boot problems after video card upgrade

[MacSince1985]

I just replaced a dead Radeon 5770 with a FGX 680. Now my Mac won't boot from its SSD drive.

The Mac will boot from the HD in bay 1.
It sees the SSD and Disk Utility says it's OK (repaired permissions + verified disk).
If I start from the SSD, it stays stuck on gray screen Apple logo.

The SSD is a striped raid (Crucial MX500) in a Apricorn Velocity Duo PCI card.

SMC reset, PRAM reset. Any suggestions on next step?

 

[hfg]

Reseat the DUO PCIe card to be sure it is fully connected. You were swapping a nearby video card, it may have become dislodged.

Put the RAID-0 SSDs in regular disk sled slots and verify booting, then move back to Velocity DUO card.

I am using a DUO card with a Macvidcards GTX 680 with no issues. Don't know about FGX 680?

 

[MacSince1985]

I don't have sleds that will fit these drives, so I can't do that test.

The drive is fully visible (files accessible). Disk Utility and Drive Genius gave it a clean bill of health (running Techtool pro now).

 

[hfg]

SSDs are so light weight that you might carefully just insert them into the SATA connector for testing purposes. You might lay it on its side so the SSD is vertical if you prefer.

It is odd that the utilities see it ok, but it doesn't boot. Anything else in the PCIe slots? Did you try the DUO card in a different slot?

If you do the option-key on reboot, do you see the SSD RAID in the boot manager screen?

 

[MacSince1985]

when I option-boot, it shows the SSD RAID as 2 disks. Is that normal?

 

[hfg]

when I option-boot, it shows the SSD RAID as 2 disks. Is that normal?

Yes that is normal ... and either one will boot the RAID-0 array.

You might also let the PRAM reset cycle 2 or 3 times before releasing the option key to continue the boot.

 

[MacSince1985]

It's working again

I removed a e-sata card that I wasn't using anyway. That didn't change anything. Then I tried a system reinstall (and upgraded to Yosemite in the process) and it's now working fine.

So I guess it was a software problem. Something got corrupted either when the video card died or in one of the reboots.