MP 1,1-5,1 Upgrading MacPro 5.1 from Mojave 10.14.6 to Catalina

[sebo2001]

Hello,

I need few tips before I upgrade, I have MacPro 5.1 with Radeon RX 580 running Mojave 10.14.6 and OpenCore v 0.6.7, I did this upgrade year ago using guide from this forum and all worked super fine.(I forgot most of the steps I have done)

I really want to use Final Cut Pro 10.5 and new Lightroom and need to upgrade to Catalina or BigSur, I was thinking about upgrading to BigSur but I also have storage Raid with SoftRaid XT 5.8.4 software that would require paid upgrade 120$ to ver 6.3 support BigSur, so I will most likely stay with Catalina for time being, as it would allow me to run what I need.

Few Questions:

-OpenCore is on v 0.8.3 , do I upgrade to newest version prior upgrading to Catalina, or my 0.6.7 will be good enough, is there any upgrade walkthrough?

- Where do I get Catalina DMG file to run the upgrade? Is DosDude1 site best option? Do I just download and run “Install macOS Catalina.app” or with the patcher and run “Install on this machine”?

- Is there anything I have to do or think about before the upgrade.


any help would be greatly appreciated, this forum makes my MAC run forever.

 

[krakman]

Just out of interest why did you use open core with Mojave when it installs natively on Mac Pro 5.1?

Personally all my Mac Pros (I have 5 in the office) have been upgraded to Monterey via OCLP, it’s the simplest method.

I read your problem is the upgrade price for softraid.

But consider that Monterey might be the last OS that will run on your 5.1 without relying on some serious hacking. You will benefit from a few years of security updates, so why not bite the bullet for the softraid upgrade and enjoy several years of Monterey before you move on to your next computer.

FYI I did use the dosdude catalina patcher and whilst it did work it was not 100% perfect. Software updates didn’t work without other hacks and some web streaming software didn’t work due to permission issues.

Afaik: Catalina stopped getting security updates recently so that’s another thing to consider.

 

[sebo2001]

Just out of interest why did you use open core with Mojave when it installs natively on Mac Pro 5.1?

Personally all my Mac Pros (I have 5 in the office) have been upgraded to Monterey via OCLP, it’s the simplest method.

I read your problem is the upgrade price for softraid.

But consider that Monterey might be the last OS that will run on your 5.1 without relying on some serious hacking. You will benefit from a few years of security updates, so why not bite the bullet for the softraid upgrade and enjoy several years of Monterey before you move on to your next computer.

FYI I did use the dosdude catalina patcher and whilst it did work it was not 100% perfect. Software updates didn’t work without other hacks and some web streaming software didn’t work due to permission issues.

Afaik: Catalina stopped getting security updates recently so that’s another thing to consider.

It is Mac Pro Early 2009 8 core upgraded to 12 core, it shows now as MacPro 5.1 but it was firmware flashed from 4.1 apparently it was the only way to do it few years back as I was upgrading from Snow Leopard I think.

I’m sure I will end up with Monterey at one point in 1-2 years, at that time I might not need to spent money for RAID software as I will move to different storage solution.



At the moment I have 24TB in Raid 5 and not all of it is backed up to external USB, I do not want to run upgrade to BigSur or Monterey and risk losing data without full backup. I would need to spent another 300-400$ for drives plus 120$ for software. I just can do it at the moment.



Is there any way to upgrade to Catalina with OCPL I have downloaded newest version and it shows me 11.7 the oldest installer I can chose.

 

[krakman]

I recall reading that OC for Catalina compatibility had been dumped because it was out of date and dev focus was on Monterey.

All my Mac Pros are 4.1 single or dual cpu flashed to 5.1. Mojave was a supported OS. I did not need OC to instal Mojave.

I thought Raid was just Raid.

The softraid software is just the interface to set it up? No? I never used it.

Personally I would buy a cheap SSD and install OCLP + Monterey + fcpx etc on that drive and keep your Mojave drive with softraid on it for maintaining your raid?

The installation instructions even instruct you to have a Mojave boot disk available in case of problems during setup.

 

[AlexMaximus]

I recall reading that OC for Catalina compatibility had been dumped because it was out of date and dev focus was on Monterey.

All my Mac Pros are 4.1 single or dual cpu flashed to 5.1. Mojave was a supported OS. I did not need OC to instal Mojave.

I thought Raid was just Raid.

The softraid software is just the interface to set it up? No? I never used it.

Personally I would buy a cheap SSD and install OCLP + Monterey + fcpx etc on that drive and keep your Mojave drive with softraid on it for maintaining your raid?

The installation instructions even instruct you to have a Mojave boot disk available in case of problems during setup.

Hi folks,

Thank you so much for your insights. Since you guys have already experience with OpenCore, I might as well would like to ask politely what route you would do with my current config.

So far I only used Catalina with the DosDude patcher. This worked great for my needs and I couldn't have been happier.
Just a view weeks ago I also got myself the dual tray upgrade, .. finally. So far I was a bit shy to start OpenCore.
However, I want to give this baby one last GPU upgrade which means I have to install OpenCore now.
How would you go ahead from a Catalina baseline such as mine and Install OpenCore for BigSure or Monterey?
Can I do a TimeCapsule Backup and transfer everything on a vanilla BigSure install.
As I mentioned I would like to do two last hardware upgrades at this point:
1. Exchange my AMD 580 "Seahawk" with a AMD 6800 dual slot card (with the flash from syncretic)
2. Put a Titan Ridge TB3 card in slot 4 for TB3 support down the line.

Which version would you use? Would you use a typical MP5.1 plist (from this forum) or would you go through the hassle to write your/my own? Can I use a automated config tool? Which OpenCore version would you recommend?

 

[sebo2001]

I recall reading that OC for Catalina compatibility had been dumped because it was out of date and dev focus was on Monterey.

All my Mac Pros are 4.1 single or dual cpu flashed to 5.1. Mojave was a supported OS. I did not need OC to instal Mojave.

I thought Raid was just Raid.

The softraid software is just the interface to set it up? No? I never used it.

Personally I would buy a cheap SSD and install OCLP + Monterey + fcpx etc on that drive and keep your Mojave drive with softraid on it for maintaining your raid?

The installation instructions even instruct you to have a Mojave boot disk available in case of problems during setup.

Yeah this sounds good and probobly the most safe route, I carbon copy clone my drive to external USB drive.

Another thing I just noticed:

I tried to boot from it, external USB disk shows up in boot picker but whe nI select it I see croseed circle and can't really tes it? Any idea why carbon copy doesn't clone it 100%? Is there any trick I need to do to test that USB disk with my current OSX?

 

[sebo2001]

I recall reading that OC for Catalina compatibility had been dumped because it was out of date and dev focus was on Monterey.

All my Mac Pros are 4.1 single or dual cpu flashed to 5.1. Mojave was a supported OS. I did not need OC to instal Mojave.

I thought Raid was just Raid.

The softraid software is just the interface to set it up? No? I never used it.

Personally I would buy a cheap SSD and install OCLP + Monterey + fcpx etc on that drive and keep your Mojave drive with softraid on it for maintaining your raid?

The installation instructions even instruct you to have a Mojave boot disk available in case of problems during setup.

I rememebr now, When I was installing Mojavie BigSur was already released, but unstable and to get to BigSur I needed Open Core. So I stayed with Mojavie but installed open core to be alble to install BigSur in the future.

 

[sebo2001]

Personally all my Mac Pros (I have 5 in the office) have been upgraded to Monterey via OCLP, it’s the simplest method.

What version of Monterey do you have installed?

 

[krakman]

What version of Monterey do you have installed?

12.6, its the latest version

 

[Dayo]

What version of Monterey do you have installed?

If you value stability, it is best not to go beyond Big Sur on a legacy Mac Pro as Monterey is getting significant, potentially breaking, changes with each new update and this is likely to continue, and in fact, escalate.

Hence, there is no guaranty you will be able to upgrade Monterey to the last release version due in two years. That is, there is a very high chance you will end up being stuck at some mid point release version. You might not consider that an important issue though.

In such cases, make absolutely sure you always take a backup before going forward with any updates as it might be the one that will just simply not work for you and hopefully doesn't brick your unit while at it. Have to say that one should always take such backups when running unsupported stuff in any case.

 

[sebo2001]

If you value stability, it is best not to go beyond Big Sur on a legacy Mac Pro as Monterey is getting significant, potentially breaking, changes with each new update and this is likely to continue, and in fact, escalate.

Hence, there is no guaranty you will be able to upgrade Monterey to the last release version due in two years. That is, there is a very high chance you will end up being stuck at some mid point release version. You might not consider that an important issue though.

In such cases, make absolutely sure you always take a backup before going forward with any updates as it might be the one that will just simply not work for you and hopefully doesn't brick your unit while at it. Have to say that one should always take such backups when running unsupported stuff in any case.

I heard similar about Montrey some not all people have issues, I don't have a need for latests gratest I suspect BigSur would be good enough for long time, FCP will probobly move on to Apple chip only before this mac will die

Is BigSur 11.7 stable or 11.6.7

I did have full data backup, and I did clone the Mojave drive to USB but becaue boot selector doesn't work I can't boot from it. Somebody suggested deleting stuff from EFI folder to force native boot, I will be trying it tonight