Resolved Mac pro 1,1 trouble (will not boot)

[vworks]

Hi,
a strange problem occured to me.

I helped a friend with installing a ssd samsung evo 850 in his mac pro 1,1 on the 5th ("hidden") Sata port. It is not the first time I do that. It all worked well. We installed a new OS and he manually transferred all files from the old HDD. Then he got some premission problems, I showed him how to resolve via cmd+i, everyone - read and write, apply to all etc.
I left, he lives in Paris, I was there for a week, and I live in Bulgaria.
....

Next day he calls me saying that the mac is stuck on apple logo screen, trying to boot into the ssd but it hangs just there. After several tests, none of the 3 hard disks he has could boot (he had one disk with snow leopard and one other with Tiger)...
They worked just fine a week ago.
I try everything I know, I know a lot, and nothing happens. Even as external disks, the mac will stay at the grey screen loading eternally the OS.
....
I decide to find a new mac pro 1,1 and he gets a new one. He installs the ssd on the 5th port, this mac pro used to have also an ssd on this port working perfectly...
The mac will go to the apple screen and will hang there trying to boot. Just as the old one. Same for the other disks...
....
He told me that before the first (his own) mac loses the ability to boot, he had this strange problem with permissions again - every disk he was trying to use had this padlock sign on it and he could not open them...
After this he restarted the mac pro and impossible to boot ever since.
.....

Question - could a SSD connected to the hidden SATA ports damage the logic board or the SATA connections on the mac pro?
Question 2 - could the SSD or something my friend did during the manual permissions repair cause a corruption to ALL disks and therefore impossibility to use them?

PS. we didnt yet try a disk coming form another computer which is something he is going to try tomorrow...
PSS. he does not have the original DVD's to try to boot...

He tried all sorts of SMC reset and PRAM reset, of course, even single user and fsck -fy.

I am really overwhelmed... Never had this kind of problem. ANd it is so frustrating because I am trying to help from here via facetime etc...and cant get my hands on the mac pro.

 

[orph]

have you tried alt startup to see startup manager?
have you tried pulling all drives apart from 1 (which has an OS on) and seeing if it will boot?
is the data backed up?
can you describe the drive setup for me, ie i assume he has 5 drives (as your using the 5th) dose each one have an os on? any dedicated data drives? was he keeping work files on OS drives? where all the OS's on one partitioned drive or split up over lots of drives?

also when you changed the permissions on files with cmd+i why did you need to do that? and what did you change?

if it was me id install OSX on to a USB stick 16GB+ then pull all drives from the macpro and try to boot from the USB stick (not from a usb 3 card but from the mac usb2 ports), if you can boot from a usb stick it's not a hardware problem.
then id start trying to boot from the last know good OS drive (ie only one HD in the computer at a time) and see if it works, then start adding drives till you hit the problem.
but thats just a gess on mu end as im not shore about all the details.

if the data is not backed up then be careful, if you can boot from a USB stick you can if needed insert the drives then back up all the data on to external drives using the USB stick as the boot drive if needed.

i have one HD with multiple partitions each one with different copy's of OSX on to boot from (there backups my boot drive is on a SSD, but it keeps things clean/safe) and i keep all my data on dedicated data drives as mixing the two is always a nightmare if he's mixing data over multiple boot drives then your going to have "fun" fixing it :X
my data drives all have ignore ownership on this volume ticked but i never mess with permissions as it's never fun to fix.

PS was raid used at any point if so do not do any of the drive pulling >>..<< that may bork things

 

[vworks]

Hi!

There is no RAID.

The startup manager shows up, shows every disk with OS. And after launching any disk with OS, it just hangs there.
It does not fully boot.
There is one disk, the SSD with OS AND data. All other disks with OS are just OS.
He has back ups.
But all the disks were in the mac pro when he got this problem with the padlock. I suspect there is some file corruption but he does not have another computer at home to test with another disk/usb key.

Today he will test with the USB key, I prepared him a dmg that he will restore on another mac on the USB key.
And I will know more.

BUT this is so strange. I doubt really that all disks have been corrupted.
I also doubt on the other hand that the SSD fried the 2 mac pro's...

It makes non sense to me. I hope this is really a HDD problem.

PS. He needed to change the permissions because he imported manually files from his old OS + DATA disk. Hence some files were locked.

 

[orph]

i assume the permissions may have been messed up at some point. (it's unlikely to be hardware)

if he can go to start up manger, chose a boot disc, do safe restart that may work if it is a permission problem.

also may be worth pulling drives and re-inserting them in case there not correctly seated or dust got in.

or pulling all disc's then doing safe restart with only one inserted may also be a good step to try, doing it one time with each disc with an os on to see if any work.

 

[vworks]

also may be worth pulling drives and re-inserting them in case there not correctly seated or dust got in.

or pulling all disc's then doing safe restart with only one inserted may also be a good step to try, doing it one time with each disc with an os on to see if any work.

Both were done without success. I think he did also try safe mode , not sure about this. I will see tonite when he will try the usb key.
Thanx!!

ps. I googled a lot this kind of problem, no answers at all...but I had a very similar problem with a 2009 macbook pro, could not fully boot, hanging the same way. It turned out to be the SATA cable... But in a mac pro ??

 

[orph]

well if the drives are not correctly inserted then that is a sata cable problem as there not plunged in to the sata cable or maybe there's dust in it etc...

safe restart is good, it may be an application or something trying to start at startup that is giving the problem (ie trying to open then crashing) or also safe restart will do a permissions repair during startup which may also fix it.
pulling all extra drives may help encase there's something odd going on.
that includes the SSD when it's not being used.

there's also apple hardware test or recovery boot depending on what version of osx
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201314
thats also easy to do wont require making an external boot disc and lets you use disc utility or re install

ps when i installed my SSD i installed a fresh copy of osx on to it then used migration assistant in the utility folder to import my old user account from my install on the internal HD.
[doublepost=1512739870][/doublepost]yes id relay recommend trying to do a recovery boot if any of his OS drives have it it may relay help.
(what version of osx is he using or what versions?)

also if you want you can do verbose boot
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201573

 

[vworks]

Jesus fckin Christ it worked.
The mac booted on the usb key.
I will help him to install and recover the files later and report back.
Thanx

 

[orph]

hay i try to keep a usb stick (well i use a old sd card in a usb sd card reader) with a copy of osx on as a backup in case i ever need to check things, tends to be my sisters laptop

nice simple thing that saves a lot of time, happy it worked hope it all gets sorted.


from years of problems and troubleshooting i keep my osx install drive small and only have apps on it, all data i can i keep on separate hard drives. (tick the "ignore ownership" button on the pure data drives but not on the OS drive)
i have 1 drive that is split in to 3 partitions, 2 osx installs (backups of old installs) then an scratch partition

 

[vworks]

Hi again!
I found out what was the reason of the problem!!
My friend tried to erase some Time Machine backups manually from the TM disk... They were locked but he found the bat ch mod software and succeeded to erase them.
After that I see that TM tried to do another back up with no success and that locked all of the volumes that he backs up...

Jesus what a mess. Now they stay locked as in the image and I can only access them if I log as root in his mac pro.

How could I change these permissions to be recognised again by an ordinary admin account (not a root one)??
I try to do it with ignore permissions etc on this volume, it does not work. And I cant add a new user to the volumes, I click on the + symbol to add, I add it and nothing happens.
And in the admin(not root one) account he is not able to access the content of the volumes because he does not have the permissions on the volumes...
I am a bit stuck here.

 

[orph]

thats new on me, id just do a clean install if possible.

>.< self done damage

relay if y can i dont know how much he has messed up things, a clean install is the "easy" way to fix everything.

 

[vworks]

Yes
the problem is that the Time Machine backup is corrupted , I dont even know what is backed up and what is not...
I figured out how to unlock the volumes with Batch mod and I reinstalled the OS.
One strange thing - I unlocked the OS volume before reinstalling and tried to boot on it but without success...
I do not understand how the TM volume could have messed up so much all the volumes

 

[orph]

i tried to use TM once or twice and never ever liked it, for light home use i gess it's fine but for any production use it scares me so much as i just dont understand it.

i do still and video + web work
i always keep my OS drive as small as i can (SSD's help there only 240GB so you have to keep space clean)
1 osx SSD only apps, and a few odds and ends
1 work drive for "live projects"
1 archive drive for "recent live projects" that i may have to go back to
1 drive as scratch (3 partitions, 2 old versions of osx + 1 partition for scratch)
1 drive that is a mess need to sort that music and stuff mostly
1 windows drive

a pile of 2TB external HD's in pairs for backups of old work

only problem i have is apps that force files to be installed on to my OS drive but i can live with that.

keep things organized and it works well for me

edit, also keeping the OS drive lean with no important files on it lets you clean install as needed.
i try to keep the installers for all my needed apps saved on my "mess drive" so if i do need to clean install i can get all my apps back or if your mor organized get all needed work apps installed on the OS drive then clone it https://bombich.com/ (if you boot from a usb stick you can stick CC on it and use that to clone the os drive) then you always have a clean copy of your install ready to go when you brake the old one.

 

[vworks]

Thank you very much for your friendly support!
I succeeded to restore everything, the OS is booting (reinstalled) and all volumes are unlocked.
I will format the TM later and make a new one from scratch. My friend knows already that he never ever should mess up with TM ))

I use also CCC and it works perfectly for me.