My set-up is a 2010 MacPro 5,1: 1 TB SSD on a PCI 3 card as boot drive; 64 GB memory; two 3.4 GHz 6-core CPUs; Sapphire RX580 GPU; Time Machine back-up on a 4 TB external drive, via a USB 3 PCI card; the drive bays filled with other SSDs and hard drives, some for storage, one for Windows. I figured I’d tricked out the hardware as much as I could and that the only improvement left was to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to move from Mojave to Monterey.
I backed up everything, even making a clone of the boot drive. I also installed Mojave on another drive for legacy. Then I downloaded OCLP 1.3.0. Running it, I downloaded the installer for Monterey, then created an installer and boot loader on a USB drive.
Next, I had to boot from the USB drive. I couldn’t just hold down Option while booting to select it, as I’m using an unflashed GPU and the Apple Boot Manager won’t show. However, the OCLP site has a workaround for that, involving booting into Recovery Mode and using Terminal commands to select the USB drive to boot from.
The actual OCLP installation process ran for over an hour. I’d read that the current version would automatically select which drive or boot option to use during the course of the installation, but it was still a bit scary with the display remaining blank for much of it, occasionally showing a row of boot selections or progress bars before going dark again.
Finally, the Monterey opening appeared, then the new desktop, with everything as I’d left it. The instructions then said I had to build OCLP, install it on my main boot drive, then restart and hold Option to bring up the Apple Boot Manager and select ‘EFi Boot’. Of course, I couldn’t do that. After rebooting a few times, I noticed that the OCLP Boot Menu kept coming up, then loading Monterey if I didn’t select another option, so I figured it was selecting ‘EFI Boot’ at startup anyway. I removed the USB drive and everything kept working.
The Good:
- Monterey is working nicely on my MacPro, including Time Machine. I’m now able to use programs like Affinity Designer 2, DaVinci Resolve 18 and Xcode 14, which previously I could only use on my 2015 MacBook Pro. AVG is now working properly again. (It had problems loading under Mojave.)
The Not-So-Good:
- Firefox now hangs for a few seconds when started, but no problems after that. Finder occasionally hangs a little when starting a Time Machine backup.
- I only learned about the Recovery Mode problem with OCLP 1.3.0 after the installation; a bit more notice would’ve been nice. Any hint of a release date for 1.4 yet?
- When the OCLP Boot Manager comes up, the Mojave and Windows installations are options. However, selecting Windows (three options presented!) only brings up a Verbose error message. Fortunately, I have nothing too valuable on the Windows side of things, and OCLP’s site has a page on how to install Windows through it, so I’ll try that later.
- Selecting the Mojave option in OCLP Boot Manager just brings up the prohibited symbol. This is more annoying, as there are a few 32-bit apps I still want to use. The Mojave drive could be selected with the Apple Boot Manager but, again, I can’t get to that (and no, I can’t get a flashed GPU). A post I read suggested selecting ‘Allow native models’ in the OCLP ‘App’ settings, but OCLP warns against this, saying it might turn my 5,1 “into an aluminium brick’. I’ve read a little about EnableGOP, but also brick warnings about this too. Thoughts?
Overall, my experience with OCLP has been positive, but I recommend waiting for the 1.4.0 update to come out first.
Any other suggestions or comments welcome.
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