MP 1,1-5,1 SOLVED Opencore on MacPro 5,1 after NVRAM reset

[tsialex]

Here’s a question. Would trying to boot from an external nvme ssd, that had a windows 11 install on it, corrupt the boot rom?

Yes.

Any boot that is not from a Windows DVD installer (only DVD installers are CSM/BIOS/BootCamp installs) or have OpenCore ProtectSecureBoot enabled to block it, will make Windows UEFI SecureBoot to sign the Mac Pro BootROM.

Just needs one boot and SecureBoot will sign the BootROM. Extremely nasty behaviour, since Mac Pro is not a UEFI PC, but an EFI one and does not support SecureBoot at all.

 

[FirDerrig33]

Yes.

Any boot that is not from a Windows DVD installer (only DVD installers are CSM/BIOS/BootCamp installs) or have OpenCore ProtectSecureBoot enabled to block it, will make Windows UEFI SecureBoot to sign the Mac Pro BootROM.

Just needs one boot and SecureBoot will sign the BootROM. Extremely nasty behaviour, since Mac Pro is not a UEFI PC, but an EFI one and does not support SecureBoot at all.

Well all right then. :-| so now I’ll be trying to figure out how to fix that using the rom dump stuff.

Is it too late to reinstall the os from a TM backup? Would that even solve the problem?

I can boot into the recovery partition. I disabled SIP but getting it to boot consistently is not great.

 

[tsialex]

Well all right then. :-| so now I’ll be trying to figure out how to fix that using the rom dump stuff.

Flash your clean/backup BootROM to the backplane SPI flash.

Is it too late to reinstall the os from a TM backup?

This will change absolutely nothing. We are talking about the BootROM SPI flash memory of the Mac Pro backplane, not the disks.

Would that even solve the problem?

Yes, nothing besides flashing back your clean BootROM image will solve this.

I can boot into the recovery partition. I disabled SIP but getting it to boot consistently is not great.

To do exactly what? Obviously you need SIP disabled for flashing the backplane SPI flash memory, but nothing else will solve the issue.

 

[FirDerrig33]

Flash your clean/backup BootROM to the backplane SPI flash.



This will change absolutely nothing. We are talking about the BootROM SPI flash memory of the Mac Pro backplane, not the disks.



Yes, nothing besides flashing back your clean BootROM image will solve this.



To do exactly what? Obviously you need SIP disabled for flashing the backplane SPI flash memory, but nothing else will solve the issue.

I disabled sip for the flashing. Thanks for responding so fast as well! Luckily I have a working and not messed up Mac mini to follow a guide. I keep almost getting rid of that thing and always glad that I didn’t.

 

[FirDerrig33]

So....good news I think? I'm not sure what happened to make it boot almost normally (the progress bar was slow to load), but then it booted into My Mojave install from my NVME SSD. this is what the romdump file found and I think it all looks good....Can someone else confirm this for me?


File saved in ~/Downloads with name
~/Downloads/Macschrauber's Rom Dump 01.10.2024_16-06-57/H01xxxxxQGWR_144.0.0.0.0_MX25L3205D_01.10.2024_16-07-33.bin

analysis:
Firmware 144.0.0.0.0 (latest) built on Fri Apr 12 12:48:00 2019
Bios Version $IBIOSI: MP51.88Z.F000.B00.1904121248
Bootloader AAPLEFI1.88Z.0005.I00.1007141219 built on Wed Jul 14 12:19:00 2010
Old bootblock of MP51.007F.B00-B03
(U)efi version: 1.10
MP51, serial from firmware: H01xxxxxxxxx
MP51 backplane
Base_20 hardware descriptor, Fsys 0x05
Fsys: 0 overrides, 1 override-version, 2 ssn, 3 hwc, 4 son, 5 EOF (ok)
csr_Allow_Untrusted_Kexts, Unrestricted_FS, Task_For_Pid, Apple_Internal, Unrestricted_Dtrace, Unrestricted_NVRAM (0x77)
BootOrder: 1:Boot0080
Boot0080: Mac OS X |Apple_HFS|disk0s2 (PCI-Express External:WDS500G3XHC-00SJG0)|Macintosh HD|
BootFFFF: |Apple_HFS|disk2s2 (SATA Bay 2:WDC WD20EZRZ-00Z5HB0)|Time Machine|\tmbootpicker.efi
6 firmware boots since last garbage collection, MTC counter: 1 - 6
1 (5 deleted) Memory Configs g (ok)
1 (5 deleted) Memory Configs h (ok)
1 (5 deleted) Memory Configs i (ok)
1 (0 deleted) Memory Configs j (ok)
1 (0 deleted) IASInstallPhaseList / xml (ok)
0 Microsoft certificates (ok)
1 (1 deleted) BluetoothActiveControllerInfos (ok)
1 (0 deleted) BluetoothInternalControllerInfos (ok)
0 (1 deleted) Boot PathProperties0000 (ok)
1 (0 deleted) NVRAM PathProperties0000 (ok)
1 (0 deleted) csr-active-config (ok)
VSS2 is empty (OK, after recent full nvram reset, or after flashing a rebuilt firmware)
21916 bytes free space of 65464
VSS1 (Formatted) (Healthy), found 60 variables (30 valid, 30 deleted)
VSS2 (Formatted) (Healthy)
CRC32 checksums: ok

 

[Macschrauber]

Looks valid. Tho the dumper can analyze just the structure and checksums.

 

[FirDerrig33]

Looks valid. Tho the dumper can analyze just the structure and checksums.

Thank you very much!!

I feel better about it now. I need to be more careful with my toys. I didn’t want to downgrade to my Mac mini as my primary computer.