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Possibility and Procedure for Installing Win 8,1 or 10 on Mac Pro 3,1

honeycombz

honeycombz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 6, 2013
588
154
Hey, I got myself in a situation where I've got Win 7 on Bootcamp version 4.0.4033. It works fine however there are some issues with a PCI card and SSD Boot volume that I have heard has to do with Win 7. I am trying to determine how to move forward here. I would like to install 8,1 or 10 but am unclear which version of Bootcamp I should try to download. There is information scattered all over the place. I came across this link which seems somewhat promising https://blog.iphoting.com/blog/archives/830-Boot-Camp-on-Older-Intel-based-Macs.html but overall am just unclear on the steps, and versions, etc. I'm also wondering if I should just forget about the hassle with all of this, delete my bootcamp volume all together and stick with VMWare. The only reason I am going through this hassle is because of a game I wanted to play but now it is just bugging me because I have come so far. Thank you all for your help.
 
You must use the Boot Camp driver version specific for the 3,1 Mac Pro. After you get your flavor of Windows 7/8/10 working, you may have to manually install drivers for devices not covered or outdated by this older version of Boot Camp drivers (e.g. video card).

I had a triple-boot 2TB drive setup with XP, Windows 7 Ultimate, and Windows 10 Pro (which initially was Windows 8 Pro) on my 2008 2x2.8 (3,1) working just fine. Have to format entire drive in MBR. If the target drive was ever formatted with CoreStorage or has a Recovery Partition you must delete all partitions via Windows Disk Management (and I think this applies to the EFI partition as well); simply reformatting through other means, either through OS X Disk Utility or Windows Quick/Long Format will not delete these partitions, which is necessary in order to ensure the first 3 partitions get assigned to the 3 respective Windows versions. The only problem with dual/triple Windows boot involving Win 8/10 is that the new GUI OS picker at boot up now forces a second boot if any OS older than 8/10 is selected.

For my 5,1, I'm about to install Windows 10 Pro either on its own 2TB SSD on the second slot of an Apricorn card (my actual goal is to RAID two 2TB SSDs on that card and install Windows on a 1TB partition) with a dual-boot Windows XP/7 on a regular 2TB hard drive.
 
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Ok, I just erased my Win 7 install and started over just installing 8,1 to an empty partition. I've gotten that installed successfully, now I'm wondering... do I install bootcamp or not... if so, which version? Do I just use 4.0.4033 or a later build? Or no bootcamp at all?
 
Well, you could do the old manual Windows method of opening Device Manager, finding the vendor ID and searching that vendor's website for drivers and manually installing them.

Or, you use Boot Camp drivers (the version specific to your year/model Mac, e.g. 2008 3,1; newer Boot Camp driver installers will not even run if you tried). Afterwards, if you have non-Apple supported hardware, such as video cards, then you can manually install the latest drivers just for those specific hardware devices.

The upside of using the Boot Camp drivers installer is that it installs Apple's Boot Camp control panel, which offers both a means to set preferences for Apple hardware, such as iSight and trackpads, as well as selecting the startup volume.
 
Now that my SSD boots normally again... do you think I run the risk of running into the same pci boot problem installing Bootcamp support again or do you think that was specific to Windows 7?
 
Auggie said:
You must use the Boot Camp driver version specific for the 3,1 Mac Pro. After you get your flavor of Windows 7/8/10 working, you may have to manually install drivers for devices not covered or outdated by this older version of Boot Camp drivers (e.g. video card).


For my 5,1, I'm about to install Windows 10 Pro either on its own 2TB SSD on the second slot of an Apricorn card (my actual goal is to RAID two 2TB SSDs on that card and install Windows on a 1TB partition) with a dual-boot Windows XP/7 on a regular 2TB hard drive.
Click to expand...

Hi Auggie,
I am about to purchase a MP 4,1 2009 (flashed to 5,1).
There will be Sierra and Win 10 Pro (via Bootcamp I think) on the main Sata HDD (1 TB).
I have heard that some PCI-E SSD cards will not allow booting or if they do they do not work with the Bootcamp OS.
Any advice on this? Is your Apricorn card supported for booting?
Thanks.
[doublepost=1487817452][/doublepost]Just a follow up question. I read this post:

https://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Vel...=1487817153&sr=8-1&keywords=apricorn+velocity

He says : "The only on criticism of it is that there are a couple of minor boot related issues...
There is about a 30 second delay before is starts the boot sequence after the power button is press. Presumably some driver related issue so don't expect super fast boot up.
The other is that is will always boot up to the first drive - in my case Windows. If you go to boot camp manager and select 'Restart in OSX', it will reboot back to Windows.
To boot to OSX, you have to always hold down that ALT key then select OSX.
For me, these two issues are minor inconveniences. I suppose they could be deal killers for others though depending on your expectations.
For me, I'm Windows 95% of the time and only boot to OSX to use ProTools"

Have you had these issues with your Apricorn card or know why this happened?
A.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
AlanKeaveney said:
Hi Auggie,
I am about to purchase a MP 4,1 2009 (flashed to 5,1).
There will be Sierra and Win 10 Pro (via Bootcamp I think) on the main Sata HDD (1 TB).
I have heard that some PCI-E SSD cards will not allow booting or if they do they do not work with the Bootcamp OS.
Any advice on this? Is your Apricorn card supported for booting?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Technically, the Apricorn card is akin to a Host Bus Adapter PCIe card that directly connects standard 2.5" SATA drives onto the card itself, so this is not like the "true" PCIe SSD storage devices on the market now.

It also uses only a single express lane, so it isn't as fast as the Tempo SSD Pro Plus, which I also have (but doesn't support Windows booting and prevents access to the boot picker at startup for 5,1).

And yes, it boots Windows, which is why I bought it and put my Tempo on the shelf, but I haven't yet gotten around to installing Windows on it because I haven't yet bought an SSD for the second spot on the card. As I stated earlier, my goal is to RAID 2x2TB SSDs; I only have 1x2TB Evo Pro right now.
 
Auggie said:
It also uses only a single express lane, so it isn't as fast as the Tempo SSD Pro Plus, which I also have (but doesn't support Windows booting and prevents access to the boot picker at startup for 5,1).
Click to expand...

Are you sure about the no booting of attached drive on the Tempo?
It says : http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossdproplus.html
that "Boot Support—Supports booting from attached drives under OS X or Windows 7 and 8"

Doesn't the Tempo also just use a single express lane?

Thanks.
A.
 
Their website is misleading: it does NOT boot Windows on an SSD drive attached to it when installed in a Mac Pro (at least a 2008 3,1), but it may boot Windows when installed in a regular PC.

This has been confirmed by tech support when I was having them attempt to troubleshoot issues I was experiencing when booting Windows from a regular hard drive installed in the standard SATA slots of the Mac Pro; the Tempo Pro completely prevented ANY Windows booting no matter where it was (CD, DVD, USB flash Windows installer, or any other hard drive) on my 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 and they could never figure it out. It does allow Windows to boot when it is installed in my 2012 Mac Pro 5,1 (but as stated, does not support Windows booting from an SSD attached to card).
 
All I know is that Win 7 and The Velocity Solo x1 do not gel if you want the x1 to be your boot disk you have to be on Win 8 or you are stuck option booting every time.
 
Auggie said:
Well, you could do the old manual Windows method of opening Device Manager, finding the vendor ID and searching that vendor's website for drivers and manually installing them.

Or, you use Boot Camp drivers (the version specific to your year/model Mac, e.g. 2008 3,1; newer Boot Camp driver installers will not even run if you tried). Afterwards, if you have non-Apple supported hardware, such as video cards, then you can manually install the latest drivers just for those specific hardware devices.

The upside of using the Boot Camp drivers installer is that it installs Apple's Boot Camp control panel, which offers both a means to set preferences for Apple hardware, such as iSight and trackpads, as well as selecting the startup volume.
Click to expand...

Hey, I can’t get Boot Camp specific to my Mac 3,1 to install because it is only supposed to go to Win 7 and I'm on 8 now. Is there a workaround to this and if so should I utilize a workaround for the version specific to my model or a newer version of Boot Camp and if so which version?
 
I can't recall what I did to get Boot Camp drivers installed on my Win 8 and Win 10 installs for my 2008 as I did that many years ago, and that computer is at a family members' house half-way across the country from where I'm at presently; I now use a 2012 5,1. I actually took that triple-booting drive from the 2008 and installed it in my 2012 without any changes and it works just fine (XP/7 Ultimate/10 Pro), including the original Boot Camp drivers installed when it was in my 2008.

However, I'm about to redo the drive because of the irritating double-boot that Win8/Win10 boot picker forces when you select an older Win OS to boot; I will install Win 10 on a traditional OS X/Win dual-boot drive and XP/Win 7 on a dedicated MBR Windows-only drive. I still need XP for some old apps and games that don't run on newer Windows, even in compatibility mode.
 
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honeycombz said:
Ok, I was able to install the "appropriate" bootcamp drivers for the 3,1 using these instructions: http://superuser.com/questions/523282/installing-bootcamp-4-drivers-on-windows-8

Seems to be fine, wondering if I should try to upgrade to v5 bootcamp drivers next. Is it OK to make the partition bigger once Windows is installed? I think I made it like 10gb too small.
Click to expand...

You can't resize the NTFS partition without destroying its contents: you have reabsorb it back into the HFS partition via Boot Camp Assistant then create a new Boot Camp partition.
 
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