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MP 1,1-5,1 Trouble with booting/installing Sequoia on MacPro 5,1

C

CBell

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 1, 2008
133
0
Got a new NVMe SSD for Christmas and wanted to install Sequoia on it. I have OCLP and Monterey on the current boot drive and just wanted to give Sequoia a shot so I created a USB installer and was able to successfully install Sequoia on the new SSD. Everything seemed to be working pretty well, and I was pretty happy. Turned it off for the night, but when I went to boot into it the next day, it just hung on the Apple logo with no progress bar under it. Figured nothing was on it yet, so I wiped it and retried installing, but I can't seem to even load the installer now. The installer just hangs on the Apple logo, too.

On top of that, when I hold option down when booting, I don't get any boot picker to choose the EFI. It's just a grey screen. And it will stay there until I hold the power button to reboot. It's been like this for a while, too.

If I don't hold down option when booting, then the OpenCore boot picker will come up, though.

I tried resetting NVRAM/PRAM, and am still getting the above issues.

Any solution for any of these issues would be majorly welcomed.

Few pics attached.

grey screen when holding option when booting. It just stays here until I physically hold the power button to turn it off.

blank.jpg



Sequoia installer and SSD with Sequoia originally installed on it hangs on Apple logo with no progress bar
apple_logo.jpg



boot picker that comes up if I don't hold down option when booting. I hit spacebar before I took this image, so there's a lot more options than typical. Usually it's just the Macintosh HD and Install Sequoia options.
OC_boot_picker.jpg
 
What build version of OCLP did you install on your bootable Sequoia installer? should be version 2.2.0 (current at this time)
If that's the OCLP version that you are using, try booting to that installer. You need to hold Option to get the EFI choice, and, of course, followed by your Sequoia installer.
Do you get that choice for EFI, ever? Be sure to give it plenty of time, maybe 10 minutes should be enough.
I think if you never get the EFI choice, then something is wrong with your installer, and you should erase that and set it up again. Reinstall the OpenCore build on your installer drive, double check that it is version 2.2.0
 
Yeah, I'm on the most recent version. Both the Monterey drive and Sequoia installer are on 2.2.0. The EFI choices never come up when I hold option. It just stays at that grey screen and the only way out of it is to physically hold the power button and reboot.
 
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Are you using a separate device for your Sequoia installer, such as a thumb drive, or another external USB drive? And the only drive on that device is your Sequoia installer? (Not saying that is the only way through to an install, but just trying to get a better understanding of what you have tried)
What is that "BootKicker.efi" showing on your bootpicker screen?
Just a suggestion now... Shut your MPro off.
Boot, holding Opt-Command-p-r, to get an NVRAM reset. Keep holding those 4 keys until you hear the boot chime 2 or 3 times, then release keys, except continue to hold Option. If your Sequoia installer is attached, do you now get the EFI drive icon? or the screen simply stays grey, and nothing else happens? Keep holding the Option key. I think you can decide that nothing else will happen after 5 minutes tops. You COULD try removing all storage devices from the 4 drive bays, just as a test to see if you can get your MPro to boot to only the NVMe card.
 
Yeah, I have the Sequoia install on a separate USB drive that just has the installer on it.

Not sure what BootKicker.efi is. I hit space bar before taking the pic thinking maybe I could change EFIs from it.

Tried resetting NVRAM till it chimes 3 times and it still just hits the grey screen with nothing when holding option.
 
Removed all hard drives except the nvme and USB installer. Was able to boot, but still perpetual grey screen when holding option and still only apple logo and no progress bar when clicking on install Sequoia.

Is there another way to choose the EFI besides holding option when booting?
 
Not sure if this means anything, but my OCLP version is 2.2.0, but OpenCore version is REL-101-2024-08-05, but the newest one is 103. When I hit build and install OpenCore in OCLP, though, it still builds the 101 version.
 
CBell said:
Not sure if this means anything, but my OCLP version is 2.2.0, but OpenCore version is REL-101-2024-08-05, but the newest one is 103. When I hit build and install OpenCore in OCLP, though, it still builds the 101 version.
Click to expand...

OC and OCLP are not the same project or developed by the same people, OCLP is always behind OC releases.
 
i tried several times running recovery and mounting the EFI on the install drive, then using the bless command pointing to the EFI/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi file, but that hasn't worked and it still stalls at the apple logo with no progress bar. selected the install drive and held cmd+V to get verbose mode. Not sure if this helps, but this is all that appears.

verbose.jpg
 
Ok, so not sure what to do here. I chose OCLP to make a build off of a Mac Pro 5,1 and installed that on my Monterey drive. The version of OCLP that was on it had a few different options changed and I figured that maybe chosing the 5,1 would do something. But now when I boot up my Mac, it's just a black screen and constantly reboots. I can't even get into recovery.

I'm dieing here. Please somebody help me out.
 
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hmm.... OCLP would use the 5,1 options by default, when setting up a MacPro5,1
Saw a hint today: try booting, opening OCLP patcher, and reverting the patches.
Check if that helps by rebooting.
Not sure if that would help if you can't boot to your Monterey system now.

possibly your PCIe card is not quite compatible with your Mac Pro? ?
Do you have any other PCIe card (preferably a different manufacturer or model #) that you can use to add that NVMe card?
What specific NVMe card do you have that you are trying to make a Sequoia boot?
 
Thanks. The pcie card is a McFiver and the NVMe is a WD Black SN850X.

Since I can't boot into my Monterey drive, my plan right now is to:

1. Create an install boot drive for Mojave, since it's the last one that officially supports a 5,1 Mac Pro.
2. Remove the Monterey drive
3. Boot and install Mojave to the NVMe
4. Download OCLP to Mojave
5. Use a SATA to USB cable I have to plug in the Monterey drive to a USB port
6. Use OCLP to put a version on the Monterey drive with the same options that were initially on it before I made the changes

Hopefully that will work and at least get me back into Monterey and back to where I was a few days ago so I don't lose all my stuff. Though I have my doubts it will because I had trouble booting to the flash drive when I removed all the drives when trying to install Sequoia.
 
It's in the bottom slot right now. The one above it is a GTX 680 that was next on my list to update. Then above that is a USB 3 card.
 
Some progress! I followed my plan above, but had to use High Sierra instead because, for some reason, Mojave gave me an error that my card wasn't Metal compatible even though it is. BUT I discovered while booting into High Sierra that I had used OCLP to install OpenCore on an EFI on the drive in Bay 2. That HD doesn't have any bootable volume on it, but the mac decided to use THAT EFI instead of the one on the NVMe when booting. I then thought I could try putting the Monterey drive into Bay 4 without doing anything to it, and see if that worked, and it did! The Monterey drive was originally in Bay 1. So, I found out that my machine is using the EFI on the first drive bay that has something plugged into it.
 
Made a post on the OCLP discord, but nobody's replied to it. This is the only place where anybody's attempted to help.

Could the issue be my SIP settings? Are there specific ones that need to be allowed to install Sequoia?

Screen Shot 2025-01-01 at 10.47.32 AM.png
 
nah, OCLP set those details up, correctly.

Test your NVMe with a supported OS install like Mojave first. Some simply are not fully compatible, just show on cold boot, etc.
 
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Well, I was able to install Sequoia on it initially, though. And I was also able to install and boot into High Sierra on it, although it's a stock install, and not with OCLP.
 
Did some experimenting and tried to install Monterey through Sequoia to the NVMe.

Monterey - Installed w/o issue and is running fine
Ventura - Same issue with Apple logo w/ no bar and stalls
Sonoma - Same issue with Apple logo w/ no bar and stalls
Sequoia - Same issue with Apple logo w/ no bar and stalls

I even took out all the other drives and only left the NVMe and USB install and tried switching to every USB port on the machine. I have a 4 port USB 3.0 card that's taking up a PCIe slot, so I tried all those, along with all the default (is that right word?) USB ports, and a USB 2.0 hub I had lying around. Still the same issue with Apple logo w/ no bar and stalls when trying to install anything above Monterey.
 
Now that you can get Monterey to run I would try upgrade your GPU to something like a Radeon Sapphire Pulse RX580. Get that working in Monterey and then try with Ventura+.
 
Could the graphics card really be the issue? If so, why was I successfully able to install Sequoia initially?
 
CBell said:
Could the graphics card really be the issue? If so, why was I successfully able to install Sequoia initially?
Click to expand...
Probably not but if you are going that way anyway I would do it and then debug/get everything running. Up to Monterey a 580 will not need any graphics patches to run because Monterey video drivers do not use AVX/AVX2. Beyond that they do so OCLP patches in Monterey drivers in place of the Ventura/Sonoma/Sequoia drivers and on the cMP the AMD Polaris (RX 580, etc) drivers seem the best. On my cMP with a 580 I could get DRM/Apple TV app to work in Sonoma but with a Vega 56 it wouldn't work.
 
I've spent so much time on this over this weekend. Here's what I did and where I'm at right now.

- I found a blank HD and the original graphics card that came with the 2009 cMPs and created a vanilla USB install of High Sierra

- Unplugged all PCIe cards swapped the 680 for the OG graphics card, and unplugged all other HDs so that the only things connected to it were the HD and USB installer

- Installed High Sierra to the blank HD

- Apple boot selection screen was able to come up when holding Option at boot

- Swapped the OG graphics card for my 680 and upgraded High Sierra to Mojave

- Apple boot selection screen still comes up with 680 plugged in

- Put in the McFiver with the NVMe SSD, booted to Mojave and wiped the NVMe SSD doing Show All, choosing the actual drive and not just the volume, and erasing it.

- Downloaded OCLP and used it to create a USB installer of Sequoia

- Rebooted holding Option, but no Apple boot selection screen came up. Not holding Option would boot to Mojave

- Removed McFiver, but kept the USB installer plugged in and rebooted holding Option

- Apple boot selection came up and was able to get into the USB EFI via the Apple boot screen and boot into the Sequoia installer successfully. Didn't install Sequoia, though, because at this point only the Mojave drive was connected and I want Sequoia on the NVMe SSD.

- Turned cMP off and put in the McFiver to install Sequoia on the NVMe SSD, but Apple boot selection does not come up anymore


Seems like something is preventing the Apple boot selection from coming up when the McFiver is plugged in, but I have no idea why. The NVMe drive is completely erased. I even tried setting it to different formats thinking there might be something lingering, but even when erasing and setting it to FAT32, there's still no Apple boot selection. But as soon as I remove it, it'll come up when holding Option.
 
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