Multi Boot Mac Pro 5,1 with High Sierra, Mojave & Catalina?

Question

Multi Boot Mac Pro 5,1 with High Sierra, Mojave & Catalina?

Hello All,

I have a Mac Pro 5,1 Mid 2010 Running Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6 on a 1TB Crucial SSD

I upgraded from a 2.8 GHz Quad Core Xeon to a 3.46 GHz 6 Core Intel Xeon

I have 48 GB Ram (3x16)

Saphire Radeon Pulse RX580

My boot rom is currently MP51.0089.B00.

I want to install Mojave, and possibly Catalina on a separate internal drive at some point.

My question is ... when Mojave updates my firmware and changes the boot rom will I still be able to boot from the High Sierra drive? Can High Sierra boot with a Mojave boot rom?

Am I scorching the earth behind me in someway with this 5,1 Mac once I go to Mojave and or Catalina?

Thanks for you help.

Mac Pro, macOS 10.13

Posted on Nov 18, 2019 3:01 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 19, 2019 6:21 AM in response to Eric Strausser

My Mac Pro5,1 has no problems booting in to older versions of macOS or even via Boot Camp in to Windows after having installed Mojave on another drive along with its firmware update.

This Mac Pro sadly does not officially support running Catalina although there is an unofficial workaround.

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Answer 2

Nov 18, 2019 5:50 PM in response to Eric Strausser

As far as we know, those firmware upgrades are backward compatible for ordinary purposes.

There has been one anecdote that they may interfere with running Apple Hardware Test, but that has not been proved or dis-proved.

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Answer 3

DonH49

Level 6

16,716 points

Nov 19, 2019 6:26 AM in response to Eric Strausser

You are over thinking the situation. I boot Mojave internal on my 2013 Mac Pro. Have also added High Sierra volume and a Catalina volume to the internal. So can boot three different systems. I also have Yosemite, High Sierra, Mavericks, Mojave and Catalina bootable on various external thunderbolt drives SSDS. My EFI or boot rom has been updated more than a dozen times since 2013.

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Multi Boot Mac Pro 5,1 with High Sierra, Mojave & Catalina?

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