MP 1,1-5,1 Upgrading Boot Drive / Installing OSX

[NEBrown]

I am upgrading my system / boot drive to a WD Blue SSD 4TB. I mounted the drive, both physically (into Optical bay) and digitally.

I formatted the SSD in Disk Utility, no problem.

I found a version of OSX 10.12.6, Sierra, which is what I am running. I ran the installer and was told that I could not install it onto any drive other than the current boot drive/drive that currently (already) has OSX on it. I learned about creating an install USB drive ... so I removed everything from a thumb drive I have, reformatted it in DU and followed the instructions involving createInstallMedia and the command line. I dragged the installMedia into Terminal, along with the USB drive, so that the locations would populate. I followed Apple's directions for this process. But, I continued to get a long-winded error that, I believe, is related to the path or something. I tried that about 5 times and gave up.

Next step was to use Internet Recovery ... but my machine will not boot up into Recovery mode (COMMAND + R after restarting or pressing button, or COMMAND + OPTION + R). I just boots up as normal ... And yes, I did eventually realize that I'm using a bluetooth keyboard, and disabled bt and plugged the kb in with the wire, still no good.

Seems like I have to use an install disk, but that will mean installing the OS that was originally on the computer ... geesh, I don't even know who was president then ... in fact, that might be what Internet Recovery does as well, which is probably not ideal.

I appear to be stuck, any advise?

Mac Pro 5,1 (upgraded from 4,1)
Xeon 6-core 33.3 Mhz
32 GB RAM
OSX 10.12.6

 

[jbarley]

You appear to be content using Sierra 10.12.6.
so why not use Carbon copy cloner to just clone your existing operational deive to the new SSD?

 

[tsialex]

The first Mac Pro to support Internet Recovery is late-2013 Mac Pro, yours don't have it, just normal Recovery.

Did you backdated the installer to a date before the signing certificates expired (before October 2019)?

The GPU is a an AppleOEM GPU with pre-boot configuration support so you can use the boot picker to change to the createinstallmedia USB key?

 

[NEBrown]

You appear to be content using Sierra 10.12.6.
so why not use Carbon copy cloner to just clone your existing operational deive to the new SSD?

I plan on upgrading past that later on, have to upgrade my GPU to do so, which I just replaced ... but need a metal compatible one to upgrade. That's later, for now I just want to get the OS on the new SSD.

 

[NEBrown]

The first Mac Pro to support Internet Recovery is late-2013 Mac Pro, yours don't have it, just normal Recovery.

Did you backdated the installer to a date before the signing certificates expired (before October 2019)?

The GPU is a an AppleOEM GPU with pre-boot configuration support so you can use the boot picker to change to the createinstallmedia USB key?

I figured to just select the boot drive in Preferences .. . but createInstallMedia kept failing, I cannot get past an error I am getting ... I can paste that here later when I am back in front of the computer at home.

 

[tsialex]

If the error is on the certificates, backdate your Mac Pro clock to a date before 2019.

 

[jbarley]

That's later, for now I just want to get the OS on the new SSD.

And Carbon Copy can get it there for you!
Try the free trial, you won't be disappointed.

 

[NEBrown]

If the error is on the certificates, backdate your Mac Pro clock to a date before 2019.

I gotta decipher the error in more detail ... but yes, I get what ur saying.

 

[Macsonic]

@NEBrown As to how I understand your first post, the Sierra installer would not complete the installation to the target drive that you formatted with Disk Utility. Try checking if the target HD is in the correct format as HFS+ My officemate had a problem installing Mac OS Sierra to another HD. Later he then found out the blank target HD was formatted as ExFAT

 

[NEBrown]

@NEBrown As to how I understand your first post, the Sierra installer would not complete the installation to the target drive that you formatted with Disk Utility. Try checking if the target HD is in the correct format as HFS+ My officemate had a problem installing Mac OS Sierra to another HD. Later he then found out the blank target HD was formatted as ExFAT

I think it is formatted correctly but I will check that out.

 

[NEBrown]

And Carbon Copy can get it there for you!
Try the free trial, you won't be disappointed.

And so CCC will not just clone a backup, but allow me to BOOT from the cloned drive? Because I want the new drive to be the boot drive. Note that this is an internal SATA III SSD, not an external drive.

 

[jbarley]

And so CCC will not just clone a backup, but allow me to BOOT from the cloned drive? Because I want the new drive to be the boot drive. Note that this is an internal SATA III SSD, not an external drive.

Not a problem, now just try it

 

[NEBrown]

Well ... Barring any unforseen ****ery, it seemed to have worked. My new boot drive is the new SSD, which I confirmed in About This Mac.

I am not used to this much Hope ...

Many thanks to jbarley for the tip, I shall pay it forward.

 

[jbarley]

Well ... Barring any unforseen ****ery, it seemed to have worked. My new boot drive is the new SSD, which I confirmed in About This Mac.

I am not used to this much Hope ...

Many thanks to jbarley for the tip, I shall pay it forward.

You're very welcome, glad I could help.

 

[Macsonic]

Well ... Barring any unforseen ****ery, it seemed to have worked. My new boot drive is the new SSD, which I confirmed in About This Mac.

I am not used to this much Hope ...

Many thanks to jbarley for the tip, I shall pay it forward.

Good to know everything worked out fine. jbarley’s suggestion on Carbon Copy Cloner is great and very helpful. I’ve been using Carbon Copy Cloner for 6+ years and it’s an excellent app. Didn’t give me any major problems these past years. It’s a “lifesaver”. Like before upgrading to a newer OSX, you can first clone your existing OS before the upgrade. So in case you encounter technical problems with the new OS, you can quickly revert back to your older OS. The app also doesn’t consume too much CPU or memory.

If you’re in Sierra, the version 5 would work. They offer a trial version.

Download CCC | Bombich Software

bombich.com

 

[haralds]

Carbon Copy Cloner - don't leave your Mac without it!!!
Alas, things have become more convoluted with Big Sur and Monterey.