Move a previous 10.12 installation drive into a fresh system built for 10.15 - dual boot possible?

[LallyLal]

Hi, sorry if this is the wrong place to create this thread... I'm wondering what kind of problems I'm going to run into if I were to simply put an older 10.12 Sierra installation drive into an newer system I built for 10.15. I need to still be able to use apps on the 10.12 installation but I'm moving soon and would really like to consolidate the two installations into a dual-boot option on my new system. Don't want to deal with moving/transporting two cases across the country.

The 10.12 system was built with a GTX 1060 and my 10.15 system is built with a RX 5700XT... I know GPU support shifted towards AMD over the years so it won't be as easy as just moving the drive over, but long story short: can I still make that 10.12 system actually run on the new AMD card? And if that's possible, would it actually be easier to just create a fresh 10.12 installation rather than modify the old install? Thanks!

 

[Jamesbond007]

Hi, sorry if this is the wrong place to create this thread... I'm wondering what kind of problems I'm going to run into if I were to simply put an older 10.12 Sierra installation drive into an newer system I built for 10.15. I need to still be able to use apps on the 10.12 installation but I'm moving soon and would really like to consolidate the two installations into a dual-boot option on my new system. Don't want to deal with moving/transporting two cases across the country.

The 10.12 system was built with a GTX 1060 and my 10.15 system is built with a RX 5700XT... I know GPU support shifted towards AMD over the years so it won't be as easy as just moving the drive over, but long story short: can I still make that 10.12 system actually run on the new AMD card? And if that's possible, would it actually be easier to just create a fresh 10.12 installation rather than modify the old install? Thanks!

No, the RX 5700 XT is only supported on MacOS Catalina 10.15.2 and later and so it won't work with a Sierra installation. Besides, the motherboard and CPU in your new system may not work with Sierra at all (although if they are from the Intel 9th generation or earlier then Sierra 10.12.6 can still run on them, like my main system).

If you still need to run Sierra, you have to use a graphics card still supported by MacOS Sierra (e.g. RX 580 which is supported on MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 and later).

 

[LallyLal]

No, the RX 5700 XT is only supported on MacOS Catalina 10.15.2 and later and so it won't work with a Sierra installation. Besides, the motherboard and CPU in your new system may not work with Sierra at all (although if they are from the Intel 9th generation or earlier then Sierra 10.12.6 can still run on them, like my main system).

If you still need to run Sierra, you have to use a graphics card still supported by MacOS Sierra (e.g. RX 580 which is supported on MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 and later).

Appreciate it, was hoping it was possible but I’ll just have to hang on to the old build then. Thanks!