Need To Install High Sierra but what to change in my current EFI?

[vanquish]

Ok, so I am running BigSur without much in the way of problems however I need to use some apps that are 32bit only. As far as I know, the only way I can do this is to set up an earlier install of OS X.

I will be installing to a fresh drive so no need for any dual boot stuff.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI with a Ryzen 5 2600 and XFX7850 graphics card.

I thought I might get away with using my existing EFI but of course, that didn't work. Just sits on a black screen with the Apple logo. I didn't really expect it to work but thought I would give it a go.

So I am wondering if it is just a matter of a few small tweaks or do I need a completely new EFI?

Thanks.

 

[Edhawk]

First thing you need to change is the UEFI > APFS > MinDate and MinVersion settings, as High Sierra uses the first iteration of the APFS format, while Big Sur and Monterey use the latest versions and work with these two entries set to '0'.

High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina require changes to these APFS entries, with different settings for each OS.

Here is a screenshot showing the MinDate and MinVersion entries for the three older OS's.



The newer OS's will work with these entries. But you need to set these entries to match the oldest version of macOS you are running. Versions older than High Sierra can't and don't run with the APFS format, so these entries have no effect on macOS Sierra and older.

You might want to look in to whether you need the SSDT-EC.aml as you are using the SSDT-EC-USBX.aml table. If they are set correctly these two tables will be undertaking the same task, regarding the EC device.

You would be advised to update the AMD Kernel Patches in your config.plist, as you are using the old version, there are 48 patches in your config. The newest version/release of the AMD patches only contains 16 patches. With one or the other of the last two used, not both at the same time.

You don't need any 'beta' boot arguments. Neither of the two versions you are looking to run are in Beta. So you can delete -lilubeataall, -lilubeta and alcbeta boot arguments. I would add removal of vsmcgen=1 to this list of boot arguments to delete. If you are using the latest versions of Lilu.kext, VirtualSMC.kext and AppleALC.kext you shouldn't need any of these boot arguments.

You might want to consider updating your OC bootloader to the latest version, as you appear to be running OC 0.7.1 (from July 2021) we are now using OC 0.8.0.

You might want to consider changing the SMBIOS you are using from iMacPro1,1 to MacPro6,1 considering you are using a CGN AMD dGPU ( XFX HD7850). As the MacPro6,1 is a better match with that era graphics card. You don't have to but it might be worth considering.

I have made the changes recommended above to your OC EFI:

• Removed duplicate SSDT-EC.aml
• Updated essential Kexts
• Applied the new AMD Kernel patches, including setting the first three to work with your 6-core CPU.
• Removed obsolete/unnecessary boot arguments
• Changed APFS > MinDate and MinVersion entries to work with High Sierra or newer.
• I have cleaned up the config.plist by removing a number of placeholder entries, which you don't need for your AMD system.

I have not changed the SMBIOS or version of OC you are using. Those are items for you to consider.

See if this revised EFI helps, once you have reinstated the SMBIOS data.

 

[vanquish]

First thing you need to change is the UEFI > APFS > MinDate and MinVersion settings, as High Sierra uses the first iteration of the APFS format, while Big Sur and Monterey use the latest versions and work with these two entries set to '0'.

High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina require changes to these APFS entries, with different settings for each OS.

Here is a screenshot showing the MinDate and MinVersion entries for the three older OS's.

View attachment 5953

The newer OS's will work with these entries. But you need to set these entries to match the oldest version of macOS you are running. Versions older than High Sierra can't and don't run with the APFS format, so these entries have no effect on macOS Sierra and older.

You might want to look in to whether you need the SSDT-EC.aml as you are using the SSDT-EC-USBX.aml table. If they are set correctly these two tables will be undertaking the same task, regarding the EC device.

You would be advised to update the AMD Kernel Patches in your config.plist, as you are using the old version, there are 48 patches in your config. The newest version/release of the AMD patches only contains 16 patches. With one or the other of the last two used, not both at the same time.

You don't need any 'beta' boot arguments. Neither of the two versions you are looking to run are in Beta. So you can delete -lilubeataall, -lilubeta and alcbeta boot arguments. I would add removal of vsmcgen=1 to this list of boot arguments to delete. If you are using the latest versions of Lilu.kext, VirtualSMC.kext and AppleALC.kext you shouldn't need any of these boot arguments.

You might want to consider updating your OC bootloader to the latest version, as you appear to be running OC 0.7.1 (from July 2021) we are now using OC 0.8.0.

You might want to consider changing the SMBIOS you are using from iMacPro1,1 to MacPro6,1 considering you are using a CGN AMD dGPU ( XFX HD7850). As the MacPro6,1 is a better match with that era graphics card. You don't have to but it might be worth considering.

I have made the changes recommended above to your OC EFI:

• Removed duplicate SSDT-EC.aml
• Updated essential Kexts
• Applied the new AMD Kernel patches, including setting the first three to work with your 6-core CPU.
• Removed obsolete/unnecessary boot arguments
• Changed APFS > MinDate and MinVersion entries to work with High Sierra or newer.
• I have cleaned up the config.plist by removing a number of placeholder entries, which you don't need for your AMD system.

I have not changed the SMBIOS or version of OC you are using. Those are items for you to consider.

See if this revised EFI helps, once you have reinstated the SMBIOS data.

Thanks for all your help with this. That was amazing of you to go to all this trouble!

I tried to boot with the EFI you uploaded but the USB won't even boot. I don't think this is a result of any edits you have done. I realised that when I said it was booking to a black screen with the Apple logo, I was actually going from the boot screen which loads from my BigSur install. I can see High Sierra as an option.

When I select to boot from the USB stick it just returns me to the bios. I have reinstated the SMBIOS data by the way.

I have not yet changed the OC version. I am thinking that even without that being updated it should at least attempt to boot from USB but it is just not doing that. I am not sure why. I have made the USB boot disc ok. Everything went fine. I have completed the process many times before so I know there are no missing steps.

I am starting to think it might be easier just to pick up an old Mac Pro and use that for my legacy apps

 

[Edhawk]

macOS Mojave also supports 32-bit apps. Catalina was the first 64-bit only OS from Apple.

Not sure why the USB drive isn't working. Could be a mismatch between the Config and the version of OC or the OpenCore.efi file.

I assume you can still boot in to Big Sur using the EFI on the main macOS drive in your system. That it is just the USB EFI that is borked.

 

[vanquish]

I was originally going to try Mojave but I had the same issue with not being able to boot from the USB drive.

I will try another drive tomorrow, jut to be sure that this is not where the problem is.

 

[vanquish]

I tried another USB drive but still the same, refuses to boot from it. I must admit I am a bit lost with this now

A real mac pro is looking like a more enticing if expensive proposition by the minute

 

[Edhawk]

Try this OC 0.7.7 EFI that I created for another member with a 6-core system. I have used a SMBIOS from a MacPro6,1 for the Serial number etc.
I have not added all the extraneous kexts and SSDT's you are using. Think of this as a clean EFI, which can be expanded upon, once it is booting your High Sierra and Big Sur system.

I think your AMD-USB-Map.kext is misconfigured and you should look to recreate a new USBMap.kext when you boot in to High Sierra. To aid this the XhciPortLimit quirk will be active in the new EFI. Your AMD-USB-Map.kext will not be present, neither will any of the WiFi or Bluetooth kexts.

The EFI 2, utilises the new AMD patches, with the first three set for a CPU with 6-cores.

Just change the name of the EFI 2 folder to EFI before you use it on a USB pen drive.

Remember to use the ClearNvram and ResetSystem tools from the OC boot screen, before you try to boot in to macOS, so any old settings are cleared away and the new settings from the new EFI are used.

If the Tools are hidden when you get to the boot screen, simply press the spacebar and they should appear.

 

[vanquish]

There is something very odd going on here. My machine will not boot from any USB device. I have tried three USB drives now.

What happens is I restart, and press F12 to bring up the boot selection screen. I select the USB drive. The screen goes black for a split second and then returns me to the boot selection!

I can't understand why it would do that. I have never come across this before. It is as though it is not even attempting to boot from USB

 

[Edhawk]

I take it you have tried different USB ports, not just the ports on the front of the case.

 

[vanquish]

Yes, tried front and back. I just can't figure out why the machine is suddenly not even attempting to boot from USB.

I even tried a plain old Mac OS install USB, without anything added and it was exactly the same result.

It is not the USB drives. They all work fine. It is not the formatting, as they are all formatted using the commands on the apple support page here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201372

It is a bit of a head-scratcher for sure.

 

[Edhawk]

Are you using the correct Bios Settings for running macOS. Specifically the EHCI/XHCI hand-off setting?

These are the settings recommended when running macOS with OpenCore.

Disable

• Fast Boot
• Secure Boot
• Serial/COM Port
• Parallel Port
• VT-d (can be enabled if you set DisableIoMapper to YES)
• CSM
• Thunderbolt(For initial install, as Thunderbolt can cause issues if not setup correctly)
• Intel SGX
• Intel Platform Trust
• CFG Lock (MSR 0xE2 write protection) (This must be off, if you can't find the option then enable AppleXcpmCfgLock under Kernel > Quirks. Your hack will not boot with CFG-Lock enabled)

Enable

• VT-x
• Above 4G decoding
  • 2020+ BIOS Notes: When enabling Above4G, Resizable BAR Support may become available on some Z490 and newer motherboards. Please ensure this is Disabled instead of set to Auto.
• Hyper-Threading
• Execute Disable Bit
• EHCI/XHCI Hand-off
• OS type: Windows 8.1/10 UEFI Mode
• DVMT Pre-Allocated(iGPU Memory): 64MB
• SATA Mode: AHCI

 

[vanquish]

I haven't checked but bear in mind I am running BigSur at the moment. Same computer. So it "should" boot from USB just fine. However, I just tried the same USB drives on my wife's PC. Chose it as the boot drive and it did exactly the same thing, just ignored them and went straight into Windows.

I will check my bios but as it runs BigSur ok, I doubt anything would need to be changed.

 

[Edhawk]

I have made a couple of changes to the EFI attached below, specifically to a few Kernel Quirks.

See if this revised EFI is recognised and bootable.

 

[vanquish]

Thanks for all your help with this. It is really appreciated. Unfortunately, the USB is still being ignored. I am sure it must be something simple that I am missing.

I am wondering if this has any connection to what happened to my Windows 10 drive. Normally I have two drives, one for macOS and the other for windows. If I need windows I press F12 for the boot drive selector on startup and choose the windows drive. That has worked fine for well over a year. A couple of days ago I did that and found my Windows drive was corrupted. Win 10 tried to repair it etc but it just would not boot into the OS.

It could be a coincidence and I have no idea why it would affect the booting from USB. It is just odd that I have never had a problem booting from USB on this machine before.

 

[vanquish]

Just a quick update on this. I decided to try a boot USB for Ubuntu Studio and that worked fine. I am writing from Ubuntu now. So it is not that my machine cannot boot from USB. It is obviously something amiss with the files on the drive when trying to boot a version of macOS. I am just not sure where I could be going wrong. The boot USB is created in the same way I have always done it. Just odd that it is the same for all three USB drives I have tried.

I guess the fact that it happens with all three drives is pretty much a clue that there is something wrong with the files or formatting that is preventing them from booting.

One plus from all of this. I think I will definitely need to set up a drive with Ubuntu Studio on it. Really liking the look and feel of it

 

[Edhawk]

I assume the USB drives are all being formatted 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' with a 'GUID Partition Map', i.e. GPT & HFS+, with a single partition. The 200MB EFI partition being hidden.

Have you checked that you set your bios to boot UEFI formatted drives?

Was the Ubuntu Studio USB UEFI (GPT) or Legacy (MBR)?

 

[vanquish]

Yes the drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID partition map.

I tried again with a Monterey USB install. Not what I was after but I thought I would try it. But again on selecting the USB from the boot menu it just flashed a black screen and return to the menu.

Odd thing, I then rebooted as normal, leaving the USB drive in the machine. When the boot selector popped up I could see my BigSur drive and also the Monterey install drive. I thought I would click on it just out of curiosity and it started the Monterey install. With Mojave and High Sierra that would not happen. I did have a spare blank SSD in the machine so I thought I would install that. At first, it would not let me use the drive. It said I needed to update the firmware and asked for a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) instead. Disc utility would not let me format the drive to anything other than the existing APFS. So I rebooted and formatted it in BigSur, rebooted and started the install again.

This time it was fine and the installation continued until about 12 minutes from the end when it flashed up a message "A required firmware update could not be installed". I assume this is because the OC version is too old, 0.7.1?

So now, I am thinking I may as well crack on and install Monterey anyway. But of course, I need to update OC on my BigSur drive. At least I think I need to do it on that drive?

I am not quite sure what I need to update apart from the OC version. I don't want to make any changes that are not necessary.

Once this is done I will get back to trying to figure out why the machine is not booting from these USB drives with macOS on them.

 

[Edhawk]

Monterey and Big Sur use similar APFS formats, close enough they don't require different options in OpenCore. High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina use three different APFS formats, which require additional entries in the OC config.plist, so they can be used.

Monterey requires OpenCore 0.7.4 or newer. The majority of your current OC EFI should be fine for booting Monterey, i.e. kexts, SSDT's etc.

The rest of the OC folder needs to be changed/updated. the EFI I provided in Post #13 should be a good base/starting point for installing Monterey. Just set the UEFI > APFS > MinDate and MinVersion entries to '0' in the config.plist. They are currently configured for booting High Sierra, which has an earlier version of APFS.

 

[vanquish]

Well I messed up. I thought I had it right but now I can't boot into BigSur or anything else! I did backup my EFI before updating OC etc and I "thought" that I would be ok if it all went wrong because I still have another drive with Catalina on it, only that won't boot either!

I loaded up Ubuntu studio so that I could mount the EFI and replace it with the backed up version however, although I can see the EFI I cannot delete it in order to replace it with the original. The delete/trash function is greyed out. I assume this is some sort of convoluted permissions thing?

The last time I did anything like this, I still had a real mac here so it was relatively easy to hook up the drive and sort it out.

I think this is a case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing

I may do a full install of Linux just so that I at least have that handy.

 

[vanquish]

Ok, so an update on this situation. I am back up and running on BigSur

It was all a bit convoluted. I did end up buying a 2009 Mac Pro, updated from 4,1 to 5,1 as it was the only reliable way to gain access to my BigSur drive. However, it was not that simple. No surprises there!

My BigSur is installed on an NVMe drive. There is, of course, nowhere to plug that into a 2009 Mac Pro. So I bought an adapter card. Plugged it in to be greeted with a message that, "this version of OS X does not support this drive format" or words to that effect. I had updated to High Sierra but that was as far as I could go because the graphics card did not support METAL. So what to do? Source a new graphics card which, as we know is not a cheap option right now and then update to a version of OS X that would recognise the drive or try another option?

I had an idea that if I were to put the NVMe drive into an external case and plug it in via USB it would get around the issue of the drive not being recognised, and happily, I was right. The Mac Pro saw it as an external SSD and I was finally able to access and edit the EFI. Problem solved...or not!

Even having replaced the EFI with my backed-up version, my Hackintosh would not boot.

So not only would it not boot from the internal NVMe but it would also not boot from an external USB!

As a last resort, I decided to try and boot from the NVMe when housed in the external enclosure. And voila! It actually booted into BigSur, all be it rather slowly.

I then removed the NVMe from the enclosure, fitted it back into my computer and, it booted! It has been fine ever since.

I don't know why it is now booting. I can only assume that having successfully booted from the USB it somehow repaired any damaged/corrupted files?

So the upshot of all this is that I have my system up and running again but I now also have a real mac that I can use to access my files should anything go wrong in future. I can update the Mac Pro so it will eventually run BigSur and Monterey but that is something for further down the line.

Anyway, thanks for all your help with this. It was good to have someone on the other end who could look at things and point out where I might be going wrong.