Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I was working and needed to restart my Mac pro (late 2007 model) suddenly it stopped and restarted again and so on.
I shut it off and did a safe boot, recovery boot, deleted the P-RAM with ALT+CMD+P+R and nothing works. I can not open my drive to put the install disk.
It just keeps restarting
Is my work gone? and what can I do?
iPhone 4, iOS 4.3.3
Yes its the original drive since late 2007. I can buy a new one if needed.
I have OSX installed on the external drive and it works but if I leave it for a while it goes to sleep and it shuts off or freezes black screen, not all the time though.
if normal how do I boot the ''broken' drive from this OSX on the external drive? and will I be able to boot my comp without that external drive when fixed?
I don't know what causes the sleep/freezing problem. You already did P-Ram reset I think.
If this were my situation, then I would buy a new hard drive (yours is really old now so it's probably a good thing to do).
Then I would try to 'Restore' my system to the new drive with Disk Utility.
Then, if it is booting and working properly, I would try to work around the sleeping problem by setting up OS X to NEVER sleep. Sleeping mode is not that important to me, personally. You may feel differently about that.
The machine is older--2007. So mabye the sleep problem is a sign of age and you must find ways to work around it. The restarting problem is of course unacceptable. Using another hard drive is just the simplest way to try and overcome that.
I wonder if there is overheating somewhere in the system? Mabye the Ram is getting to hot.
Yes I did P-RAM reset
You have good points! Well something did happen but not sure if that affected the system, my graphics card went down last weekend and I could not find a quick fix which was needed but... yeah I know haha! you are you going to laugh... I baked it in the oven (after a tip from the internet) I was like yeah that card is down so nothing to lose... So I just did and it worked! still does. Could that cause trouble in the rest of my comp? Maybe if I add new cooling paste to the graphics card chip that helps?
Its a very old machine I understand but I am not able to do a major update because I am in the middle of a very important job that takes all my time.
I just need a quick solution that lasts a few weeks or better months of course.
did all of the trouble start when the card was having problems? That could be the source.
A new card would be the best, but that would cost some money. Apple Radeon 5770 is $250 USD.
Really this could have messed up everything? But it worked fine after I put the card back in. The problem started when I started to transfer files to the external drive and other files back from the external onto the main drive. and maybe a detail that could do something weird. I added a * in the name of the file... Could that do harm? like name of file: ''song*''
So a graphics card can mess up a Hard drive?
michelfrombergen op zoom wrote:
So a graphics card can mess up a Hard drive?
NOt really, but if you are having problems with startup, then mabye there is some hardware to blame. Your adventure with the graphics card might have played a role.
But you can startup alright from anything other than your system drive, yes? That might be resolved by installing a new hard drive.
But you cannot wake from sleep properly, yes? That could be related to graphics. New graphics card might make that problem go away. Or keep your card and just don't put to sleep anymore.
If you had warranty still, Apple would just start replacing things until the problems went away.
NOt really, but if you are having problems with startup, then mabye there is some hardware to blame. Your adventure with the graphics card might have played a role.
Makes perfect sense.
But you can startup alright from anything other than your system drive, yes? That might be resolved by installing a new hard drive.
Yes thats right.
But you cannot wake from sleep properly, yes? That could be related to graphics. New graphics card might make that problem go away. Or keep your card and just don't put to sleep anymore.
If you had warranty still, Apple would just start replacing things until the problems went away.
I had Apple care 3 years ago... Too bad. I hope I find a solution soon because its one h e l l of a week.
By the way, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
michelfrombergen op zoom wrote:
By the way, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
No problem.
Your Mac Pro is quite old now. You have reached that moment I think when you have to start replacing / upgrading parts..........or just buying another machine.
It would benefit quite a lot from a SSD for system drive and 5770 graphics card. That's assuming that there are not other problems like the logic board acting up.
You are right. I will see what I can do on short notice and talk to my studio suplier to fix it for me or indeed buy a whole new computer or even better... back to full analog recroding hahaha. nah! If I would have more time I would, but that would be a whole new craft to learn. I just love Protools as a tape it saves so much time.
Hi Studio,
Got a question, Graphics card works etc. I just bought a new HD 1TB. I want to copy my Macintoch HD and my HD2 onto that.
What is the best way to do this?
Cloning? if I do cloning and select the source, at target the new HD does not show up. I did format the new HD with Mac OS Extended(journaled).
A detail is that this HD2 drive is fully locked and cant unlock at all (impossible to change the custom setting to read/write). Thats why I need to copy the data external and reformat HD2.
Right now I am doing this:
I do not have firewire, is that a problem? I know its much slower but I dont care about the speed right now. I just need to get it work.
Am I on the right track?
You said so because you don't own one. My macpro 2007 is like a horse on a race track. I can't tell the difference in speed of my macpro vs the latest mac machines at home. It's probably faster even I still use lion OSX. That because it costs alot more.
Mac pro Keeps restarting itself
