Mac Pro will not boot from cd or external drive

My Mac has an issue whith the boot drive, and I would like to format the drive and reinstall OS-X Mountain Lion and then use Time Machine to resore the Data. When I try to boot my Early 2009 Mac Pro (OS-X 10.8) using the option key, it loads the scrren that allows me to choose among the bootable drives. Once I choose either an external drive or CVD, it loads to the apple screen, stays there for about 5 minutes, then loads the OS on the main drive... Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Bill Mueller

At first I was just going to say it sounds like you have a bad optical drive, but then you had to go and say that it also won't boot from a HDD.
That just makes things a whole lot worse.
Start by removing the side cover and checking the RAM to see if any of the LEDs are lit up indicating bad RAM. Usually if there's any bad RAM found, it will just automatically disable that stick, but maybe yours isn't for some reason.
Look for any other LEDs that may be lit. Generally speaking, the only time you should see an LED (outside of the power LED) lit consistently is if there's a problem.
You should also see if you can get Apple Hardware Test to run, which may or may not find some problem.
But sorry to say, it's sounding very suspiciously like a bad logic board.
One other thing to try, is putting the SL drive into a different slot. So if you were putting it in slot 2, try slot 3 or 4. If you just have a bad SATA port, you might be able to just work around that until you get a new system.
If by chance this system is still under warranty, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, RUN to the nearest AASP or Apple store to make it THEIR problem to sort out.

Similar Messages

Mac Pro will not boot from Leopard or any CD or DVD install disk

My Mac Pro wont boot from my Leopard install DVD. It never gets by the gray screen, then after several minutes the screen scrolls down black and says I need to restart my computer. I tried my Tiger install disk and it still wont boot from that DVD. Held down the "C", used "option" and selected DVD and still no boot. I can boot from one HD that has Leopard 10.5.8, but another HD with Snow Leopard 10.6.3 will not boot. The HD with Snow Leopard shows up as "EFI Boot" not the name I gave that HD when I startup using the "option" key. Any help would be appreciated.

At first I was just going to say it sounds like you have a bad optical drive, but then you had to go and say that it also won't boot from a HDD.
That just makes things a whole lot worse.
Start by removing the side cover and checking the RAM to see if any of the LEDs are lit up indicating bad RAM. Usually if there's any bad RAM found, it will just automatically disable that stick, but maybe yours isn't for some reason.
Look for any other LEDs that may be lit. Generally speaking, the only time you should see an LED (outside of the power LED) lit consistently is if there's a problem.
You should also see if you can get Apple Hardware Test to run, which may or may not find some problem.
But sorry to say, it's sounding very suspiciously like a bad logic board.
One other thing to try, is putting the SL drive into a different slot. So if you were putting it in slot 2, try slot 3 or 4. If you just have a bad SATA port, you might be able to just work around that until you get a new system.
If by chance this system is still under warranty, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect $200, RUN to the nearest AASP or Apple store to make it THEIR problem to sort out.

2009 Mac Pro will not boot up under Windows

I have an Early 2009 Mac Pro system (Mac Pro 4,1) and I've had this system for 3 years already and have been working under OS X with this system ever since I purchased it.
However, when I tried to boot off my Windows disk, something very interesting happens. The Mac Pro WILL NOT boot up off the Windows disk or a known working Windows partition if two monitors are connected. Upon holding down the option key and selecting the Windows partition, I will get a black screen on one monitor (the one connected via Mini Displayport) and the other screen receives no signal and will enter standby and the system is halted. It does not respond to keystrokes, there is no hard drive activity, no measured power increase on the UPS, no apparent network activity, nothing. The only way to exit this scenario (from what I can tell) is to power off the machine, disconnect the display on DVI, power on the machine again, select the Windows partition wait for the system to reach the login window and reconnect the DVI monitor (at which time Windows recognizes it immediately and the system works fine again).
My question to the community is, does anybody know why this is happening and is there a known fix for this? Quite frankly, having to disconnect a monitor just to restart is very tedious and frustrating.
I have two Samsung P2350 monitors attached to an ATI Radeon HD 4870 (512MB, from Apple). One is monitor is connected via directly DVI and the other is using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter. Both monitors work fine under OS X with no issue. At first, I thought that this may be a driver issue on the Windows side and after installing all the latest updates and drivers the issue is still apparent. From what I can tell, this doesn't seem like a software issue but rather a firmware or EFI issue as this happens before Windows even loads.
If anyone knows of a fix or what to do in this situation, or if you are also having this issue, I would love to hear your input!
Thank you!
For the record, I am running all the latest software builds on the OS X side (10.7.4, not that it would really matter at this point). I have also disconnected all unnecessary equipment in a trial and error scenario but the results are still the same.
The system passes all ASD testing.
The full specification of the computer and all connected equipment are as follows:
2009 Mac Pro (4,1) 8-Core
2x Intel Xeon Nehalem 2.66GHz Quad-Core CPUs
16GB DDR3 ECC 1066MHz RAM (Apple Branded)
Two OWC 120GB SSDs (One for OS X, the other for Windows 7 x64) - These are in place of my optical drives.
4x 2TB WD Black Hard drives for storage.
Two Samsung P2350 Monitors connected via DVI. (One using a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter).

In Windows I am using the latest (12.4) Catalyst Software Suite, 64 bit of course, downloaded directly from AMD's site after installing the drivers from Boot Camp.
As for installing Windows I used an original (not burned) installation media (Disk is in a pristine condition). And yes, Windows is fine, the problem just seems to be getting the system to boot up Windows with that second monitor. However if the "problem monitor" is disconnected the system boots fine 100% of the time and connecting it later after booting the system will still operate properly.
For the sake of arguement I swapped monitor cables and connected the "second" monitor to the mini displayport adapter to verify that it wasn't a cabling issue and I'm still yielding the same issues.
As for GPU testing, I've played games (Crysis, Grand Theft Auto IV, Battlefield 3, etc.) and I've had no issues with the card or stability.
You would think that Apple would try to find a fix for this, especially considering the caliber of this machine.

Mac Pro will not restart from dropdown menu

Hi all,
My Mac Pro will not restart from the dropdown menu or when clicking the 'restart computer' when installing software updates. I have an external firewire hard drive hooked up as part of my backup process. It contains a clone of my startup disk.
I have tried disconnecting the firewire drive, rebooting then attempting to restart from the dropdown menu. Still no joy. I always have to end up shutting down manually by holding the power button in and then restarting with the power button.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
Dennis

You might try Safe Mode (It will take more time to startup in Safe Mode because it runs a directory check.)
If your Shutdown functions correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> Login Items, and remove them. Boot normally and test. If not go to ~(yourHome)/Library/Contextual Menu Items and move whatever is there to the desktop. Then do the same with /Library/Contextual Menu Items. Lastly, try moving ~(yourHome)/Library/Fonts to your desktop and restarting.
Log out/in or restart, if that sorts it start putting items back one at a time until you find the culprit.
EDIT: Also, if you can launch Activity Monitor in your Utilities folder and see if you can find the process that is still running.
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen.

My Mac pro will not boot. it gets stuck on the grey screen. What can I do?

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
If using 10.7 or later, the Installer/Utilities DVD has been replaced with a special emergency partition on the Hard drive called "Recovery_HD"

Mac Pro will not boot - HD and Machine are fine.

Greetings, and thank you in advance for your wisdom.
I have a 12-core Mac Pro, and she has been running like a dream. Once a month I run Onyx. Yesterday I did the same and upon reboot I got the grey apple screen and the spinning progress wheel that never stops spinning.
1. I repaired the HD via Disk Utility. All is fine.
2. The contents of the start-up drive are accessible - so the drive itself is not physically damaged.
3. I installed a new HD and made a copy of this Start-up disk via the Disk Utility. It will not boot from this drive as well.
4. I installed Snow Leopard (still using this) on the new drive to make sure the computer was happy. It fires up fine.
5. Everything is disconnected from the Mac Pro
So, I have obvious, and idiotically damaged the start-up disk using Onyx (assumption).
My life would be much better knowing I could do something that would enable me to boot from my current start-up and that's where I seek your wisdom.
Another question would be: If the above is not possible, if I install a fresh OS on the new drive, and then begin to replace all of the folders from the old drive (applications, library, etc.) will I be able to access my files as I did before. My issue is that I use this for music production, and there are literally close to 100 plugins that all have been registered. Going back through that process again would be days of labor, as some of these were purchases years ago. Tracking down serials would be a task. I think you understand.
So any advice that might prevent me from having to do as I said above will be wonderful.
Thank you all so much.
Lance

Under some circumstances, you may need to reinstall Mac OS X. You can reinstall Mac OS X while keeping your files and user settings intact.
from:
Mac OS X 10.6: Reinstalling Mac OS X
If your Hardware is functioning correctly, and your disk has no un-repaired Directory problems [Hint: run Disk Utility ( Repair Disk ) first] then re-installing Mac OS X modifies ONLY the files that are part of Mac OS X. Your Added Applications, User files (which contain preferences and serial numbers) are not supposed to be touched.

My mac pro will not boot up

My Macbook Pro will not boot up. I've tried the recovery, but it says that the booting system is good. What else can I do to restart my Mac?

Morning Tlira,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
If your Macintosh computer won't turn on, here's how to troubleshoot it.
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1367
If that doesnt work try this.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Hope this helps,
Mario

Wiped macbook pro will not boot from install DVD

I recently purchased an older MacBook Pro that came with the OS system wiped but it did have the original Install DVDs. The computer will not boot from the DVD. I have booted holding down the C key and nothing happens. I have booted holding down the Option key and it shows the Install DVD and I select this and nothing happens.
How do I get it to open up the Utilities from the DVD to install the operating system?

It could be a problem with the optical drive, but also may be due to the DVD's being for a different model.
Exactly which MBP do you have, and what serial numbers are on the discs ?.

Optical drive trashed and MB Pro will not boot from USB image

Hello,
New here but I have searched and tried all I know to get this MBP working right again. My disk drive is trashed and has been for some time now, this is why I have a bootable version of Snow Leopard on an 8G flash drive. When my MBP began acting funny recently and I went to disk utility to verify permissions and the disk. Both failed = must boot from disk to repair, thus my issue. For some reason by MBP will not boot from the usb image I have used previously??? Pressing C or Option during startup does not work. If I press Option, I only get the harddrive option, C yields nothing and the computer boots normally.
Please!! let me know how / what you would do to resolve this. I don't understand why I have previously been able to boot from this same file on the same drive previously to repair my disk / permissions but cannot do so now. FWIW, I tried placing the file (OSX) on my external HDD to boot from, this did not work either (USB HDD).
Thank you in advance for your input!!

It isn't clear what you mean about your HD being trashed or which disk (HD or USB drive) you are trying to repair, but either way you need to start up from your Snow Leopard installer DVD & instead of installing anything go to the Utilities menu & run Disk Utility from there to repair either or both of the disks.

2013 new Mac Pro will not boot up from and external hard drive

New 2013 MAC PRO running Yosemite will not not see a bootable external hard drive when starting up using option key? Same External hard drive will boot up on 2013 Mac Book Pro running Yosemite.

Reading between tea leaves sometimes leaves some things to imagination.
You used SuperDuper latest version that was recently upgraded for Yosemite on a laptop running 10.10 (or even 10.9.3+) that is in a X-brand USB3 drive enclosure, not bus powered btw, moved it to the nMP and plugged it into a direct port, not going through a hub (monitors have hubs of course and there is only one real bus+controller on the nMP that ALL USB3 travels through.
Thunderbolt and self-powered would be nice but they cost a bit more.
I have read where Carbon Copy Cloner (now v 4.x) worked where others failed. I use to use both but have used CCC since its inception and use back in 10.2.2 forward along with SD! for a few years based on comments here.
Drivers missing? someone compared system extensions and found the ones needed for say the nMP are not there? how about running a 10.10.1 combo update and see if that changes - we USE to be able to apply updates to a system that we were not booted from, very handy (could update a sparse disk image of a system that way, one created with CCC).
WD Passports seem popular with laptop users, but they come here to this forum complaining that it doesn't work, disappears off the bus (spins down goes to sleep, acts like a green drive acts).

Help! My Mac Pro will not boot up

I knew I shouldn't try to use the Boot Camp on my MP, but I thought it would work.
I have three HD in my MP and followed the instructions for the installtion of WIN XP on Mac drive 3, but when I was faced with the formatting choices in the Win setup I got confused with all the drive letters (I have two CD drives and three HDs), and must have formatted my Mac OS drive and partially drive 3.
My Mac Pro will no longer boot to the Mac OSX, even with the "option" key held down. All I get is a black screen that says: "NTLDR is maissing. (press CRTL-ALT-DEL to reboot).
Is there any hope of a recovery?
Thanks,
Tony

Wow...this is good to know! After many years with PCs I "assumed" that it would name the 1st drive "C" and then each one after that in order.
My problem was that I have three identical drives, all 250 GBs, so it was confusing, but that is exactly what the instructions said. So, with your encouragement and a little bit of faith, I will try this one more time. At least I learned how to recover after deleting my boot drive.
Thanks so much...
Tony
Tony,
If I remember right from my boot camp / xp
installation, boot camp aliases the drives, and when
it tells you to format C: for windows, that's the one
to select from the screen.
I panicked when I saw that, but then I realized that
the C: drive shown on the installation screen was
actually my secondary drive (and that boot camp had
shuffled the drive letters around). If you notice,
C: is actually not the top of the list, and in my
case I had two different drive sizes and so I could
reason that C: matched my secondary drive's size.
In short, pick C: for installation, as the program
says...
I thought for sure it nuked my OSX installation at
first, when it didn't seem that I could boot back to
OSX, but in the Control Panel of Windows (or in your
System Properties on OSX) you'll see an icon called
"Startup Disk" which will also allow you to pick OSX
or Windows and then restart.
Mac Pro 2.66, 3 GB Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Mac Pro will not boot on mac os but will in vista

Hi I have an early macpro that recently will not boot mac os after I have selected the relevant hard drive. I get a grey screen saying reboot every time i cannot start from the CD also BUT I can start using Windows. I have removed the hard disc taken it to work and put it in another mac pro and it worked fine
Please help anyone
cheers
b3rn

Windows won't give a kernal panic or BSOD because it is a Mac related hardware issue.
If you can't boot from CD/DVD:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050311073316780
What resetting NVRAM does:
http://devworld.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1103.html
Your asking about a Mac Pro, but those are not "G5" and the OS can't be transferred between PowerMacs and Mac Pro.... are you sure we are talking about only Mac Pros?
Putting XP and Mac OS on the same drive, that doesn't strike me as what one would do; keep them on different drives.
And, if they are on the same drive, then you really haven't reformatted the drive, which would involve wiping any and all partitions, and then creating your Mac Standard (HFS+ Journaling) and backup XP with WinClone or install it to another drive.
I don't have trouble with Windows, but I do with the Boot Camp Assistant and drivers.

Mac Pro will not boot, power light flashes once and then Mac switches off

One of our Mac Pro's will not boot. When pressing the power button the light will come on briefly and the Mac will just turn off again.
I have unplugged the power cable and held down the power button for 10 seconds but this did not help.
Any suggestions for me before I call up Apple?

Most indications from flashing power lights are telling you that there is not enough working memory to start up.

2008 mac pro will not boot with HD 5770 installed.

Does anyone have suggestions for this. When I say it will not boot, I mean it will not respond at all to the power button if the card is installed (or at least if the power cord for the card is plugged into the motherboard. This is a mac pro version 3,1 with 8 cores 2.8 xeon, 22GB ram, running 10.6.8. Boots fine with xt2600 but will not boot if the 5770 power cord is plugged in. THis is an apple specific card from B and H. Perhaps I received a bad card. I have tried with and without the xt2600 installed and have tried in slots 1 and 2. I do not have any other PCI cards installed. Iknow this is not an "officially supported card" but it seems to work for everyone else.

Sounds like the ATI 5770 issue to me.
And 5770 worked on 1000s and 1000s of Mac Pro all models, like mine a 1,1 (there is even a thread of 160+ posts)
Where did you buy the cable and card, if from Apple and it is recent, exchange.
You are saying you never got to work...

Macbook Pro will not boot from internal drive

I have a macbook pro model indentifier: macbookpro 7,1. The system would not boot what I have tried is first running apple diagnostics and all test fine, I tried booting from a snow leopard cd to re-install and it would not boot from the cd, however it does boot from the techtool pro 6 cd. I did run the test in techtool pro and all check out ok.
I removed the drive from the system and connected via usb to test and it boots fine from usb, put back internal and same result no boot. I did some research and I see that someone had a similar problem and it was the sata cable, but since the diagnostics test ok I am not sure that would be the problem.
Any Suggetions, this is driving me crazy
Thanks in advance
Bret

coffee would not HAVE to do anything except mechanically. It would not have any effect now since it has dried out, well short of corroding some components.
Check the points where the HDD casing "meets" the Macbook casing. How much pressure is there?
What about the pressure pins "pogo pins" are they all functioning?
What about pressure on the cables?
Please describe how it wont boot? What exactly does it do / happens

Mac Pro will not boot from cd or external drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for