- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) Xserve (Early 2009) Here's a list of all Intel Macs and the maximum version of OS X they can run. All testing was completed using: 10.11 Developer Preview 7 & 8 builds and Gold Master RC. Get the most out of El Capitan El Capitan requires 2GB of memory, but runs better on 4GB.
- Jan 01, 2007 I use my MacBook Pro with El Capitan as the boot drive and use the MAC Pro G5 as a storage device - the Mac Pro still boots to Lion but it is controlled by my MacBook Pro. The method I used was via an Ethernet '7' connection. One good thing about doing this is if I want to use a 'retro' version of an application. I still can on the Mac Pro.
How to install Mac OS X El Capitan on a Macpr. Only option in the recovery is to install El Capitan. Open the App Store and click the download link for High Sierra. If you purchased the computer from someone else who installed El Capitan using their Apple ID you cannot reinstall it, you must sign into the Mac App Store using your ID and download the latest Mac OS that is available for your.
I bought my Mac Pro 2006 in 2016. 5 years after it’s last Operating System upgrade – 10.7 Lion. These shortcomings meant that the machine was cheap. At the time, I paid ~£150 for a Mid Range 4 Core (2x2cores) 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 8GB of Apple Certified Memory and a 250GB Hard Drive. It actually ended up with 2 hard drives – my machine was damaged in shipping and they told me to keep the drive from it and put it in the replacement machine overnighted to me!
Over the first year, I had a lot of fun upgrading and playing with it. It had Lion. I put Snow Leopard on it, upgraded Lion to Mavericks, upgraded the paltry Nvidia 7300 with the Apple ATI 5770 and installed an SSD. By this point, I was happily chugging along with Yosemite.
In October I upgraded the two dual core 2.66 GHz processors with two quad core 2.66 GHz processors, giving me an 8 Core, for £5 + an hour of my time! My 32 bit Geekbench went from 5601 to 8945. Quite a leap! I use this machine for BBC Iplayer Downloading and encoding DVD rips for my Plex library, so the CPU will really help.
By early 2018, Yosemite is coming up to 4 years old. It hasn’t suddenly stopped working, and everything it used to do, it can still do. But I knew the Mac Pro 1,1 was capable of running El Capitan, and because of the security updates, I felt it was time to make this upgrade. I don’t need anything more than this 1,1. At least right now.
Just a quick notice. There are applications that can make this easier for you. I tried them, and for some reason they didn’t work for me. Perhaps they will for you. This is what I did, and what worked for me, after hours of trial and error. YMMV.
What you need
Mac Pro 1.1 El Capitan Installer
- El Capitan Install App. You can get it from the Mac App Store on a supported Mac, or through other means.
- A supported Mac. This should be capable of running El Capitan natively.
- 8GB RAM minimum (in my testing) and Decent GPU in your Mac Pro
- Download this modified boot.efi file. Choose either the Black or Grey (Old style) boot screen version.
Mac Pro 1.1 El Capitan Install Usb
What to do
- Install El Capitan. You need to install it to your Mac Pro’s boot drive on the supported Mac. You could take the drive out and connect it somehow, or just use Target Disk Mode like I did. Once fully installed, step 2.
- Boot the supported Mac on its internal hard drive, but keep the Mac Pro drive connected. Open Terminal and a Finder window and navigate to MacProDrive/System/Library/CoreServices and find the file called boot.efi
- Type the following command in Terminal
Then drag the boot.efi file onto the Terminal window. It should paste in the address of that file. Then hit the enter key. It may ask for your password. Type this in and press enter again.
- With the file unlocked, you can now replace it with the modified boot.efi file you downloaded earlier.
- You’ll need to re-lock it, so back to Terminal and type
and drag the boot.efi file you just put in there onto Terminal. Hit enter.
- Browse to usr/standalone/i386 and replace the boot.efi file there. This one isn’t locked and doesn’t need locking. Just a straight swap. This folder is hidden by default, so use Command-Shift-G and type /usr to find it.
- The Recovery partition has it’s own boot.efi. If you patch it, it means you can use your recovery partition natively. By default, the Recovery Partition does not mount on the desktop. You will need to hop back onto terminal, to enable Debug menu in Disk Utility. Type the following;
- You should now see the Debug menu in Disk Utility. Open it and enable hidden partitions.
- Under your main MacProDrive, find Recovery HD. Click Mount. It should show on the Desktop.
- In the hard drive, you’ll find another boot.efi. This one also has to be unlocked. You should know how to do that by now. Remember after replacing it, you’ll need to re-lock it.
The loose ends
Download Os X 10.11 El Capitan
- You should now be able to boot to the Desktop of El Capitan on your Mac Pro. You may wish to install Boot64.v3.mpkg.zip. This app will check to see if your boot.efi files are overwritten by an Apple software update, and will restore the patched versions if an OS update removes them. You will probably have the latest updates installed if you had a fairly new copy of the Installer.
- DO NOT install Security Update 2018-001. This will put your Mac Pro in a boot loop, as it changes the Kernel. This security update addresses the Meltdown security issue. However, the processors in the Mac Pro 1,1 are not affected by this, and so it is safe to skip it anyway.
Mac Pro 1 1 El Capitan Install
Need more help? Check out this forum dedicated to this subject.