MP 1,1-5,1 5,1 Mojave WILL NOT boot in Recover mode or from external install drive

[rstreber]

I'm going a little crazy here. After many failed attempts, I was finally able to upgrade my 5,1 12-core 3.46 Ghz Mac Pro to Mojave, Boot ROM 144.0.0.0.0. It ran ok for a while, but after some weird behavior and discovering that no matter what I do I can't get it to boot into recovery mode, I decided to do a clean install.

However, now I can't get it to start up from an external install drive. I followed all instructions on making a bootable USB drive and it shows up as a selectable startup disc in that menu. However, when I try to start holding down option, it just eventually defaults to my internal HD without giving me any other options. When I select the external install drive as the startup disc, the system boots up with a grey screen and a "null" symbol where the apple logo should be.

I've tried this multiple times now with multiple drives, multiple methods of creating the install disc, and I always come up with the same result. Most of the advice that I've found through googling tells me to fix the startup problem by booting in recovery mode which I can't do, and it seems like the only way to fix the recovery mode issue is to do a clean reinstall which I can't do without being able to boot from an external drive! So I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

 

[sfalatko]

I'm going a little crazy here. After many failed attempts, I was finally able to upgrade my 5,1 12-core 3.46 Ghz Mac Pro to Mojave, Boot ROM 144.0.0.0.0. It ran ok for a while, but after some weird behavior and discovering that no matter what I do I can't get it to boot into recovery mode, I decided to do a clean install.

However, now I can't get it to start up from an external install drive. I followed all instructions on making a bootable USB drive and it shows up as a selectable startup disc in that menu. However, when I try to start holding down option, it just eventually defaults to my internal HD without giving me any other options. When I select the external install drive as the startup disc, the system boots up with a grey screen and a "null" symbol where the apple logo should be.

I've tried this multiple times now with multiple drives, multiple methods of creating the install disc, and I always come up with the same result. Most of the advice that I've found through googling tells me to fix the startup problem by booting in recovery mode which I can't do, and it seems like the only way to fix the recovery mode issue is to do a clean reinstall which I can't do without being able to boot from an external drive! So I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

Did you do a 4 times NVRAM reset? That is where I would start.

 

[rstreber]

No I didn't. I just tried making a new boot drive from my MacBook on a Samsung T7 drive. The Macbook boots from it fine. The 5,1 just gives me a folder with a question mark instead of the grey apple logo when I try to boot from it. I hadn't heard of the "4 times NVRAM reset", but ill try that now. Does that just mean that I literally do the reset procedure 4 times? Sorry for my ignorance.

 

[rstreber]

After NVRAM reset, if I try to boot in recovery mode, I get the "null" symbol instead of apple logo.

 

[tsialex]

After NVRAM reset, if I try to boot in recovery mode, I get the "null" symbol instead of apple logo.

Power off, remove all disks installed on your Mac Pro (yes, all), install a nuked/fully erased disk on HDD bay one, connect the createinstallmedia Mojave USB installer on one of the five native USB2.0 ports, power up, wait around 3 minutes, your Mac Pro will boot from the createinstallmedia Mojave installer when no other bootable disk will be found.

 

[rstreber]

Thanks will try that next. As of now, I just tried setting the external T7 that I'd installed Mojave to as the startup disc. Looked like it was working (got the apple logo and progress bar for a few minutes), but then it changed over to a ø symbol on grey screen.

 

[rstreber]

Knock on wood, but that seems to be working! Installing Mojave now to an older SSD. I formatted it for OS Extended / GUID; is this ok, or should I have done APFS?

 

[tsialex]

Knock on wood, but that seems to be working! Installing Mojave now to an older SSD. I formatted it for OS Extended / GUID; is this ok, or should I have done APFS?

It's ok, Mojave installer will convert it to APFS.

 

[rstreber]

Thanks again - I'm currently doing a clean install of everything, so we'll see how it goes. But so far, it seems like everything's working more smoothly, fingers crossed.

 

[rstreber]

So this is kind of strange and a bit stressful. I finally finished a full clean re-install over everything, and the system was running totally smoothly. I run a recording studio and mostly use this machine to run a Pro Tools HDX system.

I got some unexpected errors and remembered that Avid recommends disabling tailspind and spindump. So I went through the procedure to do this. I started in recovery without any issues, disabled SIP. Then I rebooted and ran the terminal commands for disabling tailspind and spindump, all without issue.

However, when I try to boot into recovery mode to re-enable SIP, the machine will not boot into recovery mode no matter what I try. It just goes to black screens and sits there. I've tried multiple times, both from a restart as well as from power off, also immediately after disconnecting power for a few seconds. Every time, it just sits on a black screen, and I eventually have to do a hard shut down by holding down the power button (which always makes me feel like I'm slowly killing my now 10-year-old machine.)

Not sure why Recovery Mode seems to be some strange and elusive place that I can almost never get to on this machine. Any other suggestions?