How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[kgp]

@kgp do you think that doing a clean install on 17C2120>17C2205 will be any better than the previous method of 17C88>17C2120>17C2205?

Give the clean install a chance if you have a spare disk

I need anyway user feedback to see if the new procedures works as expected..

 

[shael]

Give the clean install a chance if you have a spare disk

I need anyway user feedback to see if the new procedures works as expected..

i do have a spare drive, but i hate using any of them. i will just wipe and clean install...

Do you think i can download from my current imac pro build through the appstore either 17C2120 or 17C2205?

 

[kgp]

i do have a spare drive, but i hate using any of them. i will just wipe and clean install...

Do you think i can download from my current imac pro build through the appstore either 17C2120 or 17C2205?

I can't download the full package installers from the Appstore. Maybe you can.

How can I know?

You should exactly try to follow the procedures described in my guide!

Otherwise.. how should I know that the procedures work for all of you?

 

[shael]

I can't download the full package installers from the Appstore. Maybe you can.

How can I know?

You should exactly try to follow the procedures described in my guide!

Otherwise.. how should I know that the procedures work for all of you?

have you implemented this method? lol

 

[kgp]

have you implemented this method? lol

Read my new guide come on

 

[mthenders]

I need anyway user feedback to see if the new procedures works as expected..

I'm trying to build the 17C2120 installer per section D.2 of the guide, and I noticed what might be a bug in step D.2)2. There's fourteen curl download commands listed. The fifth one and the last one use the same URL:

curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkm -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkm

I double-checked the catalog plist that you linked and it looks like one of the files perhaps should be InstallAssistantAuto.smd (i.e. the name repeats, but the extension is different).

Even after correcting for that, though, I can't get the installer built. This step:

sudo /usr/sbin/installer -pkg installer.pkg -target /Volumes/MySystemDisk/

...always results in a genuinely cryptic error: "installer: Error - ERROR_B14B14D9B7". Anyone have any clues as to what might be the cause of this? I've even parsed through the whole catalog plist for ALL the files for a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf (there are 49) and tried building the installer with all of them, but no joy. And just so no one has to repeat my pain, here's curl commands for all 49:

curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.smd -o InstallAssistantAuto.smd
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/BaseSystem.chunklist -o BaseSystem.chunklist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkm -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkg -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallInfo.plist -o InstallInfo.plist
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.chunklist -o InstallESDDmg.chunklist
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/AppleDiagnostics.dmg -o AppleDiagnostics.dmg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/BaseSystem.dmg -o BaseSystem.dmg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/OSInstall.mpkg -o OSInstall.mpkg
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.pkm -o InstallESDDmg.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.pkg -o InstallESDDmg.pkg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/AppleDiagnostics.chunklist -o AppleDiagnostics.chunklist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkm -o RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg -o RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.English.dist -o 091-33271.English.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hi.dist -o 091-33271.hi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.no.dist -o 091-33271.no.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Italian.dist -o 091-33271.Italian.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.fi.dist -o 091-33271.fi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ru.dist -o 091-33271.ru.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pt.dist -o 091-33271.pt.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hr.dist -o 091-33271.hr.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.German.dist -o 091-33271.German.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hu.dist -o 091-33271.hu.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.es_419.dist -o 091-33271.es_419.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.French.dist -o 091-33271.French.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.zh_TW.dist -o 091-33271.zh_TW.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.uk.dist -o 091-33271.uk.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.sk.dist -o 091-33271.sk.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Spanish.dist -o 091-33271.Spanish.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.id.dist -o 091-33271.id.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ca.dist -o 091-33271.ca.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.sv.dist -o 091-33271.sv.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ko.dist -o 091-33271.ko.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ms.dist -o 091-33271.ms.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.el.dist -o 091-33271.el.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Japanese.dist -o 091-33271.Japanese.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.cs.dist -o 091-33271.cs.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ar.dist -o 091-33271.ar.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.vi.dist -o 091-33271.vi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.th.dist -o 091-33271.th.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.zh_CN.dist -o 091-33271.zh_CN.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pl.dist -o 091-33271.pl.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.da.dist -o 091-33271.da.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Dutch.dist -o 091-33271.Dutch.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.he.dist -o 091-33271.he.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ro.dist -o 091-33271.ro.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.tr.dist -o 091-33271.tr.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pt_PT.dist -o 091-33271.pt_PT.dist

Thanks!

 

[kgp]

I'm trying to build the 17C2120 installer per section D.2 of the guide, and I noticed what might be a bug in step D.2)2. There's fourteen curl download commands listed. The fifth one and the last one use the same URL:

curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkm -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkm

I double-checked the catalog plist that you linked and it looks like one of the files perhaps should be InstallAssistantAuto.smd (i.e. the name repeats, but the extension is different).

Even after correcting for that, though, I can't get the installer built. This step:

sudo /usr/sbin/installer -pkg installer.pkg -target /Volumes/MySystemDisk/

...always results in a genuinely cryptic error: "installer: Error - ERROR_B14B14D9B7". Anyone have any clues as to what might be the cause of this? I've even parsed through the whole catalog plist for ALL the files for a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf (there are 49) and tried building the installer with all of them, but no joy. And just so no one has to repeat my pain, here's curl commands for all 49:

curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.smd -o InstallAssistantAuto.smd
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/BaseSystem.chunklist -o BaseSystem.chunklist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkm -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallAssistantAuto.pkg -o InstallAssistantAuto.pkg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallInfo.plist -o InstallInfo.plist
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.chunklist -o InstallESDDmg.chunklist
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/AppleDiagnostics.dmg -o AppleDiagnostics.dmg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/BaseSystem.dmg -o BaseSystem.dmg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/OSInstall.mpkg -o OSInstall.mpkg
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.pkm -o InstallESDDmg.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/InstallESDDmg.pkg -o InstallESDDmg.pkg
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/AppleDiagnostics.chunklist -o AppleDiagnostics.chunklist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkm -o RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkm
curl http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg -o RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.English.dist -o 091-33271.English.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hi.dist -o 091-33271.hi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.no.dist -o 091-33271.no.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Italian.dist -o 091-33271.Italian.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.fi.dist -o 091-33271.fi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ru.dist -o 091-33271.ru.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pt.dist -o 091-33271.pt.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hr.dist -o 091-33271.hr.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.German.dist -o 091-33271.German.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.hu.dist -o 091-33271.hu.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.es_419.dist -o 091-33271.es_419.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.French.dist -o 091-33271.French.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.zh_TW.dist -o 091-33271.zh_TW.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.uk.dist -o 091-33271.uk.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.sk.dist -o 091-33271.sk.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Spanish.dist -o 091-33271.Spanish.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.id.dist -o 091-33271.id.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ca.dist -o 091-33271.ca.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.sv.dist -o 091-33271.sv.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ko.dist -o 091-33271.ko.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ms.dist -o 091-33271.ms.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.el.dist -o 091-33271.el.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Japanese.dist -o 091-33271.Japanese.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.cs.dist -o 091-33271.cs.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ar.dist -o 091-33271.ar.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.vi.dist -o 091-33271.vi.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.th.dist -o 091-33271.th.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.zh_CN.dist -o 091-33271.zh_CN.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pl.dist -o 091-33271.pl.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.da.dist -o 091-33271.da.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.Dutch.dist -o 091-33271.Dutch.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.he.dist -o 091-33271.he.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.ro.dist -o 091-33271.ro.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.tr.dist -o 091-33271.tr.dist
curl https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/49/07/091-33271/a0p216ukywyxia77i36ujq0bq91ghcyyaf/091-33271.pt_PT.dist -o 091-33271.pt_PT.dist

Thanks!

There was in deed the bug of the double download which I fixed. However, this was not really an issue as the second download just overwrote the first one.

I created the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" by exactly copying all commands as implemented in the guide and I did not face any issue in creating the "Install MacOS High Sierra.app".

Already @DSM2 told me that he faced the same issue like you with the
/usr/sbin/installer.

Maybe the /usr/sbin/installer is device and macOS build dependent... Thus it does not cause any error on my system or the one of @macandrea, but an yours and the one of @DSM2.

Which device and macOS build are you on?

Cheers, KGP

 

[mthenders]

Maybe the /usr/sbin/installer is device and macOS build dependent... Thus it does not cause any error on my system or the one of @macandrea, but an yours and the one of @DSM2.

Which device and macOS build are you on?

I'm trying to put the installer together on a MacBook Pro 15 running 10.3.2 17C205.

I had that same thought: Googling "ERROR_B14B14D9B7" turns up exactly one hit, in some scripting logic that looks like a version check. Since I was one SU behind when I started working on this, I had hoped that catching up to the latest would fix it. Sadly, it didn't help.

Thanks!

 

[Bagi1992]

Thanks @kgp and @braindeadmac!

I will order 2 new pendrive for bios flash and a new installer and will do a clean install on my other ssd if I have time for it!

It's soo good to see this whole improvement on X299 platform!

 

[paulotex]

@seby-the-drummer:

Bad news, the answer is no

But perhaps it only shows if there is any MOTU hardware detected? I connect an ethernet cable too, just in case.

I will uninstall everything now...