Mac Pro never boots first try

Just bought a refurbished Mac Pro and it never boots the first try, (always on the second try,) if it's been turned off for awhile. It clicks and spins a couple times, but no chime and no display. So I hold the power button until it shuts off, then it will boot normally the second attempt.
Another clue, although audio is set to the sound card, the chime is through the onboard speaker when it does boot first time. It seems like the config is lost until power can be applied. Is there a battery power to the mother board missing possibly?
Is this a known problem? Is there a fix? I read many similar complaints on the web. I have had so many problems getting this computer ordered, now it arrives and is broken, very bummed that Apple cannot get my order correct multiple times, then at last sends me a 'broken' computer
thanks
td

For all of you who may come accross this thread - I have a solution, even though the thread is a bit old.
I have a refurbished Mac Pro Early 2009 and it also never booted on the first try (identical to tduncan). I brought it to the Apple genius bar to get it fixed, they replaced the start button components. When I got home, the very same problems appeared. After several calls to Apple support (I had purchased the extended warranty) and a return to the Apple store again for repairs, the problem still was not resolved. I gave up and simply accepted that it was either the video card (NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB) as had been suggested in some help forums or still a problem with the start button. I started leaving the Mac Pro on all the time, and when I did turn it off, I knew that I would have to let it try to boot up, let it stall, then restart the process by turning off and turning on the Mac Pro again. Aside from this irritation, the Mac Pro runs really well, and I have upgraded it a lot over the past 2 years.
Long story short, I ended up keeping an old PC to play one of my favourite games (Mech Warrior 3 and 4) and one day, the PC started acting up. After a lot of frustration (which is why I left the Windows world), I ended up replacing the internal battery and everything was fine.
I came accross this thread yesterday, and the suggestion from Limnos about the weak PRAM battery reminded me of the old PC and how it ran perfectly after replacing the motherboard battery for the timer. Today, I purchased a new internal backup battery at a local Canadian Tire, swapped batteries and instantly, the problem was resolved. I have tested it several times today, and the pattern of "2 tries" to start is definetely broken
Funny though that the Genius bar didnt figure this - sometimes it's the little things that are overlooked! I am posting this just in case anyone else runs into a similar situation!
Cheers
Stu

Similar Messages

Mac Pro never sleeps after upgrading to Mavericks

Hi Folks
Just realised that after upgrading to Mavericks from Mountain Lion, my Mac Pro never goes into sleep mode after the time set for it in System Preferences > Energy Saver.
This never happened with Mountain Lion.
Any body here having the same issue?
FYI - This is a 2012 Mac Pro having duo 6-cores, 64 GB RAM, 1 x SSD and 3 x HDD.
Thanks you for your comments.
B

Test after each of the following steps that you haven’t already tried:
Step 1
Take all the steps suggested in this support article. That's the starting point for any further effort to solve the problem. Skipping any of those steps may mean that the problem won't be solved. Note that, as stated in the article, the computerwill not sleep if Internet Sharing is enabled.
Step 2
From the menu bar, select
 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Accessibility ▹ Speakable Items: Off
Step 3
Select
 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Bluetooth ▹ Advanced...
and uncheck both boxes marked
Open Bluetooth Setup Assistant at startup if...
Step 4
Reset the SMC.
Step 5
Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Post for further instructions.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal. Don’t launch any applications at first. If sleep still doesn’t work properly, back up all data and reinstall the OS. After that, if you still have the issue, make a “Genius” appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.
If sleep now works as expected, go on to the next step.
Step 6
Still in safe mode, launch the usual set of applications that are running when you have the problem, including your login items, one at a time, testing after each one. Some applications may not work; skip them. You might be able to identify the cause of the problem this way.
Step 7
If sleep is still working after you’ve launched all the usual applications, reboot as usual (not in safe mode) and test again. If sleep still works, you’re done, at least for the moment.
If you still have the sleep issue after booting out of safe mode, post again.

Mac pro cannot boot after upgrade to 10.8.3

My Mac Pro cannot boot after upgrade to 10.8.3. Anything firmware I can reset or how should I do.
I am using a early 2008 Mac Pro

Can you boot into safe mode? http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455
If not, how about Recovery? http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
If you can, run Disk Utlity and repair the disk. You can try rebooting normally, but I would just reinstall after quitting Disk Utility.

Mac Pro 2006 boots into OS fine but graphics freezes on grey apple logo

When I boot my Mac Pro it boots into Mac OS X fine. I can access it remotely and all seems fine however the monitor only displays the grey apple with the whit background. I know the graphics card isnt over heating because I have removed any dirt/dust and had additional fans blowing the card and it is running cool.
does this mean the graphics card is dead? if so what can i replace it with as the machine is now 5 years old?
the current graphics card is a GeForce 8800 GT.

That last one is not a good sign. Kernel panic when starting from an installer DVD either mean you are using an installer version that cannot boot your model or there's a hardware problem.
I'm thinking your original thought may be valid. It would be provable if you had another GPU to try, but if you don't then I suppose you should replace the one you have. Of those available the ATI 5770 is an excellent replacement choice for both performance and cost unless you want to look for a different replacement card on eBay.

HT4818 Boot from laptop's Windows Hard Drive in Mac Pro via Boot Camp

I have a work laptop that is on Windows 7. It's a work hard drive so I don't want to mess with it (particularly as it's encrypted). I basically want to use it on my Mac Pro rather than my piece of junk standard issue laptop when I'm working from home.
What I would like to do is pull the drive out, put it in my Mac Pro and boot from it using Boot Camp. Guidance I've seen so far talks about not being able to use an external drive but having to partition an internal drive. However, if I've got everything on a separate drive (i.e. my laptop's drive), will this work?
Thanks!

Thanks for the quick (and no nonsense) response!

I have put Windows 8 on my Mac pro, in boot camp, no I am unable to load drivers

I have put Windows 8 on my Mac pro, in boot camp, no I am unable to load drivers to get it working as it should. I have tryed Winows 7 Con, in setup.

Did you download the drivers to a FAT32 formatted USB drive per the instructions?

Mac pro wont boot or chime

Mac pro wont boot or chime

you don't know how to provide more details or what you have tried or are you just lost?
What OS is on it? and this is a 4-drive 65 lb workstation and not a MacBook Pro notebook.
Safe Boot
Lion or ML Recovery Mode
Reset SMC
Kernel Panic
Resolving Kernal Panics
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10344626-263.html
http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Troubleshooting-Os-X-Kernel-Panics.htm
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742
Mac OS X Help
Isolating Issues in Mac OS
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388
https://www.apple.com/support/osx/
https://www.apple.com/support/quickassist/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/help/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
Get Help with your Product
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304725
TimeMachine 101
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Mac OS X & Mountain Lion Community
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/os_x_mountain_lion?view=discussio ns
Recovery Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
ExpressLane
https://expresslane.apple.com/
Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1367
And just in case....
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro

MobileSTOR MS2UT + esata + USB + mac pro = never-ending problems

Hey gang,
I seemed to have entered a perfect storm here:
I had purchased the *MobileSTOR MS2UT 2 Bay SATA to eSATA/USB 2.0 RAID 0/1* Enclosure initially for a *dual 800 quicksilver G4* mac that I had, looking for a hardware-based Raid solution for back ups and to not burden the G4 processor. I have replaced the G4 with an early *2008 2.8 dual quad core mac pro*. After two machines and two different PCI sata cards, I've had no luck....
(website for the above enclosure)
http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2ut.html
For starters, in the G4, I had a quality Seritek/1ve2+2 controller that had no problem with two other single drive enclosures, but failed with the MS2UT.
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/
A glib response from Seritek support says that I should use their enclosure. Digging around I find that I need a controller card that can handle a port multiplier enclosure rather than just any serial ata enclosure. Seems silly to me that the user has to dig for this. I mean the USB & FIREWIRE interfaces don't seem to care: it says USB/FIREWIRE on the effing box of both the controller and on the drive, badda-bing, badda boom: it works. Whats with this high maintenance of esata. Well you get roughly 2-3x the performance so Ok, maybe its worth it.
Well, with the macpro on the horizon,, I give up on the G4, close that unsolved mystery. For the mac pro I figure PCIe, a modern computer, no problem. I get the computer, fish around the internet for an esata PCIe card, then I come across this review of the WiebeTech SilverSATA II which appears to be similar to that of the MobileSTOR:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/wiebetech/silver2/
It appears that the unit has specific tastes as far as having the right card to make it bootable, multiport aware, etc... (the Sonnet Tempo 4+4 card works but its a PCIx card, not PCIe)
Like I said: install a bootable Mac OS on any USB/firewire drive, plug it into any card, and it works... estata... its russian roulette...
Ok so I round up some vendors, (firmtek, sonnet, Highpoint) send them emails to see what they think: if their latest cards will work with the MS2UT... They are all over the place.. they think it may work, they dunno... it should work, they haven't tested it... then they try to push their own enclosure hardware on me. I mean see an astrologist or have your palm read.. it seems more likely you'll get a more accurate answer from them, rather than vendors... props to Sonnet, though, they list compatibility right on the page with their controller.
then 10.6 comes out... and you email vendors about compatibility on that OS, and they don't even email you back.
So I find this review of the highpoint rocket raid for the mac on the great sight: Barefeats.com
http://www.barefeats.com/hard119.html
to make a long story short:
+KEY FEATURES of the "eSATA for Mac"+
+1. Dual eSATA ports+
+2. 32 and 64-bit EFI onboard+
+3. Able to boot Mac OS X+
+4. Plug and Play for (Oxford and Silicon Image chipset) external storage+
enclosures
+5. 4x PCIe rating+
+6. Support for Direct Attached and Port Multiplied enclosures+
+7. RAID 0, 1, 5, and JBOD support using browser-based manager+
+8. Native support for Snow Leopard+
+9. Compatible with 2006 - 2009 Mac Pro+
I should be set, right? WRONG!
I email highpoint, detailing that I planned to mix both Port multiplied (PM) and direct access (DA) enclosures on the same card at the same time. They say maybe (only describing the PM enclosure, not even mentioning the DA enclosure compatibility as I specified), since its a raid card and I intended to use it with an enclosure with its own raid hardware, however they say they see no issues. Well it shows they don't even know their own hardware: Their docks say that the card supports PM enclosures as well as DA (direct access) enclosures. Their web based software even shows the two as separate categories. What is buried in the manual and not cleared up by tech support or their product page is that YOU CAN'T MIX PM AND DA ENCLOSURES ON THE CARD AT THE SAME TIME!!! I explained more in the paragraph above than any tech support from any company. Unbelievable where support has gone these days.
I discover the above because I found the card at Fry's believe it not and since they have a generous return policy I tried it out and learned the above the hard way. No dice on the MS2UT with what is perhaps the most forgiving esata card for the mac.
So more hunting on the web, this time the enclosure's manufacture site: sans digital.
http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2ut.html
...clicking on the accessories tab I find several esata adapter cards... funny that they include ones that don't appear to support PM enclosures... Anyway, I study two that state they supports port multipliers:
http://www.sansdigital.com/adapters/ha-san-4espcix2.html:
http://www.sansdigital.com/adapters/ha-dat-4espcie.html
Ok, I may not get a bootable enclosure.. I just want to get this thing working in esata since cloning my internal raid on the mac pro takes 8 hours using usb, and my main purpose is to maintain a clone so I make my compromise.
I should be set, right? WRONG!
reading the fine print on both cards it says:
*(Please note that the host adapter card is based on Silicon Image chipset, which currently only support up to MAC OS 10.5.1 by Silicon Image.)*
I do more research, it seems any manufacturer using chips by Silicon Image will have an issue with 10.6 macs! On some websites it says Silicon Image will never release a driver. On firmtek it says they make their own driver and swears that it works. At the Silicon Image website they say they are an OEM provider so don't bother them, and that its up to the vendor to make a compatible driver. Sheesh!!
I don't get it.. whats the point in having an esata sticker if it appears to come in more flavors than an ice cream shop!
Oh and it gets better: I go to the sonnet site, thinking they have to have something that works, looking at their latest tempo SATA E4P:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposatae4p.html
well, the fine print is EXHAUSTIVE, but again props to Sonnet for making it crystal clear:
(4) Sonnet Tempo cards are compatible with most external SATA storage. However, external hard drives with USB 2.0/eSATA dual interface based on the Oxford Semiconductor OXU931DS storage controller chip may not be compatible with Mac OS X when connected via SATA. Known issues are kernel panics occurring when the drive is connected, or the drive not being recognized by the operating system.
+Summary of external SATA storage+
+• Storage with eSATA alone +
Compatible
+• Storage with triple interfaces +
Compatible
+• Storage with eSATA plus Firewire 400 and/or 800 +
Compatible
+• Storage with port multiplier support (multiple drives) +
Compatible
+• Storage with RAID 0, 1, or 5 (multiple drives) +
Compatible
+• Storage with eSATA plus USB (based on JMicron 20366) +
Compatible
+ these compatible drives include, but are not limited to:+
+- OWC Mercury On-the-Go USB 2.0/eSATA 2.5" portable+
+• Storage with eSATA plus USB (based on Oxford OXU931DS) +
+not compatible+
+ these incompatible drives include, but are not limited to:+
+- Western Digital My Book™ Premium ES Edition™+
+- Seagate Technology FreeAgent™ Pro+
+Advanced users note that this card is not yet compatible in full 64-bit boot. Snow Leopard default boots in 32-bit mode, except in an Xserve.+
So in short: if you have an enclosure that has both USB and esata, but does not use the JMicron 20366, then it will not be recognized by the card. If you have an enclosure with three interfaes: USB, FW and esata, you're fine. Keep in mind too: most manufacturers don't put the source manufacturer of their chipsets on the box. So I ask..
*HOW IS THE CONSUMER SUPPOSED TO KNOW!*
I swear, a perfect analogy is if I go to best buy, buy a toshiba DVD player only to discover it doesn't play DVD's that contain movies produced by Sony Pictures..because its not a a Sony/columbia House movie. You think consumers would put up with that crap? UNBELIEVABLE...
So now I have this really versatile enclosure that apparently can't run on Mac 10.6 with ANY esata controller for the mac. I really like the design of the enclosure, with its hardware based raid that is hot swappable and has a small footprint. However there seems to be no way to get a controller card for this device that will work on a 10.6 mac.
I guess whats inferred is that you should get an enclosure with the fewest variety of ports, i.e. esata/fw/usb... ironically if it has all three, you are ok, but not if it has usb/esata. Being that USB is the most popular, thats not easy. I'm looking to contact Sans Digital to see if they will exchange it for me, possible for a model with esata/fw800 or an esata only model, if it exists. My last resort is to just use it as a USB drive (my intention was to use it as a clone of my system, with the added security that the enclosure makes a copy of a copy in raid 1), however its like 3x as time consuming than esata.
If anyone has a working MobileSTOR MS2UT/wiebetech SilverSATA II in a 10.5 mac pro, please respond to me with your config. Thanks for reading!

Thank you hatter for your reply.
I'm familiar with OWC, as I've done business with them since 2001, as well as XLR8.
I have a 2008 mac pro so the 2009 model related problems are not an issue in my situation
As I stated above I go to reputable vendors for my hardware who have specific mac experience. I look specifically for hardened compatibility so that there is support for things like deep sleep. The Sans Digital enclosure was over $200..it was not cheap. The USB/Esata combo is the most common interface for the enclosure storage market. Having a compatibility issue is a vendor fault, not the buyer. Having minutiae flavors of esata compatability based on chipsets roulette wheel is inexcusable. The enclosure needs that I have is for the medium to be removable and be able to be rebuilt at the hardware level, i.e. at the enclosure's control panel. To the mac its just a drive. The hotswap and back up is transparent to the OS and mac hardware, and allows me to change from raid 0/1 and do back up right from the enclosure interface.
So far I haven't had problems with USB/Firewire. Meanwhile Esata to me has been nothing but beta testing for vendors and seeing how the chipset manufacturers have gone loosey-goosey on following spec and just dump cheap chinese crap into the market with no pride.
for comparison:
USB/FW, PATA, SATA, SCSI
1) industry standard
2) native drivers
3) bootable. Period.
4) buy a controller card/raid card, plug it in, format, it works even through major OS upgrades.
5) USB/FW: Hot-swapable. Yes it really does work.
Esata:
1) Multiple standards (again, look at the Sonnet website to see the minefield one has to walk through to mate a controller card to an enclosure)
2) non native drivers. Buying an esata card is like marrying into the vendors family. Plus if you manage to get things working and do an OS upgrade, you are playing russian roulette. If you system boots off it, then get life insurance because you may kill yourself.
3)Not bootable and no one seems to care to explain why. Whats odd is that some earlier PCIx cards were bootable (like sonnet Temp 4x4) but their PCIe successors aren't. Not sure if this has to do with the host computer BIOS and/or the current chipsets from SI which rely on custom drivers from the vendors. Another lovely example of this are the ODD_SATA ports on the Mac pro: storage only, not bootable. Sure it makes sense now that I've learned it the hard way, however to users of FW/USB and even IDE, one would think that motherboard ports are bootable. Yes I know this is a mac bios thing and its not even considered as part of the feature set of the computer
4) As I've shown, each controller card seems to be unique, even if its from the same vendor. Even the drivers vary from card to card! Heck even the vendors are unsure as to how compatible their controller cards are with various enclosures. That is proprietary, not industry standard. OS upgrades doesn't seem to provide native driver support for Direct access and/or port multiplying interfaces. The problem with this is that film/video users like myself like to build bullet proof systems, and with raids that I've built from IDE, FW, or USB, I've never had the minutiae of compatibility issues as I've had with esata. I installed an Acard raid controller in my dual 800 back in 2001, installed the drives and forgot about it. it just worked through multiple OS upgrades. Not sure whats gong on with esata.
5) Can't call it hot swappable if I can't get the **** thing to wok in the first place.
My analysis is this: Esata is basically a proprietary format to the vendor that sells the hardware, while USB/FW is an industry standard. I bought a quality enclosure that said "esata", I bought a quality controller that said "esata", it didn't work. I had to learn the hard way about DA and PM enclosures and now about chipset conflicts. I've built computers since the late 80's amiga days, hot-rodding that computer well beyond spec and with custom cooling. SCSI terminators and IDE master/slave issues were easy-cheesey because they followed straightforward rules. This esata stuff is just plain sloppy work on the part of vendors and as Danny Glover said I'm getting to old for this **** as far as being a beta tester for hardware.

Cannot Complete Installation of Vista with Mac Pro and Boot Camp

I only have one hard drive with my Mac Pro, and I partitioned the drive into two sections with boot camp and restarted with my Vista 64 bit Ultimate CD.
I have tried formatting the partition with Vista and it still gives me the dreaded error message of "windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria". I've tried deleting the partition during installation, and making a new partition with Vista, reformatting, then restarting the computer. Same message.
I don't know what to do. I've tried like mad searching for topics like this one here, but every one of them deals with installing vista on a second dedicated hard drive on the Mac Pro. I only have one. How do I get this to work?
Please help if you can. I would REALLY appreciate it. I'll be watching the thread. Thank you!!

Loyalty4Life wrote:
Thank you for your reply! I'll be here all night.
I have the 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. I tried installing Vista ultimate with my 32 bit software, but I still get the same message (I own both legally, btw).
Thanks for your help.
Several things to do:
Run OS-X Disk utility and repair the disk if necessary, and file permissions.
Be sure your HD has the GUID partition scheme and if it has SMART that it's OK
Zap the PRAM
Be sure you are logged in as administrator when creating the BC partition and starting the installation of Windows from Leopard
When I installed Vista Ultimate 64-bit, I was using BootCamp beta, 1.2 or 1.3. I created the partition with BootCamp Assistant.app as you did. It's a 60GB partition that I formatted with NTFS with BC.
After starting the install in Tiger, I then simply inserted the Vista 64-bit DVD and that was it.
It just installed.
Ditto with XP-Pro on my other MBP. Zero problems with BC. It was also done with a beta, BC1.0.
I have never installed Windows using Leopard. When I updated to Leopard from Tiger nothing changed, but there seem to be more problems with Leopard and BC2.0 than there were with Tiger and the beta versions.
There are no requirements about legality until after the OS is installed, so that's a moot point.
There are some install DVDs that are in ISO format and they won't work, but it seems that yours is working but not finding a suitable volume.
You might try reformatting the BC partition with BootCamp assistant as FAt32 and seeing if that works, but you are limited to 32GB if you do that, but it would be a good test. Vista should then format it into NTFS.
Be sure that your Leopard OS is fully backed up because stuff happens when you keep fooling around with partitions.
Also look through this forum for similar problems.

2006 Mac Pro Cold Boot Failure

Hi all,
I have problems with 2006 Mac Pro. It fails cold boot at 100%, first thing in the morning only. So I'm seeking expert advice.
The spec is,
Xeon 5355 2.66GHz x2 (Octo cores)
ATI Radeon 5770(Apple Genuine)
8GB Memory(4x1GB kingston, 4x1GB OWC)
500GBx2 1TBx2 HDDs
I disassembled and cleaned PSU and Fans, reapplying thermal pastes on CPUs and North Bridge a month ago.
Then I booted, system froze at desktop, so I shut it down, reset PRAM & SMC. it booted normally but the upper riser card wasn't detected at all. I cleaned the slot contact and reseated DIMM modules. It was detected after that.
Everything worked fine for a few days but then I got random kernel panics, reseated RAM, reinstalled Snow Leopard but still got random kernel panics. Then ran AHT for a couple of hours and got an error code 4MEM/6....
I contacted OWC and they sent me a new set of memory modules. While waiting for the replacement, no kernel panics at all but DVD drive died as well as IDE cable, so I replaced both.
I got the replacement RAM but past a week, MP fails cold boot every morning. Below is what's happening...
(1) With Kingston Memory, CPU B error LED is lit, I press SYS_RST, one of DIMM LED is then lit (always DIMM A1). Or sometimes, Power-LED is blinking.
(2) With OWC memory, boots normally, then kernel panic within a few minutes.
(3) With OWC memory, CPU B error LED is lit, I press SYS_RST, one of DIMM LED is then lit (always DIMM B1)
*(1) with new and old riser cards
*(3) after replaced 2 riser cards
Replacing riser cards didn't help. After these happen, I shut down by pressing power button for seconds and it boots normally without a hitch. Never get kernel panics nor system freeze. It means when it warms up, MP just works just like it should.
Replaced so far,
-- IDE cable (Apple Genuine)
-- DVD drive (Optiarc AD-7200A)
-- 4GB (1GBx4) OWC memory
-- RTC battery CR2032
-- 2 riser cards
Is the logic board dead or PSU or memory modules are still bad?
Any ideas?
Thanks

I have a Mac Pro dual 2.8 ghz quad core, circa 2008. Recently, I have been required to depress the power button to end a failed cold boot, then press again to boot, usually with success.
Every hard restart freeze, and can guarantee you end up with
corrupt caches, corrupt file system, corrupt directory.
Safe Boot is not effective in such cases, fsck from single user mode has a better chance.
Booting from another hard drive, install your bought copy of Alsoft Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory (it has deep scavenge files also).
The longer you continue to do just Safe Boot and continue using it, the more trouble and less likelihood of being able to repair the drive.
SMART is not smart enough, it tells you about the past, not what could likely happen, or if you have had bad sectors and I/O errors.
Have bootable backup clones and a drive that is a clean Apple OS and drivers that isn't used except for repairs and maintenance. Don't rely on just Apple Disk Repair.

Mac Pro cold boot failure rate at 50%

I have a Mac Pro dual 2.8 ghz quad core, circa 2008. Recently, I have been required to depress the power button to end a failed cold boot, then press again to boot, usually with success.
I do hear a chime, but in the failed situation, it never progresses to the login screen.
I've reset the pram a few times, this doesn't seem to fix anything, as the system always boots if you try enough times (knock on wood).
I've verified the s.m.a.r.t. status and the disk, it all reports back as fine.
I am writing this post from a "safe boot" hope to see if that works on the next cold boot.
Other posts on this forum suggest it may be a weak pram battery so I will try that, the computer is getting on in years. However a similar post on this forum was marked as answered because the problem reported stated it did not chime from the external speakers. I don't care about that! So here's a new thread about documenting and hopefully solving the actual problem.

I have a Mac Pro dual 2.8 ghz quad core, circa 2008. Recently, I have been required to depress the power button to end a failed cold boot, then press again to boot, usually with success.
Every hard restart freeze, and can guarantee you end up with
corrupt caches, corrupt file system, corrupt directory.
Safe Boot is not effective in such cases, fsck from single user mode has a better chance.
Booting from another hard drive, install your bought copy of Alsoft Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory (it has deep scavenge files also).
The longer you continue to do just Safe Boot and continue using it, the more trouble and less likelihood of being able to repair the drive.
SMART is not smart enough, it tells you about the past, not what could likely happen, or if you have had bad sectors and I/O errors.
Have bootable backup clones and a drive that is a clean Apple OS and drivers that isn't used except for repairs and maintenance. Don't rely on just Apple Disk Repair.

New mac pro, randomly booting into safe sleep

Almost every time I boot up my mac pro (early 08, 8 core) I get to the apple logo but don't hear the boot up chime and then see this http://img33.imageshack.us/i/img0515l.jpg/
I think this is the safe sleep mode progress bar, and it starts loading but stops where it is in the picture (and sometimes loads a few bars less) and I can't do anything else.
On occasion, it just decides out of the blue to allow me to actually get to my desktop and everything works fine until I shut it down or restart, but the next time it boots up the same thing happens.
Can anyone please help me out ? This is the first time I've ever had a problem this irritating with any apple product, and hope it has an easy fix.
Thanks, karl.

I would try using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk.
You could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.
Then Repair Permissions.
 DALE

New Mac Pro (Intel) booting a Power Mac (PC) OS

I have the newest version of the Mac Pro G5 and I'd like to know.... if by installing the OS drive from the older PC based G5, can I still access it as a mountable drive and more importantly, can I make it a bootable drive and boot from it, running the older OS ?
The old drive is running 10.5.8.... it's going into the latest Mac Pro G5. My instincts tell me "no" but it sure would be convenient while I grab some things from my older drive.
Thanks!

Welcome and hope you get a lot of fun and enjoyment from your Intel Mac!
No way can you boot from a G5 OS, even the Apple Partition Table has been known to cause trouble, or the presence of the OS.
The Mac Pro is never called by or use "G5" which refers to 5th generation PowerPC.
Best bet is pull the data you want off the drive and initialize it.
Also, using migration assistant is well known for causing so much trouble and mischief, strongly recommended not to use it for apps, just your data, media and preference files (mail, web etc) and do clean install of your apps.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350
Even if most apps are Universal Binary, it doesn't take much, not worth the savings, if you do go against instinct, I'd actually make backup images / clones first. May as well get a good backup set with SuperDuper to start off on right foot.
The newest Mac Pro (Intel, Xeon processor "Nehalem"). And your Mac will come with 10.6.2+ build. It would be a stretch (of the imagination) to boot properly.

Looking for Mac Pro comparisons to first Mac Pro

I have a Mac Pro Quad bought the same day the first intel mac pros came out. I had a horrible experience with my local Apple Store at the Summit in the Birmingham, AL area which was followed by an even worse experience with the Apple Online support. After standing at the Mac Pro waiting for 45 minutes at the store without anyone approaching me at all, I had to leave and then called the same store during my last 15 minutes of standing there to see if someone who answered the phone would come to the front of the store. After I left it was 25 minutes later before someone finally answered the phone. They tried locating anyone in the store and finding that no person there had a clue they forwarded me to the Apple Care line. Again after a 15 minute wait for someone there I thought I had someone who would answer my question and she got lots of info and was looking up my computer details and was about to answer the question and she accidentally hung up on me and never called back - knowing that I have no way of getting back in touch with her. Over an hour and a half shot with no answer.
Now - what was the question - I have, as I said, an original Mac Pro (dual processor - duo core 2.66 Ghz with 4 GB Ram). I want real accurate net processor comparison data with the current dual Quad core Mac Pro computer. I don't just want to hear that "its a lot faster". The Apple website compares the previous 8 core with the current 8 core but nothing else. I would be happy with an accurate Specmark comparison. Other than basic browsing and email the vast majority of my work on the computer is video editing in Final Cut Pro and working with Adobe's Master Collection - Photoshop CS5, Premiere Pro, Flash, and Illustrator.
Since Apple has failed miserably at helping me I am hoping there might be someone here with some clue as to what I am looking for. The website compares todays 8 core with today's 12 core and shows that for $1,500 more you get 33% speed improvement. Naturally that is not a good return but I am 100% confident that data exists somewhere that accurately compares my computer to the latest 8 core Mac Pro.
Thanks

I would direct you to Geekbench, Barefeats, MacPerformanceGuide for a couple starters.
4GB RAM is/was very minimal and basic.
What do you use and do on Mac Pro matters a lot as to what to expect.
The 3.33GHz 6-core with SSD boot drive would be good, with 3-4 x 8GB RAM.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2538895

Mac Pro not booting from CD's using 'C'

All of a sudden I am unable to boot from a CD. Every disk that I try will not boot. The CD drive will try to read for 5 minutes, then crash with that different language please restart your computer crash screen. I've tried DISKWARRIOR and MacOS X Leopard. They will not boot. I've cleaned the disks and reset the PRAM, but still won't work. All external connections are unplugged.
3 months ago, it was working perfectly, I even did a clean install of Leopard. The only thing that was changed in my system, was an upgrade to the NVIDIA GeForce 88GT, but why would using a different video card force a crash during a CD boot?
Otherwise, my MacPro is working perfectly and the disk has no errors. I can read, write, install apps and run movies on the CD ROM drives. but cannot boot

Recently, I bought diskwarrior but it doesn't boot. I tried the Leopard install to test it out. That doesn't work, then I called Alsof and they said it should boot on my current system.
DiskWarrior will not boot on a Mac Pro (Early 2008).
"All Mac models meeting the system requirements for DiskWarrior *except the new Mac Pro and Xserve models introduced on 01/08/2008, the MacBook Air introduced on 01/15/2008, the MacBook/MacBook Pro models introduced on 02/26/2008 and the iMac models introduced on 04/28/2008* can be started from the CD."
<http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/support.html>
If you want to use DiskWarrior, you need to put it on another drive or partition containing OSX 10.5.4
Therefore, all of sudden nothing boots. Like I said, the only change I did was to replace the video card.
That's why the Leopard DVD won't boot. The Leopard DVD that came with the computer doesn't have drivers for the new graphics card. If you still have the old card, install it, install Leopard, update to 10.5.4, then put in the new graphics card.

Mac Pro never boots first try

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