Can Mac Pro 3,1 2008 10.9/Mavericks run Windows 7 x64 via bootcamp?

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Can Mac Pro 3,1 2008 10.9/Mavericks run Windows 7 x64 via bootcamp?

Hi,

I have a Mac Pro 3,1 2008 running 10.9/Mavericks. So the big question is, can I run Windows 7 x64 via Bootcamp? And if so, how?

According to the official Apple blurb I can (using the Bootcamp support software 4.x). But so far I haven't had any luck. I start Bootcamp Assistant, partition the disk, sort out my USB stick (yes I know that's Bootcamp support software 5.x, so far), reboot with Windows DVD in superdrive and... nothing. Just a black screen with a flashing white _ cursor in the top left.

From what I've read there's a potential problem with this older model of Mac Pro trying to install Windows 7 x64 due to having an older UEFI version. I've also read and tried several methods of creating a Windows DVD that is meant to be friendly enough to work, but no joy. I'd really prefer not to have to resort to using something like rEFInd, though I may have to try and resort to using Bootcamp Assistant 4.

I've tried the DVDs in Parallels and they seem to be OK and they mount fine in OS X.

Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

J

Message was edited by: shardlojik for DVD in Parallels/OS X bit.

Mac Pro (Early 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 8 x 1GB RAM, 2 x 500GB, 2 x 1TB

Posted on Oct 26, 2014 1:09 PM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 26, 2014 6:48 PM in response to shardlojik

If you can run Mavericks, you can run W7 64-bit. I suggest looking at Re: How to install Windows 7 on extra Internal Disk and then start asking further questions, if something is not clear.

Mac's older EFI 1.1 still supports CSM-BIOS very well, so that is not an issue. If you have a designated disk for Windows, it makes your life simpler, otherwise you can split the single-disk system to allow both OS X and Windows as well.

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Answer 2

shardlojik Author

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15 points

Oct 27, 2014 4:45 AM in response to Loner T

From what I understand, as I'm on Mavericks, then I get Bootcamp 5, which only accepts Windows 7 x64. Partitioning of the disk is fine, but my problem is booting from the Win 7 x64 DVD. As I referred to, there are known problems with MP 3,1/2008 in that the UEFI is a bit too low to allow x64 DVD booting, though some messing about with how the ISO is burnt to the DVD has solved the problem in the past.

But so far I've had no joy with either using the Jowie ImgBurn method - http://www.jowie.com/select-cd-rom-boot-type , or the oscdimg method - http://timothybrown.tumblr.com/post/110271493/installing-windows-7-x64-on-a-mac- pro-late-2006 . The ISOs/DVDs work fine against a Parallels VM, it's just the Mac doesn't like to boot from them! If I can just get it to boot from DVD then I'm pretty sure I'll have the rest sorted.

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 27, 2014 6:25 AM in response to shardlojik

If you have a Windows XP DVD, as a test, can you try booting from it?

Assuming that you have a single disk in your MP, can you post the output of

diskutil list

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

If you have more than one physical drive, please post the output of the last two commands for each physical disk (disk1, disk2, disk3...).

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Answer 4

shardlojik Author

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Oct 27, 2014 8:12 AM in response to Loner T

I did try a retail XP Home x86 DVD yesterday, but no joy. However I'll give it another go as I had a USB drive attched at the time. So as soon as I've finished work, I'll try again. Hopefully in the next few days I can borrow a freind's retail Windows 7 x64 DVD too.

As for the disks, I have 4. At the time I had paritioned 200GB on BootDrive/disk3. At the moment I've removed that parition, but it will be easy enough to create it again (assuming I can get a Win DVD to boot!).

As requested, here's the disk info/layout:

$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS ScratchDrive 999.9 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS TimeMachine 999.9 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2

1: Apple_HFS DataDrive 500.1 GB disk2s1

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk3

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_HFS BootDrive 999.3 GB disk3s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk3s3

$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168

gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1952853344 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1953262984 262151

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 1953525167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168

gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1952853344 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1953262984 262151

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 1953525167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk2

gpt show: /dev/disk2: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: /dev/disk2: MBR at sector 0

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 62

63 976768002 1 MBR part 175

976768065 5103

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk2

Disk: /dev/disk2 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*1: AF 0 1 1 - 1023 254 63 [ 63 - 976768002] HFS+

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk3

gpt show: /dev/disk3: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168

gpt show: /dev/disk3: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk3: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk3: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1951845952 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1952255592 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1953525128 7

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk3

Disk: /dev/disk3 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 1953525167] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 27, 2014 8:49 AM in response to shardlojik

From http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1636/en_US/boot_camp_install-setup_ 10.8.pdf

If you have problems creating a partition
If you have problems creating a Windows partition, check the following:

The disk on your Mac must be a single partition, formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If the disk already has more than one partition, you must repartition it.
The disk on your Mac must be an internal disk. You cannot use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows on an external disk.
If you have a Mac Pro with more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn’t in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower- numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp.
If a dialog appears saying “The disk cannot be partitioned because verification failed,” try repairing the disk using Disk Utility and opening Boot Camp Assistant again. If that doesn’t work, back up all the information on your Mac, then reinstall OS X. For more information, click the Finder icon in the Dock, choose Help > Help Center, and search for “reinstall OS X.”

You will need to remove all other physical drives from the MP. In the linked article I posted, we converted one disk to MBR type, just to avoid issues with GPT/MBR synchronization.

My assumption is that you want to partition the following drive and install Windows. One factor that causes the black screen to come up is because there is more than one physical drive when you try the installation.

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2

1: Apple_HFS DataDrive 500.1 GB disk2s1

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Answer 6

shardlojik Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 27, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Loner T

I see. Could be. I'm going to partition BootDrive/disk3/bay1 (which is where OS X is, as I have loads of space there). The disk2 thing is a hangover from when the disk was attached to a Windows box a long time ago.

So, my plan:

1) Use Bootcamp Assistant to create 200GB partition on BootDrive/disk3/bay1. I already have Bootcamp 4 drivers on USB.

2) Put Windows 7 x64 DVD into SuperDrive

3) Shutdown and power off

4) Remove disks from bays 2/3/4

5) Power on and cross fingers

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Answer 7

shardlojik Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 27, 2014 11:25 AM in response to shardlojik

OK, somewhere during all that I got a little bit further. I tried both my retail XP Home x86 and burnt 7 x64 DVDs and they both came back with "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD". However pressing a key (on wired keyboard) doesn't seem to do anything.

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Answer 8

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 27, 2014 11:27 AM in response to shardlojik

Have you done this part - 4) Remove disks from bays 2/3/4.

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Answer 9

shardlojik Author

Level 1

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Oct 27, 2014 11:45 AM in response to Loner T

Yes, only one disk in.

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Answer 10

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 27, 2014 12:13 PM in response to shardlojik

If you can, please post the output of GPT, Fdisk with just the designated disk. You have OSX on the same disk.

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Answer 11

shardlojik Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 28, 2014 11:27 AM in response to Loner T

So I went back to basics on this one. This is what I did:

1) Remove Windows partition from BootDrive/OS X disk (disk3)

2) Shutdown and power off

3) Remove other 3 disks, so only left with BootDrive/OS X in first slot

4) Power on and log in

5) Run Bootcamp Assistant, which asks me to insert Windows 7 DVD and partitions the drive and reboots...

6) ...and I get stuck with a flashing _ in the top left corner again

I powercycle and see what the boot device options are; BootDrive (OS X), Recovery, Windows DVD. So then I boot back into OS X to get the partition information you requsted:

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS BootDrive 801.3 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 198.0 GB disk0s4

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: CD_ROM *3.3 GB disk1

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1565127200 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1565536840 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1566806376 1688

1566808064 386715648 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

1953523712 1423

1953525135 32 Sec GPT table

1953525167 1 Sec GPT header

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 1565127200] HFS+

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1565536840 - 1269536] Darwin Boot

4: 0B 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1566808064 - 386715648] Win95 FAT-32

Not sure what there is left to try. Thanks for trying to help in the meantime!

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Answer 12

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 28, 2014 11:34 AM in response to shardlojik

In OSX Finder, do you see any files in the Bootcamp Volume?

Also, if you had any external USB drives, please remove them. Please see Boot Camp: Windows installation boots to black screen with blinking cursor.

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Answer 13

shardlojik Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 29, 2014 2:09 AM in response to Loner T

No I can't see any files in the BOOTCAMP volume. I don't have any USB drives plugged in.

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Answer 14

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Oct 29, 2014 4:34 AM in response to shardlojik

There is a missing driver which is causing issues. In Step 5, when you ran BA, did it download any drivers? If you are using the Optical Drive. does the drive come up and spin when you get the hanging underscore cursor?

The diskutil list/MBR are as expected just before a Windows installation.

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Answer 15

shardlojik Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 29, 2014 7:53 AM in response to Loner T

No I'm not downloading drivers during Bootcamp Assistant, as that downloads the v5 drivers and my hardware requires the v4 drivers. I have both to hand and the v4 on a USB (if I ever get Bootcamp to work).

The DVD does briefly spin up, but only for a second or two.

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