Trying to switch over from iMac to Mac Pro

[AmazingRobie]

Hello. I've been trying to boot from a clone copy of macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 made from my iMac on an external drive that has been formatted as APFS and the Mac Pro 5,1 I just got continues to boot into recovery mode instead of the OS.

The Mac Pro is already on a clean install of HS 10.13.6 so I'm using the Startup Disk Manager to attempt to boot into the external image. Does anyone know WHY it will not boot into the cloned disk image and continues to boot into recovery mode and how I can get it to do so?

All of my programs are on the cloned image, otherwise I would not bother.

When in recovery mode and select startup disk as external image it boots right back into recovery mode.

Also, getting a grey television static from time to time which can only be bypassed be performing a hard restart to the computer.

 

[flowrider]

How is you eternal disk hooked up to the cMP? I'm assuming you have chosen it as the Startup Disk in System Preferences.

Lou

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Several possibilities come to mind. One is that the drive is not being recognized at all by the Mac Pro (USB/connection failure). The other is that the external drive is not being recognized as being bootable.

Make sure the Mac Pro actually recognizes the the external drive. Boot the Mac Pro normally, open Disk Utility - is it there, and mountable? If not, check System Report > Hardware > USB to see if it's recognized there. If not... swap the cable, use different ports, test the ports with another USB device...

If the drive is "all there," then it may be that clone. A clone of a bootable disk does not guarantee that the disk upon which the clone resides is set up to be bootable.

 

[fhturner]

Can you run Migration Assistant from the clean 10.13.6 Mac Pro install and choose the iMac-cloned external disk to transfer from? That’ll give you your apps and data, even if not an exact clone.

 

[AmazingRobie]

How is you eternal disk hooked up to the cMP? I'm assuming you have chosen it as the Startup Disk in System Preferences.

Lou

Yes. via Firewire it boots into the OS, via USB3 it does not. USB3 would be faster which is wherein the problem lies. I've decided that it causes more issues than it alleviates as every time I boot into the OS via firewire when it awakens from sleep there is a white 'tv like' static screen which never goes away that the only option is to force a hard reboot. Thanks.
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Several possibilities come to mind. One is that the drive is not being recognized at all by the Mac Pro (USB/connection failure). The other is that the external drive is not being recognized as being bootable.

Make sure the Mac Pro actually recognizes the the external drive. Boot the Mac Pro normally, open Disk Utility - is it there, and mountable? If not, check System Report > Hardware > USB to see if it's recognized there. If not... swap the cable, use different ports, test the ports with another USB device...

If the drive is "all there," then it may be that clone. A clone of a bootable disk does not guarantee that the disk upon which the clone resides is set up to be bootable.

Thanks, but I believe I've solved the issue in that the USB3 connection will not work while the OS connected via firewire does, but causes a white/gray static screen when awakens from sleep.

Can you run Migration Assistant from the clean 10.13.6 Mac Pro install and choose the iMac-cloned external disk to transfer from? That’ll give you your apps and data, even if not an exact clone.

Thanks for suggestion I'm trying to either install Mojave from an internal or High Sierra from a clone. Mojave is asking to update the firmware via a "shutdown". If the firmware is updated, will reverting to High Sierra not be possible?

 

[AmazingRobie]

Nevermind. Got this figured out. Thanks!

 

[flowrider]

^^^^You can't boot a cMP with a PCIe USB 3.0 or 3.1. The card isn't recognized during the boot process. If that's what you figured out, it would have been nice of you to share. Thats' what this forum is about!

And, that's why I asked the question!

Lou

 

[AmazingRobie]

^^^^You can't boot a cMP with a PCIe USB 3.0 or 3.1. The card isn't recognized during the boot process.

It was an assumption that thats what was the problem after having attempted it a few times. Called the reseller I purchased from and confirmed that if I install Mojave firmware and anything goes awry I will be able to boot back into HS recovery and reinstall, no harm no foul. Same goes for dropping the clone on the internal SSD (no 3rd party driver installs needed for the internals like bluetooth 4.0 upgrade, Pulse RX 580 GPU and OWC Mercury Accelsior drive during a fresh reinstall), but with that will need to keep the system active because if the screen goes into sleep during clone process once its woken the tv static bs will prevent me from seeing what the system is doing for rest of install and wont know when it's finished.

I believe the tv static grey screen upon waking the system is caused by being booted into High Sierra OS connected by any means external, for me, definitely by firewire. Its reproducible. Not sure if that helps anyone as I've read lots of different situations with that issue.

Thanks Lou.