I have a little problem. Brief history: I recently purchased a used 2009 Mac Pro that had already been upgraded to 5,1 firmware and was running Mojave ok with a Radeon RX580 video card. I was aware of the inability to get a boot screen because of the video card. I wanted to make sure that the previous owner hadn't installed some weird malware on the small SSD he provided, so I took one of my old SSDs that was laying around and decided I was going to do a fresh install of Mojave.
After some research and trial and error (still booted just fine during this), I created a boot image on a thumb drive. I also tried installing Mojave on the new SSD by itself while inside of Mojave ( on the working SSD ) but when the Mac rebooted, I got a black screen. I am assuming that had something to do with the "no boot screen due to the RX580" issue. So I removed that SSD and created the flash drive boot image. During the black screen, if I pressed "Enter" on the keyboard the Mac would restart but nothing ever came up on the screen. Once I removed that SSD it restarted fine and I was able to make the boot image. I changed the restart order to the flash drive, and restarted the Mac. At that point it restarted a couple times (with sound) but screen remained black like it did before. However, now I can't even get the Mac to start with the flash drive removed (guessing because it's trying to boot off the drive?).
And It is doing the same thing as it did when I tried the other way, you get tone, then nothing. But if you hit "enter" on the keyboard it will restart again. If you hit -> (arrow right) and enter the Mac shuts down completely. So, my question is: I have an old video card coming via eBay that I could use to be able to see the boot screen, would I be able to load Mojave right away or will I have to install High Sierra first using the old video card and then swap the cards and upgrade to Mojave? I have searched for answers but nobody seems to be having the same issue. Again, it was verified the firmware was 5,1 and it was running Mojave fine. Maybe it's trying to upgrade the firmware again before installing the fresh Mojave but I can't see the boot screen without the old video card??Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
After some research and trial and error (still booted just fine during this), I created a boot image on a thumb drive. I also tried installing Mojave on the new SSD by itself while inside of Mojave ( on the working SSD ) but when the Mac rebooted, I got a black screen. I am assuming that had something to do with the "no boot screen due to the RX580" issue. So I removed that SSD and created the flash drive boot image. During the black screen, if I pressed "Enter" on the keyboard the Mac would restart but nothing ever came up on the screen. Once I removed that SSD it restarted fine and I was able to make the boot image. I changed the restart order to the flash drive, and restarted the Mac. At that point it restarted a couple times (with sound) but screen remained black like it did before. However, now I can't even get the Mac to start with the flash drive removed (guessing because it's trying to boot off the drive?).
And It is doing the same thing as it did when I tried the other way, you get tone, then nothing. But if you hit "enter" on the keyboard it will restart again. If you hit -> (arrow right) and enter the Mac shuts down completely. So, my question is: I have an old video card coming via eBay that I could use to be able to see the boot screen, would I be able to load Mojave right away or will I have to install High Sierra first using the old video card and then swap the cards and upgrade to Mojave? I have searched for answers but nobody seems to be having the same issue. Again, it was verified the firmware was 5,1 and it was running Mojave fine. Maybe it's trying to upgrade the firmware again before installing the fresh Mojave but I can't see the boot screen without the old video card??Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
