HELP !!! MAC PRO 3.1, Bootcamp, SSD & Windows 7

[BrianM8596]

Hi All,

Thanks for reading this I am in a world of hell and have been since yesterday..firstly I would say I am very new to Mac Pro having come from a PC via an iMac.
I purchased a MAC Pro 3.1, YOSIMITE, dual 3.2 xeon 18 gb ram and a Accelsior 128ssd card and 2tb 2nd drive.
All was well, I wanted to use some old windows programs so purchased parallels and that was fine, but I read about bootcamp and decided to do that as well.
The OSX was in the SSD drive, I picked the 2tb drive to install windows and went stages to do it and everything seemed fine.
Then I wanted to go back into the OSX so pressed the button to stop the boot and found the OSX had gone from the options, all that was there was the windows ( bootcamp ) and the windows install cd.
I have tried pressing every combination, cmd r, cmd+ this and that…no shows the SSD drive….i have an osx install dvd from the iMac, so I used the imac to recreate a bootable usb drive and can get into the disk utility via that and the system can see the ssd drive in there, I have run all the repair options and everything is fine, but I simply cannot get the system to see it when I restart, if I take the windows drive out I get the folder with question mark and that’s my lot…
I can see looking at the ssd in the disk utility that it is using 48 gb so I guess the osx is still there…
I am assuming because I loaded the windows on a different drive, it has somehow changed my boot and that is the problem but I have NO IDEA how to resolve..please any help would be great before I give up and throw the lot !!!!

Thanks Brian

 

[xcodeSyn]

I can see looking at the ssd in the disk utility that it is using 48 gb so I guess the osx is still there…

If the OS X drive is still intact, then doing a NVRAM reset as indicated here should reset your default startup drive back to OS X.

 

[BrianM8596]

If the OS X drive is still intact, then doing a NVRAM reset as indicated here should reset your default startup drive back to OS X.

Hiya, I can see the data is still on the SSD drive if I look at it in disk utility ...but I tried the NVRAM idea and made no difference..i have tried fdisk fix to resize the drive as discussed below

http://myhack.sojugarden.com/2009/1...f-you-broke-it-with-the-chameleon-bootloader/

still no joy, the SSD drive is still there for sure, but for what ever reason whatever I try the system simple will not see it, it will only see the windows sata drive if I plug it back in.....

thanks for the idea ...brian

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Hiya, I can see the data is still on the SSD drive if I look at it in disk utility ...but I tried the NVRAM idea and made no difference..i have tried fdisk fix to resize the drive as discussed below

http://myhack.sojugarden.com/2009/1...f-you-broke-it-with-the-chameleon-bootloader/

still no joy, the SSD drive is still there for sure, but for what ever reason whatever I try the system simple will not see it, it will only see the windows sata drive if I plug it back in.....

thanks for the idea ...brian

This will sound simplistic but is there anyway I can use my iMAC to create a recovery disk or can I someone get into what we called a BIOS on a pc to tell the mac to use the 128 SSD ?

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Hiya, I can see the data is still on the SSD drive if I look at it in disk utility ...but I tried the NVRAM idea and made no difference..i have tried fdisk fix to resize the drive as discussed below

http://myhack.sojugarden.com/2009/1...f-you-broke-it-with-the-chameleon-bootloader/

still no joy, the SSD drive is still there for sure, but for what ever reason whatever I try the system simple will not see it, it will only see the windows sata drive if I plug it back in.....

thanks for the idea ...brian

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This will sound simplistic but is there anyway I can use my iMAC to create a recovery disk or can I someone get into what we called a BIOS on a pc to tell the mac to use the 128 SSD ?

FORGETTING ABOUT ANY DATA on any drives...is there anyway to recover a MAC PRO 3.1 to a factory position, and basically start from fresh ? I have a small bootcamp partition on the 2tb drive could that be deleted..i am quite happy to lose everything, if I could just get the machine to see any hard drive don't care which one and allow me to format it and load any OSX on it ?

 

[IowaLynn]

Yosemite does not show up in the Alt/Option key the way the EFI Boot Manager use to, so that is different.

Also, some PCIe controllers may or may not work the same with option key.

BootPicker is handy. And use Command + R

When in Windows, and after installing the Apple drivers that you downloaded and created on a USB thumb drive from Boot Camp Assistant, there will be a control panel - and on Taskbar - "Boot Camp" that can be used to set the default startup disk.

When you "zap pram" you tell the system to forget its default boot volume setting and it has to be reset.

If you install Windows first, and then use Parallels, you can activate it once and use both as VM and native booting.

 

[flehman]

Not sure if you tried any of these ideas yet, they are all "simple" fixes but may help you to rule out other potential issues:

- Try Installing the PCIE drive in a different card slot.

- Try booting from your system restore DVD or USB and use disk utility to repair the drive and/or permissions.

- If your OS X data is already backed up, or if you have a way to back up whatever OS X data you have, or if you don't care about your OS X data, the nuclear option is of course to reformat and reinstall using your system restore DVD or USB.

You mentioned that the drive is a OWC 3rd-party SSD. Did you use Trim Enabler to enable Trim in Yosemite? If you did, you could be running into the grey stop sign. I am not sure how the system would behave with a Bootcamp drive installed because I do not use Windows on my own Mac Pro 3-1, but if you used Trim Enabler for Yosemite to disable kext-signing you could be encountering the grey stop sign and the system just boots itself into Windows because it can't boot from the OS X drive anymore. You might have had a temporary problem at first, but resetting PRAM guarantees a grey stop sign because it re-enables kext-signing. You would need to review Cindori's instructions for getting past the grey stop sign.

 

[BrianM8596]

Yosemite does not show up in the Alt/Option key the way the EFI Boot Manager use to, so that is different.

Also, some PCIe controllers may or may not work the same with option key.

BootPicker is handy. And use Command + R

When in Windows, and after installing the Apple drivers that you downloaded and created on a USB thumb drive from Boot Camp Assistant, there will be a control panel - and on Taskbar - "Boot Camp" that can be used to set the default startup disk.

When you "zap pram" you tell the system to forget its default boot volume setting and it has to be reset.

If you install Windows first, and then use Parallels, you can activate it once and use both as VM and native booting.

Thanks for the email, I got excited then, but as has been the case with this over the last 27 hours EVERYTHING I try does not work...I can see the SSD drive happily in explorer but naturally as has been the case, boot camp target disk NOPE not there....windows seems to have taken this mac and turned it into a crap PC....if I could just make the boot camp partition a bit bigger or the 2tb I have a whole 20gb for windows !!!! so I can even load a piece of software.....because it wont see the SSD in any of the boot options I cant use any of the recovery options.....I seem to have a 20gb windows install on a boot camp partition and that it..MAC gone.....if I could just wipe the windows drive somehow and reinstall an OSX on it that would be good....but I am guess that the bootloader ( if that the write name will see the 20gb partition and nothing else )

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Not sure if you tried any of these ideas yet, they are all "simple" fixes but may help you to rule out other potential issues:

- Try trading the drive sleds around in case you have a bad drive bay.

- install the SSD in an external enclosure and see if you can boot from it externally.

- Try booting from your system restore DVD or USB and use disk utility to repair the drive and/or permissions.

- If your OS X data is already backed up, or if you have a way to back up whatever OS X data you have, or if you don't care about your OS X data, the nuclear option is of course to reformat and reinstall using your system restore DVD or USB.

You mentioned that the drive is a OWC 3rd-party SSD. Did you use Trim Enabler to enable Trim in Yosemite? If you did, you could be running into the grey stop sign. I am not sure how the system would behave with a Bootcamp drive installed because I do not use Windows on my own Mac Pro 3-1, but if you used Trim Enabler for Yosemite to disable kext-signing you could be encountering the grey stop sign and the system just boots itself into Windows because it can't boot from the OS X drive anymore. You might have had a temporary problem at first, but resetting PRAM guarantees a grey stop sign because it re-enables kext-signing. You would need to review Cindori's instructions for getting past the grey stop sign.

Thanks for the email, I did not install anything it cam with the SSD I cant take it out as its on the card rather than a little drive....the machine was all fine , I have windows working on parallels and no problem, then I stupidly thought I use bootcamp in case I need to run in just windows and not a window, then I realised once I wanted back in osx it was gone....if I take the windows drive out I get the grey question mark box, I guess this is the grey stop sign ???

is this a post somewhere ? " Cindori's instructions for getting past the grey stop sign " if I would just see the SSD at the boot I am sure everything would be fine...been on this all weekend and I just keep coming up aginst road blocks...I am mac newbie so working blind really...

 

[flehman]

Forget about the grey stop sign - it sounds like you don't know about Trim Enabler so you probably did not get yourself into that jam.

 

[flehman]

Another thought - booting from a PCIE SSD is generally regarded as a bit more unreliable in a 3,1 than in a 4,1 or 5,1. The reliability can also depend greatly on the hardware involved.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/Compatibility

According to the OWC website, your Accelsior cannot be recognized as a boot drive in the option-boot menu in a 2006-2008 Mac Pro. Probably the only way to designate it as a boot drive is via the Startup Drive control panel in another installation of OS X. You could get a cheapo 3.5" drive for one of the bays, drop an OS X install on it and try to re-designate your PCIE SSD as the startup drive from there.

 

[BrianM8596]

Forget about the grey stop sign - it sounds like you don't know about Trim Enabler so you probably did not get yourself into that jam.

went through the process anyway and it did not work...the system simply just needs to see the SSD at the boot..but there simply is no way to do that I don't think......windows has clearly changed the boot at there is no way to repair I guess....look like a new mac required, I just have no idea what to try

 

[flehman]

I highly doubt that there is a problem with the Mac Pro. It is almost definitely the PCIE card and/or SSD. Running an SSD off the PCIE bus is high risk / high reward if you are not real familiar with the Mac Pro and OS X. Especially on a 3,1 where you have to really check compatibility to see if booting is supported. A 4,1 or 5,1 is less finicky.

I am still using 2.5" SSDs in the regular drive bays on my 3,1 while I research and consider installing a PCIE SSD solution of some kind. I plan to keep the 2.5" drives in the bays as a backstop.

 

[BrianM8596]

I highly doubt that there is a problem with the Mac Pro. It is almost definitely the PCIE card and/or SSD. Running an SSD off the PCIE bus is high risk / high reward if you are not real familiar with the Mac Pro and OS X. Especially on a 3,1 where you have to really check compatibility to see if booting is supported. A 4,1 or 5,1 is less finicky.

I am still using 2.5" SSDs in the regular drive bays on my 3,1 while I research and consider installing a PCIE SSD solution of some kind. I plan to keep the 2.5" drives in the bays as a backstop.

Thanks, I had no idea as I am not tech enough, is there anyway to wipe the 2TB drive and take out the card with the SSD on and then start from a fresh...the machine just sees the bootcamp bit and the 20gb that has windows on.....

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Another thought - booting from a PCIE SSD is generally regarded as a bit more unreliable in a 3,1 than in a 4,1 or 5,1. The reliability can also depend greatly on the hardware involved.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/Compatibility

According to the OWC website, your Accelsior cannot be recognized as a boot drive in the option-boot menu in a 2006-2008 Mac Pro. Probably the only way to designate it as a boot drive is via the Startup Drive control panel in another installation of OS X. You could get a cheapo 3.5" drive for one of the bays, drop an OS X install on it and try to re-designate your PCIE SSD as the startup drive from there.

I have the 2tb drive in the machine with the 20gb partition, I have an old osx 10.6.4 on a usb stick that lets me boot into the disk utility bit...can I wipe the bootcamp partition someone and then install OSX on that drive and make it the boot drive ? I don't care about anything on the boot drive or the 2tb drive..i would kist let to get any version of the OSX back .... I have a selection of external USB drives here can I use of them or anything....as soon as it boot into the 10.6.4 is says osx can not be installed on this drive ? I assume that means the USB drive I booted from, can I tell it to look for the 2tb drive and install on that wiping the bootcamp partion in the process ?

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Thanks, I had no idea as I am not tech enough, is there anyway to wipe the 2TB drive and take out the card with the SSD on and then start from a fresh...the machine just sees the bootcamp bit and the 20gb that has windows on.....

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I have the 2tb drive in the machine with the 20gb partition, I have an old osx 10.6.4 on a usb stick that lets me boot into the disk utility bit...can I wipe the bootcamp partition someone and then install OSX on that drive and make it the boot drive ? I don't care about anything on the boot drive or the 2tb drive..i would kist let to get any version of the OSX back .... I have a selection of external USB drives here can I use of them or anything....as soon as it boot into the 10.6.4 is says osx can not be installed on this drive ? I assume that means the USB drive I booted from, can I tell it to look for the 2tb drive and install on that wiping the bootcamp partion in the process ?

when it says I cant install osx it says do I want to use a time machine recover ? is there anyway to make any kind of recovery on my iMac to get the MAC PRO going ??

 

[flehman]

You will probably get better info from someone who uses Bootcamp all the time. I thought that maybe Bootcamp drives can be re-partitioned without destroying/wiping the data, but maybe that is only when you are partitioning an OS X volume to make room for Windows and not the other way around.

What you need to do is create a new OS X volume somewhere else on the computer. Whether that's by wiping the 2TB Bootcamp, finding a way to partition part of it for an install, or buying a cheapo 3.5" burner drive for one of the other bays. Create your new OS X install, boot from it, and access the Startup Volume control panel and see if you can re-select your SSD as the startup volume.

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Start up from your recovery DVD or USB device, go into Disk Utility, and choose to erase your 2 TB drive and format as HFS+ Journaled. Install OS X on it. Easiest way to do it if you don't care about Windows or the data.

 

[stjames70]

I know what's going on

Hi Brian,

Installing BootCamp in a MacPro with Windows 7 is impossible.

I know. I tried. With a 3,1, a 4,1, and a 5,1. What will work is a Win 8, preferably a Win 8.1 install.

I spent probably two weeks trying various combinations, and I was finally able to do it, but I did run into some of the same problems you mentioned.

First of all, your SSD is crap right now, correct? Disk Utility can see it and you can't do anything with it right?

If you can get OS X running in your 3,1 with the SSD in it, then you will have to use terminal and command line tools under terminal to reformat your SSD back to JHFS+ (back to MacOSX standard format). Here is the link:

http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/disk-management-from-the-command-line-part-1

Next, if you still want to create a boot camp drive (don't try a partition, you will probably cause more damage and pain than necessary -- you have a 3,1 so you have lots of available bays for drives). Here are the instructions I used:

http://bleeptobleep.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/mac-install-windows-7-or-8-on-external.html

Now, the only difference is that I did not use an external drive -- I used one of the open bays disk bays in the 3,1. Also, don't use anything greater than 2TB for your windows drive. Windows, will not format or partition anything greater than that so you will be losing 1TB of space for nothing. You will install Win 8 or Win 8.1. The instructions claim that it may work for Win 7. No. No. No. It will not work -- period. So if you can't upgrade to Win 8, give up. I upgraded my Win 7 professional to Win 8.1 in VMWare Fusion, and then I made a .wim disk image, and then I copied it over to the Windows drive as per instructions. If you read all the responses, you will find a link where someone copied their Windows machine instead of copying the .wim file from the Windows installation.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/win8/windows8-recreate-image.htm

Ok. This is it. Lastly, I don't know what graphics card or monitor you are using. BUT, I will tell you that it would be better if your monitor is of the DVI type interface. Windows still has some problems supporting Display Port with some video cards.

Good luck. I was able to create a Win 8.1 Pro 64 bit machine that flies. My ACD 30" looks awesome and the performance on the 3,1 with 32 GB and a GTX 680 is phenomenal (at least for the 3D simulations I use for CAT scans).

This process was so amazingly painful to me that I had to share what I had to do to get everything back in line. I know this may not fully apply to you, but man, I hope it does help you. I was in boot camp hell for two weeks!!!!

Please let me know if this helped. I should let everyone know that this is the only option that works on cMPs as far as I know in order to get Windows running in your system. The only thing I used from the bootcamp assistant was the drivers I loaded up on a USB flash drive.

 

[Synchro3]

Installing BootCamp in a MacPro with Windows 7 is impossible.

I know. I tried. With a 3,1, a 4,1, and a 5,1. What will work is a Win 8, preferably a Win 8.1 install.

This is not correct. I'm running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro 4,1 without problems on a separate SSD (attached to internal SATA port 1).

 

[flehman]

Isn't there a Knowledge Base arricle that lays out which versions of Windows can be installed on specific Mac models? If anything, I thought that Windows 7 was "approved" and Windows 8 could not be installed on a 3,1 without resorting to extraordinary procedures.

Edit: just found it here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204048

According to this Windows 7 (64-bit) is the last version of Windows that is officially supported for installation via Bootcamp on a 3,1.

 

[IowaLynn]

This is not correct. I'm running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro 4,1 without problems on a separate SSD (attached to internal SATA port 1).

I don't use the OS X drive so I have to remove other drives during Windows install. Also, I have been able to just forget Apple's method and just boot from DVD - booting from USB to install off an ISO might require Boot Camp Assistant on Mac.

Paragon Software's CampTuneX (have not used) but supports Boot Camp and installing Windows on Mac, resizing partitions and more. Plus they have a better HFS for Windows driver as well as NTFS for OS X driver.

 

[MacVidCards]

Hooey

I've gotten Win 7 and Win 8 on every iteration of cMP.

OP is making mountain out of molehill.

Slap another drive in and create an OSX install. Done.

 

[flehman]

We have indeed strayed onto a tangent with all the Bootcamp talk anyway. OP's problem is his OWC Accelsior PCIE SSD cannot be recognized in the option-boot menu on a 3,1 due to the published technical limitations of the device. Only way to get it back is to create a new OS X install and attempt to reassign the SSD as boot from there.

 

[IowaLynn]

We have indeed strayed onto a tangent with all the Bootcamp talk anyway. OP's problem is his OWC Accelsior PCIE SSD cannot be recognized in the option-boot menu on a 3,1 due to the published technical limitations of the device. Only way to get it back is to create a new OS X install and attempt to reassign the SSD as boot from there.

An XP941 or Apple Samsung blade to the rescue perhaps?

 

[MacVidCards]

An XP941 or Apple Samsung blade to the rescue perhaps?

The 3,1 can be finicky even with them.

It just doesn't like PCIE SSDs. But as I have posted in "Yosemite on a 1,1" threads I don't understand how people get in spots like this. I'm guessing most people have a hard time wrapping their brain around a computer having more than 1 working OSX install.

I have a tub full of old HDD a from past macs. Most are SATA, some even PATA. Every cMP here has multiple OSs on multiple drives. But it is so trivial to take some old POS 20GB drive and slap a Yose or Mavericks install on it. Certainly less than an hour of work.

Which is why I don't understand things like "I've spent 27 hours on this" sort of handwringing.

 

[flehman]

The 3,1 can be finicky.

This. I keep 2 bootable 2.5" SSDs in my drive bays. That won't change when I install a PCIE SSD because the existing drive bays, although slower than PCIE, are rock-solid reliable in comparison. Always nice to have a bootable fallback from which to diagnose problems.

 

[stjames70]

Maybe......

This is not correct. I'm running Windows 7 on my Mac Pro 4,1 without problems on a separate SSD (attached to internal SATA port 1).

I don't know. I had problems with the latest iteration of boot camp assistant, and I ran into the same problems as the OP. The latest iteration of boot camp assistant supports only 64 bit versions of Win 7 or Win 8 according to Apple's own documentation. There are lot of factors which made my installation difficult, and technical prowess was not one of them, I assure you. I always follow directions to a tee, and this time, it was just a disaster. So if you were able to work bootcamp with your cMP, good for you, but if you were using the exact same boot camp assistant, the same cMP 4,1 and the latest iteration of OS X, you would have run into the same problems I did. So I love you all for supporting the OS X community, but HOOYE to all of you that think this is just a cake walk and I must have made some rookie mistake reading the directions!

 

[Synchro3]

I don't know. I had problems with the latest iteration of boot camp assistant, and I ran into the same problems as the OP. The latest iteration of boot camp assistant supports only 64 bit versions of Win 7 or Win 8 according to Apple's own documentation. There are lot of factors which made my installation difficult, and technical prowess was not one of them, I assure you. I always follow directions to a tee, and this time, it was just a disaster. So if you were able to work bootcamp with your cMP, good for you, but if you were using the exact same boot camp assistant, the same cMP 4,1 and the latest iteration of OS X, you would have run into the same problems I did. So I love you all for supporting the OS X community, but HOOYE to all of you that think this is just a cake walk and I must have made some rookie mistake reading the directions!

Yeah, i installed Windows 7 (64 Bit) a long time ago with Boot Camp 4.x drivers, never tried Boot Camp 5 on the Mac Pro. Howsoever a 32 Bit Version of Windows makes no sense when even the GPU has 2 GBytes of memory, as in my case. My once installed Windows XP 32 Bit did not work correctly since i have a GPU with 2 GB.

Did you try to install Windows 7 direct to a drive without Boot Camp? And let the Windows Setup format the drive? If I remember correctly, i've chosen the EFI Boot part of the Windows 7 (64 Bit) DVD.

 

[stjames70]

Yeah, i installed Windows 7 (64 Bit) a long time ago with Boot Camp 4.x drivers, never tried Boot Camp 5 on the Mac Pro. Howsoever a 32 Bit Version of Windows makes no sense when even the GPU has 2 GBytes of memory, as in my case. My once installed Windows XP 32 Bit did not work correctly since i have a GPU with 2 GB.

Did you try to install Windows 7 direct to a drive without Boot Camp? And let the Windows Setup format the drive? If I remember correctly, i've chosen the EFI Boot part of the Windows 7 (64 Bit) DVD.

If you read my original post, I did not do that. I formatted a 1TB drive on Bay 3 of my computer (not important which bay, just that I did use one of the bays) using Win 8.1 Pro x64 through the Command Prompt (Admin) in VMWare Fusion. I made a boot partition as well as a NTSF partition. I made a .wim image of that Win 8.1 Pro x64 machine and stored in a folder I made c:\wim. Then I copied that image to the freshly formatted 1TB drive I just made in the previous step. When I finished that, I rebooted my 4,1 by pressing the Alt/Option key and selecting 'Windows' as the startup disk. After that, I installed the boot camp drivers, and finally updated the NVIDIA drivers through their website to match my GTX 980. Voila, functional MacPro running Win 8.1 Pro x64 natively. Very fast, very smooth.

 

[IowaLynn]

... There are lot of factors which made my installation difficult, and technical prowess was not one of them, I assure you. I always follow directions to a tee, ... just a cake walk and I must have made some rookie mistake reading the directions!

When it comes to "Windows on Mac" aka "Boot Camp" and Boot Camp Assistant (and Boot Camp this and that, too many uses of a term to have it be meaningful)....

... following Apple directions can be a mistake at times.

BCA is necessary to download drivers unless you do so manually
BCA is necessary to partition, though most Mac Pro users don't and use a dedicated Windows drive.

There are 10's of thousands of people in the Apple Boot Camp forum floundering around, and others burned out and trying to help, and the same questions getting asked endlessly since 2007.

Mac Pro is really just another PC with Apple EFI firmware. You can take a Windows ISO or DVD and the only real "rule" has to do with how Windows treats UEFI and GPT and when it sees the presence of other drives with GPT - so remove ALL drives but the one that will be used to install Windows onto (must be internal for our needs).

Following directions but only when those are "good" directions.

The FAQ and guide in all Apple Tech Articles and product support have changed a lot and the format, and the RSS feed... I think the FAQ and manual for Boot Camp Assistant has gotten better overall.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp

There are half a dozen ways to install Windows, none are wrong, some may be more suitable. Same as most things.

Having an MBR active on a GPT is one reason Apple users use BCA.
Windows and GPT FAQ
Apple: Secrets of the GPT (really old now)

You may also read where new OS X versions have moved, shifted, make Windows volume unbootable, changed the partition ID #n or basically made it a disaster. So much for support and testing and the "Apple way."