Xserve Crash - Now won't boot off either SAS Drive

Hi all,
My Xserve (2008) just crashed about an hour ago - turning on the screen connected to the Xserve showed the entire thing had ground to a halt, meaning I had to hold the power button down, thinking it just needed a reboot.
Upon re-booting, it just started flashing the "No OS" ?-inside-a-folder icon.
Booting off the system DVD doesn't seem to work, it loads as far as the first blue screen and gets stuck.
I've successfully managed to boot off a MacBook Pro via Target Disk Mode, and upon startup was presented with two dialogue boxes saying the disks I had inserted were unreadable by the system.
Can it really be true that BOTH my SAS drives have failed at the same time?
One was the boot drive, the other a cloned backup updated every other day.
Unfortunately I don't have a backup of the backup, though somewhat luckily this is just the OS. All the 'data' is stored in RAID5 arrays.
Any ideas what might be happening? Something inside the Xserve itself?
I'm currently installing Snow Leopard Server onto a LaCie FW800 drive through a Mac Mini, should be done in about 25 minutes. I'll then plug that into the Xserve and try to alt-boot off that, see if I can get to DiskWarrior.
Any help is appreciated,
-Robert

Nicolas, welcome, did you boot from OS 9.1 or 9.2 for the firmware update. And exactly what happens when you attempt to boot from the external.
Joe
Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Similar Messages

MBP upgraded to Mavericks won't boot off of external drive

Now that I have upgraded my MBP to Mavericks I can not longer boot off of extrenal drives like I has in the past. I hold down the option key at boot up and it display the external drive as a bootable option but once clicked....it just hangs.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks,
D

Well, want to rule out drive case,, as those do come up with EVERY new OS, just hit Lion 10.7 forum when it came out, or when 10.6.0 came out 3 yrs ago.
Maybe the power adapter is the weak link.
As I said, and goes back yrs, not a fan of FW/USB/eSATA case from major vendors (LaCie, WD, Seagate etc).
And you could try another case. Be sure to buy a case that lets you swap in your own hard drives though.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire - look for bare drive case "0" capacity hard drive

My G4 won't boot off a firewire drive cloned from properly-booting drive

I've got a G4 that normally boots 10.3.9 off an external firewire drive. I cloned the drive onto a WesternDigital "MyBook" external hard drive, and connected it via firewire 400. I cloned the 10.3.9 boot drive using SuperDuper to a partition on this drive. But, the G4 refuses to boot off it when I choose it as a startup disk. I see (very briefly) the following
....couldn't read it.... @d/mac-io@7/ata-4@1f000/disk@0:5,\\:tbxi
anyone know what this is, why it won't boot off the clone, and how I can check whether the drive contains a proper 10.3.9 system and is set to be bootable?
Mike

Hi Mike-
How did you know?
I "Googled" it. It's been reported many times, and is included in a couple of reviews.
Problem is, "bootable" can be claimed in Mac's, as it will boot with Intel machines.......
Don't ya' just hate that?????
This review is from a writer for Mac-Centric.

Power Mac 7200/120 won't boot off new hard drive. Says HD "not supported"

I just recently came into possession of a PowerMac 7200/120. The only thing it came with is a boot cd with Mac OS 8.1. It booted fine off the cd with only the date/time issues of a dead PRAM battery, but when I tried to boot the internal HD on its own, it was a no-go. Flashing ?. When I tried to verify the HD, the software would not even find the HD. Not even listed on the program. You can't initialize what isn't there, so I ordered a new HD from an online vendor. I replaced it according to the directions on the Apple .pdf file I googled. I also reset the logic board and replaced the PRAM battery. Upon booting after all this ... still flashing ?. I run the same verification process as before and I actually DO see this HD listed, but it says it is "not supported" and doesn't allow me to initialize it. It's virtually the same quantum fireball HD with the Apple logo as the old one I just took out, just a different GB size. Connections and slots are all the same. Is this just not the right HD for my computer? Is there something I need to download? I just rebuilt a Performa 6300cd with ZERO issues.

Ok ... a couple of mistakes on my part which of course could change EVERYTHING. I'm embarassed with the amount of mistakes in my own question. A couple of forgetful omissions on my part ...
#1. The drive DID start up just fine upon first switching out the HD. Original software on HD was 8.1, but as I needed to run older programs not compatible with 8.1, I initialized and installed 7.5.3 clean. (I know ... HUGE omission here, but be kind as I've been working on multiple computers and it has been a couple months since I did this). It worked fine after download. After coming back to this computer a couple of months later, I get the flashing ? again (like before the HD switch).
#2.The HD the online vendor sent me was not the one I ordered, but ended up being a carbon copy of the one I took out except the GB size (which was actually larger than the one I ordered). Didn't physically count the pins, but it plugged in fine. Everything fit.
#3. I also forgot to mention that while the CD drive worked, the floppy either spat my disks out at me or asked to initialize them. These were the same floppies that I took out of my Performa literally a minute earlier (which worked).
#4. The 8.1 cd is a mistake on my part again. Turns out it's the black-faced 7.5.3 cd (7200, 7500, 7600, 8500, and 9500 series). Got confused with the 8.1 drive.
UPDATE
The strangest thing ... I just booted up off the cd and it's now reading the HD. I ejected the cd and booted it up on its own ... and it works just fine. I did NOTHING since I asked the question. In fact, I just booted the computer back up in response to your response.
Before I delved into these boards and bothered to ask for help ... I had opened it up, cleared out a TON of dust bunnies with my can o' air, pressed the CUDA? chip, and then replaced the PRAM battery. Restarted holding down cmd-opt-p-r until it chimed again and it was still a flashing ?. You could hear it clicking as if trying to start the drive up at regular intervals. I restarted the computer well over 10 times hoping it was just something jammed up in the HD (though just bought) and it was the same flashing ?. And now today ... did nothing and it boots up just fine. I check the drive setup lite and it now shows macintoshHD there (instead of unsupported drive - original showed nothing at all).
Does it take time for the PRAM battery or logic board to reset? Did it just needed a thorough internal cleaning? Or should I chalk this up as just being a really old comp?
I really don't want to go delving back into it now that it's working to check the SCSI terminations, jumpers, etc. I'm going to assume those are ok now it's booting.

G4 Sawtooth won't boot off of firewire drive

I have a G4 Sawtooth that I connot get to boot from my firewire external drive.
The machine is running Panther(10.3.9) and the firewire drive has Tiger(10.4.5).
Don't know if this is the problem, but don't believe it is.
Just updated the firmware to 4.2.8 and still won't go.
What should I try now?

Nicolas, welcome, did you boot from OS 9.1 or 9.2 for the firmware update. And exactly what happens when you attempt to boot from the external.
Joe
Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Dual boot KT6 Delta won't boot from either bootable drive?

Recently my system has been playing me up and the monitor refuses to wake up or come in the morning. The only way to get it back is to press the reset button. This morning however I cannot get any further than the post screen where it shows me all the system details, it refuses to start to load either OS from the two hard drives. Where should I start to look to fault find please. Thanks for your help in advance.

Quote from: pompeyrodney on 22-February-07, 22:34:17
Thanks for the help, I am interested to know how many amps I should be looking for and could you guys recommend a good PSU for not much money. Thanks again.
look here for good PSU suggestion:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=104400.msg768358#msg768358
you should look for single rail PSU with high amperes provided on +12V
what memory you use?

Xserve G4 Won't Boot Off Tiger CD; Other OSXS G4 Boot Drive

The CD part is probably because the optical drive is bad, but I installed Tiger server onto a known-good drive module and it will boot another Xserve, but not the one with the bad optical. It will, however, boot off of a drive with Panther Server. I can also not boot the bad Xserve with a boot drive from another Xserve of the same model.
Any ideas?

Apparently, you can run a G4 Xserve without a video card under Server 10.3; you can't run it without one under 10.4... Threw a video card in and it booted just fine. I had no idea that it wouldn't boot without it!
Why was there no video? The other server in the office is a G5 Xserve which was built sans video. The guy that set it up couldn't do it headless so he pulled the card from a G4 Xserve and never put it back.

Hi guys I'm really in need of some help. I have an IMac I3 for a while now I've been having a problem of my machine refusing it shut down , it goes to a blue screen with a spinning wheel but doesn't shut down. And now won't boot from install DvD

Please some one help me ...
A) my mac won't shut down with external HD connected (if it's been used)
B) there are disk permissions that can't be fixed SUID stuff ..
C) I have now verified the Mac HD and it tells me it's corrupt in bold red writing and to start up from install DVD
D) it won't boot from DVD so I cannot run the repair , initially the machine was spitting it out on start up , now it appears to be attempting to boot off DVD , well it sounds like it is .... BUT it's hanging with the Mac Logo and a wheel ... For um .... 30min now...
E) weirdly when OSX is booted off the hard drive , it won't recognise the Install DvD or the applications one... It just spits them out....
I had an old PPC 17" and it was a beaut .... Never had a single problem with it ...
I bought this one December 2010 and it's been nothing but issues for a computer in excess of £1000 I'm extremely disappointed ... And weirdly the shutting down issue started when it was a week out of warrantee ... I feel conned and am almost at the point of throwing it at a wall and buying a PC

Ok so I've done what you said and this is what it's come back ....
I don't know that these are the errors , but they're the things which don't look right ...
Throughout the shut down there is a recurring line ;
It says ;
Com.apple.launchd 1 0x100600e70.anonymous.unmount 301 PID still valid
Then there are 2 more which I think are related ;
Com.apple.securityd 29 PID job has I overstayed its welcome , forcing removal.
Then the same with fseventd 48 and diskarbitrationd 13
Oh and on Launchd1 : System : stray anonymous job at shut down : PID 301 PPID13 PGID 13 unmount...
Then the last process says "about to call: reboot (RB_AUTOBOOT).
Continuing...
And stops ...
Hope this means something to you ... Thanks again for your help so far :-)

MacBook Pro won't boot off Tiger CD

I installed a larger drive into my MacBook Pro. I inserted the Tiger OS X cd, and pressed the 'C' ket to boot off the cd. It doesn't recognize the start-up disk and goes to the "? Folder".
I zapped the PRAM, etc. with no change.
I can boot off an external drive with OS X installed by holding down the "option key" at power up, and selecting that external drive, BUT it doesn't recognize the OS X CD in this mode either.
If I use the external drive to boot from and insert the Tiger CD, I can only go so far in the installation process before I get a window that says "You can not install OS X on this computer". I've only seen this window when trying to install a lower version of os x onto a drive that has a higher version installed. As my new drive is blank (OS extended), it seems I should be able to install Tiger on the empty drive. Right?
Any suggestions?

The MBP is an Intel based computer vs. the PPC based G4 or G5 or anything earlier. They started being produced in 2006 (which for me is new, with my 2000 model ). Texas Mac Man provides some history as to the OS versions, but all the early ones came with their own version of Tiger. You can't even use a retail installer version of Tiger since it wasn't considered necessary to provide a retail version of Tiger for a computer series that came with it anyway.
If you are using a G4 installer it is definitely the wrong disc and you're getting exactly the message we'd expect. Sometimes it won't even get that far.
If you can't find the discs it may be possible to clone your old drive to the new drive. This is assuming the old drive is still viable and you have an enclosure in which to put the new drive while attached to the computer with the old drive inside. If you use a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner it will place a bootable complete duplicate of your one drive onto another.
Message was edited by: Limnos
Message was edited by: Limnos

Battery died while updating to OS X 10.5.2, Now won't boot!

Dear all,
Last night I went to update my PowerBook from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2, along with a couple of other updates that Software Update had downloaded. Half way through the installation my battery died, and now with the mains plugged in, the computer won't boot at all. I get the initial white screen with they grey apple logo in the middle and a spinning loading icon.
Is there anything I can do to revert it and get it to boot up?
I have a time machine backup from about a week ago, but have some work I did yesterday I would really rather not lose if at all possible!
Many thanks in advance,
Jude

Lesson learned: never update on battery.
If you can boot your computer with your OS disc, and if you have enough free hard drive space, you can perform an Archive and Install. This way you lose nothing but the 90-180 minutes it will take for the OS to install.
If it won't boot off the CD or you lack the drive space for an archive and install find another Mac user and mount your computer's drive on their computer using FW target disk mode.

Xserve early 2009 won't Boot

My Xserve early 2009 won’t Boot , No Video , Activity LEDs Flashing :
Xserve begins to power up but does not boot
Fan array and hard drive are spinning
Power LED is illuminated
Top row of activity lights flash
No video on external display
My server was stored in the original box for 12 months now, when I reuse it, he presented the above problems
Anyone know how to fix this?

Thank you, Khashoggi. Reseating the ADM's did generate a different result in Disk Utility. The mirror had a state of "degraded" after reseating because one of the drives had an error. I began a rebuild but it was set to take 4 hours so I just re-built the mirror and re-installed the OS. I would have let it rebuild but it was a brand new instal; no configuration done at all so it was much quicker to just reinstall.
I've got the machine back to the state it was in before the issue and I've created both a Time Machine and Carbon Copy Clone backup of the System in case of further issues.
Thanks again!

I tried to update the software for my iPhone 4S. It froze, and now won't turn off, or on, or sync. Any ideas on how to fix this?

I tried to update the software for my iPhone 4S, 16 GB to the most recent version (8.1?). I don't know what I was updating from, because I can't access that, but it was whatever was installed on it (I got it about a year ago, so probably 6.something).
It froze, and now won't turn off, or on, or sync with my macbook plus, which is what I have always sync'd it to. (I backed it up and sync'd it right before I tried to update the software.)
Since it originally froze almost 3 hours ago, it shows a white screen with the apple on it and a line underneath. When I try to sync with my laptop, it says it needs me to enter a passcode on the phone, which I can't enter because the screen is frozen. So I'm unable to access the iPhone portion of iTunes.
I have tried to turn it off, with no luck. I have tried rebooting my laptop and syncing, but I still get the same result.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
I really wanted to wait to update the software, but I was having internet connectivity issues for the past 3 weeks, and Sprint suggested updating the phone's software.
Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi NWL1,
Thanks for the question. If I understand correctly, the iPhone won't update and is stuck. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a great day,
Mario

MacBook pro kernel panic, now won't boot. Am I doomed?

My MacBook Pro 15" (bought in Jan 2012) just had a kernel panic and now won't boot up.. Am I doomed?

No, it doesn't necessarily mean the hard drive is toast. You can start by doing the following:
Boot into Safe Mode then do this:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion
Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
If the drive is OK and you can repair permissions, then see if the computer will boot up normally. If it doesn't boot up normally then reinstall OS X:
Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

K8n won't boot off ATA drive

So with all this talk of unlocked SATA busses limiting o/c, and my frustration getting the bus over 240 with 5:6 (or even 2:3), or 225 with 1:1 I thought I'd give using an old ATA drive a shot.
But the board won't boot off it.
I've tried several installs of XP, formated clean for fat or ntfs, clean or quick, each time after windows copies over all the files and does it's first reboot, the board can't find the OS on the HD.
NTFS and FAT give slightly different error messages but the error is something like can't find operating system, or bad operating system.
Not your can't find ntldr or anything that would look software related.
I even moved the hd from the computer back to my main rig after one of these installs, and it went right into the install program where it shoulld have been.
!!

Quote
Originally posted by sotti
yeah I ain't no newb.
wasn't ment personally, it's just that you can never tell for certain on forums
Quote
Originally posted by sotti
I'm on primary master in this box, I rejumpered the drive for my main box as it's a secondary slave there.
2nd boot device is set to HD (after floppy #1) and in the HD boot order menu it shows only this drive and external card.
It's completely bizarre
well it seems more people have these problems. Since I haven't tried yet I wouldn't know what's the trick behind this. Will let ye know more in 2 weeks orso when my exams are past tense

IMac G5 iSight won't boot from external optical drive . . . FW or USB

Hello, all. I have an iMac G5 iSight with a busted optical drive. Every six months or so, OS 10.4 eats itself (directory structure goes corrupt), and I need to reinstall.
The issue I'm having is that the computer won't boot off of my external optical drive. It's not shown as a choice in the Startup Manager, whether it's connected via USB or FireWire. Any ideas?

Okay, sorry this took so long . . .
Reset the SMU, NVRAM, and PRAM, no luck. Tried different FireWire port on the iMac, no luck. Tried different FireWire port on optical drive--LUCK.
Ah.
Wipe and reinstall got underway, and finished the first part. Unfortunately, my OS 10.4 Disc 2 turned out to be scratched, and wiping the hard drive didn't get rid of the logic board error either.
Took it to Apple retail store, and it was BOA (bricked on arrival). Astoundingly, it would not power, POST, turn on the fans, nothing. They then replaced the power supply, so they could troubleshoot the hard drive/fan/whatever issue.
Now the computer POSTs, and they finished the reinstall, and said it passes their advanced diagnostics. I asked them to run the diags on the install CD, so they could see they fan error, and they agreed. That was around 7:00 last night.
Now, it's still at the store, and I'm eagerly awaiting word on what might REALLY be wrong. Thanks for your help so far!

Xserve Crash - Now won't boot off either SAS Drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for