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Mac Pro (Early 2008) running Lion, freezes on Start up screen

I have a Early 2008 Mac Pro running Lion. Its been running well but then last night it froze while I was on the internet. Pretty rare that this happens so I held the power off button and turned it off. Turned it back on and it made the chime noise, apple logo came up, a grey spinning wheel came up for about 30 seconds and then it stopped spinning and the computer froze there.


I tried a bunch of different things. I tried rebooting in safe mode, Recovery mode, From time machine external hard drive, Tried booting in the Windows partition that I have (its on the same as the boot drive I'm trying to boot in Lion off of).


Any ideas on what is wrong with this? I'm hoping its just a hard drive but i fear worse.


Thanks!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.1), Mac Pro Dual 2.8 GHz Quad Core Processors, 2 GB Ram, NVIDIA GeFo

Posted on Mar 29, 2012 5:14 AM

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22 replies

Mar 29, 2012 7:25 AM in response to Tyashinsky

Hold down the Option key on your directly-connected wired keyboard as you start up. This should show a plain screen with several potential Boot Volumes on it.



If youy are running 10.6, press the Eject key to open the drive and insert your 10.6 DVD and boot from it.


Does it boot to Install Mac OS X DVD?

-yes, answer only the "what language" question and wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn, then choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair Disk.

-no, you have a Hardware problem.


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If you are running 10.7, Choose Recovery HD and click the arrow under it to proceed.


? Does it boot to Recovery HD?

-yes. Run Disk Utility. Repair Disk.

-no. you will need to Install Mac OS X on this or another drive.

Mar 29, 2012 6:50 PM in response to Tyashinsky

If you cannot get to Recovery HD using the Option key, and you do not have a bootable clone, you will need to re-install 10.6.


Hold down the option key at Startup to boot to Startup Manager. Press the Eject key to open the drive and insert your 10.6 Installer DVD and boot from it.


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Some Macs sold this year can boot directly to an Internet-based Recovery mode. Alas, not yours.

Mar 30, 2012 2:02 PM in response to Tyashinsky

OK. I have an idea!


This has just happened to me and I am up and running fine now. My boot disk would get to the login screen, type PW, and just come back to the login. Or, just sit at the Apple logo either with the loading gif, and or the progression bar trying to update the firmware.


I took out my graphics card to test that (swapping with another). Nothing.


Have you tired a PRAM and VRAM reset? Hold cmd+shift+p+r at start up, computer will shut down, still hold cmd+shift+p+r untill you hear the start up chime for the second time. Computer may hang for a bit whilst it resets the magic beans. Around 5 minuets.


If you've done all that...


Keep trying that boot into recovery mode (hold opt key, a.k.a alt key at boot).


I did this and was able to get in to install Lion on a new HDD. From my exprience your HDD is on it way out and you need a new one.


Are you getting any Kernel panics? I had that a few times. Sometimes the RAM doesn't like what's going on and can mess with things. Try taking out some RAM just leave one stick in the top riser, turn back on see what happens. Still getting the same problem? Try 1: boot safe mood, that doesn't work. Then try 2: boot in recovery.


Failing all that. Let me know. I'll scratch my head and have another think. Also I'll think on some more as to what I did to get things moving and let you know if I remember anything.


Good luck, don't fret we shall get the beast back up and running!! 🙂

Mac Pro (Early 2008) running Lion, freezes on Start up screen

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