Alfred Guzzetti
Level 2 (165 points)

Q: Can't change startup disc

My Mac Pro runs OS 10.8.5, but I have a second internal drive that runs 10.6.8 for some older applications.  Since I bought the computer last November, I've been occasionally switching to 10.6.8 by rebooting while holding down the Option key.  As of today, the rebooting doesn't work.  All that happens is that I see a light gray screen that hangs there.  I don't hear the internal hard drives clicking away.  The screen never displays the choice of startup drives.  I tried booting from the Snow Leopard installation disk by holding down the C key but this produces only the same hanging light gray screen.  I ran into this problem a few months ago.  The cause turned out to be that I had switched to a Magic Mouse.  When I switched back to the wired mouse, everything worked again.  Today I've repaired permissions on both discs and verified both.  I'm stumped.  The only thing I did today that might be connected with the return of the problem was installing a driver for my old M-Audio box (Firewire Audiophile) on the 10.8.5 disk and then connecting the box.  When I couldn't change to the 10.6.8 startup disk, I disconnected the M-audio box and uninstalled the driver from 10.8.5.  But this didn't fix the problem.

 

Alfred

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 2 x 2.4 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon

Posted on May 22, 2014 10:51 AM

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Alfred Guzzetti

Q: Can't change startup disc

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  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,Helpful

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder May 23, 2014 10:53 AM in response to Alfred Guzzetti
    Level 9 (60,719 points)
    Desktops
    May 23, 2014 10:53 AM in response to Alfred Guzzetti

    Your Mac Pro 2010 model cannot boot from the latest "Full Retail" DVD (which may contain 10.6.3 at the latest), only from the DVD that shipped in the box.

     

    .

     

    Mac Pro

    Date introduced

    Original Mac OS X included
    (see Tips 1 and 3)

    Later Mac OS X included
    (see Tip 1)

    Mac OS X Build(s)
    (see Tip 2)

    Mac Pro (Late 2013)Dec 201310.910.9.213A4023, 13C64
    Mac Pro (Mid 2012)Jun 201210.7.310.8, 10.8.311D2001, 12A269, 12D78
    Mac Pro (Mid 2010)Aug 201010.6.410.7, 10.7.2, 10.7.310F2521, 10F2554, 11A511a, 11C74, 11D2001
    Mac Pro with Mac OS X Server (Mid 2010)Aug 201010.6.410.7, 10.7.2, 10.7.3 (Server)10F2522, 11A511a, 11C74, 11D2001 (Server)
    Mac Pro (Early 2009)Mar 200910.5.610.69G3553, 10A432
    Mac Pro (Early 2008)

    Jan 2008

    10.5.1

    10.5.2, 10.5.4

    		9B2117, 9C2031, 9E25
    Mac Pro

    Aug 2006

    10.4.7

    10.4.8, 10.4.9, 10.4.10, 10.5

    		8K1079, 8N1430, 8N1250, 8K1124, 8P4037, 8R3032, 8R3041, 9A581, 9A3129

     

     

    .

     

    Mac OS X versions (builds) for computers

  • by Alfred Guzzetti,

    Alfred Guzzetti Alfred Guzzetti May 23, 2014 11:13 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 2 (165 points)
    May 23, 2014 11:13 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Here's the fix I found: A few days ago I bought a Matrox MX02 Mini Max for monitoring video and installed the PCI card it required without removing the Blackmagic Intensity video card that was already in the computer.  Instead, I uninstalled the Blackmagic driver.  This worked at first but evidently led to the problems I described in my original post.  I removed the Blackmagic card and the computer now boots normally and reboots from the 10.6.8 disc in the usual way, by holding down the Option key.