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MP 1,1-5,1 Trouble with booting/installing Sequoia on MacPro 5,1
- Thread starter CBell
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Hmmm. Kind of confused after watching that and reading the replies about the McFiver. The apple logo and boot screen are appearing when I plug in my Mojave drive, and only don't show when I plug in the McFiver. There's no OpenCore installed on anything plugged into my 5,1 right now. From his reply it sounds like the apple boot screen/picker will only not show if OpenCore is installed. I also have the Mac edition of the GTX 680, too. So it's not like the card was an unflashed pc card. So wouldn't enablegop be not needed, since it only seems to be if you want to use a card and not have to flash it?
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Do a multiple/continuous NVRAM Reset, until you hear the 5th chime. If you can't get back the chime consistently after that, your Mac Pro started to have BootROM corruption. First sign.
Did NVRAM reset till the 5th chime. Ran Macschrauber's rom dump tool and it said SIP was enabled. Rebooted to recovery and did "csrutil enable --without kext && reboot". No boot chime. Ran the tool again and it says "SystemAudioVolume is set to 16, boot chime is non audible." Everything else seems to say ok, though.
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Like I've written, this is one of the first signs of BootROM corruption. Is an early-2009 or a early made mid-2010?
Easyest one to corrupt the BootROM, you need to repair it urgently - I'll send you a PM about the BootROM Reconstruction Service.
I'd not try to run unspported macOS releases with it, it'll brick.
Every time you boot into Mac OS natively after an nvRAM reset, the chime is set to the audio volume in Mac OS.
What is likely happening in your case is that you have a very low audio volume set in Mojave.
After the reset, you get a default high volume, you go into Mojave and the low volume there is used from then on.
Increase the volume in Mojave and the chime should come back.
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Ding ding! This was it. Volume was low. Changed it to max, and boot chime sounded. Rebooted a couple times to be sure, and got a chime each time.
Still curious about the Apple boot screen, though. Is that just going to be missing whenever my McFiver is plugged in regardless if I'm running OC or not?
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We could ping @macsoundsolutions, he could share his experiences with the McFiver card. Its still a bit blury, what happens exactly when McFiver and EnableGop comes in play.
I'm a bit blurry as well but what I remember EnableGOP did not work when holding option to get the bootscreen if the McFiver was installed, but if you did not hold option and only a Mojave drive "AND DON'T HAVE A WINDOWS DRIVE INSTALLED" you will get the boot screen even with the McFiver is in, but if you have Windows on your McFiver NVMe then you need Opencore to boot first to protect your bootrom from Windows Certs. You can install Windows with the Window Install app and protect your bootrom as it won't let you boot into windows without OC loading first if you select the option when installing Windows. I had issues installing the full 24H2 so went with Tiny 11. But now I am running a 20191 Mac Pro and not using my 5,1 much.
hi @macsoundsolutions , would you mind sharing the installation process? I watched your YouTube video carefully, but I couldn't see if you are installing "Sonoma/Sequoia/Win11" to a McFiver card. I tried to do this on my cMP5.1 with McFiver, but no success. Finally I used a kryo M.2 Evo PCIe card to get it done. Also, it looks like it's impossible to boot from McFiver card if you don't have an SSD in one of the 4 bays with a working system and OCLP installed. I manged to boot all 3 systems from McFiver with partitioned NVMe (Sonoma/Sequoia/Windows), nevertheles when checking in OCLP app, it showes that my booted system on NVMe is using OpenCore from a different SSD EFI, which in my case resides in SATA Bay 1. When pulling the SSD from SATA Bay I have the same symptoms as @CBell described (logo & no progress bar).
Ugh. I found that I can boot into the installer if I use the OC on the installer USB, but if I choose to boot to OC on an internal drive, then it won't load and gives the logo with no progress bar. Even though I created both at the same time with the latest version of OCLP.
So I removed the OC drive and booted to OC on the installer USB, ran the installer to put Sequoia on the NVMe on the McFiver, and I end up getting the "An error occurred while preparing the software update" error at the end.
I really want to get this to work, but am so close to just pulling the trigger and getting a 7,1. Feels like I'm giving up, because I've had this machine for 15 years, and everything I've seen says it should be possible, but I'm just getting so frustrated with this even though plenty of people have been able to get it to work.
So I removed the OC drive and booted to OC on the installer USB, ran the installer to put Sequoia on the NVMe on the McFiver, and I end up getting the "An error occurred while preparing the software update" error at the end.
I really want to get this to work, but am so close to just pulling the trigger and getting a 7,1. Feels like I'm giving up, because I've had this machine for 15 years, and everything I've seen says it should be possible, but I'm just getting so frustrated with this even though plenty of people have been able to get it to work.
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OMG. Success! I saw a post here where a guy had the same error installing Sequoia that I was getting and he said he reformatted to exFAT, then reformatted back to APFS and it installed. Tried that and it freaking worked! I'm now on Sequoia on my McFiver. Rebooted a few times, and it still worked. Typing this in Sequoia with everything plugged in 
. Though OC is now installed on my Mojave drive for some reason. Was trying to keep it clean, but oh well. It doesn't have anything on it, so if I have to recreate it, it's no big deal.
My biggest thing right now is that I was telling my wife all the stuff I wanted to do with my 5,1 right before Christmas, and she got me a 6800XT. It didn't show up till over the weekend, though, so I'm in a dilemma of what to do now. My understanding is that the 6800XT doesn't work in Sequoia (and might not ever) and that Monterey is the highest it'll work with a 5,1, so my options seem to be:
- Put Monterey on the NVMe instead of Sequoia. This seems like a defeat in a way as it took so much effort to get it on, but Monterey on the NVMe ran pretty damn well, and it'd still be a step up from my SATA SSD. I was only getting read/write speeds of 175/260 MB/s on it, but the NVMe gets 2670/2800 MB/s. Just don't know how much longer Monterey will be viable.
- Keep my SATA Monterey drive as primary and install Windows on NVMe. I'm sure this will be it's own set of headaches, but I'd have a good gaming setup with the 6800XT and Windows, and can run VR games with my Quest 3 as the GTX680 can't do that.
- Say screw it and get a 7,1, put the NVMe in 7,1 and stick Windows on it. This will allow me to use everything I have, give me Sequoia and use the 6800XT, but will cost a lot more upfront and when upgrading. Also not really sure how much longer Apple will support it and if OCLP can even run on it when Apple stops. I might be missremembering, as I read so much when trying to troubleshoot my issues, but I thought I saw something where OCLP had issues with the T2 chip and had to drop support for Macbook Air 8,1 and 8,2 and was getting similar issues with 7,1. I don't want to be in a spot where I spend the money for a 7,1 and then can't update it after a few years. I've had this 5,1 since 2009 and would like to keep the next one just as long, lol.
. Though OC is now installed on my Mojave drive for some reason. Was trying to keep it clean, but oh well. It doesn't have anything on it, so if I have to recreate it, it's no big deal.My biggest thing right now is that I was telling my wife all the stuff I wanted to do with my 5,1 right before Christmas, and she got me a 6800XT. It didn't show up till over the weekend, though, so I'm in a dilemma of what to do now. My understanding is that the 6800XT doesn't work in Sequoia (and might not ever) and that Monterey is the highest it'll work with a 5,1, so my options seem to be:
- Put Monterey on the NVMe instead of Sequoia. This seems like a defeat in a way as it took so much effort to get it on, but Monterey on the NVMe ran pretty damn well, and it'd still be a step up from my SATA SSD. I was only getting read/write speeds of 175/260 MB/s on it, but the NVMe gets 2670/2800 MB/s. Just don't know how much longer Monterey will be viable.
- Keep my SATA Monterey drive as primary and install Windows on NVMe. I'm sure this will be it's own set of headaches, but I'd have a good gaming setup with the 6800XT and Windows, and can run VR games with my Quest 3 as the GTX680 can't do that.
- Say screw it and get a 7,1, put the NVMe in 7,1 and stick Windows on it. This will allow me to use everything I have, give me Sequoia and use the 6800XT, but will cost a lot more upfront and when upgrading. Also not really sure how much longer Apple will support it and if OCLP can even run on it when Apple stops. I might be missremembering, as I read so much when trying to troubleshoot my issues, but I thought I saw something where OCLP had issues with the T2 chip and had to drop support for Macbook Air 8,1 and 8,2 and was getting similar issues with 7,1. I don't want to be in a spot where I spend the money for a 7,1 and then can't update it after a few years. I've had this 5,1 since 2009 and would like to keep the next one just as long, lol.
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You need opencore to boot, and to protect your windows certs. I had Mac OS on the McFiver but
When I did the install in the video I used a generic NVMe card not the McFiver as I had already moved it to my 7,1. looks like @CBell figured it out.
OMG. Success! I saw a post here where a guy had the same error installing Sequoia that I was getting and he said he reformatted to exFAT, then reformatted back to APFS and it installed. Tried that and it freaking worked! I'm now on Sequoia on my McFiver. Rebooted a few times, and it still worked. Typing this in Sequoia with everything plugged in
My biggest thing right now is that I was telling my wife all the stuff I wanted to do with my 5,1 right before Christmas, and she got me a 6800XT. It didn't show up till over the weekend, though, so I'm in a dilemma of what to do now. My understanding is that the 6800XT doesn't work in Sequoia (and might not ever) and that Monterey is the highest it'll work with a 5,1, so my options seem to be:
- Put Monterey on the NVMe instead of Sequoia. This seems like a defeat in a way as it took so much effort to get it on, but Monterey on the NVMe ran pretty damn well, and it'd still be a step up from my SATA SSD. I was only getting read/write speeds of 175/260 MB/s on it, but the NVMe gets 2670/2800 MB/s. Just don't know how much longer Monterey will be viable.
- Keep my SATA Monterey drive as primary and install Windows on NVMe. I'm sure this will be it's own set of headaches, but I'd have a good gaming setup with the 6800XT and Windows, and can run VR games with my Quest 3 as the GTX680 can't do that.
- Say screw it and get a 7,1, put the NVMe in 7,1 and stick Windows on it. This will allow me to use everything I have, give me Sequoia and use the 6800XT, but will cost a lot more upfront and when upgrading. Also not really sure how much longer Apple will support it and if OCLP can even run on it when Apple stops. I might be missremembering, as I read so much when trying to troubleshoot my issues, but I thought I saw something where OCLP had issues with the T2 chip and had to drop support for Macbook Air 8,1 and 8,2 and was getting similar issues with 7,1. I don't want to be in a spot where I spend the money for a 7,1 and then can't update it after a few years. I've had this 5,1 since 2009 and would like to keep the next one just as long, lol.
You dont need to format your drives to fiddle with the OpenCore bootloaders. You can just simply mount the ESPs and copy the content around.
Can do this by hand, but more comfortable are my ESP tools:
Macschrauber-s-Rom-Dump/ESP_tools.md at main · Macschrauber/Macschrauber-s-Rom-Dump
A tool for dumping and analysing Mac firmwares. Plus flashing for Mac Pro 4,1 / 5,1 and Xserve 3,1 - Macschrauber/Macschrauber-s-Rom-Dump
github.com
It's a part of the Dumper package, living in the readme & other tools folder. Download:
Partial Success - Sequoia booting from McFiver, the 10Ge Abuantia driver is the hangup. Details:
I just bought a McFiver for my MacPro4,1 upgraded to 144.0.0.0.0 firmware. Figured electronics tariffs might soon drive up the price, so better not to wait. OCLP is installed on a SATA drive, which simplified my debugging, but probably doesn't matter.
And I experienced the same problems as the OP -- eventually. Except - I already had an M.2 stick in a simple PCIe adapter before plugging in the McFiver. Moved the existing stick to the McFiver, booted as normal into Sequoia on the McFiver.
Of course, all my M.2 volumes showed as external, because OCLP had not reset them to internal for the slot the McFiver was in. And the 10Gbe port didn't work. The USB ports worked.
I reinstalled OCLP to add McFiver drivers, rebooted - frozen Apple logo and no progress bar for Sequoia. All kinds of trouble trying to work around it. Sequoia would not boot from any kind of drive. Only Monterey and earlier.
So I compared the OCLP config file, built without the McFiver vs one built with it installed. Listed the differences, and manually removed one at a time until Sequoia would boot. OS9 Extension debugging all over again.
It was the AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion.kext load (line ~927 in my config). Remove it, and the weirdness stops.
How to install OCLP for McFiver without the Drama
Build OpenCore with the McFiver present, install to drive, but do not allow it to reboot. Instead, mount the EFI partition, open the config file, and find / remove this code block. Save modified config file and reboot.
Sequoia will now boot fine, from any drive. Including the M.2s on the McFiver. The 10Gbe port will not work, but at least we know what's causing the problem.
OCLP's AQC113S driver is not compatible with Ventura, Sonoma, or Sequoia on a 4,1 or 5,1. Only works up to Monterey.
If anyone knows how to submit a bug report to Dortania for this, we might get a fix. I'd personally like to have the 10Gbe port working too.
I just bought a McFiver for my MacPro4,1 upgraded to 144.0.0.0.0 firmware. Figured electronics tariffs might soon drive up the price, so better not to wait. OCLP is installed on a SATA drive, which simplified my debugging, but probably doesn't matter.
And I experienced the same problems as the OP -- eventually. Except - I already had an M.2 stick in a simple PCIe adapter before plugging in the McFiver. Moved the existing stick to the McFiver, booted as normal into Sequoia on the McFiver.
Of course, all my M.2 volumes showed as external, because OCLP had not reset them to internal for the slot the McFiver was in. And the 10Gbe port didn't work. The USB ports worked.
I reinstalled OCLP to add McFiver drivers, rebooted - frozen Apple logo and no progress bar for Sequoia. All kinds of trouble trying to work around it. Sequoia would not boot from any kind of drive. Only Monterey and earlier.
So I compared the OCLP config file, built without the McFiver vs one built with it installed. Listed the differences, and manually removed one at a time until Sequoia would boot. OS9 Extension debugging all over again.
It was the AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion.kext load (line ~927 in my config). Remove it, and the weirdness stops.
How to install OCLP for McFiver without the Drama
Build OpenCore with the McFiver present, install to drive, but do not allow it to reboot. Instead, mount the EFI partition, open the config file, and find / remove this code block. Save modified config file and reboot.
Code:
<dict>
<key>Arch</key>
<string>x86_64</string>
<key>BundlePath</key>
<string>AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion.kext</string>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>Aquantia Ethernet Patch</string>
<key>Enabled</key>
<true/>
<key>ExecutablePath</key>
<string>Contents/MacOS/AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion</string>
<key>MaxKernel</key>
<string></string>
<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>21.4.0</string>
<key>PlistPath</key>
<string>Contents/Info.plist</string>
</dict>OCLP's AQC113S driver is not compatible with Ventura, Sonoma, or Sequoia on a 4,1 or 5,1. Only works up to Monterey.
If anyone knows how to submit a bug report to Dortania for this, we might get a fix. I'd personally like to have the 10Gbe port working too.
I too was having trouble getting macOS Sequoia (15.5) to boot using my McFiver card.
But there is a way to get macOS to boot and be stable with a McFiver, AND there is a patch by CaseySJ that gets the 10GbE working in Sequoia as well!
Here is where I posted what worked for me...
But there is a way to get macOS to boot and be stable with a McFiver, AND there is a patch by CaseySJ that gets the 10GbE working in Sequoia as well!
Here is where I posted what worked for me...
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