The keyboard and mouse or trackpad that came with your Mac. If they aren’t available, use a USB keyboard and mouse. A full-installation, 64-bit version of Windows 10 on a disk image (ISO file) or other installation media. Apple adding Boot Camp to macOS made it easy for people to dual boot Windows, but installing Linux is another matter entirely. Follow the steps below to learn how to do this. Why Install Linux on a Mac or MacBook Pro? Your Mac offers excellent performance, superb battery life, and long durability. The hardware on a Mac is difficult to match.

Classic Mac Pro 5,1 (or simply cMP, also 4,1 upgraded to 5,1) is now considered by Apple as vintage. It’s pretty disappointing considering how capable and upgradable these machines still are. Installing Windows is no longer officially supported, but it’s completely possible though not quite easy.

Another challenge is that macOS Mojave 10.14 now implies using Metal-capable GPU while most of them are not able to display Apple boot menu (which you normally see holding the Option key) required to boot into Windows. Basicaly your screenremains black until macOS is loaded. Well, some EFI bootable cards that support boot menu exist but they are released almost 10 years ago and are really outdated. What is more, none of them supports displaying of boot menu with 4k 60hz monitor connected.

This guide is for those who want macOS Mojave + Windows 10 + modern GPU (in our case Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580 8GB).

Updated 28 May 2019

Installing Windows 10 in 5 steps

It’s supposed that you have the latest Boot ROM version 144.0.0.0.0. If not, please update first.

Step 1: Use separate drive for Windows

Boot Camp Assistant no longer supports cMP and doesn’t allow creating a separate partition for Windows.Windows has to be installed on a separate drive, which is good actually to avoid messing with partitions in future.

We recommend using the internal SATA II connector in one of four drive bays or alternatively one of two SATA II connectors in the optical drive area. Using the HP 654540-001 3.5” → 2.5” adapter (7$) to place 2.5” SSD in a drive bay can be quite convenient.

Of cause, SATA II (up to 300MB/s) is a bottleneck for modern 2.5” SSDs (up to 550 MB/s where SATA III is preferable) but real life experience shows that the difference is hardly noticable unless you deal with lots of big files (e.g. >1GB where sequential read/write speeds matter) on your system drive.

We didn’t test using PCIe → SATA III adapter or PCIe → NVMe adapter for Windows partition. Many people reported it was not possible in their case. If you successfully did it please let us know in the comments below or via e-mail.

Step 2: Create a bootable Windows 10 DVD disk

Warning: DO NOT install Windows from a USB flash drive. It has been discovered that Windows when installed in EFI mode is corrupting the Mac Pro’s firmware by signing it with multiple Secure Boot (X.509) certificates. Also, you wouldn’t be able to boot into Windows after selecting its drive as bootable in macOS Preferences → Startup disk. Therefore Windows should only be installed in Legacy BIOS mode from an optical drive.

Make sure that your Windows 10 ISO file fits on the DVD disk, in our case we had to burn Windows 10 1803 ISO (64-bit) to a single-layer DVD+R disc 4.7GB.

Burning a DVD disk under macOS can be done with the following Terminal command:

On Windows we recommend using the free ImgBurn app.

Step 3: Boot from your Windows 10 DVD disk

Turn on your mac while holding the “C” key to boot from the optical disk (if you have PCIe drives installed and can’t boot from the disc, remove those PCIe adapters).Proceed with installation normally until you see the “Where do you want to install Windows” drive selection screen.

Step 4: Format the target drive

Press Shift+F10 to launch command prompt. Type the following commands:

Now make sure to select the correct target drive number N (NOT your macOS disk), after that type:

You should now see your drive as Unallocated space.

Press the “New” button to create necessary partitions. There should be only two partitions (for legacy installation, EFI mode creates four) automatically created:

Select the newly created partition 2 and continue with installation normally. Your mac will be rebooted twice.Every reboot do not forget entering the boot menu (by holding the Option key) and selecting ‘Windows’ boot drive there. When finished, boot into Windows.

Step 5: Install Windows drivers and Boot Camp utility

Windows 10 installs all necessary drivers automatically except Bluetooth and internal speaker. These need to be installed from the original Boot Camp package for MacPro5,1.Download and install 7zip, download Brigadier 0.2.4 app, open Windows command prompt where Brigadier is located and type:

When finished, it will create a folder BootCamp-031-11269, you need to install these for Bluetooth and internal speaker correspondingly, make sure you run the command prompt as administrator:

Now we need newer BootCamp drivers intended for iMacPro1,1:

When finished, it will create a folder BootCamp-041-55643, you need to run this command:

When finished, reboot. We also recommend running Apple Software Update to update Wifi drivers:

You probably don’t want to forget installing our awesome Macs Fan Control app, do you? :)

Switching between macOS Mojave & Windows

When you’re in macOS, use Preferences → Startup disk to select a boot drive:

When you’re in Windows, use the Boot Camp Control Panel from your Windows tray to select a boot drive:

This guide is based on this MacRumors thread. Special thanks to h9826790 for sharing his useful experience. Any comments are welcome.

2020 MacBook Pro boot from USB

Starting in 2018 the Macbook Pro includes a secure boot chip that prevents your Macbook from booting windows, linux, BSD, gentoo, Fedora, Atlas Supervisor, other Mac O/S/s on a usb, etc.

You CAN boot a 2018 2019 or 2020 Macbook Pro from USB!

But it does take a few steps to get there.

Step One

Boot into Recovery Mode

To access Recovery Mode, turn off your Macbook, turn it on and hold the Command (⌘) and R keys. Keep holding them through the chime sound until you see the Recovery Screen below…

Yaaay! You entered a secret level with hidden powers!

Step 2

Click on Utlities (on the menu bar at the top of the screen, don’t click on Disk Utlities in the middle of the screen)

Boot From Usb Mac Pro 2010

Select ‘Startup Security Utility’ and you’ll get this screen…

Change the settings for both to the same as the image above.

Secure Boot to No Security

External Boot to Allow booting from external media

Exit out, shut down the laptop.

Step 3

Plug in your bootable USB device and boot up your 2018 2019 Macbook Pro from USB, hold the Command (⌘) key and you’ll see the startup disk screen, select the USB and boot it up.

Caveats, notes and disclaimers.

1. You need an uefi bootable image. (we’re uncertain of other workarounds for grub at this time)
2. You may not have any access to the internal drive. Not sure if it is a linux driver issue or some sort of on chip security, but so far, no access.
3. Leaving ‘external boot allowed’ is a risk that if stolen, someone might be able to access the internal drive.
4. The law of unintended consequences. Apple rarely supports playing around with bootable O/Ss, you could brick an extremely expensive device.
5. Apple does have further detail on the T2 security chip and how to use it. Read more before playing around too much in there.

Boot From Usb Mac Pro Usb

The better option

If you are looking for a great laptop to run NinjaStik we recommend getting an IBM Lenovo T430i for ~$140 and using it. The T430i is one of the best value for $ deals to run a daily use linux based personal laptop. It’s ugly but it is a solid machine.

Boot From Usb Mac Pro 3.0

Using a $140 laptop for linux and not risking your $5000 Macbook Pro is our recommendation.