Repeated startup chime?

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Level 4

1,791 points

Repeated startup chime?

My mac pro 2013 is not booting, the screen is blank and it just keeps repeating the startup chime every few seconds.

We have an extra MP around so I swapped the SSD drive and the bad mac boots OK with the other drive and the boot problem followed the SSD to the other mac.

Zapping the PRAM didn't help. No other devices are hooked up to USB or thunderbolt. Booting to recovery drive or choosing boot drive by holding option didn't work but internet boot did (command R). What's weird is that after internet boot, I can run disk utility and it sees the boot drive and doesn't find any problems (I wish it allowed accessing that drive and seeing if the files are readable).

Seems to be a boot drive problem but disk utility doesn't fix it. I'd like to get it fixed without wiping all my content on that drive if possible. If I try to reinstall the OS from the internet boot, does that wipe the whole drive or just install a fresh copy of the OS leaving other files intact? It would be nice if I could boot the machine from another drive but I doubt it will let me choose that on boot.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Posted on Jul 28, 2015 12:14 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 28, 2015 12:35 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Recovery and Internet Recovery

Try Diagnostics which is Internet based now too.

Do a clean install to another drive; save the ESD installer first.

Pick up a new PCIe-SSD on ebay suitable for nMP.

Tried Safe Mode? what about single user mode and running fsck?

Clone the drive when you can. Use CCCnow and always. You will always have a working backup and copy of files - in addition to TimeMachine.

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Answer 2

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Jul 28, 2015 12:44 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Can you boot the problem Mac/SSD in target disk mode?

OS X Mavericks: Transfer files between two computers using target disk mode

The above applies to Yosemite too

and connect the toMac via TB or FW and you should be able to see the problem item from the other computer.

Other wise you may be able to find a USB adopter that will accept the SSD. Here is one that works with Similar MacBook blade SSDs.

http://eshop.sintech.cn/2013-macbook-or-m2-ngff-pcie-ssd-to-usb-30-adapter-p-106 8.html

If you install the OS on top of existing OS nothing should be lost unless you format the disk or the disk has problem.

I would download the Yosemite installer from the mac App Store and make a bootable USB device and then boot the problem one and from that evice and try installing the OS,

Otherwise try reinstalling via Internet Recovery

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 28, 2015 1:00 PM in response to The hatter

To Do a clean install to another drive; save the ESD installer first.

====

How do you boot into Internet Recovery? If you’re really curious, you may be able to force your Mac to boot into Internet Recovery by holding down Command+Option+R at startup. However, in my testing, this didn’t work on every Internet Recovery-capable Mac.

If that keyboard shortcut doesn’t work for you, the answer is generally, “You can’t unless you really need to.” As long as you have a valid Recovery HD partition, trying to boot into Internet Recovery will instead boot your Mac into standard recovery mode. Internet Recovery comes into play only if you have a compatible Mac with no working Recovery HD partition—in that case, your Mac automatically uses Internet Recovery.

In fact, on one of my Macs, to even test Internet Recovery I had to use a number of tricks to make my Mac’s Recovery HD partition visible and then purposely erase and remove it. Only then, with a blank drive with no Recovery HD partition, was I able to boot into Internet Recovery by holding down Command+R at startup.

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Answer 4

Mike Connelly Author

Level 4

1,791 points

Jul 28, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Local recovery didn't work. I was able to boot into Internet recovery but Disk Utility saw the boot disk and didn't find any problems to fix.

I was able to get a safe boot and I'm cloning the drive (should be faster than Time Machine if I have to restore). I still need to see if it will let me boot from the clone, I have a bad feeling it won't since it usually won't bring up the screen to choose a boot disk.

Fresh install of the OS would be a last resort, I want to try all other options first since that would take ages, and I don't trust that this SSD is OK. The machine is fairly new too, so I'd push Apple for a replacement SSD before I'd buy a new one. Any way to test for SSD failure?

I'll try target disk mode if I need to, although at this point the issue isn't copying my files, it's just getting the machine to boot normally again.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 28, 2015 2:27 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Did I mention, fresh install... to a different device. If only so you have a good start and for better maintenance options.

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Answer 6

Mike Connelly Author

Level 4

1,791 points

Jul 28, 2015 2:29 PM in response to The hatter

I'll try fresh install to a different drive if booting from the clone doesn't work. But if it doesn't even show me the option to pick a drive, I'm not optimistic that I would even be able to try and boot from that drive. But I'll see what happens, thanks for the suggestions.

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Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 28, 2015 2:38 PM in response to Mike Connelly

The articles on clean installingand creating a flash install will... and why you want to save that installer .ESD package....

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Answer 8

Mike Connelly Author

Level 4

1,791 points

Jul 28, 2015 5:40 PM in response to Mike Connelly

Still not going well.

Cloned internal to external - could only boot in safe mode.

Fresh install to external drive - can only boot in safe mode.

Verbose shows the info but doesn't finish booting.

Choosing startup disk fails.

Single user mode fails.

I haven't tried target disk mode but it seems like it wouldn't really help anyway.

Basically I can install the OS and get to all my drives but it won't let me boot in anything other than safe mode, and even that doesn't always work. I think next I'm going to try to boot the other mac with the externals hooked up and then see if I can boot that one from the two external options.

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Answer 9

Mike Connelly Author

Level 4

1,791 points

Aug 10, 2015 2:39 PM in response to Mike Connelly

I ended up wiping my boot drive, fresh install of the OS then migrated user and apps from a cloned drive. Fixed the problem.

Now a couple weeks later the exact same problem again. And one of the guys I work with just had the same problem too, but even a fresh OS install didn't work on his machine. One of the other guys has had a ton of problems with external drives.

Seems like these new mac pros may just have a lot of lemons? Or maybe at least a high rate of failures in the 1TB hard drives? I'm ready to switch back to my 2009 Mac Pro and send the new one back to Apple until they can get it working consistently again.

Is there any sort of hardware test software for drives to test for things failing? SSD in this case. Swapping the drive into another MP didn't make a difference so it sure seems like something with the drive.

And compared to previous macs, things are exponentially worse since the machine refuses to boot from an external drive, choose startup disk on boot, verbose, recovery mode, or single user mode. Only safe mode works, and even that isn't consistent.

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Answer 10

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Aug 10, 2015 2:56 PM in response to Mike Connelly

you have to rule out variables, those USB3 or Thunderbolt drives and cases - which are bootable.

CCC can clone and help insure all files copied pass a checksum too.

Migration Assistant has gotten better, Setup Assistant is still better.

Avoid installing anything that you don't need, AV software especially! or that is not certified compatible with the OS you use, which can unfortunately mean while you want to stay 9on top of security, your apps may not be ready.

And the nMP is great but not for every pro app or user.

Check out MacPerformanceGuidefor some configuration tips.

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Answer 11

Mike Connelly Author

Level 4

1,791 points

Aug 11, 2015 8:07 AM in response to The hatter

Boot fails even with no external drives hooked up. With external drives, holding option doesn't bring up the menu to choose one of those drives.

I used CCC to clone the boot drive and migrated user and apps back from that clone. That got me up and running but later it all failed again the same way.

One possibility is that IT installed some software, could be that something there is corrupting things (especially since someone else had the exact same problem).

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