I've been running High Sierra on a MacPro 3,1 system for quite a while and now have a BIG problem . This system was created using DosDude's High Sierra method/program for installing High Sierra on a MacPro3,1 system last year some time. When I rebooted the system yesterday, I now get an error saying "This version of Mac OS X is not supported on this platform! Reason: Mac-F42C88C8" -- and unfortunately the Recovery disk says the same thing. But the good news is that I have a Sierra (macOS 10.12.4) TechToolPro eDrive volume that boots OK (but it only has a few apps and does not have TimeMachine but it can mount the TimeMachine backup volume).
So the question is what might have happened to goof things up? I have a TimeMachine backup volume, but can't run TimeMachine from the eDrive, as it has very few apps installed (why not include TimeMachine on the eDrive??). And even if I could run TimeMachine and do a restore, not sure how to decide what to restore, since the cause of the problem is not understood yet.
Suggestions are welcome in how to get back to HighSierra land on my MacPro3,1 system and even better would be how to determine what exactly got messed up to cause the problem. One clue as to what happened is the volume that is now called SSD-HighSierra (and has been named this way since I did the install -- so that didn't get changed), but the icon associated with this volume has a different icon that looks very like something to do with TechToolPro -- Have attached the image I got from taking a photo of the boot screen (result of holding down the Option key)
Another clue that points to having TechToolPro having something to do with it is that in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices are a couple of unusual named files (this is the last few lines of a "ls -lart" command showing the most recent modified files):
drwxr-xr-x 101 root wheel 3434 Feb 21 21:07 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 11 18:04 .MicromatProtogoVolume.flag
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 11 18:04 .MicromatProtogoBasic.flag
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 576056 Mar 11 18:13 boot.efi
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 3557 Mar 17 19:42 .disk_label_2x
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 893 Mar 17 19:42 .disk_label
drwxr-xr-x 172 root wheel 5848 Mar 18 20:15 .
Have never seen the files starting with ".Micromat..." or .disk_label..." in this folder, or anywhere else for that matter that I can recall. How to determine if this is the "correct" boot.efi file and why did it get modified so close to when the .Micrommat... files got created (within 9 minutes)?? The checksum for the boot.efi file is:
sh-3.2# sum boot.efi
70 563 boot.efi
Another item is that when running System Preferences and looking in the "Startup Disk" pane, it shows the default boot volume as "SSD-HighSierra" which is what it should be, and it also shows that it's a "macOS 10.13.6" version, which is also correct. This indicates to me the volume is still considered as "blessed" but the fact that it won't boot is the real problem. Would "blessing" it again help?
Another odd thing that I was surprised to see is the contents of the "PlatformSupport.plist file -- would have thought it should have an entry for the MacPro3,1 system but it doesn't:
sh-3.2# pwd
/Volumes/SSD-HighSierra/System/Library/CoreServices
sh-3.2# grep -i macpro PlatformSupport.plist
<string>MacPro6,1</string>
<string>MacPro5,1</string>
sh-3.2#
I recall having to edit this file a long time ago (perhaps for Sierra or even before), but perhaps DosDude's method doesn't require this manual edit any more?
Another thing I can say is that I did use the TechToolPro app to clone another boot volume from another computer to a brand new drive, and that seemed to have worked OK (it was cloning a Mountain Lion boot volume for an old white MacBook early 2008 system if it matters). Was careful on what source and destination volume I chose, but certainly possible something might have been unintentionally clicked on, but if that were the case, I would have expected far bigger problems as that volume was a minimal MacOS 10.7.5 system with no apps other than what came with when new and this problem volume has lots of stuff in the /Applications folder.
Many of the parts on the boot volume seem to be there (my /Applications and /Users folders seem to be intact and look normal from what I've looked at so far but without the ability to boot from it can't really make much use of them at the moment), so the problem seems to be in the stuff that macOS High Sierra looks for and needs when it boots, but what exactly is not there or messed up is a real puzzle to me at the moment.
So, have any suggestions to get the MacPro3,1 back up and running off that High Sierra boot volume? and also how to fix the Recovery partition so that it can boot the High Sierra recovery? and biggest question of all is how to restore the system back to it's pre-messed up state? And even more important, why would TechToolPro even mess with the Recovery volume at all? Seems like that is not something it would ever be involved with since it is such a special tool. Of course, don't know this for sure, but the fact that it exhibits the same error when attempting to boot from it as the volume that I can see Micromat "droppings" seems very odd to me.
Thanks very much...
ps -- I'm trying to attach a jpeg image of the boot screen on the MacPro (what you get when you hold down the Option key) but it doesn't appear to be working -- are you having problems with attaching files or is this an e-drive boot issue or ???
So the question is what might have happened to goof things up? I have a TimeMachine backup volume, but can't run TimeMachine from the eDrive, as it has very few apps installed (why not include TimeMachine on the eDrive??). And even if I could run TimeMachine and do a restore, not sure how to decide what to restore, since the cause of the problem is not understood yet.
Suggestions are welcome in how to get back to HighSierra land on my MacPro3,1 system and even better would be how to determine what exactly got messed up to cause the problem. One clue as to what happened is the volume that is now called SSD-HighSierra (and has been named this way since I did the install -- so that didn't get changed), but the icon associated with this volume has a different icon that looks very like something to do with TechToolPro -- Have attached the image I got from taking a photo of the boot screen (result of holding down the Option key)
Another clue that points to having TechToolPro having something to do with it is that in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices are a couple of unusual named files (this is the last few lines of a "ls -lart" command showing the most recent modified files):
drwxr-xr-x 101 root wheel 3434 Feb 21 21:07 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 11 18:04 .MicromatProtogoVolume.flag
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 11 18:04 .MicromatProtogoBasic.flag
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 576056 Mar 11 18:13 boot.efi
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 3557 Mar 17 19:42 .disk_label_2x
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 893 Mar 17 19:42 .disk_label
drwxr-xr-x 172 root wheel 5848 Mar 18 20:15 .
Have never seen the files starting with ".Micromat..." or .disk_label..." in this folder, or anywhere else for that matter that I can recall. How to determine if this is the "correct" boot.efi file and why did it get modified so close to when the .Micrommat... files got created (within 9 minutes)?? The checksum for the boot.efi file is:
sh-3.2# sum boot.efi
70 563 boot.efi
Another item is that when running System Preferences and looking in the "Startup Disk" pane, it shows the default boot volume as "SSD-HighSierra" which is what it should be, and it also shows that it's a "macOS 10.13.6" version, which is also correct. This indicates to me the volume is still considered as "blessed" but the fact that it won't boot is the real problem. Would "blessing" it again help?
Another odd thing that I was surprised to see is the contents of the "PlatformSupport.plist file -- would have thought it should have an entry for the MacPro3,1 system but it doesn't:
sh-3.2# pwd
/Volumes/SSD-HighSierra/System/Library/CoreServices
sh-3.2# grep -i macpro PlatformSupport.plist
<string>MacPro6,1</string>
<string>MacPro5,1</string>
sh-3.2#
I recall having to edit this file a long time ago (perhaps for Sierra or even before), but perhaps DosDude's method doesn't require this manual edit any more?
Another thing I can say is that I did use the TechToolPro app to clone another boot volume from another computer to a brand new drive, and that seemed to have worked OK (it was cloning a Mountain Lion boot volume for an old white MacBook early 2008 system if it matters). Was careful on what source and destination volume I chose, but certainly possible something might have been unintentionally clicked on, but if that were the case, I would have expected far bigger problems as that volume was a minimal MacOS 10.7.5 system with no apps other than what came with when new and this problem volume has lots of stuff in the /Applications folder.
Many of the parts on the boot volume seem to be there (my /Applications and /Users folders seem to be intact and look normal from what I've looked at so far but without the ability to boot from it can't really make much use of them at the moment), so the problem seems to be in the stuff that macOS High Sierra looks for and needs when it boots, but what exactly is not there or messed up is a real puzzle to me at the moment.
So, have any suggestions to get the MacPro3,1 back up and running off that High Sierra boot volume? and also how to fix the Recovery partition so that it can boot the High Sierra recovery? and biggest question of all is how to restore the system back to it's pre-messed up state? And even more important, why would TechToolPro even mess with the Recovery volume at all? Seems like that is not something it would ever be involved with since it is such a special tool. Of course, don't know this for sure, but the fact that it exhibits the same error when attempting to boot from it as the volume that I can see Micromat "droppings" seems very odd to me.
Thanks very much...
ps -- I'm trying to attach a jpeg image of the boot screen on the MacPro (what you get when you hold down the Option key) but it doesn't appear to be working -- are you having problems with attaching files or is this an e-drive boot issue or ???