Do's and Don'ts of installing multiple OSes on MacBook Pro Late 2011

I have successfully installed macOS High Sierra, Windows 10, and Ubuntu 20.04 on MacBook Pro Late 2011, and there were some challenges worth noting down.

Formatting the disk

When booting into recovery mode to format the disk, the installation USB used must be of an OS X (Mavericks, for my case), not a macOS (newer version). I once booted into recovery mode using macOS High Sierra installation USB to format the disk with GUID Partition Map scheme, and then I was unabled to install Windows 10 through VirtualBox. I got the error message "The selected disk is of the GPT partition style." when selecting a partition to install Windows on. 

This is because I tried to install Windows using legacy mode and then Windows required a MBR disk, but it was GPT disk. However, when I booted into recovery mode using OS X Mavericks installation USB instead to format the disk with GPT Partition Table cheme, the error message was gone. Why? because the disk was hybrid MBR, not pure GPT, and so Mac OS saw it as GPT but Windows saw it as MBR. As Windows did not support EFI mode at that time, Apple used hybrid MBR to allow users to install Windows on its machines that used EFI boot.

Partitioning the disk

The disk must be partitioned as needed before installing any OSes on it or one of the OSes won't boot after the partition is resized or a new partition is created. 

At first, I didn't do that. After installing macOS High Sierra and Windows 10, I created another partition from the Windows 10 partition and then Windows stopped booting. It's because of the OS's boot entry is missing from the MBR, and I don't know why but this post claimed to fix that using a third-party tool. Unfortunately, I've never succeeded.

Ordering the partitions

In my case, I have 5 primary partitions:

1. EFI system partition
2. macOS
3. Windows
4. DATA
5. Linux

The first partition was hidden and created automatically by DiskUtility so I shouldn't have mentioned it but this is to show that the DATA partition must be the fourth partition so that it would appear in File Explorer (as I wanted) when booting into Windows. If it was the last one, it wouldn't show up. This is because the disk was MBR to Windows and so it could have only four primary partitions. Windows recognized only the first four partitions and ignored the rest so Linux partition was treated as unallocated space (this can be checked in Disk Management).

In DiskUtility (of OS X Mavericks), the first partition is graphically on top. Since the EFI system partition is not visible in DiskUtility, the macOS partition is on top instead.

Installing Windows using BIOS legacy mode without CD-ROM

Since my CD-ROM drive stopped working a long time ago, I couldn't install Windows with Boot Camp Assistant because my machine, by default, only looked for Windows installation files from the CD-ROM drive but it couldn't find it. 

When I forced the machine to look for the Windows installation files from a USB drive (by holding down the Option key while it's starting), it worked but Windows was installed using EFI mode instead, and the problem with EFI mode is the external monitor is not detected on Windows. This problem only happens on my Mac model, not the newer ones.

Everything worked fine when installing Windows using BIOS legacy mode, and the workaround was installing it through VirtualBox. I noted it down here.

Errors restoring or creating a disk image from a volume using DiskUtility

I'm using Macbook Air running macOS Big Sur, and I was having troubles performing disk restore using DiskUtility.

ERROR 1: I was unable to restore a volume to a new blank disk image I created. 

There could be a couple reasons such as the size of the blank disk image is smaller than the size of the source volume or there was no partition in the disk image (must be manually created at least 1 partition). But, even if I did follow all these requirements, the restore still failed.

ERROR 2: When trying to create a new disk image from a device or folder, I got the error message like "...operation not permitted". 

The function to create a new image from a device/folder is useful because the size of the new disk image will automatically be set to the size of the source device/folder, and the contents of the device/folder are restored (cloned) to the new disk image. 

SOLUTION

The errors occured because DiskUtility did not have enough privileges to perform those operations. After assigning a Full Disk Access permission to DiskUtility, I could restore a volume to a disk image (and vice versa) without any problems.

How to assign Full Disk Access permission to DiskUtility?

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy then select Full Disk Access from the listbox on the left and click on the Plus sign to add DiskUtility to the right listbox and make sure it's checked.

Backing up macOS with Time Machine

I installed macOS Big Sur on my MacBook Air (11-inch 2013) and used Time Machine application to backup the macOS partition to an external USB drive. 

I also created a bootable macOS Big Sur installation USB stick for restoring the changes back in time using Time Machine, or just installing a fresh macOS Big Sur. In fact, I can also boot into Recovery Mode to perform restore or install too (pressing Command + R while the machine is starting). If the hidden Recovery partition that macOS created is also corrupted or erased, the built-in internet Recovery Mode is used instead. The internet Recovery needs WiFi access to download recovery system image from Apple then start the Recovery mode.

Time Machine backs up the neccesary files to an external hard drive and then uses the backup drive to restore the files back in time. Time Machine can be thought of System Restore in Windows (it's not cloning). I formatted the backup drive using Mac OS Extended (journaled) file system but macOS Big Sur's Time Machine reformatted it as APFS (Case-sensitive). 

Backing up with Time Machine

1. Open System Preferences > Time Machine

2. Click on Select Disk... button and choose a drive or a partition to store the backup files. In my case, the partition's name is Time Machine's Backups (MBA-BigSur) as shown in the image below.

3. Click Options... button and make sure to add any drives or paritions other than the one running OS in the exlusion list

4. Uncheck Backup Automatically so it only backs up when neended.

5. Check Show Time Machine in menu bar then the clock icon will appear at the top of the screen

6. Click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and select Back Up Now

ERROR: " This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can't be verified. it may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading"

The error messsage was thrown when running OS X Mavericks Installer (previously downloaded from App Store).

For my case, this is because the installer file was downloaded years ago so the certificate come with it had expired. I should re-download it but it was no longer available on App Store.

Thus, the workaround is to change my machine's date (clock) to the release year of OS X Mavericks. It's easy to change the date if the installer is launched from the running OS X prior to Mavericks, but if it is launched from Recovery mode, it invovles running commands in Terminal (there's enough posts on the net about this though).

Creating OS X Mavericks (or macOS) Bootable USB Drive

When downloading OS X Mavericks from App Store, the installer file's name might be something like  "Install OS X Mavericks.app" and stored in /Application folder.  Double click on the file would launch the installer then lead to restarting machine and installing the OS X Mavericks. 

But, OS X Mavericks was not available on App Store anymore so I downloaded it from someone else's backup on the net. He renamed the file "Install OS X Mavericks.app" to "Mavericks.app" and wrapped it in a DMG file.

I'm using MacBook Air running macOS Big Sur to make this bootable USB drive, just in case my machine fails to boot for some reasons.

Method 1

1. Prepare a USB stick with at least 6 GB then open DiskUtility to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as InstallOSXMavericks.

2. Double click on the DMG file in Finder to mount it and copy the Mavericks.app to the /Applications folder.

3. Open Terminal and run the following command:

sudo /Applications/Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/InstallOSXMavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Mavericks.app --nointeraction

NOTE: For macOS Sierra, the command might fail with the error message below:

/Volumes/NAK-InstallMacOSSierra is not a valid volume mount point.

If it does, run the following command:

sudo plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string "12.6.03" /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Info.plist

4. Restart the machine. Before it starts, press and hold Option key until the boot menu shows up. Choose Install OS X Mavericks and wait to see if it's really bootable.

Method 2

1. Make sure DiskUtility has Full Disk Access permission. If not, assign it the permission, and here is how.

2. Prepare a USB stick with at least 6 GB then open DiskUtility to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as InstallOSXMavericks.

3. Open Finder then double click on the installer file (DMG) to mount it

4. Navigate to the mounted image file then right click on Mavericks.app and select Show Package Contents. After that, open this folder Contents > SharedSupport and double click on InstallESD.dmg file to mount and show it in DiskUtility.

5. Select the USB drive from the side bar then click Restore and choose InstallESD.dmg from "Restore from" combobox and click Restore again.

6. When the restore completes, restart the machine. Before it starts, press and hold Option key until the boot menu shows up. It would not show Install OS X Mavericks like in Method 1 but EFI instead. Choose EFI then wait to see if it's really bootable. There can be another bootable device showing as EFI too. This is confusing and need to guess and try.  

NOTE: I used Method 1 to create a bootable USB for macOS Big Sur too and it worked.

REFERENCE

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Useful apps and browser's extensions for my Macbook Air running macOS Big Sur

Applications

BBEdit

Its free mode has enough features such as rich text formats (eg. line numbers) and multiple opening documents.

Free Download Manager (FDM)

It's free, can download torrents and Youtube videos (in many formats and sizes), and integrate with browsers to capture downloads. iGetter is a good alternative but is supported only by earlier Mac OSes at the moment. iGetter can download a whole website but not torrents and Youtube videos.

VLC

I'm using it to play movie files (MP4). It's easy to add and adjust the color and size of subtitles. I can also adjust the brightness and contrast of a video so that it's not too dark to see.

Khmer Unicode Font Error: unable to type two vowels for one consonant

I can't type two vowels for one consonant in a newly created document of both MS Word and OpenOffice for Mac OS Sierra. I couldn't type the word below pronounced as /pei/.

I tried both ways below but it didn't work.

Surprisingly, it worked for the word 'eat' in Khmer.

This problem didn't happen when I typed the word in Chrome's address bar. I tried to type the word using the fonts Khmer OS System, Khmer OS Content, Khmer OS Battambang, Koh Santepheap, and DaunPenh in MS Word and OpenOffice but still no luck. At last, I found one that worked for me. It was Kh Battambang. I think it came with Mac OS by default because it showed in the Computer list in Font Book application.

Mac OS X Yosemite and laters hurt my eyes

I had been using MacBook Pro 13'' late 2011 for a several years by staring at the screen for all day without any problems. One day, I upgraded from OSX Lion 10.7 to OSX Yosemite 10.10 and then I got headache and eye strain after staring at the screen for about 15 minutes. When I downgraded it back to OS X Lion, the problem was gone. Obviously, the OS X version is the culprit. I then tried OSX v10.11 and macOS Sierra v10.12, and I got the same problem. After that, I bought a MacBook Air 11'' mid 2013 and I experienced the same.

At first, I thought it was because of the new UI design was too bright (not clear) and the font did not look clear so I tried to calibrate the display to make it darker and increase contrast in Accessibility. Everything was better. It was clearer and easier to see. However, the problem still existed. I even copied the Display profile (*.icc files) from OS X Lion and used it on those new OSXs but no luck.

I gave up and sticked to OS X Mavericks for a while. Note that OS X Mavericks and priors are fine. In the beginning of September 2017, I started to learn Swift 4. As Swift 4 is compatible only with OS X 10.10 and laters, I tried to make research on this problem again. I went through several forums and someone said she had the same problem but her eyes seemed to be better when she changed the Display profile to  "sRGB IEC61966-2.1". She said she couldn't see the difference when switching to that profile, but she felt better with switching to that profile. I tried it too but it didn't work. 

After that, I tried the Apple RGB profile, which I copied from Windows 8 I installed on my MacBook Pro 13'', and my eye condition seemed to be 90% better. No pain in the eyes anymore. I could star at the screen for hours. Note that the other display profiles from Windows 8 didn't solve my problem. However, I still felt a little bit fatigue and got a little bit headache though. 

To improve the fatigue eye condition, I then changed the Color Temperature in Night Shift setting to warmer may be at 40%. The headache issue resulted from small system font size. I increased it by decreasing the screen resolution from 1366x768 to 1280x720.

Overall, switching the Display profile, increasing the Color Temperature, and increasing system font size did improve my eye condition about 90% after I've tested it for a few hours. After using it for a few days, I feel my condition has 99% improved. I think my eyes is getting used to it.