In this video, I will cover the firmware upgrade process to bring an Apple Mac Pro 4,1, also know as the Early 2009 model, to a Mac Pro 5,1, known as the Mid-2010 model. Unfortunately the known tool called “Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool” from the netkas.org forum is no longer working properly. I found a way to workaround the issues where the firmware upgrade would not start and instead of seeing a progress bar, macOS is simply booting instead. This works for Mac Pro's that are on bootROM version MP41.0081.B07and MP41.0081.B08 as well.
I'll also cover the issue when trying to run the tool using no open MacProEFIUpdate.dmg, it would fail with “The program has encountered an error: 5570”.
Resources:
Full explanation on my blog: https://jensd.be/2453/apple/apple-mac-pro-41-firmware-upgrade-to-51-in-2024
4,1 firmware (FW14.dmg): https://support.apple.com/en-us/106656
5,1 firmware (FW15.dmg): https://support.apple.com/en-us/106455
Mac Pro 2009-2010 Firmware Tool.app: https://jensd.be/download/macpro2009-2010firmwaretool.zip
Modified version of ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh: https://jensd.be/download/ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh
Video that covers upgrade to BootROM version 144.0.0.0.0 : https://youtu.be/zTl1lL1zfkg
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
02:19 - The problem
04:02 - Troubleshooting
06:38 - The solution
07:36 - Step by step
08:13 - Disable System Integrity Protection
09:00 - Run Mac Pro 2009 - 2010 Firmware Tool
09:34 - Download 4,1 and 5,1 firmware files
10:27 - Convert and mount firmware with unique name
12:12 - Replace ExtractAndPatchEFIFiles.sh
13:15 - Run modified script
14:02 - Run script to do EFI preparation
15:12 - Perform firmware upgrade to 5,1
16:51 - Upgrade BootROM to 144.0.0.0.0