MP 1,1-5,1 Fresh install of macOS Lion on Mac Pro 1.1

[Thabto]

Hi.
I recently found a Mac Pro 1.1 in storage. I have since upgraded the RAM to 16GB. Hard Disk is missing. How can I install a fresh macOS Lion to a new Hard Disk. I do not have another Mac around. How can I create bootable media? Let me know.

 

[kwikdeth]

Mac OS X Lion Installer - Apple Support

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is available for older systems that are not compatible with the latest version of macOS

support.apple.com

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive for Installing OS X Lion

OS X Lion does not come with a bootable installer, but with the help of this guide, you can create your own bootable Lion installer on a USB drive.

www.lifewire.com

download the installer from apple linked above, use the second link to make a bootable USB installer you can use to put on a new drive.

 

[Thabto]

Mac OS X Lion Installer - Apple Support

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is available for older systems that are not compatible with the latest version of macOS

support.apple.com

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive for Installing OS X Lion

OS X Lion does not come with a bootable installer, but with the help of this guide, you can create your own bootable Lion installer on a USB drive.

www.lifewire.com

download the installer from apple linked above, use the second link to make a bootable USB installer you can use to put on a new drive.

I downloaded the installer and extracted with 7zip. I can't find InstallESD.dmg anywhere. Does anyone have the link to the installer that has the InstallESD.dmg? Let me know.

 

[kwikdeth]

Nasty. Looks like Apple has repackaged the installer in such a way that the InstallESD.dmg is no longer visible. Yet its clearly in there somewhere as the file size is still 4.7GB.

 

[kwikdeth]

Pacifist would not show it, but if I used the program "The Unarchiver" (available on App Store), it decompresses the InstallMacOSX.pkg file to a folder called "InstallMacOSX"... inside of that, there is a file called InstallMacOSX.pkg. If I right-click on that, select "Show Package Contents", the InstallESD.dmg file is accessible there.

 

[kwikdeth]

just for clarification sake, when I used The Unarchiver to extract the initial package file, I did so into a directory I created called "lion installer experiment", in case you're wondering where that folder title came from

 

[DeltaMac]

That download for Lion is a multi-step process.
You get a file named "InstallMacOSX.dmg", which you would double-click to open.
That makes a folder named "Install Mac OSX", which has one file named "InstallMacOSX.pkg"
THAT file opens your installer app, but doesn't actually install Lion - just makes the installer app into its usable form, copying it into your Applications folder.
The other steps to create a bootable USB installer will probably work, but Lion is pretty old, and you would need Disk Utility in an older form (so that there is a Restore function), might work with El Capitan Disk Utility, but you would probably need an older OSX, such as Yosemite (OS X 10.10) or older. I still would use DiskMaker version 3, which does a good job, and makes the bootable partition "pretty".

Downloads

diskmakerx.com

Scroll down that download page, and get DiskMakerX version 5.0.3