How to Install Mountain Lion on MacPro1,1

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Jamie Cruickshank

Hello All,
I have decided to write this tutorial, mostly because i have seen a few Fan Boys writing that it is Hardware that is stopping Apple from supporting the new Mountain Lion 10.8. Which when i said it was apple getting people to upgrade and spend £2000 on a new pc i was immediately in a Flame War.
This is a Do-It-Yourself Tutorial, i will not post links to the full DMG as this is ILLEGAL, you will have to obtain the DVD from apple and pay for the Apple Developer Licence.

Anyway this will require you to burn the final DMG file to DVD as using the app gives you an error telling you the file has been modified and you must re-download
If anyone has any solutions please let me know and i will update.
I have been at this solidly for the past 24 Hours, The problem being is that i am constantly getting the No Entry Symbol. Now i have pinned this down to the boot.efi file on the DMG.
I can get the installation to boot however the OS would not boot once the installation is finished.

I have only installed this on an MacPro1,1 however i don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t run on any of the other devices, possibly the video drivers, which can be installed later. When creating these files i have used all the strings from the Lion DVD, so anything on Lion should be supported on this!

NOTE: I think Apple has removed some drivers from this install my 7300 GT is now no longer supported. I will look into this further to see if i can bring the kexts for the older graphics from the Lion Install!

Anyway here goes!

You will need to download the DMG file from https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/index.action you will need to pay for a Mac Developer account which costs $99 a year.
Mount the DMG that you have downloaded, inside the DMG there is a file called Install OS X Mountain Lion Preview 1.app Right click on the App and show Package Contents.
You will want to go into the folder called SharedSupport and copy the file InstallESD.dmg and copy it to your Desktop.
Close all the open windows, Now you will need to go into the terminal (Application/Utilities/Terminal), we are going to copy the DMG and make it writable so we can replace a file in the InstallESD.dmg image.
Once in termal type “cd Desktop” then type in ”hdiutil convert InstallESD.dmg -format UDRW -o InstallESDedited.dmg” This will create a new file on the desktop called InstallESDedited.dmg.
You will now want to Double click on the newly created InstallESDedited.dmg and it will now mount an Drive called “Mac OS X Install ESD”.
You are going to have to replace the System Folder in the Drive, this contains the EFI64 boot.efi and the compatible boot files. I have a EFI32 boot.efi and the compatible files from the Lion 10.7 System Folder. Here is the link to download: System.zip.
Drag the System File thats on the drive into the recycle bin and unzip(if it isn’t already) the downloaded System folder and copy it onto the root of the drive.
Now open up the “Packages” folder from the root. Inside this folder there will be a quite a few items in the folder, The only one we are concerned with is OSInstall.mpkg (There is also an OSInstall.pkg BE CAREFUL). We now want to drag this file into the trash folder. Download the patched versions OSInstall.mpkg & EFI32.pkg(Right Click on Link, Download Linked File As).
Drag the Newly Downloaded files into the Packages Directory. The directory should now look like this:
Now you want to burn the DVDusing Disk Utility (You can also restore the DMG to a USB Flash Drive, which also works), i am sure you already know how to do this but just in case, run DiskUtility (utilities/DiskUtility) on the left hand side you should see the InstallESDedited.dmg file Click on the file then Click Burn! (Remember to put a blank DVD in )
Load into the Mac Pro and Enjoy, NOTE: Installation takes a lot longer than displayed, this is due to it thinking its being installed from a Faster HDD! If installed from the USB Stick then is quite a bit quicker.

Here is the Final Screenshot from my MacPro!

If you see any mistakes please leave me a comment and i will get it sorted, this includes my English!
Hope you enjoy your new MacPro Experience!

Disclaimer:
Please Take a FULL BACKUP of you mac BEFORE installing this. I will not be held responsible for any data loss, bricking etc. Basically KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! This tutorial is given to you and you use at your own risk. May i stress again take a FULL BACKUP before continuing, either with CarbonCopyCloner or Time Machine.

If you are referencing this tutorial Please add a link back to my blog. This has been quite a lot of work to make this is all i ask!

134 thoughts on “How to Install Mountain Lion on MacPro1,1”

peterb on February 18, 2012 at 8:43 am said:

great work!!

Reply ↓
- Jamie Cruickshank on February 18, 2012 at 8:49 am said:
  
  Thanks very much for the nice comment, I hope that the tutorial was useful to you!
  Jamie
  
  Reply ↓
MacinJosh on February 18, 2012 at 9:49 am said:

Thank you for making my day. Now, no one tell Apple!

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jean on February 18, 2012 at 10:08 am said:

Excellent!
With this methods, does the Mac Pro boot the 64-bit kernel?

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David DelMonte on February 18, 2012 at 4:36 pm said:

Thank you tons. That worked for my MacPro 1,1 that I love..

Do you know if the process would be the same for a MBP 2.33 (I guess that’s a 1,1)? Has anyone tried?

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- Jeremy on April 11, 2012 at 5:34 pm said:
  
  Agreed. I have a MacBook Pro 1,1 (2 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB RAM), and would love to give this a shot on my machine, which is currently running Snow Leopard.
  
  Is there any reason to believe it would not work on my computer?
  
  Reply ↓
- Jacob on July 31, 2012 at 10:14 pm said:
  
  I modified an already made boot usb with these files and the installer is telling me it will install so I think it worked on my 2005 imac5,1
  
  Reply ↓
  - Jacob on July 31, 2012 at 11:08 pm said:
    
    It didn’t work this was the final version of OS X i tried it on.
    
    Reply ↓
Ryan on February 18, 2012 at 8:00 pm said:

Thanks for the HowTo.

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karsten on February 18, 2012 at 10:32 pm said:

thanks man works good on MP 1,1 with 6870 graphics. Hopefully they’ll continue to include the 32-bit kernel in the final release!

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George on February 18, 2012 at 11:59 pm said:

Can you help with the install on MacBook White (2,1)..
I can’t get the GMA950 to work!!.. Thanks

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Dewey on February 19, 2012 at 12:38 am said:

Worked for me on an older iMac. Thanks for the guide. I was ticked when I found out that Mountain Lion wouldn’t run on my machine, thanks for proving them wrong. Hopefully Apple changes its mind on this. I have noticed the screen is a bit jumpy when changing desktops, opening notification center, etc. but could be because its a beta, and not intended for my machine. But nonetheless its running.

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Alistair on February 19, 2012 at 12:20 pm said:

Thanks for the guide, here’s hoping Apple don’t kill this method on the final release of ML

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Slion on February 19, 2012 at 1:03 pm said:

Strange… SharedSupport it doesn’t appear in the menu.

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Slion on February 19, 2012 at 1:09 pm said:

http://tinypic.com/r/25j837l/5

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- Jamie Cruickshank on February 19, 2012 at 2:11 pm said:
  
  Hi Mate, I have just had a look at your picture, you appear to already be in the Mac OSX Install ESD file, it may be called something else. On the left hand side of the window click on the disk image that says Mac OSX Install ESD and follow the guide from Step 4.
  Jamie
  
  Reply ↓
  - Slion on February 19, 2012 at 5:11 pm said:
    
    Thanks Man.
    
    Reply ↓
Electropura718 on February 19, 2012 at 4:40 pm said:

I’m currently running Lion with the 64 bit kernel using Chameleon on a modified Mac Pro 1,1 (it’s now a Mac Pro 2,1 8-core 3.0 instead of a 4-core 2.66). Would love to know if this will work with the Chameleon method…anyone with the developer seed willing to give it a go?

Reply ↓
- Tom on July 26, 2012 at 12:21 am said:
  
  Electropura: How did you change your Mac Pro 1,1 to a 2,1?
  
  Reply ↓
James Cox on February 19, 2012 at 8:53 pm said:

The OSinstall.mpkg link is down :/ please fix it but great job still!

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MacBooker on February 19, 2012 at 10:45 pm said:

Thanks, it worked for me on a MacBook 4,1 (early 2008) and I didn’t even have to burn it to a DVD. It’s actually faster than Lion. The only problem is the missing kext for the x3100 graphics. I hope somebody will be able to sort this out.

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- Macbookertoo on February 20, 2012 at 12:50 pm said:
  
  Which problems occur when kext is not available for X3100? I have a MacBook Early 2008 too…
  
  Reply ↓
- MacBookerThree on February 20, 2012 at 2:17 pm said:
  
  What problems did you encounter? I have a media mbp machine that I would like to use for testing ML. Please explain. THank you.
  
  Reply ↓
- MacBooker on February 20, 2012 at 6:18 pm said:
  
  The graphics lag when using Mission Control or Launchpad or playing Youtube videos. You also won’t be able to put your Mac to sleep since the display doesn’t turn off, it just stays white.
  
  Reply ↓
  - MacBookerThree on February 21, 2012 at 5:08 am said:
    
    Got it. Good enough to play with I think. Who knows if we will find a fix for it once ML is lanced officially, for now all we can do is play. Thanks!
    
    Reply ↓
RickT on February 20, 2012 at 8:17 am said:

Worked on a Mac Pro 2,1 (upgraded from 1,1) w/ 5770 graphics. Thanks, this is great work.

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computer hardware on February 20, 2012 at 1:56 pm said:

I’ve been surfing on-line greater than three hours these days, yet I by no means discovered any fascinating article like yours. It’s beautiful value sufficient for me. In my opinion, if all site owners and bloggers made excellent content material as you probably did, the internet will be much more helpful than ever before.

Reply ↓
Dev on February 20, 2012 at 2:10 pm said:

Any update on the Nvidia Geforce 7300 GT drivers? I have the same video card as well, can you also package those ktexts if you get it working? Thanks.

Reply ↓
- FreakinMac on February 21, 2012 at 9:21 am said:
  
  yes please. Mountain Lion shows up the 7300 GT with 9MB *haha*
  anyway I love your tutorial! Thank you so much!
  
  Reply ↓
- Tony on July 14, 2012 at 8:26 am said:
  
  Were you able to find drivers for the 7300?
  I would like to give the GM a try but very hesitant on graphics.
  
  Reply ↓
Michelasso on February 20, 2012 at 9:10 pm said:

I have MacBook2,1 with Intel GMA 950 graphics.

I followed your guide to make the new InstallESDedited.dmg package. Then instead of messing up creating any installation (DVD or USB) disc i simply attached an USB drive to my mac and double click (from Lion) the installation program. That worked fine as I suspected. The OS has been fully installed in the USB drive, rebooted once to keep installing, created and new user and then I did a final reboot. My unsupported Mac is running Mountain Lion right now.

The problem was the total lack of HW acceleration for the graphics. I tried copying the GMA 950 kexts from my Lion 10.7.3 (internal) disk but that didn’t work. The WindowServer (and probably others) processes kept crashing when it was launching the login window. So I’ve got the first GMA 950 kexts I’ve found from an hackintosh web site, installed them instead and… it works. But not 100%. Most (all?) non Flash web videos are blank. Mission Control thumbnails are corrupted and the animation is a little slow (but not annoying). LaunchPad takes ages to show.

Is there any specific GMA 950 kext that’s guaranteed to work at 99%? At least for the videos. I think I’ve read that the ones from 10.7.0 should work. Did they work for you? At least the videos. If so any chance you can add a link to download them in your excellent guide?

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youtube video download on February 20, 2012 at 11:22 pm said:

Hi my family member! I wish to say that this article is amazing, nice written and come with almost all significant infos. I would like to peer extra posts like this .

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Pierre on February 21, 2012 at 10:42 am said:

Wow, Amazing Works great on my MacPro 1.1 . respect ! Thanks

Reply ↓
Willian on February 22, 2012 at 1:44 am said:

Large lover of the site, plenty of your blog posts have seriously helped me out. Awaiting upgrades!

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Mike on February 22, 2012 at 3:19 pm said:

I can’t use the terminal, can you upload the InstallESDedited.dmg, please?

Reply ↓
- Jamie Cruickshank on February 23, 2012 at 12:13 am said:
  
  No Sorry, I cannot upload the InstallESD.dmg as this is Apple’s file, this is classed as Piracy and is ILLEGAL.
  This is only to allow people to use this on now no longer supported hardware not allow people to pirate the OS.
  Jamie
  
  Reply ↓
Robert Williams on February 23, 2012 at 2:37 am said:

I downloaded OS_X_Mountain_Lion_Developer_Preview_12A128p and mounted it and for the life of me cannot at all find InstallESD.dmg. So basically it ended before it started.

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- Mauro Maitan on February 28, 2012 at 12:30 pm said:
  
  Robert, I had the same issue. You need to convert that image to a dmg image and name it “InstallESD.dmg”.
  
  Then you can start the work as per Jamie’s explanation
  
  Reply ↓
Alan Soo on February 23, 2012 at 5:16 am said:

Good day,

Am having problem here hope you may able to assist me.

i can find the folder called SharedSupport.

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- Antoine on February 27, 2012 at 9:52 am said:
  
  The same, it is not in “Contents”. Thank you for your answers.
  
  Reply ↓
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Mike on February 23, 2012 at 10:04 am said:

Could anyone upload the complete modification for an Macbook 3.1 on a torrent site, please?

Reply ↓
- Jamie Cruickshank on February 23, 2012 at 10:06 am said:
  
  Sorry, You will have to look elsewhere for a Torrent of this file. I will NOT post or allow sharing of illegal links on my site.
  Jamie
  
  Reply ↓
R.S.Michailidis on February 23, 2012 at 7:33 pm said:

Under you will see the details of my upgraded Tiger into a happy (but a bit slower Snow Leopard). Will it take Mountain Lion without any problems? I am not the best Mac osx operator ever… I consider the lion – from what I read in forums – not very easy to work with… Do you have any advice that can help me decide?

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09
SMC Version (system): 1.8f2
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2C5646A

Intel ICH7-M AHCI:

Vendor: Intel
Product: ICH7-M AHCI
Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.10 Supported

ST3160812AS Q:

Capacity: 160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 bytes)
Model: ST3160812AS Q
Revision: 3.BQH
Serial Number: 9LS1LPGL
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Rotational
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
Writable: Yes
BSD Name: disk0s1
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 125.63 GB (125,627,793,408 bytes)
Available: 84 GB (83,997,216,768 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
Capacity: 34.07 GB (34,070,118,400 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: MS-DOS
BSD Name: disk0s3

Reply ↓
Javier Dominguez on February 24, 2012 at 2:57 pm said:

Can i Install Mountain lion following this tutorial in an Macbook 1,1 black? i need help Thanks

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venta lancha on February 25, 2012 at 11:25 am said:

Everything is very open with a clear explanation of the issues. It was really informative. Your website is extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing!

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Adriana on February 26, 2012 at 12:26 am said:

thanks for share!

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Antoine on February 27, 2012 at 9:51 am said:

I have a problem, on the folder Contents, i don’t have SharedSupport. So i can’t do this ? Thank you for your answers ?

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Mauro Maitan on February 28, 2012 at 12:22 pm said:

I cannot believe this guide lol….you are a genius!!!!! followed all the steps and got it going.
only one glitch….I tried to start from the CD but it would hang. So I restarted from my other partition, clicked on the installer and let it take its course. An hour later it was all done, and according to Activity Monitor….everything seems to be running in 64 bit…
Even full video acceleration was not an issue….

thanks man

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Mauro Maitan on February 28, 2012 at 12:23 pm said:

forgot one thing…….it also seems heaps quicker and more responsive than 10.7……….

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Manny on February 28, 2012 at 3:28 pm said:

Man You are the best..this is amazing..right now i am installing it in a partition i didn’t even have to burn it or use an usb you are the best.

i am have a blackbook late 2007 and it looks awesome i don’t knw why apple is such as an asshole lately ..but anyway thanks a lot

add me on FaceTime N MESSAGES mannyflorenzan@aol.com

Reply ↓
The most perfect REVIEW HARDWARE Source on February 28, 2012 at 7:10 pm said:

Awesome blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers? I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many choices out there that I’m completely confused .. Any ideas? Cheers!

Reply ↓
- emvion on February 17, 2013 at 5:06 pm said:
  
  I have followed every step but when I try to install the mountain lion I get the message: “The additional components needed to install OS X can’t be found”.
  
  Please help
  
  Reply ↓
Manny on February 29, 2012 at 6:04 pm said:

Where can i get this drivers for mine??

Chipset Model: GMA X3100
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 144 MB
Vendor: Intel (0×8086)
Device ID: 0x2a02
Revision ID: 0×0003
Displays:
Color LCD:
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

Reply ↓
- Manny on March 4, 2012 at 2:59 am said:
  
  well i just googled them. but i install it on a partition in the same drive and it doesnt get to the desktop after i install them..i will try in another disk later on.
  
  Reply ↓
Zeb on March 4, 2012 at 5:04 pm said:

If only it was worth the effort.. I can’t beleive apple are binging out ML when Lion is still so buggy and horrid to use. I’m sticking with SL for the time being

Reply ↓
- Tony on July 14, 2012 at 8:23 am said:
  
  Read your comment again, and then think about the bigger picture…
  
  What was Snow Leopard in relation to Leopard? Now equate that to the Lion/Mountain Lion releases.
  
  Reply ↓
Reynaldo on March 5, 2012 at 12:56 am said:

Thick as a brick

Reply ↓
Julius on March 5, 2012 at 2:18 am said:

Fantastic piece of writing, I must say i anticipate updates by you.

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dorianm on March 11, 2012 at 12:51 pm said:

Thanks to your work I tried to install OS X 10.8 on my iMac 4.1 ( upgraded with Core 2 Duo processor and firmware so practically I have now an 5.1 iMac )… and this doesn’t work for me even if I upgraded the .plist ( both of the three of them ) with my iMac series number and the version of it ( Mac-F… and iMac5,1… )… I think the OSXInstall.mpkg is the cause because when I replace it with that one from Lion ( the patched one for Lion ) the error message came later, after the Installer verify the machine… with your mpkg I got a message that sound like that: “This version of OS X cannot be installed on this computer.” as soon as I tried to install the OS X. With the Lion mpkg I’ve got another error message, but after the validation and selection of hard-disk: “The additional components needed to install OS X can’t be found.” I really don’t understand where is the problem… I installed Lion without problems on this machine, I know very well to modify the .plist with the right additional series but still don’t work… any ideas? Thank you very much for your time and hard work!

Reply ↓
- gaboriker on April 1, 2012 at 4:47 pm said:
  
  Hy! I have the exactly same problem!
  I ve got a mac 4.1 upgraded to 5.1.
  I tryed the same ways like you! Have you had any ideas? How to solve it? Or you can solve it?
  
  Reply ↓
- Rigodon on June 9, 2012 at 12:09 pm said:
  
  I have the same problem with my imac 4,1@5,1
  I start in verbose mode and the boot is blocked after :
  Loading kernel cache file…
  Root device uuid is…
  I think it’s related to 64 bit boot mode.
  I can’t force my mac to boot in 64 bit mode…
  I will try chameleon maybe.
  
  Reply ↓
- MikeDelta on June 14, 2012 at 11:40 am said:
  
  This doesn’t work on the latest developer release of ML.
  
  Reply ↓
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Mark on March 20, 2012 at 9:47 pm said:

Great hack

Reply ↓
- henrique on April 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm said:
  
  no news since then?
  
  Reply ↓
SokrMan on March 21, 2012 at 3:42 am said:

Hey,
So I have a Macbook Pro 2011 version, and I tried installing the Mountain Lion Preview 1, but something happened and when I boot my machine, it allows me to log in but then displays a circle with a slash through it… leading me to think its a boot.efi error. Is there any way to replace that so that I can boot and copy files off the drive?? Currently it’s not mounting, but I can boot from it. Will this solve the issue??

Thanks.

Reply ↓
Jeremy on April 11, 2012 at 5:45 pm said:

Does this hack require a 64 bit computer? I have a MacBook Pro Core Duo (32 bit), and am wondering if this method will work for my machine?

Reply ↓
Sam on April 12, 2012 at 8:38 pm said:

Hello all i’m new to this forum but ive been following the great work you guys are putting in. I followed Jamie’s instructions and it led to a dead end at the OS X installer screen after the laptop restarts. It takes about five minutes to load the installer and then I get an error -says “There was a problem installing Mac OS X, try reinstalling”. I’m working with a Black Macbook – Late 2006, GMA 950 64 MB. Any thoughts on what I can do to fix this? Or is the late 2006 a fail for mountain lion?

Reply ↓
Sam on April 14, 2012 at 8:13 pm said:

this technique doesnt work with macbook 2,1 black macbook late 2006 i tried everything and It says please try reinstalling. any suggestions?

Reply ↓
Mario on April 15, 2012 at 2:06 pm said:

My Mac Pro keeps showing the X installing forever… any guess? :O

Reply ↓
Jonathan on April 19, 2012 at 1:58 pm said:

Do we know if this works with the current Developer Preview 3 that has just been released?

Jonathan

Reply ↓
SirVikon on April 19, 2012 at 6:02 pm said:

Hi,

i can´t get it to run on Mac Pro 1,1 with Preview 3. I make the whole things and when i will reboot from the install ESD there there is for a bunch of a second a non-parking sign and then the normal Lion will boot.

Do i something wrong or is this tutorial only for Preview 1?

Thank You

Reply ↓
Eckhart on April 22, 2012 at 1:24 am said:

Any news on Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 12A178q for old Macs? I’ve just tested Cruickshank’s method, unsuccessfully -Preview 1 worked with no issue. It seems that something has changed in this new Mountain Lion installation package.

Reply ↓
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Chris on May 11, 2012 at 5:38 pm said:

Can you update these instructions for DP3?

Reply ↓
MaxBook13 on May 15, 2012 at 1:25 pm said:

Hi )) thank you so much
this is perfectly working with 10.8 preview1 on my early 2008 MacBook4,1 13″.

It doesn’t work anymore with 10.8 preview3. I can launch the installer, but when the system reboot, it stops for “ERROR loading kernelcache”…

Theese Macs are only 4yo… Definitely “too young to die”…!!!

Reply ↓
Marinda on May 22, 2012 at 7:54 pm said:

You made some decent points there. I looked on the internet for the subject and found most guys will consent with your site.

Reply ↓
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Agustin Asad on June 7, 2012 at 2:19 am said:

What Follows Is A Solution That’s Also Assisting shopping-pros Growing. Concise blog post unwraps the unquestionable info about sale off and in what way it can have a bearing on customers.

Reply ↓
John M Young on June 12, 2012 at 7:03 pm said:

Thanks You got a PayPal acc for donations. Thats a lot of work and very generous of you. I will PayPal you a small token of my appreciation if possible. Anyway thanks and this is great as I have a MacPro1,1. The only difference is I have a ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB Mac edition graphics card.

Reply ↓
Adam Betts on June 12, 2012 at 10:30 pm said:

Tried same instruction for OS X 10.8 DP4 (on my Mac Pro 2,1 & Radeon HD 5870) and got No Entry sign when booting up from either USB stick or HD.

Jamie, are you able to get DP4 to install successfully?

Reply ↓
Abraham Marcano on June 13, 2012 at 4:24 am said:

Examples Of The Strategy That’s Even Aiding sale off-gurus To Rise. Short report reveals the indeniable details of shopping and in what way it could actually cause problems for your business.

Reply ↓
Ant on June 13, 2012 at 4:05 pm said:

Any clue on DP4?

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Ant on June 13, 2012 at 4:27 pm said:

This worked very well for me. I am running the Apple Radeon 5770 on my MP1,1 updated with 2 x5355 SLAEG CPUs. I am attempting to do the same with DP4, although the files appear abit different on this update.

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roni on June 14, 2012 at 3:31 am said:

thank you for the guide. i tried it with DP4 on my mac pro 1.1 , its starts to install directly from lion, however when it restarts to finish the install, it goes directly to lion recovery instead of finishing the install. do you know why?

Reply ↓
Michael on June 14, 2012 at 4:53 pm said:

How have things continued to work since the betas have been coming out? Have you had to re-hack each beta to make sure it worked on the Mac Pro?

Reply ↓
Wout on June 21, 2012 at 9:29 am said:

Hi,
I tried this with the DP4 release, all went well…but after the installation ended, it started the OS X Lion (10.7) installation. Help please..??
Thanks

Reply ↓
Wout on June 22, 2012 at 8:44 am said:

Hi,
I tried this using DP4. Al went well..but after chosing the installation drive, after restarting, it runs à lion installer. After The installation it runs another lion installation and after it restars again…lion 10.7 is installed instead of ML 10.8 help please

Reply ↓
pro1,1 on June 24, 2012 at 9:11 am said:

Hi,

did anybody try this method with the Developer Preview 4?
I keep getting the “no access” sign when trying to boot from the modified disk.

Thanx

Reply ↓
Stefx on June 25, 2012 at 4:05 pm said:

Did any one try with mountain lion dp4? i get stuck at the install window. I clic continue but it stay there.

Reply ↓
Gert Sterner on June 25, 2012 at 11:37 pm said:

I get a “Stop sign”, when Mountain Lion beta 4 has done the initial part of copying stuff to the new boot drive and restarting my Mac Pro. It looks like this:
http://sterner.dk/files/osx_mountail_lion_stop_sign.png
First I tried at an external FireWire 400 drive. Then I tried first installing 10.7 Lion and upgrading that.

But when I installed the last upgrade, even 10.7 gave me the stop sigen, so I moved on to a FireWire 800 drive, since I thought that it was the FW400 that was banned from 10.8 and since I am already using Lion with all updates, installed on the internal drives.

Then on an internal drive in position 1 (out of 4) wich I know will work.

Then I plugged out the ethernet and turned off my router to make shure it could not “talk back” to Apple.

Then I cut down on installed cards so I only had the graphics card installed, but I keep getting no where.

So something is wrong!

As stated, I use the latest (to date) Beta 4 of Mountain Lion 10.8
My MacPro1,1 has:
- Processor 2 x 2,66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
- Memory 16 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
- Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB, bought as a spare part to one of the newer Mac Pro’s
- 4 x 2 TB WD “Black” disk’s in software raid 0 as boot drive

Does anyone here has a clue to what might be wrong?

Maybe ML beta 4 has another security build in to check for MacPro1,1?

Kind regards
Gert Sterner

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Neema Agha on July 6, 2012 at 7:45 pm said:

I hope that you will update this once ML is officially released. Thanks.

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Rob on July 10, 2012 at 3:02 pm said:

Having troubles completing these steps with the GM. The Install image does not fit on a single layer DVD. Instead I created a partition and restored it with the install image. Once I run the installer I receive and error that components to install Mac os are missing. Bummer!

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SEO Company on July 12, 2012 at 3:45 am said:

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David on July 12, 2012 at 11:50 am said:

Hi Jamie, wondering if you have had any success with the GM build?

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steven Fransen on July 13, 2012 at 8:00 pm said:

this doesn’t work on the GM Seed the OSInstall.mpkg fails one the GM Seed version of Mountain Lion.

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David on July 16, 2012 at 1:21 am said:

Hi Jamie,

Have you have any success with the GM build?

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Brian on July 18, 2012 at 2:38 am said:

bummer, all I get is this when I run the installer from a mounted usb drive or dvd:

“The additional components needed to install OS X can’t be found.”

I also wasn’t able to burn the GM onto a single layer DVD as Disk Utility said it was too big. On top of that, my 2,1 Mac Pro won’t boot off the CD or a USB stick.

Wondering if something changed in the GM to break this little trick.

Reply ↓
abraham on July 20, 2012 at 1:55 am said:

How mac air 1,1 use in ML GM

Thanks

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Mark Wille on July 20, 2012 at 2:37 pm said:

Hey there,

Thank a lot for the effort in making this tutorial! I just followed everything to the letter and restored it onto a USB stick. Now I should be able to boot from this stick if I’m not mistaken? It won’t let me, keeps coming up with an error concerning kernel cache..
Reason I would like to boot from the stick is so that I might do a fresh Mountain Lion install on one of my HD’s for testing (video etc) before going for a “real” install.
Thank!

Reply ↓
Robert on July 20, 2012 at 2:41 pm said:

Set a link in a german blog: http://apfelblog.ch/mac/software/nicht-alle-macs-freuen-sich-aut-mountain-lion#comment-48449

Thank you for this great work!

Reply ↓
Gert Sterner on July 24, 2012 at 7:23 am said:

I get a “Stop sign”, when Mountain Lion beta 4 has done the initial part of copying stuff to the new boot drive and restarting my Mac Pro. It looks like this:
http://sterner.dk/files/osx_mountail_lion_stop_sign.png
First I tried at an external FireWire 400 drive. Then I tried first installing 10.7 Lion and upgrading that.

But when I installed the last upgrade, even 10.7 gave me the stop sigen, so I moved on to a FireWire 800 drive, since I thought that it was the FW400 that was banned from 10.8 and since I am already using Lion with all updates, installed on the internal drives.

Then on an internal drive in position 1 (out of 4) wich I know will work.

Then I plugged out the ethernet and turned off my router to make shure it could not “talk back” to Apple.

Then I cut down on installed cards so I only had the graphics card installed, but I keep getting no where.

So something is wrong!

As stated, I use the latest (to date) Beta 4 of Mountain Lion 10.8
My MacPro1,1 has:
- Processor 2 x 2,66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
- Memory 16 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
- Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB, bought as a spare part to one of the newer Mac Pro’s
- 4 x 2 TB WD “Black” disk’s in software raid 0 as boot drive

Does anyone here has a clue to what might be wrong?

Maybe ML beta 4 has another security build in to check for MacPro1,1?

Kind regards
Gert Sterner

Reply ↓
Granadost@gmail.com on July 25, 2012 at 9:44 pm said:

I am also getting the stop sign when I boot into the EFI to install Mt. Lion. The I created a USB and it was successful. Maybe I will try to burn a DVD? I’m going from Lion to Mt.Lion

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StefanB on July 25, 2012 at 10:06 pm said:

Hi there… have anyone already tried this on his macpro 1.1 with the released final?
Does it work or not? I assume not because of the problems with the GM and that it is the same build?

cheers,
Stefan

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Guy C on July 26, 2012 at 4:58 am said:

@StefanB – I tried this with a Mac Pro 1,1 using the final release and it does not work. I’m getting the “stop sign” http://sterner.dk/files/osx_mountail_lion_stop_sign.png just like Gert Sterner. Was able to get around the “The additional components needed to install OS X can’t be found.” error by adding SIUResources.pkg from the Developer 4 build to the packages folder, but still can’t get past the boot issue.

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Guy C on July 26, 2012 at 5:01 am said:

Jamie – there seems to be another parallel thread on this blog here http://www.j4mie.co.uk/blog/how-to-install-mountain-lion-on-macpro11/ with overlapping comments.

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Joe on July 27, 2012 at 1:35 pm said:

Go here:
http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47

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Frank on July 27, 2012 at 11:38 pm said:

There is just something aesthetically displeasing about making my mac look like a pc by using chameleon approach. But its hard to argue against it if it works.

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Joe on July 28, 2012 at 2:09 pm said:

The MacPro1,1 is now a PC as far as Mountain Lion is concerned. Apple have abandoned us despite the fact that this computer is 64bit. Long live the MacPro1,1.

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ZigZag on July 28, 2012 at 3:49 pm said:

come and register a vote of protest if you have an orphaned mac pro, share your grief
https://www.facebook.com/AppleBringMountainLionSupportToEarlyMacPros

and if you are attempting the above always make a fully bootable backup before starting

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Jonny on July 28, 2012 at 4:12 pm said:

I tried your method with retail 10.8, however copying SIUResources.pkg to the Packages folder, as well as using OSInstall.mpkg from http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47

In the end, the DMG is too large to burn to a DVD, and when trying to boot from an 8GB thumb drive, or from the installer itself, I get the “no access” symbol at startup.

Jamie, have you been looking at a way to get this working with retail copy of 10.8?

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- Jonny on July 29, 2012 at 2:54 am said:
  
  Interesting development. I tried again with the USB drive, and again got the “no access” symbol at startup. The, when I thought my Mac would just choose my default disk, I got to an “installing” screen!
  
  http://i.imgur.com/KMrZV.jpg
  
  However, I never got past it. Progress?
  
  P.S.
  Your captcha code thing is kind of busted…
  
  Reply ↓
  - Jonny on July 30, 2012 at 1:43 pm said:
    
    Jamie, I got to the installer screen and got an error that “OS X could not be installed. Try reinstalling.”
    
    From here, I had access to apps like Disk Utility, and was also able to save an error log. Hopefully this offers some further insight: http://www.filedropper.com/installerlog29-jul-2012
    
    Reply ↓
richtofen2 on July 29, 2012 at 9:54 am said:

Hello ! thanks a lot for your job !

But I’ve got a problem, after realized all your manipulations, my USB KEY doesn’t appear on my boot screen (after press alt key) whereas on my macbook pro late 2011 (compatible with Mountain so) it’s appear !!!

Can you help me genius ? many thanks !!!

Reply ↓
Joe on July 29, 2012 at 2:06 pm said:

2006 Mac Pro 1,1 and Mountain Lion – Success!

I was able to relatively painlessly boot into Mountain Lion on my geriatric 2006 Mac Pro – if you have access to another Mac than can upgrade to Mountain Lion normally. I have an Apple-branded ATI 5870 graphics card. Make sure you have a graphics card that is usable. An relatively easy way is to follow the beginning of the guide found on:

http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47

but rather than create and modify a 10.8 install disk per the instructions, I first created a fresh complete install of Mountain Lion on a new disk/partition created on another newer Mac that is eligible to upgrade normally (a 2010 Mini in my case). I created the working partition on an external drive. I then used the Jabbawok.net guide to only create the Chameleon install drive – which I put on a small internal drive in my 2006 Mac Pro – which has partitioned as MBR, per the instructions. Once this Chameleon drive was blessed via the terminal, per instructions, I put both drives in my Mac and rebooted. I held down the option key during the restart to get the boot drive icons and select “Windows” since that is what the Mac recognizes the Chameleon drive as since it is formatted as MBR. The first time it did not see where my Mountain Lion install was but gave me a list of the available drives – which I wrote down the notation, such as 0,1. I then rebooted into Target mode and via a firewire cable from another Mac, I edited the org.chameleon.Boot.plist file in the Extra folder on the Chameleon boot drive to match the location of my Mountain Lion drive (also in the instructions).

The only downside is that I have to use up one of the drive bays with the MBR boot drive, although most of it can be partitioned for files. I did not try to combine the Chameleon boot partition with the Mountain Lion install since Chameleon requires MBR and Mountain Lion GUID format. Using the SATA cable in the optical bay did not work. Also, every reboot I need to hold the option key to get to the “Windows” icon and select it since that must boot first to emulate the 64-bit EFI. I so far cannot go to the control panel for disk startup and see the “Windows” drive to automate this selection. I also can leave in my old Lion disk and select that as the startup if I wanted to at some point.

Not bad for a computer about to enter it’s 7th year of service! Just wish they would release a modern Mac Pro so I can retire this machine.

Reply ↓
A on July 30, 2012 at 12:31 am said:

I just followed your instructions and burned “InstallESDedited.dmg” to a… blu-ray (as I had no dual-layer DVDs around)
The original image was from a legit ML install on a macbook white.

Result: when booting from optical drive, I get the stop sign.
So I booted back in Lion and launched “Install OS X Mountain Lion.app”. After selecting an empty disk, I also get the “The additional components needed to Install OS X can’t be found.” message.

Chameleon appears not to be an option for me, regarding the boot process (I want to press the button and have my OS ready within seconds).

So I have a 2GHz Core 2 Duo MB white running ML (not that I’m using it, it’s more of a relict), while my Mac Pro with 2 Quad-Cores and 12GB RAM is stuck to Lion.

Well done Apple!

I’ve chosen my Mac Pro because the ease of tinkering. Looking on MacBook Airs with glued batteries and so on, that is not the case with new Apple Hardware anymore.
I’ve chosen Mac OS so that I dont have to care about driver issues. Well, the past 2 years with my HD4890 (thank you netkas!!!) have proven otherwise.
I’ve chosen OSX for their improved usability. Now I need a new OS (which I cant install) to be able to choose a monitor for full-screen apps.

…time to get used to Linux Mint

Reply ↓
- BrianM on August 10, 2012 at 5:07 pm said:
  
  MacBook Air’s don’t have glued on batteries, only the new Retina 15″ MacBook Pro.
  
  Apple has kept hardware support to approximately 5 years since around Mac OS 9. While it is frustrating, I do understand why. (Keeps development & support costs down – there would have to be updated 64bit drivers for some of the hardware for “easy” early Mac Pros to be support, and some people always run into issues with some hardware or software)
  
  Reply ↓
macguyincali on August 2, 2012 at 5:26 pm said:

Awesome blog post. I have a MacPro 2,1 with a ATI Radeon HD 4870 card upgrade. I noticed that in your instructions you copy over the EFI32 boot.efi from the earlier system. Does the MacPro2,1 need this? How do I find out if my MacPro 2,1 needs this file or not?

Also, I’m using the final version of Mountain Lion (legally purchased on the App Store). Will I be able to use this version (I’ve copied it over from my MacBook Air).

Any help would be MUCHO appreciated.

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emac4d on August 12, 2012 at 2:13 pm said:

I get this error when trying to install, any help?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6406352/error.png

thanks

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Peter Nemenyi on September 1, 2012 at 1:54 am said:

Dear Jamie. I guess I followed your article properly, but somehow when I try to upgrade my MacPro 1.1 I get the following error ” The additional components need to install os x Can’t be found” I wonder what could be the mistake.

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Patrick on September 1, 2012 at 3:23 am said:

Great Guide! May I know what video card do you use on the Mac Pro 1,1 setup? I have Quadro FX 4500 on my Mac Pro 1,1, do you think that’s compatible for the ML build?

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Peter Nemenyi on September 1, 2012 at 3:38 am said:

Even though the guide is clear and very well written I have the same issue emac4d has. We both must have made the same mistake. Any pointer?

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Peter Nemenyi on September 2, 2012 at 3:45 am said:

There are only two blogs covering MP 1.1 EFI issue, but this one is on layman’s level. However the result on my part was disappointing. My MP has Nvidia Geforce 8800 video card, so my problem is strictly the EFI. I followed the guide religiously but received the very same error as many of us. None of us received remedy to the issue. My question simple. Did anyone have any luck upgrading a MP 1.1 to ML. besides the author? If so can I have a private correspondence on the procedures? My contact is nemenyi@nemenyi.net I would greatly appreciate some help from a fellow Mac user. Thx.

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Peter Nemenyi on October 7, 2012 at 7:04 am said:

It has been more than a month I asked someone or anyone to clarify the procedure introduced by this blog, or point out the reason it does not work as it was claimed. So I draw my conclusion stating this blog is a bogus.

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Epic on October 12, 2012 at 9:10 pm said:

Can you try and make a firmware update trick for the graphics card?

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McWolverine on October 16, 2012 at 7:51 am said:

Hi Jamie, are you still replying to this thread…? I have tried both this method and HackerWayne’s method (both fairly similar) and I just can’t get it to work (2006 Mac Pro 1,1 – 8GB RAM – HD5770). Have had different errors at times, but usually booting to the “No Entry” symbol or a plain grey screen. So I was wondering if you were still in the game, as I am determined to not leave a man behind and bin my faithful workhorse.

Cheers

Richard

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Pat on February 14, 2013 at 8:53 am said:

Hi Jamie,

I am VERY pleased to find your information, as you have laid it out. It seems rather straight forward, and I am rather keen to try the process. [ I will naturally clone my 10.6.8 drive, to one of the four internal drives installed in my MacPro ]. But first I’ll just need to move the data to an external, to free up one of the internal drives, which I can then use as the drive to which I will “restore” the InstallESDedited.dmg onto. To do the installation, from the H.D.D. rather than from a DVD, or USB flash, as I don’t have any Double Layer blank DVD’s, or a USB flash larger than 4GB.

Question 01:
Am I correct in my assumption that the installation should work fine from that internal H.D.D. – rather than using one of the other options?

And the next part …

I see that your “edited” system folder contains a file, “SystemVersion.plist”
found: System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
details:

ProductBuildVersion
12A128p
ProductCopyright
1983-2012 Apple Inc.
ProductName
Mac OS X
ProductUserVisibleVersion
10.8
ProductVersion
10.8

This is not the same content as the file on the 10.2.8, official release …

ProductBuildVersion
12C60
ProductCopyright
1983-2012 Apple Inc.
ProductName
Mac OS X
ProductUserVisibleVersion
10.8.2
ProductVersion
10.8.2

Question 02:
I assume that as I am working with a slightly updated version of the OSX ML release that your notes are based on, that the version, on mine should stay as is, and not be replaced with the one on your file? Or are all the files in your “edited” system folder relative to one another. So much so that if that I rather use the file from the “original” system folder, that it will cause the installation to not work?

I ask, as then will the “About This Mac” / “Overview” tab not show the incorrect version, if that edited file, from your “replacement” system folder is used, rather than the “original” file that came with the 10.2.8 installer?

F.Y.I.
A little history behind the reasons that have prompted me to try and find a solution for this MacPro:

Imagine my shock, and dismay, when after I bought the 10.2.8 OSX ML, official release, via AppStore. Proceeded to update my MacBook Pro [3,1], Jan/Feb 2008, but saved the installer ahead of doing that installation, with the knowledge that it is permitted to also load the same update to my MacPro. Only to, now, find that when I then tried to check the process for the update that the MacPro, which I had only bought about 4 or so months before the MacBook Pro, is NOT a supported model.

Bearing in mind that when I bought the MacPro, I did opt for the B.T.O. version, with the Dual Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 3.0 GHz; i.e. is 8-core, with the upgraded X1900 XT graphics card, and with 24GB ram.

Mistakenly, I just automatically assumed that if the updated OSX ML loaded to the MacBook Pro that there should be no worries with doing the same upgrade to the MacPro. Which, in my opinion, is far superior to the portable machine.

Especially seeing as I have already purchased the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Upgrade Kit. As yet to be slotted in, but was due to go in, as soon as I took the MacPro up to 10.6.8, from the 10.5.8 level that I have kept it on, for a long time.

Previously, I left it on the 10.5.8 level, ever since about late 2009, as it was 100% stable, and I didn’t need to rock the boat, with my workhorse. Especially with all the bug reports that were flying about in the early stages of 10.6, and then 10.7 levels.

However, I have now taken the MacPro to the 10.6.8 level, with the intention to slip the new graphics card in, as the new card requires at least 10.6.4 to run on my MacPro model, and then to go ahead and do the 10.2.8 update.

My MacPro is one of the uniquely identified [2,1] models. Which was bought late September 2007. But as it was the B.T.O., with the highest spec possible back then, I took it for granted, that as it was still better than the stock standard units being sold in early 2008, that there shouldn’t be any issues, when doing the 10.8.2 migration. The B.T.O unit that I bought, had the Xeon [ 64bit ] capability, as is required for the 10.8 level, so I just assumed that all will be OK, as far as technical specs, for the next level of OSX updates being rolled out currently.

Anyway, I do hope that everything goes, as planned, and as simply as you have made it to appear.

Will come back and report back regarding success levels etc.

Tx,

Reply ↓
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Cody Lilley on May 1, 2013 at 9:56 pm said:

Could someone upload a video, I’m having a few issues,
(A)- My Mac won’t boot from the DVD after Burn it (slowest speed), I restart and hold Option to get to get to Startup Manager, and the DVD doesn’t show up.

And when i try to run the Installer from that DVD, It says “Could not find installation information for this machine. Contact AppleCare”

any suggestions?

Mac Pro1,1

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How to Install Mountain Lion on MacPro1,1

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