Trying to install Yosemite on SSD, nothing but a black screen

[juliancs]

Hi Guys
Specs are a 2009 MP, 2.93 Quad, 12GB RAM.

I'm looking to move from my old spinning drive to put my boot on an 256 SSD I have spare. I've got Yosemite on a USB stick and start the installation process, choose my drive and away it goes. It restarts as planned after about 10 minutes but that's it. Computer restarts and the monitor just stays black with an orange indicator light (no input).

It is prudent to mention I have a flash PC GTX 680 in there. I stay at a black screen for quite a while when starting the computer, with the same orange indicator light; however after about 60 seconds the grey boot screen comes up no problem. No I get no further than the black screen.

Any ideas? Should I remove the old hard drive with my current boot on it? Any tips on how to get further would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Draeconis]

In OS X, is your Startup disk selected as your SSD?

 

[IowaLynn]

Hi Guys
Specs are a 2009 MP, 2.93 Quad, 12GB RAM.

I'm looking to move from my old spinning drive to put my boot on an 256 SSD I have spare. I've got Yosemite on a USB stick and start the installation process, choose my drive and away it goes. It restarts as planned after about 10 minutes but that's it. Computer restarts and the monitor just stays black with an orange indicator light (no input).

It is prudent to mention I have a flash PC GTX 680 in there. I stay at a black screen for quite a while when starting the computer, with the same orange indicator light; however after about 60 seconds the grey boot screen comes up no problem. No I get no further than the black screen.

Any ideas? Should I remove the old hard drive with my current boot on it? Any tips on how to get further would be greatly appreciated.

Don't know about the GTX but I would pull the old system, just to make sure it is not touched and you have a good safety net. Then boot from the USB Yosemite installer (how was it created?)

Where is the SSD located? drive bay or PCIe controller or elsewhere?
Your old system, also running Yosemite? then just use CCC v. 4 to clone it and don't select all the user home folder, just ~/Library

Do you feel the need to start clean? Do you have years of build-up or Etrecheck shows your system has too old incompatible apps and such?

 

[juliancs]

Don't know about the GTX but I would pull the old system, just to make sure it is not touched and you have a good safety net. Then boot from the USB Yosemite installer (how was it created?)

Where is the SSD located? drive bay or PCIe controller or elsewhere?
Your old system, also running Yosemite? then just use CCC v. 4 to clone it and don't select all the user home folder, just ~/Library

Do you feel the need to start clean? Do you have years of build-up or Etrecheck shows your system has too old incompatible apps and such?

Thanks for your reply. I will try pulling the old boot disk when I get home.
I do have years and years of buildup and crap, want a fresh install. I have copied my User folder over to a dump drive incase I need anything from there.

I used this to create the Yosemite USB drive:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht201372

 

[juliancs]

Only got to the grey boot screen when I swapped back to my old GTX 285. Any ideas how to get the 680 working in Yosemite? It was before without issues, but I can't have both cards connected to try and fix it...

 

[westrock2000]

In OS X, is your Startup disk selected as your SSD?

This would be my guess. The system is prompting for something on the "grey" screen and you are not seeing it.

You put the old (official) card back in and it only showed grey? Did you let it sit for a while? Usually if you let it sit long enough the little circle with a line through it meaning it found no bootable device. But try holding the option key at bootup to be given a list of all drives.

 

[SIRmisterD]

Hi Guys
Specs are a 2009 MP, 2.93 Quad, 12GB RAM.

I'm looking to move from my old spinning drive to put my boot on an 256 SSD I have spare. I've got Yosemite on a USB stick and start the installation process, choose my drive and away it goes. It restarts as planned after about 10 minutes but that's it. Computer restarts and the monitor just stays black with an orange indicator light (no input).

It is prudent to mention I have a flash PC GTX 680 in there. I stay at a black screen for quite a while when starting the computer, with the same orange indicator light; however after about 60 seconds the grey boot screen comes up no problem. No I get no further than the black screen.

Any ideas? Should I remove the old hard drive with my current boot on it? Any tips on how to get further would be greatly appreciated.

My thinking about this is that you don't have the 680 drivers installed on the new OS which will result in not seeing display. My suggestion is to remove the HDD that has the previous OS on it and boot from the new SSD. However, before booting, put an 'official' Mac version card instead of your 680. Then, download and install all the web drivers and CUDA drivers. Give it a restart, make sure it boots with the new nvidia drivers selected, shut it down, and swap the 680 back in.

 

[MacVidCards]

680 has had drivers since 10.7.3 or so, IIRC.

So Yosemite should have them without trouble.

Get it working with 285, then swap 680 back in.

If both cards have issues, your trouble is elsewhere.

 

[Synchro3]

GTX 680 has had drivers since 10.8.3