Mac Pro will not boot with Snow Leopard - need help!

I have had a lot of issues with Snow Leopard since I upgraded from 10.5.8. Most of my problems started after installing Office 2007. I finally wiped the hard drive and reinstalled everything. No problems until last week. Start up was taking longer and had to reboot a couple of times because of grey screen. So I would just put computer to sleep. Yesterday the computer was frozen on screen saver with scrambled rows of pixels on screen two and the main monitor had a frozen image.
I initially pulled all peripherals out and pulled the power plug for 5 minutes. I have left the peripherals out and pulled the second monitor as well. I tried pulling the power plug during a few more starts but nothing gets me to a complete start up screen.
I have tried resetting PRAM and VRAM and tried a safe boot. I tried booting from Snow Leopard and my Leopard disk stayed on either a blue or gray screen with spinning beach ball (on gray screen).
Put original install disk in and booted from using D to check the hardware. Good news is that the hardware test was OK. I did the extended test.
All different kind of start up problems.
- Some start with start up sound goes to Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with beachball
- Some start ups with no initial sound then Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with no cursor or beachball
- Some start ups with no sound to gray screen to blue screen to grey screen.
I have no problem wiping the HD1 again but I can't even get the OS disk to be recognized with holding the C key during start up. This last time it went to a blue screen (holding the C key) and a cursor.
I don't know what else to do - Please help!!!

There are lists (MacIntouch and MacFixit) of hardware / software support issues with 10.6. Accelerateyourmac is another place to watch.
There were some really long threads back in Sept about printer driver support.
The 7300 firmware was more about Windows support; those cards are failing and dropping like flies (how DO they know 3 yrs has expired anyway?) and they don't support SL features like OpenCL etc so I'd invest in ATI 4870, best graphic card and works in all models Mac Pro.
Lots and lots of bootable clones for backup. Never need to wipe and install again.

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HT1444 mac pro will not successfully load snow leopard

mac pro will not successfully load snow leopard 10.6 ? presently using 10.5

Haha! That's true. Though I've noted many users here calling a Power Mac a Mac Pro and visa versa.
When my Power Mac died and I brought it into the Apple Store to have them look at it, the first Mac Pros hadn't been out that long. Even the staff didn't know the tower Mac they had out on display was a Mac Pro. I pointed out that it had two optical drive bays in front. Only the Mac Pros have two. All Power Macs have only one.

Macbook pro will not boot after snow leopard upgrade

My GF has had a macbook pro since mid 2008. It's been running like a champ since I've known her for the past 3 years with no issues. It has/had OSX 10.5.8 installed. We tried to consolidate all our pictures from all our apple devices and realized she didn't have an icloud on the old 10.5.8 OSX. So I called apple and they told me to order and install the snow leopard OSX 10.6 first and then upgrade to lion etc after that, Well we got the disk yesterday popped it in to install and it's been a disaster.... the computer shutdown for what looked like a normal restart during the installation process and never booted back up. Attempts to manually reboot leave us locked on a grey apple logo screen with spinning gear indefinately whith the Snow Leopard disk installed during boot up. With the disk removed I get the flashing file folder with a question mark. I called apple support we tried all the PRAM and SMC resets and then decided that we should go to the Genius Bar once all those failed. After an hour and a half drive to the nearest genius bar we were told that the we suddenly had a hardware issue which just happened to coincide with the new OS installation.... I'm not buying it and am looking for some help. The macbook was running like a champ until we inserted a disk recommended by apple... Any takers?

You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

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...

I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard.

Good Morning,
I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
I also rebooted holding down the shift key and still no Snow Leopard
Could you please tell me what I can do, what keys do I press on restart any advice to get Snow leopard back.
thank you.

Have you restarted holding down the Opt key? That procedure should give you a gray screen with all of the partitions that exist. Then select the SL partition for boot. Also go to System Preferences and Startup Disk, unlock the lock and select the SL partition as the default boot partition, then relock.

My iMac will not boot through Snow Leopard but will boot through Windows OS

My 2010 iMac will not boot in Snow Leopard, only Windows. Have tried reinstalling Snow leopard a few times and works only for a couple of minutes before freezing and doesnt reboot. Windows works perfect. Snow leopard just doesnt want to boot up past the Apple Logo. It was working fine one day and the next day it froze up and was able to reboot back into Snow Leopard but kept freezing. Now it doesnt load at all into Mac OS.
Brian

Possible scenarios:
1: The 10.6.3 SL retail disk is bad, it happens.
2: Your not using the 10.6.3 SL retail disk but one from another machine which doesn't have the drivers for that machine.
3: Your optical drive is funky or some other hardware issues.
4: Your trying to install 10.6 onto a PowerPC based Mac, no can do.
5: Your not using a wired keyboard for boot key commands, have some other hardware conflicts.
Possible solutions.
1: Copy the SL 10.6.3 disk using Disk Utility to another DVD, the error checking may resolve the original disk's issue.
http://www.brokenhomeboy.co.uk/pierow/blog/2011/10/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-l eopard-install-disc/
2: Make a SL bootable USB
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
3: Call Apple for a new 10.6.3 disk (and make copies for backup before Apple discontinues selling it)
If your upgrading to 10.6 to get to 10.6.8 to upgrade to 10.7, be warned of this:
1: Your 10.5 software will not work in 10.7, no more Rosetta or PPC based code.
2: Your hardware will not qualify if it's a 32 bit Intel Core Duo, also you may experience slowdowns in performance over 10.6 (10.6 is the fastest OS X version for Intel Macs) in older Intel hardware (I suggest Early 2011 Mac's and later only for Lion)
3: Mountain Lion 10.8 is reportingly coming out this summer and will not run on a lot of older Intel based Mac's because of heftier graphics requirements.
4: 10.6 has the widest range of current avaialble software and drivers for third party hardware.
My advice, stick with 10.6.8 and stay there, buy a new Mountain Lion machine after this summer. Skip Lion completely.

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.

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"

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

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.

OS will not boot after Snow Leopard Upgrade

I have a MacPro (Intel). I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and everything appeared fine. However, after restarting my computer the OS will not load. A circle with a hash through it replaces the Apple logo and the apple's spinning wheel continues but all drive activity. I have tried to run the install again by forcing the computer to open the dvd drive then booting for the OS DVD but this has not worked. Has anyone experienced this and successfully resolved?

You have a five year old computer, so a failing hard drive at this point is not so strange. You have a couple of options you can try. Start with this one, but if it does not work you will have to erase the hard drive. I hope you have a backup of all your files.
Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

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.

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.

Mac Pro will not boot with Snow Leopard - need help!

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