Removing RAID card from MacPro (2006)

what kind of drives are there? do they have jumpers? if they are I'd say make sure they're set to "Cable select" (CS)... how are the drives interfaced? SATA? I would suggest trying to just have 1 drive for right now, put the one you want to have as your "home" drive in there and see if you can get it to load up there.

keep in contact -

cheers

There are no such CS jumpers. The RAID card though supports SAS or SATA (only).

A RAID volume though can still retain special partitioning.

Do you have RAID manager utility?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346

I'm not sure he's trying to resurrect the information on the drives. I believe according to his post.. "I'd like to remove it, reformat the drives and use the computer as a non-RAID version." So I think he's wanting to take his drives, wipe them and then use them. But I'm thinking if they're SAS drives that he won't be able to do that without a RAID card of some kind. If they are SATA then he should be able to.

each drive should have power (coming from the PSU) and the actual Serial connection to the mother board. Are you talking about a third cable or does that cover it for both?

That is what someone else said about removal on Ubuntu too.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=842100

Photo of card http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3514

This is the2009 pdf manual which made things a lot easier.

Just to elabroate on The hatter's post and in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread when searching about removing the Apple RAID card from the Mac Pro (pre-2009), the answer is within the first link in The hatter's post, namely this Apple user guide on installing the RAID card: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacPro_RAIDCard_Installation.pdf

Basically, there's an iPass cable that connects the hard drives to the motherboard - but when you have your Mac configured with an Apple RAID card the iPass cable is connected to the RAID card instead of the motherboard. So when you remove the RAID card you need to connect the iPass cable back to your motherboard and that involves removing the fans, which is a tad fiddly. Make sure you've got a good magnetic screwdriver that doesn't chew screws!

Hope this helps someone out there

I've finally managed to replace my RAID card and dual SAS drives with a Vertex 2 SSD and I'm loving the speed, quietness and most importantly the fact I can now put my Mac Pro to sleep!!

I have removed the raid card from my MP Early 2008, reattached the iPass cable to the mobo. But still no sata drives recognized by Disk Util. All 4 drives have power.

Is there some other cable or connection that I'm missing?

Thanks

No, but maybe that iPass cable needs to be removed and re-inserted a few times to clear any accumulated corrosion.

Are you sure they are SATA drives, not SAS? Either will work with the RAID card, but only SATA will work without the card.

Yes they are sata pulled from my other Mac Pro 2008.

Dirt and corrosion did cross my mind, and I did remove and re-insert the iPass cable.

No go. Also ran Apple Hardware Test, no issues.

Would it hurt to spray some electronics cleaner in there?