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Mac Pro boot screen

9

92jlee

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 11, 2009
277
0
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Hi Guys,

I've got a Mac Pro 1,1 with upgraded CPUs (dual quad 2.66) and a 3870 graphics card for now.

When I want to game I just swap out my 3870 for a 4890, take out my 3 OSx drives and put another drive into the first bay with W7 on it.

Now since setting this up I've been getting a weird problem while going back to OSx - once I turn the pro on, it doesn't chime and goes to a blank white screen. If I hold down Alt at the right time then I can select my boot disk and it boots up all fine. If I don't then it stays white and refuses to boot.

Now I'm in the process of buying a 6XXX series card for use with Cindori's drivers (thanks again for the PM buddy) and I wont have the boot screen to know when to hold down Alt.

Any ideas from you geniuses?

Thanks!
 
92jlee said:
Hi Guys,

I've got a Mac Pro 1,1 with upgraded CPUs (dual quad 2.66) and a 3870 graphics card for now.

When I want to game I just swap out my 3870 for a 4890, take out my 3 OSx drives and put another drive into the first bay with W7 on it.

Now since setting this up I've been getting a weird problem while going back to OSx - once I turn the pro on, it doesn't chime and goes to a blank white screen. If I hold down Alt at the right time then I can select my boot disk and it boots up all fine. If I don't then it stays white and refuses to boot.

Now I'm in the process of buying a 6XXX series card for use with Cindori's drivers (thanks again for the PM buddy) and I wont have the boot screen to know when to hold down Alt.

Any ideas from you geniuses?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Well, the problem there is that you also won't be able to see the boot disk selection screen. But you can get around that by installing a utility like BootChamp. It puts an icon in your OS X menu bar that gives you a "Boot in Windows" option.

Also, is there a reason why you're removing your 3 Mac-formatted drives to boot into Windows? You really don't need to. Just keep the Windows drive in there (it doesn't matter which bay it's in). Unless of course, all bays are filled; but that doesn't seem to be the case from what you're describing.
 
He may have a Windows formatted drive which doesn't show up in System Preferences and thus will only show up at boot time by holding option.

Removing the other drives usually works in that situation.

Or get a 2600XT Mac card, works in all Mac Pros and needs no extra power. Can always see boot screens there.

Hopefully Cindori explained that "his" drivers should only be used in very specific situations and that for the most part yyou are better off using the ones in OSX.
 
You might need to go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk, and actually select the drive you want to boot into again.

If I'm understanding your problem correctly...
 
The reason I take out the mac drives and put in the windows drives is because I cant see the boot screen - I know that whichever drive is in at the time it will boot into that OS.

Would you recommend running both cards at the same time then? The apple one to see the boot menu and the more powerful card for the gaming?

How can I stop the mac from attempting to boot into windows (and coming up with the error 'no boot device selected') - I want the computer to boot into mac unless I tell it not too.. If that make sense?
 
92jlee said:
The reason I take out the mac drives and put in the windows drives is because I cant see the boot screen - I know that whichever drive is in at the time it will boot into that OS.

Would you recommend running both cards at the same time then? The apple one to see the boot menu and the more powerful card for the gaming?

How can I stop the mac from attempting to boot into windows (and coming up with the error 'no boot device selected') - I want the computer to boot into mac unless I tell it not too.. If that make sense?
Click to expand...

flash your 4890 and/or use "startup Disk" in system preferences or "Boot camp" in Windows to choose boot drive before shut off

4890 can easily have boot screen, it's the OSX drivers that are a bit more trouble
 
MacVidCards said:
flash your 4890 and/or use "startup Disk" in system preferences or "Boot camp" in Windows to choose boot drive before shut off

4890 can easily have boot screen, it's the OSX drivers that are a bit more trouble
Click to expand...

I stupidly bought an XFX one which wont let me flash it.. I just gave that away last night to my brother. No windows gaming until my 6890/6870 arrives!
 
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