No bootable device Bootcamp MacPro

[ActionableMango]

Hey folks, bumping this thread. Ever since moving to Win 10 I lost my functionality for switching between OSX and Win 10. I used to use bootchamp in OSX and the boot camp control panel in Windows to switch back and forth on my unflashed TitanX and things were hunky dory on Win 7. After upgrading to Win 10 I had things working for a little while but was running into corruption issues on my Windows volume which precipitated a fresh install and the behavior has been off ever since. I do have a flashed GTX 780 for necessary moments, but the end goal is to have a stable system in place that will allow me to have just the Titan installed.

I run Windows 10 on its own SSD in an Apricorn Velocity 6G PCIE sled. My OSX 10.11 volume is on two SSDs in raid 0 on the backplane.

If the Win 10 SSD is installed, I cannot boot into OSX. The system will boot into Win 10 regardless of if I have OSX previously selected as the boot disk in the preference pane in 10.11. Once in Windows, if I use the bootcamp control panel and tell it to reboot into OSX, it simply reboots into Windows. So the only means of booting back into OSX is to physically remove the Apricorn sled with the Win10 SSD when I want to switch OS's. In that scenario OSX boots up no problem.

Now I was pretty positive I had installed EFI Windows 10 when I reinstalled, but in looking at the attached EasyUEFI screen shot it would seem it is not an EFI install. Does that seem to be an accurate assumption? Would anyone have any insight as to how to regain more control over switching between these two OSs? Thanks SO much as always!

Back up your important files before doing anything. Also, I don't know anything about Apricorn Velocity and PCIe sleds or how that will affect anything. I only ever used SATA HDDs and SSDs.

However, looking at your screen shot it appears that you have three bootable drives and only one boot entry in the order. The first is Windows 10, then you have Disk 1 and Disk 2, which I assume are two different versions of OS X. So you have two boot order entries that are missing.

Not that while the missing OS X entries are an obvious problem that need to be fixed, I don't promise bootcamp utility will start working--that doesn't work for many people. I never used that thing, I greatly preferred rEFInd which required boot screens.

The fix is to create two new boot entries in that screen, set them to "Other OS", name them something useful like "El Capitan" and "High Sierra" or whatever. Point each new entry as its respective EFI partition on its drive, and browse to the EFI boot loader file in that partition. I can't remember the name any more and I don't have a MP any more so I cannot look, but it's usually some sort of file that ends in ".efi". The file path will be something like "/EFI/Boot/loader64.efi" or something similar. These are guesses because I cannot remember, but it should be obvious. Don't worry about making wrong entries, you can always edit them or delete them.

When you have all three boot entries set up, use the green up/down arrows to set the preferred boot order with whichever OS you use the most as the default.

If that doesn't also fix the bootcamp utility, then I'm sorry, I don't know how to fix that problem.

 

[HugeHungarian]

The fix is to create two new boot entries in that screen, set them to "Other OS", name them something useful like "El Capitan" and "High Sierra" or whatever. Point each new entry as its respective EFI partition on its drive, and browse to the EFI boot loader file in that partition. I can't remember the name any more and I don't have a MP any more so I cannot look, but it's usually some sort of file that ends in ".efi". The file path will be something like "/EFI/Boot/loader64.efi" or something similar.

I did this very thing, and almost posted in my thread, but it seems more relevant here. I ran into an issue, and that is what I was going to post about.

I have an existing Mac OS X entry that points to nothing, and it was originally first in line, and was causing the "No bootable device..." issue.

I simply moved it down, and that problem was solved; Windows booted every time. So then I tried to solve the issue of not being able to get to my OS X drive without my 5770 installed, as I use a GTX 1060 non-EFI of course.

So I made a new entry, Mac Boot, to get my OS X drive to boot when I so desire. I created it and pointed it to, what I assumed to be, the correct boot file as seen below.

This simply led to what I am calling a boot loop; Bong after Bong after Bong, in a seemingly endless cycle. So I just held the power button, stopped the loop, and removed the OS X drive, which is why it's not shown here. So I was just posting this to double check that I had the correct boot file selected. Seems the problem must be something else.

I'm in the same boat of trying to find a solid solution for both OS with a non-EFI card. There's another thread bouncing around over the past week that has solid solutions in there, but at the moment I'm just trying to get to OS X successfully.

 

[ActionableMango]

This simply led to what I am calling a boot loop; Bong after Bong after Bong, in a seemingly endless cycle.

If the boot loop only happens with the 1060 installed and not with the 5770, then that is actually common behavior.

If either the Nivida web driver is not loaded or the proper NVRAM flag is not set, then the Apple Nvidia driver loads and causes a boot loop. I think I remember you saying in the other thread that you erased your NVRAM, so I am 99% sure that is the problem and has nothing to do with your boot order, boot entries, or EasyUEFI.

 

[HugeHungarian]

If the boot loop only happens with the 1060 installed and not with the 5770, then that is actually common behavior.

If either the Nivida web driver is not loaded or the proper NVRAM flag is not set, then the Apple Nvidia driver loads and causes a boot loop. I think I remember you saying in the other thread that you erased your NVRAM, so I am 99% sure that is the problem and has nothing to do with your boot order, boot entries, or EasyUEFI.

So would a solid shot at a solution be uninstalling and reinstalling the web driver in osx?

 

[ActionableMango]

So would a solid shot at a solution be uninstalling and reinstalling the web driver in osx?

With the 5770 installed I would open the Nvidia preference pane, set it to "web driver", then in Terminal doublecheck the NVRAM parameter is set properly. But yes, a reinstall should work too.

I would still doublecheck the NVRAM parameter either way because (A) there are people who have reported that it doesn't get set properly even from a fresh install and even if the preference pane shows it as set, and (B) that missing NVRAM parameter is ultimately the problem (or the driver isn't actually loading, which you can check in sysinfo).

 

[HugeHungarian]

With the 5770 installed I would open the Nvidia preference pane, set it to "web driver", then in Terminal doublecheck the NVRAM parameter is set properly. But yes, a reinstall should work too.

I would still doublecheck the NVRAM parameter either way because (A) there are people who have reported that it doesn't get set properly even from a fresh install and even if the preference pane shows it as set, and (B) that missing NVRAM parameter is ultimately the problem (or the driver isn't actually loading, which you can check in sysinfo).

As I write this from OS X with the 5770 installed, I can say there must be some other issue other than the non-EFI card, regarding the boot loop. Had to use ALT/OPTION to get into OS X. I will be going through the steps you mentioned.

I notice that if I do use the ALT/OPTION process, and I select the EFI partition related to OSX, then the system freezes and reboots. If I want to get into OSX then I have to select Mac HD. So what is being executed by selecting Mac HD vs EFI? I feel like this could be part of the issue with being stuck in boot loop after making an entry in easyUEFI, as I can only select files from the EFI partition, which never works when using ALT/OPTION.

 

[ActionableMango]

My only experience with errors causing boot loops is Nvidia cards unsupported by Apple drivers. If it is something else I don't know how to fix. Boot up in verbose mode. What do the last few lines say before the boot loop occurs?

Did you remove the 1060 when using the 5770? The 1060 needs to be out.

Why is there only a Windows drive shown in your screen shot? The other drive(s) should be displayed as well.

So many paths to go down. I don't have easy answers for you. Need to go through normal troubleshooting procedures, like removing unnecessary hardware and seeing if problem occurs, putting the original CPUs back in to see if problem only occurs with new CPUs, trying a fresh install of OSX on a spare drive to see if there is a software/configuration problem on your existing drive, etc.

 

[HugeHungarian]

1) Yes, I removed the 1060. Only have one 6 pin cable.

This simply led to what I am calling a boot loop; Bong after Bong after Bong, in a seemingly endless cycle. So I just held the power button, stopped the loop, and removed the OS X drive, which is why it's not shown here.

2) That's why you don't see the drive. Don't take the bolded quote the wrong way, I'm not being snarky. Just trying to provide info for you.

3) The new CPUs worked fine originally. The trouble all started because during the first time installing the CPUs I did not see all RAM. One slot was missing, and heat sinks were tight. Other forums said to try NVRAM and SMC reset because of hardware changes. That's when the snowball started rolling.

4) I ended up with BSoD on the Mac HD EFI partition, from the Windows entry on there. Another forum showed how to get rid of an unnecessary or broken Windows entry on Mac EFI, through command line. I felt it was unnecessary because when I choose the Windows HD EFI directly from ALT/OPTION, it boots fine.

Maybe that Windows entry on Mac HD EFI, that I deleted, allowed for the Bootcamp OS switching? I don't know.

5) Just to be clear, both OS boot fine, but I have to pick them from ALT/OPTION directly; temporary startup disk selection is not working. Not ideal with non-EFI card.

 

[HugeHungarian]

So I disabled SIP in order to get Bootchamp working, and it does work flawlessly. Not sure if coincidence or not, but now in Windows using easyUEFI to adjust boot order, the original Mac OS X entry is recognizing the drive and rebooting to it flawlessly as well. So no more boot loops, and so far all is working well with the 5770 installed. Now going to swap 1060 in and make sure all is still working. Will edit this post with result.

UPDATE: Yes, with GTX 1060 in, SIP disabled, using Bootchamp in OS X and easyUEFI in Windows, I now have a reliable solution for switching between the 2 OS with a non-EFI graphics card. Working finally! Thanks to all.

 

[ActionableMango]

Whew!

 

[HugeHungarian]

Whew!

Also, something I believe to be of note is in the screenshot below. When the original Mac OS X entry recognized the Mac HD, you will see its target is NOT the EFI; this is what I was speculating in the previous posts. Reason why I'm noting it is because easyUEFI won't allow you to select that partition as a target, or I didn't know how to target it. Selecting the EFI as the target is what caused all of my issues. I'm calling it luck, haha.