and reboot to get a new one.
3. Finally, zip up your EFI partition after rebooting and attach it.

I still get this 70's psychedelic color scheme!

Will pick up on this later.

 

[sirrdg]

Hi there. Thaks for your incredible work.
Im newbie in mac. I have a Cmp 4.1 flash to 5.1 with 1 Xeon 5677. I follow your guide and have a few issues. Ill try usb mode, but i have a grey screen telling me a black message: "*Paused: Press Any Key to continue*" and two red warnings saying this: "Error: Write Protected in ReadhiddenTags()".
After press any key, a have functional RefindPlus Pre-Boot Screen. This happen with Soft Bless (via terminal, otherwise dont work), in stage 6 and in stage 8, where im stuck now, prior to firm Bless.
Any help will be appreciate.

 

[Dayo]

Try the recommended EFI Mode instead.

 

[sirrdg]

Try the recommended EFI Mode instead.

I try directly on a efi partition in a internal hdd, and got a grey screen like the previous one but no messages on it and no matter what, i cant do it nothing (freeze grey screen). So finally, i remove the hdd and try firm bless the usb and right now its working with the mesage in post #321.
Thanks anyway.
Pd. Ill follow your guide to bare metal windows and right now its working without problem (win 10 pro + mojave with full aceleration with rx560 msi 4gb).

 

[Dayo]

I try directly on a efi partition in a internal hdd, and got a grey screen like the previous one but no messages on it and no matter what, i cant do it nothing (freeze grey screen). So finally, i remove the hdd and try firm bless the usb and right now its working with the mesage in post #321.

Thanks for the feedback ... will investigate for the next version.

@sirrdg
Can you right click on your "/EFI/BOOT" folder, select "Get Info" and share a screenshot of the window that is generated? Actually, please do the same for the "/EFI/BOOT/vars" folder if you have one.

 

[sirrdg]

Thanks for the feedback ... will investigate for the next version.

@sirrdg
Can you right click on your "/EFI/BOOT" folder, select "Get Info" and share a screenshot of the window that is generated? Actually, please do the same for the "/EFI/BOOT/vars" folder if you have one.

Wich "/EFI/BOOT" folder you refer, the one from the usb? In that case here you have:

 

[sirrdg]

Other two questions:
1. Is there a way that legacy windows is put with a personal line into chainloader config.conf? This is cause if you add a second ntfs volume its shows both on refind plus menu, and so on (you dont know wich one is the OS).
2. Is there a way to boot legacy windows from pcie card (sata or nvme), or only efi from oc?
Thanks.

 

[joevt]

Other two questions:
1. Is there a way that legacy windows is put with a personal line into chainloader config.conf? This is cause if you add a second ntfs volume its shows both on refind plus menu, and so on (you dont know wich one is the OS).
2. Is there a way to boot legacy windows from pcie card (sata or nvme), or only efi from oc?
Thanks.

if you have the ntfs.efi driver in the drivers folder of rEFInd (only needed for Mac) then I think you can know which one is the OS if you gave the drive letter a proper name in Windows.