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Mojave install issue on 2013 Mac Pro

Highway_61

Highway_61

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 27, 2018
14
0
Central New York
I have upgraded the original 256gb drive with an OWC 1tb Aura SSD. The drive has worked great until now. I have been able to upgrade to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 with no issues. When I tried to install Mojave on it I was greeted with a pop-up stating that Mojave can't be installed on a third party drive.

Anyone else run into this and have a fix?

I have contacted OWC about and they are looking into it.
 
Highway_61 said:
I have upgraded the original 256gb drive with an OWC 1tb Aura SSD. The drive has worked great until now. I have been able to upgrade to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 with no issues. When I tried to install Mojave on it I was greeted with a pop-up stating that Mojave can't be installed on a third party drive.

Anyone else run into this and have a fix?

I have contacted OWC about and they are looking into it.
Click to expand...
What's your current BootROM, SystemInformation>Hardware Overview>BootROM version?

Most 3rd party drives interfere with firmware upgrades and Mojave needs a BootROM upgrade. You will need to install your original SSD on your Mac Pro back.

If you don't have it anymore, download 10.13.6, install on a clean/empty USB/TB external drive, check if it's working correctly, then remove the OWC drive from your Mac Pro and try the firmware upgrade opening the Mojave installer.
 
I am at
Boot ROM Version: MP61.0116.B25

I still have my original SSD, OWC provides an enclosure to use it as an external drive. So I have to put it back in, get 10.13.6 installed, install Mojave, then put the OWC SSD in and do the Mojave install on it? Do I have the process right?

Thank you so much for your help.
 
Highway_61 said:
I am at
Boot ROM Version: MP61.0116.B25

I still have my original SSD, OWC provides an enclosure to use it as an external drive. So I have to put it back in, get 10.13.6 installed, install Mojave, then put the OWC SSD in and do the Mojave install on it? Do I have the process right?

Thank you so much for your help.
Click to expand...
You are a lot of releases behind. The current one is MP61.0124.B00, with another one in 10.14.DP1.
 
Highway_61 said:
Wow! Thanks.
Click to expand...
I recommend that you install 10.13.6 on your original drive, than install 10.14 and finally you have to update to the 10.14.PB1 (go to beta.apple.com and get the profile for testing 10.14.1).

After all that you will have the most recent possible MP61 firmware:

MP6,1
Code: 
$IBIOSI$ MP61.88Z.0125.B00.1808170703
Copyright (c) 2005-2018 Apple Inc.  All rights reserved.
Apple ROM Version
  Model:        MP61
  EFI Version:  126.0.0.0.0
  Built by:     root@saumon
  Date:         Fri Aug 17 07:01:38 PDT 2018
  Revision:     126 (B&I)
  ROM Version:  F000_D00
  Build Type:   Official Build, Release
  Compiler:     Apple clang version 3.0 (tags/Apple/clang-211.10.1) (based on LLVM 3.0svn)

With 126.0.0.0.0 you will be safe with your OWC drive for some months.
 
Last edited:
Well, the tale continues. lol
The information from tsialex has been invaluable. Thank you brother. But after another day of striving and fighting I still haven't had much luck. I even spent a few hours with Apple Support to no avail.
After all attempts I cannot make my original Apple SSD bootable. The plan was to put an older Mac OS on it and follow the upgrade path step by step updating the both the OS level and hopefully update my outdated Boot ROM versions along the way.
After going through process of making my old Apple SSD bootable with any version of Mac OS neither of my Mac Pros, 2013 or 2010, see it as bootable.
I'll keep playing with it.
 
Highway_61 said:
Well, the tale continues. lol
The information from tsialex has been invaluable. Thank you brother. But after another day of striving and fighting I still haven't had much luck. I even spent a few hours with Apple Support to no avail.
After all attempts I cannot make my original Apple SSD bootable. The plan was to put an older Mac OS on it and follow the upgrade path step by step updating the both the OS level and hopefully update my outdated Boot ROM versions along the way.
After going through process of making my old Apple SSD bootable with any version of Mac OS neither of my Mac Pros, 2013 or 2010, see it as bootable.
I'll keep playing with it.
Click to expand...
Did you tried sudo gpt destroy diskXX?
 
I have no idea what that is. When I put my old Apple SSD in the system will not boot or allow any boot options other than zap pram and reset smc
 
Highway_61 said:
I have no idea what that is. When I put my old Apple SSD in the system will not boot or allow any boot options other than zap pram and reset smc
Click to expand...
Do you have a way to install your original Apple SSD on your 5,1?

If so, open Terminal and do:
Code: 
diskutil list

It will show all drives, you have to find what diskXX is your MP61 original one.

Change diskXX to the correct drive number for your MP61 original disk:

Code: 
diskutil unmountdisk diskXX
sudo gpt destroy diskXX

Now you have a totally clean drive without any partitions/containers and you will install macOS correctly.
 
tsialex said:
Do you have a way to install your original Apple SSD on your 5,1?

If so, open Terminal and do:
Code: 
diskutil list

It will show all drives, you have to find what diskXX is your MP61 original one.

Change diskXX to the correct drive number for your MP61 original disk:

Code: 
diskutil unmountdisk diskXX
sudo gpt destroy diskXX

Now you have a totally clean drive and you will install macOS correctly.
Click to expand...

Not offhand. I don't have any SSD mounts for the 2010. All the drive bays are full. I guess I could get one and pull out a drive to get this done.

OWC provided an enclosure for the Apple SSD to be be used as an external drive. It works well as that, but even if you make it bootable it doesn't show up as that on either system.
 
Highway_61 said:
Not offhand. I don't have any SSD mounts for the 2010. All the drive bays are full. I guess I could get one and pull out a drive to get this done.

OWC provided an enclosure for the Apple SSD to be be used as an external drive. It works well as that, but even if you make it bootable it doesn't show up as that on either system.
Click to expand...
Ok, you can clean it with the enclosure, then replace the OWC with the original one on the MP6,1 and do a clean install with Internet Recovery or with a createinstallmedia USB key.
 
tsialex said:
Ok, you can clean it with the enclosure, then replace the OWC with the original one on the MP6,1 and do a clean install with Internet Recovery or with a createinstallmedia USB key.
Click to expand...

I am unable to do a recovery or an internet recovery. It ignores the keyboard, even a wired one.

When you say clean it, do you mean on the 2010?
 
Highway_61 said:
I am unable to do a recovery or an internet recovery. It ignores the keyboard, even a wired one.

When you say clean it, do you mean on the 2010?
Click to expand...
You can clean the drive with the enclosure, with the 6,1 or 5,1. Once cleaned, remove from the enclosure, install on the 6,1 slot, then boot from a 10.13.6 createinstallmedia USB key. You will need a USB key of at least 8GB, can be bigger, to create the 10.13.6 installer.
 
Highway_61 said:
Ok, I can try that. Will booting from a 10.13.6 USB key cause the Boot ROM to get updated or do I need to use an old Mac OS?
Click to expand...
You will need to install 10.13.6 on the original drive, with it installed into the 6,1, to correctly upgrade the BootROM. Just booting the createinstallmedia USB key will not upgrade the firmware.

With 10.13.6 you will upgrade to MP61.0124.B00, with 10.14.0 to MP61.0125.B00 and with 10.14.1PB1 you will get to 126.0.0.0.0.
 
Last edited:
tsialex said:
You will need to install 10.13.6 on the original disk, with it installed into the 6,1, to correctly upgrade the BootROM. Just booting the createinstallmedia USB key will not upgrade the firmware.

With 10.13.6 you will upgrade to MP61.0124, with 10.14.0 to MP61.0125 and with 10.14.1PB1 you will get 126.0.0.0.0.
Click to expand...

Ok cool. That will be tomorrow's project. Thank you so much.
 
Clean it first, create a 10.13.6 createinstallmedia USB key, then remove the original disk from the enclosure and install into the 6,1. After that is just the install 10.13.6, then Mojave, then 10.14.1DP1.

You will be with the most recent firmware and will only need to do that again later after Apple release the sucessor of 126.0.0.0.0.
 
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tsialex said:
Clean it first, create a 10.13.6 createinstallmedia USB key, then remove the original disk from the enclosure and install into the 6,1. After that is just the install 10.13.6, then Mojave, then 10.14.1DP1.

You will be with the most recent firmware and will only need to do that again later after Apple release the sucessor of 126.0.0.0.0.
Click to expand...

I got the original Apple SSD booting and all upgraded to Mojave. Works well. My Boot ROM updated nicely.

I still can't get the OWC SSD to upgrade to Mojave. I get the error that Mojave cannot be installed on third party drives.

I thinking of moving back to the Apple drive, the small size is a pain back my external drive can hold all apps and data. It is just an inconvenience since most software looks for apps in the boot drive Applications folder.

Thank you for all of you help.
 
Sorry to hear that, did you tried cloning Mojave from the original Apple SSD to the OWC one? That's what some people did with RAIDs. (OWC use RAID with some SSD, don't know if it's the case with yours)
 
Highway_61 said:
I still can't get the OWC SSD to upgrade to Mojave. I get the error that Mojave cannot be installed on third party drives.
Click to expand...

I know it's far less than idea, but have you tried cloning a Mojave install from the Apple drive to the OWC SSD? Also, I would contact OWC and see what they have to say about this.
 
tsialex said:
Sorry to hear that, did you tried cloning Mojave from the original Apple SSD to the OWC one? That's what some people did with RAIDs. (OWC use RAID with some SSD, don't know if it's the case with yours)
Click to expand...

No, this replaces the original Apple SSD and plugs into its slot.
[doublepost=1538346372][/doublepost]
crjackson2134 said:
I know it's far less than idea, but have you tried cloning a Mojave install from the Apple drive to the OWC SSD? Also, I would contact OWC and see what they have to say about this.
Click to expand...

No, this replaces the original Apple SSD and plugs into its slot. I have been talking to OWC.
 
Final note on trying to put Mojave on an OWC Aura equipped Mac Pro. OWC doesn't seem to know what to do. I actually got more help from Apple than them. But the advice from tsialex helped get my original Apple SSD booting and updated to Mojave so I will just go back to that, even though it is a slight 256gb in size.

I'll miss the 1tb space of the OWC, but my thunderbolt connect external drive has more than enough space for all apps and data, just lacks convenience.

I have no idea if this is true of all OWC Aura replacement SSDs or if it was just mine. I love to hear from other 2013 Mac Pro owners with the OWC Aura installed.
 
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