José A. Posted June 28, 2022 Share Posted June 28, 2022 Hello everyone. I need a little help. I have MacOS Sierra installed on an MBR partition of my computer system. I am able to boot into it using a High Sierra USB Installer disk that I had created using a tool called "[url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]". When I boot into it, the system works fine, but I am looking to upgrade to Catalina. I have downloaded the Catalina installation application using a tool called "MacOS Catalina Patcher" and I am pretty sure that I have the full installer app. I just need a little help finding an install method that will allow me to upgrade the Sierra system on an MBR partition on my system to Catalina. I sincerely would appreciate any help. I am willing to try whatever method might allow me to upgrade the Sierra system to Catalina. Any pointers in a direction that I might take to perform the upgrade would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ricoc90 Posted June 28, 2022 Share Posted June 28, 2022 (edited) Step 1. Download that patch and follow the instructions to create a patched USB installer. Step 2. Get rid of all your tonymac cr*p and make your own vanilla installation with the help of this forum and its search option Edited June 28, 2022 by ricoc90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José A. Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 (edited) I am also running Ubuntu as my primary system on the first MBR partition. If there was some way to perform the upgrade right within the system I would probably try that, otherwise, I think that I will try the first suggestion by ricoc90. Thanks for letting me know about being able to install other MacOS’s. I will probably install the latest MacOS that my system can run (yes my signature reflects the system that I am running). My question would be: Is there anything that I have to do to be able to download the other MacOS’s? I want to be sure that I can download them. Thanks. Edited June 29, 2022 by José A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ricoc90 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, José A. said: If there was some way to perform the upgrade right within the system I would probably try that, otherwise macOS doesn't support MBR natively, hence why you need to patch the installer. So whenever you want to upgrade, you'd need to patch the installer again and do a complete reinstall. I do agree that using the patcher is not ideal and if it was me I would have wiped the disk and converted it to GPT and reinstalled Linux as well. There are ways to convert an already existing linux install from MBR to GPT but it's quite the process. You could take a look at gdisk for example. But making a back-up of your important stuff and just reinstall will have the same effect and is much less of a hassle. Having macOS on GPT would also allow you to do future upgrades within the system, no hassle with MBR patches, which also limits your options for macOS versions you can install. 3 hours ago, José A. said: I will probably install the latest MacOS that my system can run (yes my signature reflects the system that I am running). I don't think that there are MBR patches for Anything newer than Catalina. I might be wrong though, but I haven't seen any. 3 hours ago, José A. said: My question would be: Is there anything that I have to do to be able to download the other MacOS’s? I want to be sure that I can download them. Thanks. I mean, not really. There are lots of ways to download the installer. The easiest would be to fire up Terminal and run softwareupdate --list-full-installers (but its output might depend on the SMBIOS that you're using) It will provide you with a list of all the available macOS versions for you to download. Downloading one is as easy as running softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.15.7 After which, once finished, you will be provided with the installer application for Catalina 10.15.7 in your Applications folder / Launchpad. Edited June 29, 2022 by ricoc90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José A. Posted June 30, 2022 Author Share Posted June 30, 2022 I managed to migrate my system from MBR to GPT using UEFI for booting. Everything seems to be working fine. Since I am new at all this, might someone tell me what I have to do to get my presently installed MacOS system to also use GPT/UEFI? And also if it is then possible to upgrade right from within the system after the change? I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ricoc90 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 I might be misunderstand you, but just booting UEFI mode does NOT change your system from MBR to GPT. MBR and GPT are partition tables. Converting a MBR drive to GPT requires a complete re-format of said drive. Granted that there are ways to convert a drive without needing to reformatting, but that is a delicate process that I'm not really a fan of. I also don't know if it would work when the drive is shared between two OSes. "converting" your currently installed macOS system is not possible and does require a fresh reinstall of macOS since it has been tempered with. My choice of action would be: Download macOS and create the USB installer for it with the help of this forum to get the right configuration for your system. If you don't have one already, grab a new installer for Ubuntu as well Backup any import data from both OSes Boot into your Ubuntu Live USB, fire up gParted, go to Device -> Choose Partition Table -> GPT and confirm. This will convert your complete drive from MBR to GPT, but will wipe the drive as well Create two new partitions: one for Ubuntu, one for macOS. Install Ubuntu Install macOS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José A. Posted July 1, 2022 Author Share Posted July 1, 2022 As far as migrating the Ubuntu system from MBR to GPT and making it boot successfully using UEFI, I’m pretty sure that I was able to achieve this correctly and successfully. I followed the instructions in the following link, and it worked flawlessly for me: https://serverfault.com/questions/963178/how-do-i-convert-my-linux-disk-from-mbr-to-gpt-with-uefi I just thought that there might be a way to do something similar with the MacOS system. I think maybe re-installing the boot loader or something like that. For now, I will take a break and see what options there might be. If I need any more help, I will re-post. Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts