Resolved OCLP: What happens if I install another macOS on a drive?

[pullman]

Greetings everyone

I have OCLP Monterey running well on my 3,1 together with a DosDude Mojave installation I use for older software. Both show up on the OCLP boot menu (in Mojave's case because I put OCLP on that drive).

Now I need to install Leopard on yet another drive to be able to use even older apps. Will I be able to see that installation on the OCLP boot menu?

Thank you in advance
Philip

 

[pullman]

I'll answer my own question, in case it helps anyone. I happened to have a DMG of one of my earliest Leopard backups which I restored using Disk Utility.

It showed up perfectly in the OCLP boot menu. The only problem is that Leopard doesn't support my current video card (Radeon Pro WX5100)...

I think the only option for me now is to install Window XP or something.

 

[reader50]

Do you have GOP injection turned on in your OCLP config?

OCLP app -> Settings (button) -> Advanced (tab) -> AMD GOP Injection (checkbox)

If not, set it. Then rewrite OCLP to disk. Then reboot. Leopard should see your WX5100 as a generic Mac video card, though without drivers. So you'll get software rendering. Which will work for most things, other than 3D games.

Note: you might need a graphics card with a DVI output for this trick to work. I had trouble getting Snow Leopard to see HDMI ports on my RX-580 for example.

If you actually need a GPU with Leopard drivers, things get complicated. Mojave and later will not boot if there's both a Metal and non-Metal card installed. The solution is to manually edit OCLP's config file in the EFI partition, to hide the old non-metal Graphics card. Then you boot via OCLP for Mojave and later. Do a direct boot (via Option key) for older OSes that need the old GPU. The downside is this complicates updates to OCLP. You'll need to reapply the config file adjustment after every OCLP update.

 

[Bigwaff]

I think the only option for me now is to install Window XP or something.

Is a virtual machine not an option for you?

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for this. I was not aware of this option. I enabled it this morning but got a bit confused when OCLP asked me to Install OpenCore to disk presenting me with these options:

My Monterey installation is on the IronWolf drive at the bottom, disk 7, but that disk is split into two volumes, one of which is the Monterey installation, called disk 9 in Disk Utility. The other volume is a SuperDuper clone of my home volume (disk 11).

Am I right in thinking that I should pick disk 7 even though it ends up on the disk 7 EFI and not on disk 9, the Monterey installation? Apologies for the basic questions but I just want to be sure I don't mess up the installation.

Do you have GOP injection turned on in your OCLP config?

OCLP app -> Settings (button) -> Advanced (tab) -> AMD GOP Injection (checkbox)

If not, set it. Then rewrite OCLP to disk. Then reboot. Leopard should see your WX5100 as a generic Mac video card, though without drivers. So you'll get software rendering. Which will work for most things, other than 3D games.

Note: you might need a graphics card with a DVI output for this trick to work. I had trouble getting Snow Leopard to see HDMI ports on my RX-580 for example.

If you actually need a GPU with Leopard drivers, things get complicated. Mojave and later will not boot if there's both a Metal and non-Metal card installed. The solution is to manually edit OCLP's config file in the EFI partition, to hide the old non-metal Graphics card. Then you boot via OCLP for Mojave and later. Do a direct boot (via Option key) for older OSes that need the old GPU. The downside is this complicates updates to OCLP. You'll need to reapply the config file adjustment after every OCLP update.

Thank you for this suggestion. I have been thinking about it and I suppose I could do it. The program I need to use is Nikon Scan, which is an old 32-bit program for film scanners. It can be run on Windows XP. But perhaps these are too many hoops to jump through, I don't know to be honest.

Is a virtual machine not an option for you?

 

[reader50]

About the Disks menu for OpenCore - you'll have to figure out which volume OCLP is installed on. The menu ought to flag the right volume for you, with a colored background. But it sometimes misses. It will be one of the real hardware disks. Not an APFS container. You might have to use Terminal to mount the EFI partition on each real drive in turn, and check for the OpenCore folder.

Regarding Nikon Scan (32-bit). If it's just the 32-bit problem, you may be able to run it under Mojave, which has drivers for your WX5100. The only reason to need Leopard or Snow Leopard is if you're using a PPC app, which requires Rosetta.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much, for your continued help. I actually have OCLP on two drives: on disk 7, which holds Monterey, and on disk0s1 which holds my Mojave DosDude installation. It's been years since I installed that, but I seem to remember my thinking was that in order to get a dual-boot system I needed to have OCLP also on that drive. Probably a stupid thing to do...

Anyway, I tried setting AMD GOP Injection on both OCLPs and booting into Leopard. Unfortunately there is no video though. I'm wondering if it has to do with the WX5100 using DisplayPort ports.

I don't have space for another GPU as all slots are taken so I guess that leaves me with installing Windows XP since Nikon Scan needs Rosetta. What is the best way to install that on an old 3,1 set up like mine — should I Boot Camp from Monterey or from Mojave or is there another way?

About the Disks menu for OpenCore - you'll have to figure out which volume OCLP is installed on. The menu ought to flag the right volume for you, with a colored background. But it sometimes misses. It will be one of the real hardware disks. Not an APFS container. You might have to use Terminal to mount the EFI partition on each real drive in turn, and check for the OpenCore folder.

Regarding Nikon Scan (32-bit). If it's just the 32-bit problem, you may be able to run it under Mojave, which has drivers for your WX5100. The only reason to need Leopard or Snow Leopard is if you're using a PPC app, which requires Rosetta.

 

[pullman]

Hmm thinking further about this — are there ways to virtualise OS X from within macOS? I was approaching this from the Boot Camp perspective since I tried that one a very long time ago, but I see now that it's possible to virtualise from Apple Silicon Macs. Perhaps it can be done with OS X on Intel Macs too?

EDIT: I'll start a new thread as this is going off topic. Thanks for all the help so far.

 

[reader50]

Anyway, I tried setting AMD GOP Injection on both OCLPs and booting into Leopard. Unfortunately there is no video though. I'm wondering if it has to do with the WX5100 using DisplayPort ports.

I can no longer test with Leopard, since I upgraded my CPUs to X5680s. Leopard requires my original CPUs.

However, Snow Leopard boots just fine through OCLP and my RX580. There are no video drivers, so you get software rendering at the monitors' native resolution. Quite tiny on my 4K monitors. But they're connected via DisplayPort, and they work. I even opened up Image Capture, and it sees my Canon scanner.

Perhaps it would be easier to install Snow Leopard than Windows. Rosetta is included in Snow Leopard, but it does need to be in an HFS+ partition, on a SATA drive. The drive can have an APFS partition for later macOS versions, it can share a drive with Monterey, etc. It just needs a partition set aside for HFS+. And Snow Leopard will not boot from nVME (M.2 sticks) hence the need for SATA.

 

[pullman]

Apologies it took a while to write back. Well I have officially had my mind blown. I looked through my old OSX .dmg backups from way back when and found a clean Snow Leopard install which I restored onto the SSD I'd previously put Leopard on. It works. I still can't believe this. Video is as smooth as ever and my old 3,1 is lightning quick in Snow Leopard. Video works over HDMI, but only on one of my two screens. My Magic Trackpad (first version) connected and works, except it is a bit slow and tapping and right clicking don't work. It shows up as a mouse in Sys Prefs, not under Trackpad. Even the Magic Keyboard connected and works. It's a bit strange that they work because I have a newer BT/Wifi card in the machine (BCM94360CD) and Snow Leopard reports that there is no bluetooth. Plugging in a Belkin wireless mouse with USB transmitter works fine, except for the scroll wheel, though I can't use that because of FireWire-USB conflicts. In the end I have decided to control Snow Leopard from my M1 MBA via Screen Sharing. It works brilliantly.

Since Snow Leopard didn't recognise the wifi card I had to share the internet connection from the MBA to install Rosetta. This enabled installing Nikon Scan 4 using the original CD which I still had. This program is why I've gone through all this, to be able to use an old Nikon scanner (CS9000). In case it helps anyone in the future, I tried installing NS4 without an internet connection, but that caused Software Update (which launched automatically when I ran the installer) to hang.

NS4, updated to v. 4.0.2, works very well except that it initially did not see the CS9000. I discovered that this had to do with a FireWire-USB conflict. Having my CalDigit USB 3.0 FASTA card in the machine made NS4 oblivious to the CS9000's existence, even though it was visible in Sys Info. For the same reason I can't use the Belkin wireless mouse.

So all is now well (I think).
Cheers
philip

I can no longer test with Leopard, since I upgraded my CPUs to X5680s. Leopard requires my original CPUs.

However, Snow Leopard boots just fine through OCLP and my RX580. There are no video drivers, so you get software rendering at the monitors' native resolution. Quite tiny on my 4K monitors. But they're connected via DisplayPort, and they work. I even opened up Image Capture, and it sees my Canon scanner.

Perhaps it would be easier to install Snow Leopard than Windows. Rosetta is included in Snow Leopard, but it does need to be in an HFS+ partition, on a SATA drive. The drive can have an APFS partition for later macOS versions, it can share a drive with Monterey, etc. It just needs a partition set aside for HFS+. And Snow Leopard will not boot from nVME (M.2 sticks) hence the need for SATA.