Upgrade 2009 Mac Pro Hard Disk to a larger Hard Disk

Hi there, I am looking to upgrade my 2009 Mac Pro 1TB HDD to a 3TB HDD. I have a successfull Time Machine Backup, If I swap the HDDS, boot into OS Snow Leopard, format the new 3TB then restore from a TM backup, will it account for the new extra space? E.g, will I see a full 3TB (or there abouts) as usuable or will I see a kind of 1TB Partition with the same free space I had before, requiring the use of something like Disk Utility to Extend it? Any help would be appreciated! Many Thanks!
Ash

Still on Snow Leopard so yes.
My advise: use two drives: leaving your current as is.
One for system, second for data.
Also invest in Carbon Copy Cloner and you can also make a bootable copy, and selectively copy system and user or just system etc. and have it for doing quick smart backups and use for data volumes as well.
Many 3TB drives are slower than 7.2K desktop or enterprise and "green" which can be useful for backups.
3TB might be better for a new TimeMachine backup drive.
Yes DU will present full 3TB (you aren't doing a sector copy)
I aim to use 50% of a drive.
If you can, then invest into a small fast SSD like Samsung 840: $89 120GB is fine for most everyone, or 250GB. Then use some WD Black 2TB or larger for media.
you could leave the 1TB drive for system, remove all the media files taking up space, too and put those on the 3TB. I prefer to leave as is and have a safety net. At least for a month. Then turn the 1TB into a backup clone or something especially if you go ahead and get an SSD, which will run faster and perform better all around.
All depends on what you use your mac for.

Similar Messages

2009 Mac Pro upgrading graphics card to GTX 680 mac. What is the best version of AE and PP and OSX to have?

Hello,
I have a 2009 Mac Pro 4.1
Mac OSX version 10.6.8
Processor - 2 x 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory - 24GB
Graphics Card - ATI Radeon HD 4870
I use After Effects and Premiere Pro daily for my work. I am not too technically minded. I want to update and improve my machine as much as possible and am thinking of buying an SSD drive to replace my current start up disk. I also am thinking about getting the GTX 680 mac version graphics card. I have read many online discussions regarding OpenCL and CUDA, many discussions with mixed feelings about the improvements the 680 gives an older Mac Pro - some people say it is amazing others say the improvements seem minimal or worse.
What I want to know is if I purchase the SSD and 680 graphics card what is the optimal OSX - 10.8 or 10.9? and what is the optimal versions of AE and PP to have - CS6 or CC? Also what settings and what additional drivers would I need to consider?
I contacted an independent authorised mac reseller and he thought it was a bad idea to put a new graphics card and get the latest OSX in an old machine and tried to sell me a used 2010 Mac Pro, but I think it would be more cost effective to get the SSD and 680 instead, it's just I read the occasional horror story on a forum and I worry about making the wrong choice, I rely on my Mac Pro to make a living!
Thanks in advance

Thank you for the valuable information Eric, I think I will go with the 680 but I understand that it wont be fully utilised on my old Mac Pro.
Perhaps I will replace my startup/applications hard drive with a 480GB SSD. My other 3 bays are full with 3 x 2TB Hard drives that have media on them so I have no spare room for a dedicated SSD drive for AE cache. But could I put a 250GB SSD into one of the PCI-E slots using something like - SSD SuperSpeed Upgrade Kit for Apple Mac Pro 2008 2009 2010 2012 | eBay
Would this be my best solution? Is it a relatively simple installation, does anyone have any experience of a similar setup?
cc_merchant, thank you for the reply, I am aware you have to pay monthly payments for CC, that is no problem.

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?

How do I properly zero out or erase the hard drives in my early 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 tower?
I assume there are already instructions on Apple.com someplace but haven't seen them yet… I have to one terabyte drives one the operating system the other is blank I want to start fresh I want to zero out both drives but I didn't want to make any mistakes
I know I can use disk utility to 0 Out Dr., #2 that means I will have to take out the operating system hard drive out of my 2008 Mac Pro and put it into my 2009 Mac Pro to use the disk utility to zero out drive one the OS drive in my 2009 Mac Pro am my correct
I just need a little bit a help I want to go slow so I don't make any mistakes with the sleds or with the erasing process which journaled to choose encrypted or not etc. etc.
Furthermore is there instructions on the site on how to change the hard drive into a different sled because the sleds and my 2009 are different than my 2008 any advice
Thank you

I'm doing this because my friend told me that zeroing out the drive can nap bad sectors and also later for some kind of diagnostics usage of the drive or something like that he wasn't really clear
My friend was really specific he said choose the option that writes zero's once over the drive that is plenty good enough I was inclined to use the maximum seven write ...I just want to make sure the drive has no bad sectors and that's it's it's zeroed out for possible future diagnostics usage or something that he said was usable later
he also advised me to run a test on it but I don't have the software you mentioned or the software that he has… So I may have to take the drives over to his house unless you have some kind of free software that's easy to use that you could suggest that will not only zero out the drive but test the drive completely
I am completely new to Mac I'm no dummy but at the same time I'm not super technically capable I mean I can surprise myself I'm pretty good but I need a good teacher… How expensive is this lifeguard software?
Thank you

2009 Mac Pro not letting me upgrade to Mavericks nor 10.8

I have a 2009 Mac Pro with OS 10.7.5 installed, it running perfectly fine but for some reason it's not letting me update to 10.8 nor 10.9. Mavericks works totally fine from ssd card mounted on a usb dock but when I try to use the SSD inside or the hard drive the Mac Pro came with it does not boot up. I was getting a problem when trying to upgrade Mavericks from the store where Mac Pro wouldn't boot, it will just show a question mark so I reinstalled OS 10.7.5. When trying to install Mavericks from a usb drive, Mac Pro does not see none of the internal hard drives and for some reason does not even let me eject the optical bay, has this happen to anyone if yes, what you do to fix the problem.

"Image" was not a reference to the physical drive, but rather the actual bytes representing the version of Mac OS X on the drive.
• If you built Mac OS X on that drive from the Mac OS X that shipped with another Mac, it will be trouble.
• If you built the Mac OS X on that drive from a "Full Retail", "Purchased" (for $0, but it still counts as a purchase) version from the Mac App store, it has all Drivers and should work fine.

2009 Mac Pro upgrade to Yosemite failed

Hi,
Seven days in and my 2009 Mac Pro is still dead. Very frustrated. It had a 4x3TB AppleRAID array in RAID1+0 giving 6TB. I initially did an upgrade to Yosemite and it got stuck at the half-way point after the restart. Yes, I did patiently wait ... but gave up after 12 hours (left it overnight). I assume the upgrade was supposed to finish sooner than that?
Found one stripe in the RAID array was 'degraded' - replaced that disk (seems they had 11000 hours on them) but it was impossible (for me) to see how to get the new disk back into the RAID scheme under Disk Utility (booted up using an upgraded MacBook). Once all the disks were removed from the array, Disk Utility gave no option to create a new RAID scheme, so I downloaded SoftRAID - yay, my RAID array was back (seems Apple gave up on their software RAID in 2009?).
However, still no joy. Created a Yosemite install USB drive - seems to run but then fails at the end ... "couldn't bless installation disk: /Volumes/Image Volume".
Okay, so downloaded the Mavericks installer and created an install USB drive - same as Yosemite ... can't bless the installation disk.
What else can I try? The Yosemite upgrade seems to have well and truly screwed my poor Mac Pro. I'd already successfully upgraded two of our four Macs successfully to Yosemite (one upgrade and one clean install) so thought it was okay.
I might try booting off one of the Macs again, with the Mac Pro in target disk mode, and try to run the installer to install Mavericks or Yosemite onto the Mac Pro's RAID array as an external disk ...
Otherwise ... ?

Booted the Mac Pro from the MacBook Air running Yosemite in target disk mode. Ran the Yosemite installer on the MBA to install on the Mac Pro's SoftRAID array "Hollie" - when the installer tells me it's going to restart I see the final logs written at 04:50 below:
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: @(#)PROGRAM:Install PROJECT:Install-920
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: @(#)PROGRAM:IA PROJECT:InstallAssistant-532
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Hardware: MacPro4,1 @ 2.66 GHz (x 16), 24576 MB RAM
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Running OS Build: Mac OS X 10.10 (14A389)
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: USER=brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: LOGNAME=brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.AzaK6cdqED/Listeners
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.o7DsCKSkcX/Render
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: HOME=/Users/brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: SHELL=/bin/bash
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0x0:0x0
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: TMPDIR=/var/folders/r9/vckptcb10fxgj44jppfcg04h0000gn/T/
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: XPC_SERVICE_NAME=com.apple.InstallAssistant.Yosemite.158788
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.AzaK6cdqED/Listeners
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.o7DsCKSkcX/Render
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: XPC_FLAGS=0x0
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: LOGNAME=brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: USER=brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: HOME=/Users/brett
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: SHELL=/bin/bash
Nov 1 04:45:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Env: TMPDIR=/var/folders/r9/vckptcb10fxgj44jppfcg04h0000gn/T/
Nov 1 04:45:20 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using distribution archive from /Users/brett/Desktop/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/OSInstall.mpkg
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Configuring products from SharedSupport folder
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Install is double-dmg. Not adding chunklist to download list.
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using product <OSInstallDVDProduct> based on media at /Users/brett/Desktop/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport at distance 5
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using product <OSInstallESDProduct> based on distribution at /Users/brett/Desktop/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/OSInstall.mpkg at distance 5
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Checking Software Update catalog URL https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-l ion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
Nov 1 04:45:21 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
Nov 1 04:45:23 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using product <OSSoftwareUpdateCatalogProduct> from product keys (null) at distance 25
Nov 1 04:45:30 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: LSExceptions [0x6300000bee40] unloaded
Nov 1 04:49:16 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: IATool launched
Nov 1 04:49:16 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Connected to IATool 26fa80
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Preventing machine sleep.
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using product IA_PKSecureNetEnabledProduct <file:///Volumes/Hollie/OS%20X%20Install%20Data/> at distance 5
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistantTool[738]: Using existing boot files dir at /.IABootFiles
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using mutable product path: /Volumes/Hollie/OS X Install Data
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Using boot files path: /.IABootFiles
Nov 1 04:49:17 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Retrieving 1 packages (0.000 GB)
Nov 1 04:49:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Retrieved package com.apple.pkg.CompatibilityUpdate (http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/14/57/031-11010/vhdn34frx9suyfcrslj0xyx n3t0dafhkn8/OSX_10_10_IncompatibleAppList.pkg)
Nov 1 04:49:19 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Verifying InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg
Nov 1 04:49:33 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Finished operation queue
Nov 1 04:50:10 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistantTool[738]: Failed to set prev-lang:kbd
Nov 1 04:50:10 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistantTool[738]: hdiejectd already disabled.
Nov 1 04:50:12 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistantTool[738]: Failed to prep /Volumes/OS X Install ESD for brtool
Nov 1 04:50:12 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistantTool[738]: Failed to prep /Volumes/OS X Base System for brtool
Nov 1 04:50:13 192-168-1-11.tpgi.com.au InstallAssistant[721]: Failed to write mutable product url to NVRAM

Upgrading Early 2009 Mac Pro to Yosemite

I need an upgrading for dummies tutorial I want to upgrade some applications that I use and can not do that with Mountain Lion which is currently on my Early 2009 Mac Pro. (Processor 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon - Memory 12 GB - Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB - OSX 10.8.5). My monitor is a NEC MultiSync P221W and I use Spectraview II to calibrate. I also have an older Dell monitor attached that I only use for palettes, etc.
I have discovered I can not upgrade to Mavericks and will need to go to Yosemite. I am nervous about the process and undecided what is the best way to tackle this. I assume I will first need to do a full backup and do have a bootable drive that I can use. Can I then just install Yosemite or is it best to do a clean install? I have heard so many negative things about installing Yosemite that I am really uncertain of the best way to tackle this. I am particularly concerned about the reports of system slow down.I have an even older MacBook Pro that is also running Mountain Lion but I have no plans to attempt an upgrade on it. It has had problems since it was fairly new and right now I use an external keyboard and a mouse because using the track pad or keyboard on the laptop cause it to lock up. (Long story and multiple rebuilds during and after Apple Care). So at this point the only machine I am concerned about is the desktop. I use it mainly for Photoshop and Lightroom and Quicken. If someone can give me some advice I would be most appreciative. I am an older gal with casual computer knowledge, living out in the sticks and really have no one available for help. Thanks in advance

Depending on how hard you push your system, size of files you work with.
You may want to look into 5,1 firmware; a W3690 or X5690 3.4GHz 6-core even to help more.
2009 Mac Pro 12-Core CPU Upgrade (Dual 3GHz Xeon X5675)
2009 8-Core Upgrade... The De-Lidded Route - MacRumors Forums
More memory, 24-32GB
OWC http://www.macsales.com is probably best place for DDR3 ECC
Macintosh Performance Guide Articles & Reviews
A faster better boot drive, and for plugins and cache. SATA II or III or PCIe-SSD blade
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD your cheapest boot drive with a huge return and packs a punch in performance - booting, launching apps and large files, and saving.
A fast dedicated SSD device for Lightroom as well as something for working in Photoshop for scratch, unless you go with 500-1TB device.
SATA Express meets the '09 MacPro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD - Page 12 - MacRumors Forums
Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe SSD Released StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews
SATA Express meets the '09 MacPro - Bootable NGFF PCIE SSD
SSD starts at just $80 + adapter for drive sled if talking Samsung 850 EVO (but I would get at least 250GB for a few dollars more as minimum).
A Samsung XP941 PCIe-SSD can't be beat with higher than SATA III speeds at 900MB/sec, $290 w/ adapter.
Samsung XP941 512GB M.2 80mm PCIe x4 SSD - MZHPU512HCGL
Samsung XP941 256GB PCIe 2.0 x4 M.2 SSD MZHPU256HCGL at Amazon
For graphic card, OWC can be over priced for even AMD 7950 Mac Edition or GTX 680.
MACVIDCARDS
More video memory helps of course, and a more modern card with either CUDA or better OpenCL
GeForce GTX 980 vs 9 other GPUs

My Early 2009 Mac Pro won't restart after installing Mavericks

I have installed Mavericks on my Early 2009 Mac Pro and all seemed to install just fine but when I restart the Mac then it won't get past a grey screen with Apple logo. It seems that it does get reasonabley far into the startup, it gets passed the grey screen with cricling progress thingmy under the Apple logo, then it flashes very quickly and after that it is a grey screen with the Apple logo and no further.
I did try installing Mavericks when it first came out and I had this problem so I just abandoned and reinstalled Mountain Lion from my Time Machine backup. However I thought that with Mavericks now at 9.1, maybe it would work okay this time but no change. However this time I do want to get it working because the lastest Final Cut Pro X requires Mavericks and I do a lot of video editing.
Here are the things I've tried which have made no difference:
Removed all peripherals, so that now nothing is plugged in except the original Apple Keyboard, my Apple trackpad and my Eizo monitor.
I tried starting it in Safe Boot mode but this made no difference.
I started it up in Recovery mode and it will start in Recovery mode. While in Recovery mode I checked the startup hard drive with Disk Utility, the drive is fine, as and I repaired disk permisions which made no difference.
I zapped the PRAM.
I connected it to my MacBook Pro in Target Disk mode and used ProSoft's Drive Genius 3 to check over the startup hard drive again and check disk permissions and all is well.
It still will not startup
I would be most grateful if someone could assist.

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 3
If you use a wireless keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, replace or recharge the batteries. The battery level shown in the Bluetooth menu item may not be accurate.
Step 4
If there's a built-in optical drive, a disc may be stuck in it. Follow these instructions to eject it.
Step 5
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
If you've booted from an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 6
Boot in safe mode. Note: If FileVault is enabled, 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.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
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.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is corrupt and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to Step 6.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 7
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see Step 1.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it may produce. Look for the line "Permissions repair complete" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 8
Reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Step 9
Repeat Step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a Time Machine or other backup.
Step 10
This step applies only to older Macs (not current models) that have a logic-board ("PRAM") battery. Both desktop and portable Macs used to have such a battery. The logic-board battery, if there is one, is separate from the main battery of a portable. A dead logic-board battery can cause a boot failure. Typically the failure will be preceded by loss of the settings for the startup disk and system clock. See the user manual for replacement instructions. You may have to take the machine to a service provider to have the battery replaced.
Step 11
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.

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.

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 10.8.3 and half of the time Disc Utility doesn't respond? Any ideas?

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 10.8.3 and half of the time Disk Utility doesn't respond and I have to force quit and restart the machine. Any ideas?

You have some (major) issues.
Are you in Recovery Mode ? Used Option key or Command R to get there?
I would grab the ML installer ESD you saved and do a clean install on another drive and begin to rebuild to a new system.
You may or may not have TimeMachine but have backed up problem files.
Having a bootable backup clone of your system is a must.
Hard shutdowns will add more layers of problems and add to whatever there was before.
Generally there is not a need to use Disk Utility other than to repair permissions either before or after installing updates.
Have you:
tried with everything else unplugged so you don't have any external devices
tried with a safe boot
Why.
After any forced shutdown you should use ML Recovery and one Safe Boot on the first next boot from a working system.

Poor performance with Yosemite and early 2009 Mac Pro

I have an early 2009 Mac Pro with the following specs:
- 2.66 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
- 10 GB of 1066 MHz RAM
- NVidia GeForce GT 120 512 MB
- 256 MB solid state drive for my system partition
- Two monitors connected, each at 1680x1050 resolution
Back when I was running OS X 10.7 or 10.8 I found that for every day tasks the performance using my computer was adequate. However, starting around 10.9, and even worse since upgrading to 10.10, thinks have gotten painfully slow. To give an example, activating Mission Control can take upwards of four seconds, with the animation being very choppy. Changing tabs on a Finder window can take two seconds for the switch to happen. Just switching between different windows, it can take several seconds for a window to activate. It's gotten to the point where I'm having difficulty working. So I'm thinking of upgrading some of my hardware.
Given my specs the weakest link seems to be my graphics card, and all of these issues do seem to be related to graphics. So my questions are:
- Do you think upgrading my graphics card will substantially improve things, and is there anything else I should upgrade?
- Is this slowness just the result of the computer being nearly six years old, and no upgrades will really improve things that much?
Thanks in advance!

Between Setup Assistant, and your existing system "untouched" (or use CCC if say you want to use an existing SSD for the system) there is no reason it should be a lot of work setting up. Have you ever used Migration or Setup? it has also gotten better.
Also, having 10.9.5 on another drive and running DU - and TRIM _now_ would be helpful.
Looking at just what gremlins you have running around inside your current system is not bad but.... sometimes the "long road" turns a shortcut into a dead end, and avoiding doing what seems the long road and hardest gets you where you want to go: a solid stable system.
Less is more. Most systems have more than needed and they get in the way and can cause trouble. Even handy "widgets" and those things that monitor system functions, even disk status. Which is why I like seeing a separate small system maintenance volume just for the weekly checkup. 30GB is more than enough so just slice out a partition somewhere - on another drive/device.
Those things, more so than and a lot cheaper than a new GPU. If your SSD is two years old, the 840 EVO from Samsung is down under $120 for 250GB, or use one for Lightroom / Aperture / iPhoto or scratch.
One person was complaining about sluggish window issue and thought it was the driver. Turned out It happened in ONE APP, not everywhere - very telling - and the app in question needs update. Adobe updated CC (for Windows) last month to finally support dual Dxx and some of the newer AMD GPUs - can the mac be far behind?
10GB RAM? that would not be 3 x 4GB or any combination using triple channel memory.

Early 2009 mac pro, lion won't install

Getting very frustrating... Download and go through all the steps and downloads additional files form online then says that i cannot install and the the lion file is damaged. I have downloaded twice and even went as far as formatting and re installing leopard and updates.
Prior to this, something that could be related. I tried to install boot camp weeks ago and it would not let me saying that my boot rom has to be updated. I have looked all over the support area and have not been able to find a boot rom update.
ANy help?

Hi,
I had the same problem when installing Lion on an early 2009 Mac Pro.
It would keep going to the Lion "Restore" disk window.
The Lion install would never complete.
The 2009 Mac Pro has the latest firmware updates.
Used a clean install of Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with all Apple updates
No 3rd party software installed
12GB Memory
640GB Hard Drive
No PCIe cards
Only mouse and keyboard attached
I finally gave up on trying to get the 2009 Mac Pro to install Lion.
My Solution:
I mounted the same hard disk inside a 2008 Mac Pro (without the latest firmware updates) and ran the Lion install. No problems. Lion was installed.
Pulled the Lion drive and re-installed it in the 2009 Mac Pro.
It works.

Please help to upgrade my Mac Pro

I am a graphic designer. I start doing freelance job at home. I do a lot of photoshop work. I read on this and other forums to learn how to upgrade my Mac Pro. I am not a tech person at all. Please give me advise.
1) I need to have a backup system. I am thinking of OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro. But how can I connect this to the airport extreme and my Mac Pro as a backup and storage drive for both computers? My Mac Pro has no airport card, and the extreme has only one USB port which was connect to the printer.
2) I need more memory. I only has 2 GB now. They are 4x512 MB located at Riser A. I am thinking to buy the memory from OWC together with the external hard drive.
3) After I do my back up on my Mac Pro. I will upgrade the OS to Snow Leopard. Should I also add another internal hard drive? I only have 250 GB on my Mac Pro
Thank you.

Your Mac is 4 yrs old. Sure you want to invest in it? for someone beginning to do a lot of work in CS4 etc.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404440.html
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401089
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404439.html
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/adobe-cs4-review.ars/4
http://www.macgurus.com/guides/storageaccelguide.php
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/ZeroDrives.php
http://www.macgurus.com/guides/photoshopguide.php
http://homepage.mac.com/boots911/.Public/PhotoshopAccelerationBasics2.4W.pdf
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=820476
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/04/266ghz-8-core-mac-pro-review.ars/6

How to install Snow Leopard on a 2009 Mac Pro which has Mountain Lion?

The 2009 Mac Pro that I just bought has Mountain Lion. For many reasons, I do not want to have Mountain Lion on my machine. I have been using Snow Leopard for years and I like it fine. I have my Snow Leopard install DVDs. I cannot get this machine to accept Snow Leopard, which must be just another undesirable aspect of Mountain Lion, bacause this machine must have shipped with some variant of Leopard/ Snow Leopard to begin with. Here's what happens when I put the Snow Leopard Install DVD in the Superdrive:
1) First, I held down the "C" key at startup to start from a disc. It showed me a window which said "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer".
2) Then I started it with Mountain Lion and then put in the Snow Leopard DVD. Got a window which said "The disc you inserted was not readable by this computer". It also had 3 buttons to choose from: "Initialize", "Ignore" and "Eject". So I clicked on "Initialize" and Disc Utility opened on the First Aid page. I assume I'm supposed to erase the startup disc, but I thought maybe I should ask the experts here before I do that.
This machine has two 2TB HDDs that the previous owner has configured as a level 1 RAID. If I am to erase the startup disc do I erase both drives of the RAID set? If I'm not supposed to erase the startup drive, what do I need to do to get back to Snow Leopard? Thanks and thanks again!

The built-in checks will keep you from clobbering 10.8 Mountain Lion by Installing Snow Leopard over it (literally, 10.6 Snow Leopard Installer will see a later version in place, and knows it cannot install over a later version). So it says "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer..." and leaves off "... "in its current state."
You will need to Install on a 10.6 Snow Leopard-erased drive. Mac OS X Erase function proceeds to install a Partition scheme and a default Volume after erasing, because a truly blank drive is useless for most Users.
When you boot to the Installer DVD, you are running off the DVD, so all Hard Drives are available to be erased if that is your choice. All data on them will be discarded. If you erase one drive in a mirrored RAID set, normally the other drive would survive and the set would be degraded. But a new version of RAID was introduced right AFTER 10.6, and it is likely that 10.6 cannot read that RAID at all under any circumstances.

2009 Mac Pro 2.66 Xeon Quad Core or 2013 Mac Mini 2.66 Quad Core i7 ?

2009 Mac Pro 2.66 Xeon Quad Core or 2013 Mac Mini Server 2.66 Quad Core i7 ? I have a choice between these two for running Final Cut Pro X. Price is nearly the same.
The Mac Pro has a ePCI 512 display adapter, 16 GB RAM, more hard drive expansion and faster 1tb 7200 rpm conventional hard drive. FW 800.
The Mini Server has two 1 tb 5400 rpm conventional drives, 16 GB RAM and an integrated display adapter. Has thunderbolt and FW 800.
My primary concern is the performance of the processors. Does anyone happen to know how they compare in video editing?

This may give you some ideas.
There are some folks on this forum who report very saticfactory results editing on Minis.
Perhaps they will chime in with first hand experience (which I can't give).
Russ

Wrong DVD drive opens on 2009 Mac Pro

Hello,
I have a 2009 Mac Pro with two DVD drives. Since upgrading to Mavericks, I've noticed some unusual behavior:
1. Ocassionally, the incorrect DVD drive ejects/opens. For example, when I attempt to open the top drive, the bottom one opens, and vice-versa.
2. Ocassionally, when I simultaneously burn 2 DVDs of the same items, I find that one of the DVD drives burns all of the items without problems, while the other one only burns a small number of the items.
3. After inserting a blank DVD, and selecting the "Burn (item name) to disc" from the right-click menu, a long time passes before the "Are you sure you want to burn..." dialogue box appears.
Has anyone else experienced this constellation of symptoms? Are they connected? And what sorts of remedies have worked?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Berwynman

Hi-
A PRAM reset should clear that up.
Did it for me in the past.

Upgrade 2009 Mac Pro Hard Disk to a larger Hard Disk

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