MP 1,1-5,1 Another Triple Boot Project Mac Pro 5,1

[BigJon]

Greetings all,

After weeks of searching, I have read several threads regarding triple booting a cMP 5,1 and have found various solutions to my goal to get my 2012 Mac Pro triple booting Mac OS (Big Sur initially but want to end up with Ventura), Windows 10 (and ultimately Windows 11) and Ubuntu 23.04. I have found several similar threads on this and other forums, but they have significant enough differences (older versions of all three OS’s, MacbookPro or iMac platforms, etc) that I’m a bit uncomfortable setting out without some sage guidance from someone who’s blazed the trail before me. Years ago I built an amazing Hackintosh that booted all three OS’s flawlessly until Apple updated their MacOS at the time that forced a dedicated disk for the Mac side of things. In trying to make everything play nice I ran into a corrupt Grub installation and eventually the SSD became unbootable/unfixable. After throwing up my arms I got busy on other projects and when the need to run Windows and MacOS came up, I bought a used 2012 Mac Pro with two Xeon CPU’s totaling 12 cores and upgraded the memory to 64GB and when needed, the GPU to a Nvidia 860 flashed to the Mac Pro 5,1 to support metal. Right now I’m running an OCLP installation of Big Sur and the system has been running fine. I kept my High Sierra/Windows 8.1 Bootcamp HDD off-line from the Big Sur installation in case of my OCLP upgrade blew something up.

So I’m thinking of having the MacOS reside on a dedicated Samsung 2TB SSD and load Windows and Ubuntu on to a single HDD partitioned to accommodate both OS’s and their swapfile and EFI partitions, although I could easily put Windows and Ubuntu on separate HDD’s. The one roadblock I seem to keep running into is how to-where to install which boot loader, be it OCLP, rEFInd or Clover/grub.

Is there anyone out there that has done this recently? I’d love to get a step by step guide put together for doing this. My inclination is to stick with the OpenCore boot loader but again, I’m not certain thats the best approach. Thanks to anyone who cares to respond.

BigJon

 

[mrkapqa]

had triplebooted sometime on a macmini2,1 with a 120GB SSD, if remember correctly; at the time the helper of choice as refit as base layer and refind as second layer; that was a nice experience, Debian 6 and 7, bit cumbersome the install, especially when off USB.

happen to have also a 5,1 that dualboots / triple boots, but not Linux, only Mojave, Monterey, Win11.


Some people here tell that if you install Windows 11 in UEFI mode without OpenCore it can break your MacPro, so i went with OpenCore,

but initially i just wanted to boot SnowLeopard / Windows 7 and a modern OS like Mavericks or Mojave.


Windows is faster than MacOS , but still, would look for an SSD if you plan to use it more frequently (even a 120GB would suffice then). Afterwards, you could start Windows directly from within MacOS by using VMWare or Parallels or virtualbox to make a VM of your bootcamp disk.

 

[BigJon]

Thanks for the reply, mrkapqa. I’m up to my ears in a mess now after starting my OCLP install and upgrade. Got Windows 10 running flawlessly along with Big Sur (on separate SSD’s) then upon reboot, my cMP 5,1 freezes on the boot picker screen after selecting EFI Boot. I’m going to post a new thread on that.

 

[Macschrauber]

Take care of the bootrom, not to get certificates from uefi windows.

I made a backup / analyse tool: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...es.2333460/page-4?post=32055801#post-32055801

 

[BigJon]

Take care of the bootrom, not to get certificates from uefi windows.

I made a backup / analyse tool: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...es.2333460/page-4?post=32055801#post-32055801

Thanks Macshrauber. I will use your tool. Thank goodness for backups….after bricking my Samsung SSD, I’ve got Big Sur running flawlessly on a new Sandisk SSD, Windows 10 on its own SSD and today I’ll install Ubuntu on a third SSD.

 

[st3f73]

Thanks Macshrauber. I will use your tool. Thank goodness for backups….after bricking my Samsung SSD, I’ve got Big Sur running flawlessly on a new Sandisk SSD, Windows 10 on its own SSD and today I’ll install Ubuntu on a third SSD.

Hi bro, have you been successful made the triple boot to date? I'm also very keen to do the same thing with my cMP 2012. Please kindly do let me know, thanks in advance.

 

[hwojtek]

Just set up a working OC configuration with ext4 and openlinuxboot support in config.plist, install Ubuntu, install Windows, job done. There is no magic in that.

 

[BigJon]

Hi bro, have you been successful made the triple boot to date? I'm also very keen to do the same thing with my cMP 2012. Please kindly do let me know, thanks in advance.

Hey there st3f73, hwojtek might think there’s no magic, but by the time I got everything lined up and working it felt like I had to conjure up some black magic… Unfortunately I am presently dealing with another possible SSD failure (I’ve seen more than one whisper that SSD’s can be kind of buggy with cMP 5,1’s). Time Machine to the rescue. I will post some thoughts about my experience here in a day or two after I’ve got things restored and running (the SSD that’s failing is of course my boot/OCLP drive).

Thanks,

BJ

 

[hwojtek]

Geez, we are adults here. We don't "see whispers", we don't believe in "magic", we are capable drawing conclusions based on logical thinking.
A default OC installation with just two additional kexts is capable of booting virtually any x64 operating system, period.
The fact that you are using failing hardware has nothing to do with the actual difficulty level of constructing such working OC configuration which is literally "copying and pasting two files and two sections of .plist code". The "magic" is in your hardware (perhaps you didn't follow the extensive list of working SSDs we maintain here) and not in the OC configuration itself. The "magic" may be that you didn't care to create yourself an OC boot CD, which would bring your system back to life in seconds.

 

[BigJon]

Geez, we are adults here. We don't "see whispers", we don't believe in "magic", we are capable drawing conclusions based on logical thinking.
A default OC installation with just two additional kexts is capable of booting virtually any x64 operating system, period.
The fact that you are using failing hardware has nothing to do with the actual difficulty level of constructing such working OC configuration which is literally "copying and pasting two files and two sections of .plist code". The "magic" is in your hardware (perhaps you didn't follow the extensive list of working SSDs we maintain here) and not in the OC configuration itself. The "magic" may be that you didn't care to create yourself an OC boot CD, which would bring your system back to life in seconds.

Well hwojtek, I agree we are all adults here and as such I don’t think any of us needs to be lectured to. You are the one who brought up subject of “magic” and my post was responding to st3f73’s question; I wasn’t responding to you other than to continue with the use of the term “magic” as a metaphor (which was also the case in my use of the term “whispers”) so your criticism borders on trolling.

 

[hwojtek]

This is not criticism and, please, do not try to make it personal by calling names someone who knows how to do it, provides you with links and separates hardware problems from software issues, especially since you are some 15 years shy of presence on these forums, compared.
You've been given facts, links and information. Hardware failures have nothing to do with the actual difficulty of creating a triple (or quadruple, quintuple, you name it) booting Mac Pro 5,1. It is actually harder to make it properly boot two editions of MacOS than a MacOS and different operating system.

 

[eicca]

We might have a winner for hoity-toity post if the year.

Just help the freaking OP without authority dropping and condescending reprimands for the use of harmless metaphors. For crap’s sake.

 

[hwojtek]

How exactly could I further help the OP? Be specific.

 

[eicca]

Read my post again. The instructions are clear.

 

[bonshomme]

Hello,

Just wanted to share my experience triple booting Windows 10, macOS 12 and Zorin OS 16.

At that time, my hardware had:
- 120 GB SSD hosting 3 partitions: one with RefindPlus, one with OCLP and one with Linux (without grub installed).
- 1 TB SSD with Legacy Windows 10
- 1 TB SSD with macOS

I initially started by installing Linux, then 10.13 and Legacy Windows 7.

In 10.13 I installed RefindPlus on my SSD without OC and then I had a working triple boot. I then updated to Windows 10, installed OCLP on another partition then updated to 12.6.8.

But then, booting macOS via OC chainloaded through RefindPlus didn't work. I had to boot OC first to have macOS working and then I could chainload RefindPlus via OC to boot Windows and Linux. I suspect the reason was that OC is not installed in RefindPlus as it should have been but rather in another partition. I didn't have a chance to experiment further because I changed my setup.

As booting legacy OSes is not supported in OC, RefindPlus was necessary for me. But you may not need RefindPlus if you're using UEFI Windows, in that case, only OC is needed.

 

[WhiteLighter78]

Hello all! I've been trying to find other enthusiasts who are into multi-booting on their Mac Pros as well! I do have a question that maybe someone knows about. I have the Mac Pro 5,1 with Radeon 7970 gpu (dual bios switch for Mac EFI and regular UEFI GOP) I've got the latest OCLP 1.3.0 and Latest Sonoma 14.3.1 working! Also booting Windows 11, Catalina, PrimeOS, and I'm trying to get High Sierra going. Now, High Sierra installed, and shows perfectly in Opencore's bootpicker. But alas, I'm given the dreaded "O" with a line through it upon trying to boot High Sierra. I've been trying to do some googling to find out what setting I need to apply in the config.plist to make this work. But most people are like isn't it counter-intuitive to use opencore to boot High Sierra which I believe is natively supported. But I need the opencore for the rest.

 

[Macschrauber]

If you got a bootscreen just boot HS natively.

if you want to use OC add -no_compat_check to the boot-args or edit the PlatformSupport.plist in HS Preboot to support MacPro 7,1 Board ID.

 

[WhiteLighter78]

Thank you so much Macschrauber! You rock! Just to be safe, I did both of those suggestions! and I successfully booted into High Sierra! Now the strange thing is, the opencore boot picker shows my Sonoma icon as a high sierra icon and instead of saying Sonoma it says Untitled - Data. But it boots into Sonoma. I will have to figure that one out now! but thank you so much again!

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

instead of saying Sonoma it says Untitled - Data

Different versions of APFS. Be careful with them.

 

[haralds]

I have my Mac Pro set up to boot the following:

1. Mojave and Windows 11 Legacy Boot from an SSD in bay 1. These will not boot from OCLP.
2. Catalina DosDude Patched from an SSD on a PCIe card. Due to upgraded GPU and WiFI/BLE, only PLISTS are actually patched. It runs with full SIP.
3. ZorinOS/Debian booting from an SSD in bay 2. I do not use it much, so the disk is partitioned EFI for GRUB, APFS container for storage, and a third 256GB portion for ZorinOS. I would recommend installing Debian or other Linux with other drives removed, or you will not be sure where it puts the GRUB boot loader. Mine ended up on the Mojave disk. But, it was easy to copy it over and bless it.
   1. Note that you can use 'boot --folder <path> --label "ZorinOS" to avoid confusing EFI partition options during Option-Boot.
4. OCLP boots on a shared 4TB PCIe NVMe - Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma. I have gotten away with all volume groups in one container.
   1. Monterey does not require a root patch on my system.
   2. I have had trouble off and on with OCLP boot and installations. Suddenly they might not boot from cold start. Today, I had to do an SCMP and NVRAM triple reset. Then boot into Catalina and confirm reliable starts into it. Out of precaution, I checked all EFI partitions from spurious installs and then reinstalled OCLP. I booted into OCLP and Sonora. All worked fine after that,

The Settings > Startup option has some limited use in this hybrid scenario.

1. Mojave, Catalina, and Windows 11 can select each other.
2. Once you boot into ZorinOS/Debian it set it as the boot.
3. Once you select OCLP, it will set it EFI boot. You can then set the system under it for repeat booting.

I normally use Sonoma.

 

[Macschrauber]

Thank you so much Macschrauber! You rock! Just to be safe, I did both of those suggestions! and I successfully booted into High Sierra! Now the strange thing is, the opencore boot picker shows my Sonoma icon as a high sierra icon and instead of saying Sonoma it says Untitled - Data. But it boots into Sonoma. I will have to figure that one out now! but thank you so much again!

the High Sierra bug:

High Sierra booting possibly corrupts newer Systems. Fix, description and a boot picker renamer

Summary: We discovered a serious bug: booting High Sierra without System Integrity Protection (csrutil disable) possibly corrupts another mounted (unsupported) APFS2* OS Preboot volume, even when on another drive. Consequently, the corrupted OS may appear as High Sierra and check for...

forums.macrumors.com

this is fixable, maybe you try to update the date of the plists first. If this would not help re enable sip for High Sierra. OC sets sip when booting as needed.

 

[WhiteLighter78]

Thank you for showing me that fixer! Just to be safe, I deleted the high sierra partition and did an in-place install of Sonoma again to correct the opencore bootpicker. Those were fixed, and then decided to go with Sierra instead of High Sierra, so I didn't bugger anything else up. If I get adventurous again, I will try that!

 

[Macschrauber]

High Sierra is much more common as it was the end point for a lot of setups.

Check from time to time with the preboot fixer, if something gets tinkered again.

And report, if so

 

[WhiteLighter78]

I will! Thank you very much for your help with this! Now I am going to try installing Chrome OS! I wonder what other OS I can put on this fantastic machine!!

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Chrome OS!

ChromeOS Flex, I suppose? Be careful, remove all drives. Leave only drive where you plan to install ChromeOS Flex. (Btw, I wonder if there is any way to create local user instead of google account).