2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X El Capitan

[juanxer]

Retired the defective 2GB FB-DIMM modules. So far so good, high speed internet downloads-wise, even keeping the 1GB ones in.

For now the only source of kernel panics, and a pretty much consistent one, is navigating tumblr.com's walls, which usually are filled with animated GIFs that always are taxing Chrome (Safari seems to beachball a lot there too). I'm trying disabling the browser's hardware acceleration.

 

[rthpjm]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was the RAID as I've now successfully installed on a single drive from the RAID. All your hard work made it so simple. Now I'm going to bak up the fresh install with Carbon Copy, remake the RAID then CC the new install back onto the RAID. Pretty sure that'll work. One thing that you may have read elsewhere here is that in booting Pikified Yosemite on a RAID (for years) it always does this weird double boot where it chimes once then again in another 15-20 seconds. Like a PRAM zap. Maybe a clue as to why RAIDs can be an issue.

As for the bless command I tried it several ways besides the one built into your script. I even got the proper shell output listing the OS X Install Data folder in the correct volume, but no go until I went to a single drive volume.

That's good to know. Thanks for persevering!

There's probably an undocumented way of blessing the RAID setup. If you ever get the RAID configuration working again, can you go into System Preferences and choose the RAID to boot (maybe choose something else and then go back to the RAID), then use the bless command (--info) to see if there's any obvious difference in the output....

 

[dhammans]

I tried using the Pikeify script to generate a El Capitan installer for my Mac Pro 2,1 (flashed 1,1) with ugpraded CPUs.

It generated the installer USB with no apparent errors - but in the installation process it reboots (normally?) during the install process and that's it.

It just boots into the recovery partition for 10.11/El Capitan. I see the EFI partition, OSX partition (mostly empty - it appears very little/nothing actually gets copied here?) and the recovery partition (functional). However the actual OS partition doesn't appear as a bootable source.

Kind of stuck in this, any ideas what went wrong?

 

[rthpjm]

I tried using the Pikeify script to generate a El Capitan installer for my Mac Pro 2,1 (flashed 1,1) with ugpraded CPUs.

It generated the installer USB with no apparent errors - but in the installation process it reboots (normally?) during the install process and that's it.

It just boots into the recovery partition for 10.11/El Capitan. I see the EFI partition, OSX partition (mostly empty - it appears very little/nothing actually gets copied here?) and the recovery partition (functional). However the actual OS partition doesn't appear as a bootable source.

Kind of stuck in this, any ideas what went wrong?

Are you saying that you get to the installation process, but the installation does not complete, but reboots early?

It sounds like you are hitting the known limitation of available RAM. If you don't have at least 12GB of RAM, then the install process will fail. The Installer tries to unpack the "essentials" package which needs a lot of room. Because of the way the system boots for the install process, it is running from RAM disks. If you don't have enough RAM there isn't enough room to unpack the system.

The net result is that the Recovery HD is successfully created, but the main system is not.

How much RAM do you have?

 

[dhammans]

Are you saying that you get to the installation process, but the installation does not complete, but reboots early?

It sounds like you are hitting the known limitation of available RAM. If you don't have at least 12GB of RAM, then the install process will fail. The Installer tries to unpack the "essentials" package which needs a lot of room. Because of the way the system boots for the install process, it is running from RAM disks. If you don't have enough RAM there isn't enough room to unpack the system.

The net result is that the Recovery HD is successfully created, but the main system is not.

How much RAM do you have?

Ah, crap. I have "16gb" in it. It does boot into Yosemite, so I checked and it's only seeing 8gb of the 16gb. Looks like I've got some failed DIMMS.

I have another Mac Pro sitting here with 32gb, I'll steal one of the memory sleds and try it again. Might be time to pick up some more memory off eBay...

Thanks for your help!

 

[Amtrak706]

First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped make it possible to keep our old Mac Pros alive this long. I am running a 1,1 flashed to 2,1 with X5365s. It has a GTX 660 (PC version, so no boot screens), PNY 240GB SSD, WD Blue 1TB HDD, and 12GB RAM (2x4GB and 2x2GB). For troubleshooting purposes, I still have access to the hard drive with this computer's old Lion install on it, and I still have the old 7300GT to throw into the case if I need boot screens or Lion.

I have just put El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 as an in-place upgrade from Yosemite, which I have been running on it for the past two years. Yosemite worked well except for one thing: the "Restart" function did not work. If I clicked "Restart" or, more worryingly, if a software update automatically triggered a restart, I would be greeted with my monitor's "no signal" screen until I held the power button to force shut down the computer, waited a few seconds, and turned it back on. This hasn't seemed to do any damage to various software updates so far, but I'd like to be able to restart normally. I was hoping that updating to El Capitan might somehow wipe this bug out, but I still have exactly the same issue. Any ideas as to what this might be?

Thanks

 

[rthpjm]

First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped make it possible to keep our old Mac Pros alive this long. I am running a 1,1 flashed to 2,1 with X5365s. It has a GTX 660 (PC version, so no boot screens), PNY 240GB SSD, WD Blue 1TB HDD, and 12GB RAM (2x4GB and 2x2GB). For troubleshooting purposes, I still have access to the hard drive with this computer's old Lion install on it, and I still have the old 7300GT to throw into the case if I need boot screens or Lion.

I have just put El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 as an in-place upgrade from Yosemite, which I have been running on it for the past two years. Yosemite worked well except for one thing: the "Restart" function did not work. If I clicked "Restart" or, more worryingly, if a software update automatically triggered a restart, I would be greeted with my monitor's "no signal" screen until I held the power button to force shut down the computer, waited a few seconds, and turned it back on. This hasn't seemed to do any damage to various software updates so far, but I'd like to be able to restart normally. I was hoping that updating to El Capitan might somehow wipe this bug out, but I still have exactly the same issue. Any ideas as to what this might be?

Thanks

Others have found that an SMC reset sorts this out. See my signature in the footer...

 

[Mastropiero]

Hi everyone, first post here, before I start with not too many questions - I hope - I'd like to thank you guys for your great work.

I have been a few times through the opening post and #1390 and before getting to business I'd like to make sure of a few things. My setup, at the moment, is as follows:

Mac Pro 1,1.
24 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB
1 500 Gb SSD running Yosemite
1 2 Tb HD running Lion

Right, so , if I got it correctly I should create a boot volume on a disk that shouldn't be the disk I want to install El Capitan on. Considering my setup, what would be the best way to proceed? Should I create a boot volume on a USB stick?

Also, should I format the SSD before proceeding?


I think this is pretty much it, I'd very much appreciate your help on this matter. Thanks!

 

[rthpjm]

Hi everyone, first post here, before I start with not too many questions - I hope - I'd like to thank you guys for your great work.

I have been a few times through the opening post and #1390 and before getting to business I'd like to make sure of a few things. My setup, at the moment, is as follows:

Mac Pro 1,1.
24 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB
1 500 Gb SSD running Yosemite
1 2 Tb HD running Lion

Right, so , if I got it correctly I should create a boot volume on a disk that shouldn't be the disk I want to install El Capitan on. Considering my setup, what would be the best way to proceed? Should I create a boot volume on a USB stick?

Also, should I format the SSD before proceeding?


I think this is pretty much it, I'd very much appreciate your help on this matter. Thanks!

Don't over-think it. Be brave!

Make sure you have backed up any volatile data. If there is nothing worth keeping on the SSD, then sure you can reformat it. There's no "requirement" to reformat, it's entirely your choice.

The Pikify v14 installation process (under the hood) creates an install set of data from the Apple installer, with some "slip-streamed" items from the community. It writes this combined set to your target disk. Your target disk can be any disk, with V14 it is typical for this to be one of your hard disk drive/partitions.

I have tested V14 with a USB memory stick and it's fine. So the answer is you can use either USB or a direct attached HDD. Experience tells me that you should use a HDD because USB is so slow in comparison.

It sounds like you want to target the SSD (I don't know what volumes you have on the SSD, but if I assume one partition, called SSD). Watch the video, drag the SSD to the terminal. You'll get the best experience this way because your SSD will be even faster.

The install set is placed at /Volumes/SSD/OS X Install Data/. This is nicely out of the way of any "normal" system folders, hence you can "upgrade in-place" if you want to (no reformat). When the install set of data is written, you boot the machine from it. It launches directly into the true Apple installer. This stage will create the Recovery HD partition, and it will then create/update the target disk.

The Pikify script is responsible for the first phase, it builds the install set with the community modifications slip-streamed into it.

Once the Pikify script finishes, it asks you to reboot, which starts the second phase, running the Apple installer.

The Apple installer is responsible for the second phase, but it's now using the modified data set.

Once the Apple installer finishes, it will reboot into your new working El Capitan.

 

[Mastropiero]

Don't over-think it. Be brave!

Make sure you have backed up any volatile data. If there is nothing worth keeping on the SSD, then sure you can reformat it. There's no "requirement" to reformat, it's entirely your choice.

The Pikify v14 installation process (under the hood) creates an install set of data from the Apple installer, with some "slip-streamed" items from the community. It writes this combined set to your target disk. Your target disk can be any disk, with V14 it is typical for this to be one of your hard disk drive/partitions.

I have tested V14 with a USB memory stick and it's fine. So the answer is you can use either USB or a direct attached HDD. Experience tells me that you should use a HDD because USB is so slow in comparison.

It sounds like you want to target the SSD (I don't know what volumes you have on the SSD, but if I assume one partition, called SSD). Watch the video, drag the SSD to the terminal. You'll get the best experience this way because your SSD will be even faster.

The install set is placed at /Volumes/SSD/OS X Install Data/. This is nicely out of the way of any "normal" system folders, hence you can "upgrade in-place" if you want to (no reformat). When the install set of data is written, you boot the machine from it. It launches directly into the true Apple installer. This stage will create the Recovery HD partition, and it will then create/update the target disk.

The Pikify script is responsible for the first phase, it builds the install set with the community modifications slip-streamed into it.

Once the Pikify script finishes, it asks you to reboot, which starts the second phase, running the Apple installer.

The Apple installer is responsible for the second phase, but it's now using the modified data set.

Once the Apple installer finishes, it will reboot into your new working El Capitan.

Hi, thank you so much for your quick reply. Yes, I am definitely targeting the SSD, I basically use it for OS and applications, while keeping pictures, videos and music on the HD I have running Lion on. So, actually, no data that I'd need to back up.

Ok then, I'll get tomorrow to work and will report back. Many thanks!

 

[Adesz88]

Hi!
My Mac Pro 2,1 has 6gb of ram and a flashed Ati Radeon HD 5770 !512mb! VGA.
I try to get multiple times El Capitan up and running with the disk image method:

This is not work for me after installing the updates i have loads of kernel panics, especially when i try to install Adobbe Lightroom and the latest security update for the os or try to render 1080p video in imovie.
So, i installed Yosemite on the mac and its running with no issues, but i need the latest FCPX, Motion and Compressor which requires El Capitan.
I try to install El Cap. again, but now with the supported Mac method with the help of VMware and its worked for me.
Next i tested the stability with open all the apps at once and the os is not crased, so i quite happy with the results.
Installed the Boot.efi fix (Boot64.v3.mpkg) and installed the os updates. After that opened again all the apps and it's crased.
It crased when i try to add effects on 1080p video in FCPX or when i left to open Compressor and every time crases when try to install Safari 10.1.2 update in the AppStore.
What can i do?

I include 2 txt file and some picture:

Sorry for the bad English.

 

[rthpjm]

Hi!
My Mac Pro 2,1 has 6gb of ram and a flashed Ati Radeon HD 5770 !512mb! VGA.
I try to get multiple times El Capitan up and running with the disk image method:

This is not work for me after installing the updates i have loads of kernel panics, especially when i try to install Adobbe Lightroom and the latest security update for the os or try to render 1080p video in imovie.
So, i installed Yosemite on the mac and its running with no issues, but i need the latest FCPX, Motion and Compressor which requires El Capitan.
I try to install El Cap. again, but now with the supported Mac method with the help of VMware and its worked for me.
Next i tested the stability with open all the apps at once and the os is not crased, so i quite happy with the results.
Installed the Boot.efi fix (Boot64.v3.mpkg) and installed the os updates. After that opened again all the apps and it's crased.
It crased when i try to add effects on 1080p video in FCPX or when i left to open Compressor and every time crases when try to install Safari 10.1.2 update in the AppStore.
What can i do?

I include 2 txt file and some picture:

Sorry for the bad English.

Remove the 1GB RAM modules. Try running with just your two 2GB modules (4GB).

You should probably purchase more 2GB or 4GB modules, El Capitan likes a lot of RAM.

 

[Adesz88]

Remove the 1GB RAM modules. Try running with just your two 2GB modules (4GB).

You should probably purchase more 2GB or 4GB modules, El Capitan likes a lot of RAM.

I tried but, same issue.

 

[Nward85]

Hey everyone. I am following the steps for the new 2017 techniques to install El Capitan on 1,1.

I successful got to the installation screen, the OS installs...reboots...then I am taken back to the installation screen again, and not the set up screen. Ideas?

 

[Ant3000]

Have you rebooted holding down 'alt' to select start-up drive? Assuming you have graphics card with boot screens.
I think I have had to select boot drive manually after installation in the past for some reason.

 

[Nward85]

Have you rebooted holding down 'alt' to select start-up drive? Assuming you have graphics card with boot screens.
I think I have had to select boot drive manually after installation in the past for some reason.

I have, and the only two is OS installer and Recovery. OS installer now leads me to OS Utilities first, which did not happen before.

 

[Ant3000]

Have you the required amount / type of RAM installed? 12gb minimum and no 512mb or 1gb modules?

 

[Nward85]

Have you the required amount / type of RAM installed? 12gb minimum and no 512mb or 1gb modules?

All 1 and 2 gig ram cards
[doublepost=1503533317][/doublepost]

All 1 and 2 gig ram cards

Why can't I use 1 gig modules?

 

[Ant3000]

Assuming you are using Pikify - There appears to be a long established issue with small RAM modules - hard to say exactly why, but it is a recurring problem and if you read back through the thread you will see the same issue time and time again. Try pulling the 1gb modules and see what happens. Or buy some 4gb cards as they are quite cheap - I tricked out my set-up with 32gb.

 

[Nward85]

Assuming you are using Pikify - There appears to be a long established issue with small RAM modules - hard to say exactly why, but it is a recurring problem and if you read back through the thread you will see the same issue time and time again. Try pulling the 1gb modules and see what happens. Or buy some 4gb cards as they are quite cheap - I tricked out my set-up with 32gb.

Well I purchased all brand new ram, 32 gig worth. Is it normal to go through the installer, restart, and it not actually install if it is the ram?

 

[Ant3000]

I think so. Most problems with less than 12gb, if not all, seem to be with the installation process. Once installed it may be possible to run with less than 12gb, but not really recommended as more is better. rthpjm's installer vid at post 1390 has a list of info and I am sure mentions the RAM requirement. I have been running for over a year with 32gb using CS6 apps daily and all works well.

 

[Mastropiero]

So, guys, I am having a silly problem that I can't figure out and it is preventing me rather decisively from going ahead with the installation. I was jumping a bit between OS's, booting into Yosemite and Lion alternately, checking that everything was good and ready. Well, today Lion has decided that my mouse (mice I should say, rather) wouldn't click. Any of them, Magic Mouse 2, Logitech MX Revolution or good old Intellimouse. Well, the latter I think it's gone for good, actually.

But the other two.... They move around just fine but I can't click, there's no response, left or right click aren't working. I tried zapping the PRAM but all I managed to do is to change the boot drive so now it's booting from Lion.


Any idea how I could resolve this? Sorry, I know this is sidetracking a bit but until I haven't resolved this I cannot proceed.

Thanks!!!

 

[Ant3000]

Have you tried them in another USB port?
If the issue is across all OS versions it sounds like hardware. Have you checked mouse settings in System Prefs? The Logitech will probably have it's own driver/controller.

 

[rthpjm]

Well I purchased all brand new ram, 32 gig worth. Is it normal to go through the installer, restart, and it not actually install if it is the ram?

As Ant3000 says, it's usually RAM.

Look at the responses above on this page (dhammans). Lots of RAM installed but not all of it was being recognised.

Check, then check again. Read back a few pages. Most users who have sought help recently have all had similar experiences, and it's down to RAM...

 

[Mastropiero]

Have you tried them in another USB port?
If the issue is across all OS versions it sounds like hardware. Have you checked mouse settings in System Prefs? The Logitech will probably have it's own driver/controller.

Intellimouse yes, but as I said, that one probably is FUBAR.

MM and Logitech work fine in Yosemite. Well, MM 2 works very basic in Yosemite but that's not the point.

Regarding checking prefs in Lion.... I can't get there, can't click anything. Oh, by the way, keyboard is gone too. I don't know if I could get to prefs via shortcuts but I tried fn keys and volume and such and they don't work either. It looks - in my illiterate opinion - USB related. It's odd though that keyboard is gone and mice are just half gone, ie they react to movement but not to clicks