Clive Long Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 I have a Mac Pro 5,1 running Monterey installed using OCLP 0.6.5. I want to try Ventura. I've seen YouTube videos that says Sonoma cannot run USB3.0 PCIe cards and Bluetooth at the same time. I give information on the current setup and how it behaves then ask a couple of questions. The 5,1 machine has an RX 580 graphics card, Monterey installed on an SSD mounted in the body of the machine and Linux Ubuntu installed on an SSD attached via USB caddy and cable to the USB 3.0 PC card. When I power on the machine I see the boot options: EFI boot ( blue circle with image of M.2 overlaid) and Monterey boot option. I can boot either Monterey or Linux from the screen if the USB caddy is switched on. If I power off the USB caddy and power on the Mac Pro, select EFI boot, the machine boots into grub. If I disconnect the internal Monterey SSD, power on the Mac Pro then no boot select screen is displayed and the screen remains black. I copied the Monterey OS disc using MacOS disk utility to an external USB caddy disc. When I power on the Mac Pro I can boot from anyone of: EFI boot (Linux), Monterey internal SSD or Monterey USB external hard disk. Question 1: I want to be able to install Ventura on another SSD. I don't want any risk of over writing my working internal Monterey SSD. Is it possible to set up OCLP (or something else?) so that when I disconnect the internal Monterey drive I can still select boot of the external USB attached Monterey disk? That set up currently gives a black screen and no boot options when I power on the machine. Question 2: Is it possible to upgrade the copied Monterey SSD to Ventura and preserve all the installed apps, rather than clean install Ventura onto an SSD? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slice Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 Question 2: Yes, if other conditions will be resolved. Upgrade from Monterey to Ventura will preserve all installed apps and their preferences. While some application may occur Ventura incompatible. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812805 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 26, 2023 Author Share Posted October 26, 2023 More information on question 1 above. I am trying to boot the Mac Pro 5,1 from external USB disk and disconnect my original Monterey disk to avoid any risk of badgering my working Monterey disk with installed apps. If I power on the machine, after the chime, the OCLP boot loader offers the option to boot from 1) internal Monterey disk 2) external Monterey disk duplicated from internal disk 3) external Linux disk. The internal Monterey disk has OCLP 0.6.6 installed. The external Monterey disk has been upgraded to OCLP 1.1.0. I then try to bypass the OCLP bootloader and select the boot disk directly by powering on the machine and holding down the ALT/Option key. I vaguely remember this step when installing Monterey from OCLP created USB memory stick. Holding down the ALT key after power on and the chime, the boot menu looks identical to the one I get when not holding down the ALT key. What reinforces my idea that holding down the ALT key has no effect on boot selection is when I boot into the external USB Monterey disk and run OCLP 1.1.0, after about a minute I get a pop up window that indicates the machine has booted from OCLP 0.6.6 and has 1.1.0 installed. This indicates to me the boot selection menu is an “OCLP menu” loaded from the internal Monterey disk that has OCLP 0.6.6 installed. So the question still remains, is there any configuration I can create so I can remove the internal Monterey disk and boot from the external USB Monterey disk? If I remove the internal Monterey disk I see just a black screen after the chime. The reason for trying to boot with the internal Monterey disk removed is if I trash the external Monterey disk I can still boot the machine from a reinserted, original working Monterey disk. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812840 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slice Posted October 26, 2023 Share Posted October 26, 2023 Don't confuse OpenCore bootloader (by Acidanthera) latest version is 0.9.x and OpenCore Legacy Patcher (by Dortania) latest version is 1.1.0. If you may test Clover bootloader then I can show you what and where to boot. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812841 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 26, 2023 Author Share Posted October 26, 2023 21 minutes ago, Slice said: Don't confuse OpenCore bootloader (by Acidanthera) latest version is 0.9.x and OpenCore Legacy Patcher (by Dortania) latest version is 1.1.0. If you may test Clover bootloader then I can show you what and where to boot. I haven't used OpenCore . In my posts I wrote I have only used OCLP. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812842 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 26, 2023 Author Share Posted October 26, 2023 Additional info: 1) If I boot with internal disks inserted and external USB disk connected and powered on, after the boot chime the Blue LEDs flicker on the USB caddys and I see the OCLP boot selection menu (REL ..... in bottom right-hand corner of boot selection screen). 2) If I boot with internal disks REMOVED and external USB disk powered on, after the boot chime the Blue LEDs on the USB caddys are on PERMANENTLY and I DO NOT see the OCLP boot selection - just a blank screen. 3) If I have booted Monterey, have internal drive inserted, USB drives powered on and then select : System Preferences > Startup disks, this utility displays both the internal and external Monterey drives as bootable drives. However, I do not want to override the boot disk here to the USB Monterey drive because I may not be able to boot the machine and then revert to the working internal boot disk. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812844 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slice Posted October 26, 2023 Share Posted October 26, 2023 48 minutes ago, Clive Long said: I haven't used OpenCore . In my posts I wrote I have only used OCLP. OCLP is not a bootloader. It has no "boot selection". It is Patcher. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812845 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 26, 2023 Author Share Posted October 26, 2023 1 minute ago, Slice said: OCLP is not a bootloader. It has no "boot selection". It is Patcher. Thank you for your comment. I am new to this so my use of terminology may be imprecise but I have described the problem and my actions with as much detail as I can find. Is anyone able to provide me with practical advice on how to solve the issue described in my posts? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812846 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacNB Posted October 26, 2023 Share Posted October 26, 2023 1 hour ago, Clive Long said: More information on question 1 above. I am trying to boot the Mac Pro 5,1 from external USB disk and disconnect my original Monterey disk to avoid any risk of badgering my working Monterey disk with installed apps. If I power on the machine, after the chime, the OCLP boot loader offers the option to boot from 1) internal Monterey disk 2) external Monterey disk duplicated from internal disk 3) external Linux disk. The internal Monterey disk has OCLP 0.6.6 installed. The external Monterey disk has been upgraded to OCLP 1.1.0. I then try to bypass the OCLP bootloader and select the boot disk directly by powering on the machine and holding down the ALT/Option key. I vaguely remember this step when installing Monterey from OCLP created USB memory stick. Holding down the ALT key after power on and the chime, the boot menu looks identical to the one I get when not holding down the ALT key. What reinforces my idea that holding down the ALT key has no effect on boot selection is when I boot into the external USB Monterey disk and run OCLP 1.1.0, after about a minute I get a pop up window that indicates the machine has booted from OCLP 0.6.6 and has 1.1.0 installed. This indicates to me the boot selection menu is an “OCLP menu” loaded from the internal Monterey disk that has OCLP 0.6.6 installed. So the question still remains, is there any configuration I can create so I can remove the internal Monterey disk and boot from the external USB Monterey disk? If I remove the internal Monterey disk I see just a black screen after the chime. The reason for trying to boot with the internal Monterey disk removed is if I trash the external Monterey disk I can still boot the machine from a reinserted, original working Monterey disk. I have a Mac Pro 5,1. with RX580. I run Big Sur and Monterey WITHOUT OCLP....just booting with OpenCore. You do not need OCLP to run Monterey. There's a complete guide on MacRumors and another one to enable H/W Acceleration of RX580 Encoding and Decoding. However, if you plan to upgrade to Ventura (or even Sonoma) then you WILL NEED OCLP 1.1.0 to root patch the newer OS's (due the non-AVX2 CPU, GPU, WiFi, bluetooth, etc). OCLP 0.6.6 does not support Sonoma. Regarding choosing the boot picker with ALT/Option key, if you need to see the actual Apple built-in Boot Picker, then you need to Flash your Mac's BootROM with EnableGop or Flash your RX580 with EnableGop.efi (see OpenCore documentation). If you have done this, then to see the Apple native boot picker, you need to Reset the NVRAM (using Alt+CMD+P+R after power up). You can then select the OpenCore EFI to start OpenCore which will show the OpenCore boot picker. Doing this will then Bless the OpenCore boot loader as the default boot loader (and boot picker if enabled) after every boot. You can then use the Esc key at boot chime to display the OpenCore boot picker if you have configured ShowPicker=FALSE in config.plist. I suggest that if you wish to use OCLP, you stick with just one version ....1.1.0 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812853 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacNB Posted October 26, 2023 Share Posted October 26, 2023 1 hour ago, Slice said: OCLP is not a bootloader. It has no "boot selection". It is Patcher. OCLP is an App that configures the OpenCore boot loader and installs it onto the ESP. By default, it configures OpenCore boot picker (OpenCanopy) to be shown at every boot. OCLP also patches macOS with the required drivers, frameworks, etc based on the Mac's SMBIOS. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812854 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 26, 2023 Author Share Posted October 26, 2023 5 minutes ago, MacNB said: OCLP is an App that configures the OpenCore boot loader and installs it onto the ESP. By default, it configures OpenCore boot picker (OpenCanopy) to be shown at every boot. OCLP also patches macOS with the required drivers, frameworks, etc based on the Mac's SMBIOS. The reason I went with OCLP rather than "vanilla" OpenCore is there seemed to be much more detailed installation documentation and that OCLP selected and installed the appropriate configuration relevant to the machine and the Mac Os version I was installing. From posts I had read more work was needed to get "vanilla" OpenCore to work (effectively). For a newbie a graphical-based, point and click solution with detailed documentation was a good place to start. This isn't a criticism of the "vanilla" OpenCore approach - and I understand - as a newbie - that the bulk of the heavy-lifting to get newer Mac OS to run on unsupported macs is actually performed by OpenCore - and it has breathed life into a completely usable but officially unsupported Apple hardware. Genuine respect and thanks to everyone who has developed and supported OpenCore and OCLP. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812855 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Long Posted October 28, 2023 Author Share Posted October 28, 2023 I decided to abandon this approach and instead install Ventura on a new disk. This has gone fairly well (I'm being cautious in case there are some hidden issues) - but I have one issue about booting Linux. I have opened a separate post for that issue. Is there some way to mark this thread as "CLOSED" ? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/357908-multiple-boot-devices-on-a-mac-pro-51/#findComment-2812924 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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