iM 4,1-14,4 OpenCore on external drive

[Manneman32]

Managed to get Opencore Legacy Patcher installed on an external ssd with help from this forum, after the partitions got messed up. Everything is now fine but I have an issue that I can´t get rid of. I have asked on the OCLP groups on Discord but everyone is asleep :-D

iMac 2012 (13.1) with an old 5400 SATA. Slow as never before. Swapping the internal drive is not an option. Have been running the external ssd for a few days and the iMac flies! So... no going back.

With this in mind, please help me with a solution:

Followed the instructions to the letter, but I can´t get the bootpicker to choose the OCLP Extrernal by default. I can´t even get it to show up without holding "options" on reboot... it boots to the internal drive. After installation I got the option to install OCLP bootfiles to be able to boot from the external drive. Installed it and rebooted with "options" as described. Picked the OCLP External drive with "control" to get the rewind button instead of the arrow... still nothing. After the next reboot I get back inte the internal system. When the external drive is active the systemsettings tell me that the external drive is set as main boot... but nooooo

Is there any way for me to get around this?

I´m not planning to use the internal system at all. Gonna format it to use as storage, If I erase the whole internal drive, will the boot to the external sort itself? I don´t mean just the Macintosh HD volume but the entire disk.

Please... any help would be great!

 

[DCBassman]

Managed to get Opencore Legacy Patcher installed on an external ssd with help from this forum, after the partitions got messed up. Everything is now fine but I have an issue that I can´t get rid of. I have asked on the OCLP groups on Discord but everyone is asleep :-D

iMac 2012 (13.1) with an old 5400 SATA. Slow as never before. Swapping the internal drive is not an option. Have been running the external ssd for a few days and the iMac flies! So... no going back.

With this in mind, please help me with a solution:

Followed the instructions to the letter, but I can´t get the bootpicker to choose the OCLP Extrernal by default. I can´t even get it to show up without holding "options" on reboot... it boots to the internal drive. After installation I got the option to install OCLP bootfiles to be able to boot from the external drive. Installed it and rebooted with "options" as described. Picked the OCLP External drive with "control" to get the rewind button instead of the arrow... still nothing. After the next reboot I get back inte the internal system. When the external drive is active the systemsettings tell me that the external drive is set as main boot... but nooooo

Is there any way for me to get around this?

I´m not planning to use the internal system at all. Gonna format it to use as storage, If I erase the whole internal drive, will the boot to the external sort itself? I don´t mean just the Macintosh HD volume but the entire disk.

Please... any help would be great!

Well...swapping the internal drive IS an option, but not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure. I will have to do my 18,2 at some point, but I'm certainly not looking forward to it...

First, make up a fresh Catalina installer, the easiest way to do this is @dosdude1 's Catalina Patcher programme. This is to re-install if all else goes sideways.

Boot into your external system and use Disk Utility to erase the internal back to basic MacOS-Extended (Journaled), and give it a name. Then shut down the machine. Fire it up again and see what happens...

I can see no obvious reason why this should not work, but I'm no expert. If the internal drive isn't a system disk, it should simply seek out a bootable volume.

Also: what spec is the machine, and what did you put on it using OCLP?

 

[Manneman32]

I have a MacOS installer with both Catalina and OCLP Monterey, so that´s no problem.

So, your advise is to erase only the volume Macintosh HD (internal) or the entire drive?

The machine is a 2012 iMac 21.5", Intel Core I5 2.7ghz with 8 gb of ddr3 ram, a 2 tb internal 5400rpm sata (that totally sucks, even with Catalina). I have tried OCLP with both Sonoma and Ventura... but Monterey is the absolute best for this machine. No issues at all

 

[DCBassman]

I have a MacOS installer with both Catalina and OCLP Monterey, so that´s no problem.

So, your advise is to erase only the volume Macintosh HD (internal) or the entire drive?

The machine is a 2012 iMac 21.5", Intel Core I5 2.7ghz with 8 gb of ddr3 ram, a 2 tb internal 5400rpm sata (that totally sucks, even with Catalina). I have tried OCLP with both Sonoma and Ventura... but Monterey is the absolute best for this machine. No issues at all

The entire drive. That way, the machine cannot see it as a possible boot option. OCLP Monterey works pretty well on lots of Macs of that era, I like it a lot.

 

[Manneman32]

Well… fingers crossed then

Erase the full drive, Mac Extended Journaled and then a reboot with my eyes pinched closed and heartrate at 180

 

[Manneman32]

The entire drive. That way, the machine cannot see it as a possible boot option. OCLP Monterey works pretty well on lots of Macs of that era, I like it a lot.

Have the OCLP Monterey on the internal drive and have had that for over a year. No issues at all besides the slow sata drive. Did the same on the wifeys… same setup. And with the external ssd setup it’s lightning fast

Thank you, DCBassman, for the emotional support! :-D Worked just as I hoped!

 

[DCBassman]

Well… fingers crossed then

Erase the full drive, Mac Extended Journaled and then a reboot with my eyes pinched closed and heartrate at 180

Oh, how I know this feeling!

 

[DCBassman]

Have the OCLP Monterey on the internal drive and have had that for over a year. No issues at all besides the slow sata drive. Did the same on the wifeys… same setup. And with the external ssd setup it’s lightning fast

Thank you, DCBassman, for the emotional support! :-D Worked just as I hoped!

Excellent, glad I could help!

 

[eyoungren]

Never mind…I should read a little bit more.

 

[ToniCH]

I think you choose the default boot option by selecting it in the boot picker and pressing ctrl + enter.

And make sure you only have one OCLP EFI-partition per machine, get rid of the extras. If you had it in the internal drive to enable Monterey and then also in the external the machine probably first checks the internal one. But, you could have the OCLP in the internal drive and the actual system on the external, that should work too.

 

[Manneman32]

I think you choose the default boot option by selecting it in the boot picker and pressing ctrl + enter.

And make sure you only have one OCLP EFI-partition per machine, get rid of the extras. If you had it in the internal drive to enable Monterey and then also in the external the machine probably first checks the internal one. But, you could have the OCLP in the internal drive and the actual system on the external, that should work too.

Well… it sorted itself by erasing the internal drive. The only bootable option, after that, is the external drive.

Trying to select a default boot option didn’t work, as I stated earlier. But I think I understand, from your answer, why it didn’t work.

24 hours after the install… my iMac has become a rocket… much faster than I had expected. With a nice ”tuck away” with some 3M tape on the backside, the external ssd is invisible and the iMac is back to it’s glory days

 

[ToniCH]

Yeah, you probably had it in both drives and that caused the problem. When you erased the internal drive you got rid of the second OCLP EFI -partition and the problem went away. 👍

Great that it now works like it should!