{"id":772,"date":"2019-05-24T09:18:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T14:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/?p=772"},"modified":"2019-06-06T10:16:06","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T15:16:06","slug":"macpro-51-firmware-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2019\/05\/24\/macpro-51-firmware-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"MacPro 5,1 Firmware Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently my MacPro 5,1 (still running High Sierra) starting crashing on an OSX Update of some kind. It started mid-April and I’m not sure which one it was, but the Mac wouldn’t boot as it ended up in the crash screen for the installer with some sort of error on finding a file that wasn’t there.<\/p>\n

That let me down a dark path to get the firmware updated on the MacPro so I could continue to use it (it’s my main daily driver and does a find job- till Apple decides to update things for a nine-year-old piece of hardware).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Making a USB key for 10.13 and booting off it did not work- it cannot install the Firmware update that 10.13 demanded.
A USB key with 10.14 did not work, as it claimed that my GFX card was not METAL compatible, and it also can’t install the firmware update.<\/p>\n

To fix this this I had to:<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are the steps:<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Buy a ‘new’ Mac UEFI Boot\/METAL compatible GFX card (time to leave Nvidia behind)\u00c2\u00a0(about $250 from eBay- I got a Radeon HD 7090)
2. Download and create a USB installer for 10.12 (Sierra- this version won’t check for the firmware update before installing)
3. Install 10.12 on a disk (not your real boot-disk), boot up into the fresh 10.12.
4. Download the 10.13 installer from App Store.
5. Run the 10.13 installer on this fresh 10.12 install.
6. This will download the Firmware<\/strong> update and then re-booting and holding power till beep<\/strong> will finally install the required Firmware Update!
7. Booting back into 10.12 – I didn’t upgrade to 10.13, just ran the Upgrade to force the Firmware Update – Strange – my original boot disk can’t be chosen (blessed) as startup disk (via Preferences App) due to APFS differences… (I think – this is still 10.12)
8. Install 10.13 on another<\/strong> disk. (You may be able to just perform the 10.13 upgrade on the 2nd disk, but I wanted to leave it at 10.12)
9. After 10.13 is installed, choose my original<\/strong> 10.13 boot disk as startup.
10. The Mac finally booted up back where I had left off – back on my original 10.13 disk and working perfectly.<\/p>\n

So, I needed to have 3 disks in my system- which luckily I did so that wasn’t an issue.<\/p>\n

Disk 1 – my regular 10.13 Boot Disk- crashed w\/ installer panic
Disk 2 – target disk to install 10.12 onto
Disk 3 – target disk to install fresh clean 10.13 onto (and do firmware update)<\/p>\n

Noodling around this thread gave me the info I needed to solve this: MacRumours<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

After this I downloaded and ran the 10.14 upgrader on my original disk and it ran without issues:\u00c2\u00a0\"Screen<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I have the latest Firmware on the Mac:<\/p>\n

\"Screen\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now with Movje running I’m just in time to get ready for Catalina.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently my MacPro 5,1 (still running High Sierra) starting crashing on an OSX Update of some kind. It started mid-April and I’m not sure which one it was, but the Mac wouldn’t boot as it ended up in the crash screen for the installer with some sort of error on finding a file that wasn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,22,4,74,15],"tags":[123,122,124],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-eee","category-mac","category-osx","category-software","tag-firmware","tag-macpro","tag-problems"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3PE01-cs","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":815,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2020\/01\/21\/macpro-nvme-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":0},"title":"MacPro NVMe Update","author":"dillera","date":"January 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"So a few things have been learned regarding the MacPro and NVMe. Booting is fine. Multiple drives on a carrier is not. My MacPro refused to recognize the 4x Hyper 2x carrier with more than one NVMe drive in it. Even in the x16 PCI slot- and I tried both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mac_pro-5-1_PCIcards.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mac_pro-5-1_PCIcards.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/mac_pro-5-1_PCIcards.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":780,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2019\/06\/06\/usb-3-for-your-macpro-51\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":1},"title":"USB 3 for your MacPro 5,1","author":"dillera","date":"June 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that my Mac is back I wanted to address another issue- lack of USB 3.1 and also general lack of USB. I've found that i'm using most of the available USB ports (many for multiple serial interfaces I use to connect to my SGI consoles). I also have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-06-at-11.08.36-AM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-06-at-11.08.36-AM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-06-at-11.08.36-AM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-06-at-11.08.36-AM.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2015\/06\/10\/mac-osx-10-10-and-scsi\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":2},"title":"Mac OSX 10.10 and SCSI","author":"dillera","date":"June 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Update 2017: 10.12 - Sierra broke the SCSI drivers and so ends the tales of SCSI and Atto on my Mac. Nothing I could do could get them to load. At some point I'll revert the Mac back to 10.11 and use the SCSI if I ever need to read\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/s-l1600.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/s-l1600.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/s-l1600.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":807,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2019\/11\/27\/macpro-51-nvme-turbo-charging-the-disks\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":3},"title":"MacPro 5,1 – NVME Turbo Charging the Disks","author":"dillera","date":"November 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Putting SSD drives into the MacPro was a total change in experiencing OSX. The increases in speed and responsiveness gave new life to this aging platform (mine is a Mid 2010). \u00c2\u00a0 The next step in performance is using NVMe drives on the PCI buss. And this is surprisingly easy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Screen-Shot-2019-11-22-at-4.15.46-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":834,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2020\/12\/24\/photos-and-bigsur\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":4},"title":"Photos and BigSur","author":"dillera","date":"December 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Update: This issue has been solved. I had to completely repartition and format the external disks and ensure they contained at least one APFS Container. I'm guessing there is permission metadata contained in this that isn't available with the partitions created in Catalina. Once they were partitioned and formatted in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-13-at-12.44.20-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-13-at-12.44.20-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Screen-Shot-2021-07-13-at-12.44.20-PM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/04\/29\/gamepad-fail-on-macos\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":5},"title":"GamePad fail on MacOS","author":"dillera","date":"April 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Update: May 2nd - I'm happy to say that a super cheap pair (you get two) of USB gamepads from Amazon did the trick. $ .\/start-old.sh DonkeyKong.v2.atr Using Atari800 config file: atari800-80.cfg Created by Atari 800 Emulator, Version 3.1.0 joystick 0 found! joystick 1 not found Now I can enjoy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/game_controllers-nogo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/game_controllers-nogo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/game_controllers-nogo.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/game_controllers-nogo.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/game_controllers-nogo.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}