MP 1,1-5,1 Blank Startup Manager

[christiann]

Title says it all. My Mac Pro 3,1 has some weird issue with not being able to recognize any SATA drives. I have no idea why, but it only sees NVMe drives in the PCIe slots. Anyways, when I go to the startup manager, it’s literally blank. It’ll see OS X installers, but the hard drive doesn’t show up. Weird enough, it says that the NVMe is “Internal”, yet it shows the yellow external drive icon on Desktop. Does anyone know how to get the drive on the boot menu? It’s an old OWC card and I installed all of the drivers. On OS X Yosemite 10.10.5.

 

[MarkC426]

I don't think Yosemite can boot from NVMe.

PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

This is a general info thread for blade SSDs that can be used in the Mac Pro. This is a WikiPost so anyone with the proper credentials may edit it. NVMe SSDs can be used as a boot drive in the MP5,1 and MP6,1 with the latest firmware installed (beginning with version 140.0.0.0.0 for MP5,1 and...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Dayo]

I don't think Yosemite can boot from NVMe.

It can, but capability was only added in the 10.10.3 update:

Faster 'NVM Express' SSD Interface Arrives on Retina MacBook and OS X 10.10.3

Apple has quietly introduced support for the next generation NVM Express (NVMe) interface to SSD Flash drives in their latest OS X 10.10.3 update as...

www.macrumors.com

The unit needs corresponding support for things to work properly

 

[tsialex]

It can, but capability was only added in the 10.10.3 update:

Faster 'NVM Express' SSD Interface Arrives on Retina MacBook and OS X 10.10.3

Apple has quietly introduced support for the next generation NVM Express (NVMe) interface to SSD Flash drives in their latest OS X 10.10.3 update as...

www.macrumors.com

The unit needs corresponding support for things to work properly

Yosemite 10.10.3 can only boot from AppleOEM NVMe drives, no third party at all, and if the Mac Pro firmware was updated by Apple to include NVMe support.

Since the OWC one is not an AppleOEM, nor MacPro3,1 EFI firmware supports booting from NVMe blades/drives, your answer is not really helping…

 

[Dayo]

Your contribution, in this instance, is not constructive given that my input was a specific factually accurate correction of a factually inaccurate *general* statement about NVMe support in Yosemite. Nothing more and nothing less.

BTW, there are easier ways than firmware updates to get NVMe support on units such as the MP31 and Yosemite 10.10.3 can in fact be made to load third party NVMe.

 

[tsialex]

Your contribution, in this instance, is not constructive given that my input was a specific factually accurate correction of a factually inaccurate *general* statement about NVMe support in Yosemite. Nothing more and nothing less.

Dayo the question is about NVMe and MacPro3,1, you can't disassociate one from the other.

BTW, Mac Firmware does not need to be updated by Apple or anyone else to get NVMe support

Again, the question is about booting a NVMe blade with a MacPro3,1.

Macs released without NVMe EFI module can't boot from a NVMe blade/disk. No firmware support, no booting from NVMe module. Btw, forget about chain loading, does not apply within the user question.

and Yosemite 10.10.3 can in fact be made to load third party NVMe.

Yes, you sure can modify Apple NVMe kext support to add 3rd party NVMe support, but it's not something that anyone can or will do.

 

[Dayo]

I am not sure what has gotten up your bonnet. I was correcting @MarkC426 specific statement. No more, no less

However...

Macs released without NVMe EFI module can't boot from a NVMe blade/disk.

But they can

you sure can modify Apple NVMe kext support to add 3rd party NVMe support, but it's not something that anyone can or will do.

People patch kexts with OpenCore every single day

 

[christiann]

Got it running HS w/ NVMe patch but still nothing in startup manager. Just gotta make sure nothing else is plugged in and it boots up fine. I’ll try OpenCore. The NVMe drives are showing up as SATA so every OS I try works fine.

 

[tsialex]

I am not sure what has gotten up your bonnet. I was correcting @MarkC426 specific statement. No more, no less

Think about the person that is reading your Yosemite statement and then think if it's possible that the person will understand that it applies to his/her MacPro3,1, since it's what's the thread is about. That's why your statement didn't help here.

 

[tsialex]

Got it running HS w/ NVMe patch but still nothing in startup manager. Just gotta make sure nothing else is plugged in and it boots up fine. I’ll try OpenCore. The NVMe drives are showing up as SATA so every OS I try works fine.

What is exactly the OWC model, it's a SATA, AHCI or NVMe one? If shows as SATA with SystemInformation is a SATA blade, not PCIe NVMe or PCIe AHCI and should be bootable by MacPro3,1 default firmware if it's not a weird OWC RAID array.

 

[Dayo]

it's possible that the person will understand that it applies to his/her MacPro3,1

I understand what you mean but does this not count ... in my post?

The unit needs corresponding support for things to work properly

I wasn't going into details of how they could add support to their unit if not already there but added that just in case

 

[christiann]

It’s a OWC Mercury Accelsior.

What is exactly the OWC model, it's a SATA, AHCI or NVMe one? If shows as SATA with SystemInformation is a SATA blade, not PCIe NVMe or PCIe AHCI and should be bootable by MacPro3,1 default firmware if it's not a weird OWC RAID array.

 

[tsialex]

It’s a OWC Mercury Accelsior.

If it's this one below, it's a PCIe card with two PCIe AHCI blades and should be bootable with MacPro3,1 without any mods.

If you used SoftRAID or any other RAID software then things are more complicated.

 

[christiann]

If it's this one below, it's a PCIe card with two PCIe AHCI blades and should be bootable with MacPro3,1 without any mods.

View attachment 2135678

If you used SoftRAID or any other RAID software then things are more complicated.

Yeah, it boots fine. The problem is nothing shows up when I hold Alt. MacOS installers and Windows DVDs will show up, but never the hard drive. The OWC drive says “Internal” yet it still doesn’t show up.

 

[christiann]

If I hold Alt:

If I let it boot normally:

Weird, eh? No recovery partition either.

 

[Dayo]

So your question was not even about booting to start with.
It could be that you are missing some required resources needed to display the instance in Startup Manager.
You could try something like this tool to rule that out:

GitHub - minh-ton/VolumeIcon: Apply a boot manager icon to your startup volume on non-APFS machines.

Apply a boot manager icon to your startup volume on non-APFS machines. - minh-ton/VolumeIcon

github.com

 

[christiann]

So your question was not even about booting to start with.
It could be that you are missing some required resources needed to display the instance in Startup Manager.
You could try something like this tool to rule that out:

GitHub - minh-ton/VolumeIcon: Apply a boot manager icon to your startup volume on non-APFS machines.

Apply a boot manager icon to your startup volume on non-APFS machines. - minh-ton/VolumeIcon

github.com

Yep, the title would’ve been sufficient. I’ve never seen that before, is this a common issue?