MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 not responding to any boot commands

[tomh381]

Hi all,
I have a 2012 Mac Pro which I bought without any hard drive in it. I thought this would be no issue, just boot from a USB installer and install onto a new drive. However, no boot commands seem to work at all. Option doesn't bring up boot options, CMD, Option, P & R does nothing. I have tried with multiple keyboards, including an Apple one, all USB connected. Tried different USB ports. Any advice would be much appreciated, as I have been looking online for ages and nothing has worked.

I know the computer works. I purchased it from a mate and he showed me it turning on with his hard drive in it before I bought it. He's now wiped that drive so no good.

I have a modern MacBook Pro which I used to install a copy of Ventura onto a SSD. I know Ventura wouldn't work but I wanted to see what would happen. I was expecting the prohibit sign, but I got a ? folder icon. I tried making the sata SSD into a bootable high sierra installer and got the same ? folder icon. Its almost like it doesn't want to do anything but boot to its old hard drive. Do computers get sentimental? lol

Thanks,
Tom

 

[sfalatko]

Start from the basics - what GPU do you have? Is it an EFI GPU that can show the Apple Boot Menu? You can not automatically boot from a USB stick with a cMP with out going through the Apple Boot Menu - you do this by holding down the option key right after you turn on the power and let go when the boot menu appears (which only works with an EFI capable GPU - generally an original Apple GPU or a mac flashed GPU like the NVIDIA GTX680 with the right ROM flash).

You don't want to use an unsupported OS to try and get everything running - that means that the latest OS you want to try is Mojave.

Let us know and we can guide you through getting it working or determining what the issue might be.

 

[tomh381]

Start from the basics - what GPU do you have? Is it an EFI GPU that can show the Apple Boot Menu? You can not automatically boot from a USB stick with a cMP with out going through the Apple Boot Menu - you do this by holding down the option key right after you turn on the power and let go when the boot menu appears (which only works with an EFI capable GPU - generally an original Apple GPU or a mac flashed GPU like the NVIDIA GTX680 with the right ROM flash).

You don't want to use an unsupported OS to try and get everything running - that means that the latest OS you want to try is Mojave.

Let us know and we can guide you through getting it working or determining what the issue might be.

Thanks for your reply. It's a Radeon 5770. From what I can see online it appears to be legit. It isn't just the option key not working, nvram reset isn't doing anything either.

 

[sfalatko]

Thanks for your reply. It's a Radeon 5770. From what I can see online it appears to be legit. It isn't just the option key not working, nvram reset isn't doing anything either.

So you should be able to get at least an Apple Boot menu with the 5770 but you will not be able to run/install Mojave or anything later. Unless your friend had a different GPU then he also was not running Mojave or anything later - correct?

I assume you have all the hardware that your friend used to show you the machine worked - the same keyboard and mouse, and GPU - just no harddisk with an OS?

Another step is to clearly describe what you see during the boot process - do you get a boot chime? When you press power do you get a light on the front? You can also search for the Apple Technician Guide for the MacPro - that will have diagnostic steps spelled out.

I will also suggest you reach out to @tsialex - he is one of the more knowledgeable people here and can provide you a good set of steps to figure out what is wrong with your machine.

 

[tomh381]

So you should be able to get at least an Apple Boot menu with the 5770 but you will not be able to run/install Mojave or anything later. Unless your friend had a different GPU then he also was not running Mojave or anything later - correct?

I assume you have all the hardware that your friend used to show you the machine worked - the same keyboard and mouse, and GPU - just no harddisk with an OS?

Another step is to clearly describe what you see during the boot process - do you get a boot chime? When you press power do you get a light on the front? You can also search for the Apple Technician Guide for the MacPro - that will have diagnostic steps spelled out.

I will also suggest you reach out to @tsialex - he is one of the more knowledgeable people here and can provide you a good set of steps to figure out what is wrong with your machine.

My mate was using the same GPU and was running high sierra. It was working perfectly fine so far as I could tell.
Yeah i got the keyboard and mouse he used with it.

Boot Process:
Press power button
Power button light illuminates
Fans spin up
chime
blank off-white screen for maybe 10 seconds
? folder icon.

The little LED's on the motherboard don't do anything, which as far as I can tell are the diagnostic lights.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

Folder icon means it cant see any bootable drive, try re installing the OS from USB stick.

 

[sfalatko]

My mate was using the same GPU and was running high sierra. It was working perfectly fine so far as I could tell.
Yeah i got the keyboard and mouse he used with it.

Boot Process:
Press power button
Power button light illuminates
Fans spin up
chime
blank off-white screen for maybe 10 seconds
? folder icon.

The little LED's on the motherboard don't do anything, which as far as I can tell are the diagnostic lights.

That boot sequence looks normal for a system without a boot drive/working OS.

Using your other mac create a usb installer for High Sierra and confirm that it is bootable on your working mac. Use that in your cMP with the option key and see if you get the apple boot menu with the USB showing. If you do I would install High Sierra. Given that baseline you can decide if you want to get a metal GPU and move to Mojave or go beyond with OpenCore.

 

[tomh381]

That boot sequence looks normal for a system without a boot drive/working OS.

Using your other mac create a usb installer for High Sierra and confirm that it is bootable on your working mac. Use that in your cMP with the option key and see if you get the apple boot menu with the USB showing. If you do I would install High Sierra. Given that baseline you can decide if you want to get a metal GPU and move to Mojave or go beyond with OpenCore.

I made one previously for high sierra, but I cant boot onto it from my MacBook because its running ventura and its very strict on all this stuff. won't let me download installer apps from the app store, or run .pkg files to install apps for any OS older that it.
Is there any way around this? some settings to change?

 

[Macschrauber]

Use the oldest Apple USB Keyboard you have avail.

Plug it directly in, without any extension cables or hubs etc to one of the stock USB ports.

Turn Mac off, pull power, count to 15, plug in,
Hold alt-cmd-p-r all 4 keys at the same time, keep holding them, find a position to do it for 3 minutes without releasing them.
Switch Mac on by the front button.

The Mac should chime 4 times, than release the keys.

If that worked you have done a deep nvram reset, next step should be check the bootrom, or more precise the NVRAM content. It is discussed here and I made a one in all tool.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/healthy-nvram-normal-behaviour-on-4-1-5-1-machines.2333460/post-31048702

 

[tomh381]

Use the oldest Apple USB Keyboard you have avail.

Plug it directly in, without any extension cables or hubs etc to one of the stock USB ports.

Turn Mac off, pull power, count to 15, plug in,
Hold alt-cmd-p-r all 4 keys at the same time, keep holding them, find a position to do it for 3 minutes without releasing them.
Switch Mac on by the front button.

The Mac should chime 4 times, than release the keys.

If that worked you have done a deep nvram reset, next step should be check the bootrom, or more precise the NVRAM content. It is discussed here and I made a one in all tool.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/healthy-nvram-normal-behaviour-on-4-1-5-1-machines.2333460/post-31048702

followed this to the word. Nothing happened. It just booted then went to the ? folder icon again.

 

[tsialex]

followed this to the word. Nothing happened. It just booted then went to the ? folder icon again.

What exactly you are trying to boot?

Remember that Internet Recovery is not supported with Mac Pros older than the late-2013 model and with a non firmware upgraded mid-2010/mid-2012 Mac Pro you can only boot 10.6.5 to 10.12.6. High Sierra and Mojave require firmware updates to boot.

 

[Macky-Mac]

followed this to the word. Nothing happened. It just booted then went to the ? folder icon again.

do you have access to a powered external hub?

I had trouble booting from an external drive until I tried connecting it to a powered hub instead of directly to the computer.....and now it boots up without any trouble

 

[tomh381]

What exactly you are trying to boot?

Remember that Internet Recovery is not supported with Mac Pros older than the late-2013 model and with a non firmware upgraded mid-2010/mid-2012 Mac Pro you can only boot 10.6.5 to 10.12.6. High Sierra and Mojave require firmware updates to boot.

I have tried 2 things. El capitan installer on a USB, and el capitan installer on an internal HDD. There is no recovery at all due to the lack of a hard drive with any macos installation on it.

 

[tomh381]

do you have access to a powered external hub?

I had trouble booting from an external drive until I tried connecting it to a powered hub instead of directly to the computer.....and now it boots up without any trouble

I tried both a usb stick, and internal HDD with the installer made in terminal from my other mac

 

[tsialex]

I have tried 2 things. El capitan installer on a USB, and el capitan installer on an internal HDD. There is no recovery at all due to the lack of a hard drive with any macos installation on it.

A correctly made createinstallmedia USB installer connected to the Mac Pro USB2.0 native ports should work fine. Did you confirmed that the installer is working with another Mac (you'll need to test with a Mac of the same era that can boot El Capitan)?

Since USB have the lowest boot ability priority, you need to nuke/fully erase the hard disk/SSD before hand with another Mac. Any bootable devices will be booted before the USB installer.

The Mac Pro firmware will always try to boot from SATA/PCIe before any USB connected disk.

 

[tomh381]

A correctly made createinstallmedia USB installer connected to the Mac Pro USB2.0 native ports should work fine. Did you confirmed that the installer is working with another Mac (you'll need to test with a Mac of the same era that can boot El Capitan)?

Since USB have the lowest boot ability priority, you need to nuke/fully erase the hard disk/SSD before hand with another Mac. Any bootable devices will be booted before the USB installer.

The Mac Pro firmware will always try to boot from SATA/PCIe before any USB connected disk.

I made an installer from a sata drive and that didn't work either. would the USB stick being a 3.0 drive have any negative effects?
The installer presented as bootable on my MacBook, however that is running venture which basically just boots to a slightly different recovery mode no matter what external drive is selected for boot as far as i can tell. So i do believe it works

 

[tsialex]

I made an installer from a sata drive and that didn't work either. would the USB stick being a 3.0 drive have any negative effects?

Several USB 3.0 drives/memory keys are not bootable with a Mac Pro, even with MacPro6,1/7,1. Test with another older one, 8 to 16GB preferable.

Also, if you are using a M1 Mac to create the installer, several people reported problems doing it.

 

[tomh381]

Several USB 3.0 drives/memory keys are not bootable with a Mac Pro, even with MacPro6,1/7,1. Test with another older one, 8 to 16GB preferable.

Also, if you are using a M1 Mac to create the installer, several people reported problems doing it.

I'll try it with a 2.0 drive. yeah no apple silicon in sight. but shouldn't a sata drive be just as good as a 2.0 USB stick?

 

[tsialex]

shouldn't a sata drive be just as good as a 2.0 USB stick?

It will only work if you ASR restored the El Capitan installer with a drive partitioned with HFS+ and from a Mac that have the exact same way to access the SATA drive, several modern Macs can't create a SATA disk that is bootable/compatible with older Macs.

Also some current SATA drives are not compatible with MacPro5,1, like Samsung QVO drives or several high capacity SATA hard disks.

 

[tomh381]

It will only work if you ASR restored the El Capitan installer with a drive partitioned with HFS+ and from a Mac that have the exact same way to access the SATA drive, several modern Macs can't create a SATA disk that is bootable/compatible with older Macs.

Also some current SATA drives are not compatible with MacPro5,1, like Samsung QVO drives or several high capacity SATA hard disks.

USB 2.0 drive made no difference. No other storage devices connected at all. Just goes straight to the damn folder icon.

 

[tsialex]

If you press and keep pressed Option with a USB keyboard, the BootPicker is displayed? The ElCap installer is showed on the screen?

You are formatting the USB memory key with JHFS+?

 

[tomh381]

If you press and keep pressed Option with a USB keyboard, the BootPicker is displayed? The ElCap installer is showed on the screen?

You are formatting the USB memory key with JHFS+?

Option key does nothing. No keys seem to do anything. I'm using HFS+ i think. Mac OS Extended Journaled

 

[tsialex]

My first thought is that your KB is not working or is not compatible with a MacPro5,1 - yes, several HID devices do not work with Mac Pros.

 

[Macschrauber]

followed this to the word. Nothing happened. It just booted then went to the ? folder icon again.

That means the Mac has not chimed more than one time?

Either your keyboard or your Mac’s backplane is flaky.

Just to be clear: you dont plugged in the Keyboard to a PCIe Card?

 

[tomh381]

My first thought is that your KB is not working or is not compatible with a MacPro5,1 - yes, several HID devices do not work with Mac Pros.

I've tried multiple keyboards, including the one my mate was using with it, which is an apple magic keyboard I plugged in via lightning