johndough247

Q: all OSX drives got converted to windows drives, HELP!

Mac Pro 4,1 (flashed to 5,1)

3.33ghz hex-core Xeon x 2

48 GB RAM

Running OSX 10.10.5 and Windows 7 SP1 via Bootcamp

5 Hard Drives total; partition layout:

(all disk numbers are windows based using windows' "disk management" program (can't remember their OSX designations)

 

disk 0 (120GB SSD):           BOOTCAMP drive, win 7 SP1 installed (NTFS)

disk 1 (640GB HDD):           DEDICATED OSX BACKUP (10.10.5)...I clone my main OSX drive to this drive daily (HFS)

disk 2 (2TB HDD):                Windows Files and Archives (NTFS)

disk 3 (2TB HDD):                OSX Files and Backups organized into 4 partitions (all partitions are HFS):

                                                  partition 1: OSX BACKUP...I also clone my main OSX drive to this drive daily (all bootable clones done with Cronosync)

                                                  partition 2: PROJECT BACKUP (backups of current and past projects)

                                                  partition 3: OTHER BACKUP: this holds my time machine backups and other miscellaneous backups

                                                  partition 4: SAMPLE DRIVE: I do music production, so I keep my sample libraries here.

disk 4 (256GB PCIe SSD):  Two Partitions:

                                                  partition 1: MAIN OSX DRIVE: Running 10.10.5, my master drive (HFS)

                                                  partition 2: WINDOWS FAST STORAGE: used for installing windows programs that benefit greatly from faster speeds.(NTFS)

 

Will outline how I got to this point step by step :-\

 

1) Accessing Mac partitions over while in windows (just opening certain folders on certain drives) would cause BSOD. Based on internet suggestions, assumed the AppleHFS driver in windows was faulty so decided to install MacDrive 8...big mistake!

 

2) after installing MacDrive, I disabled the AppleHFS.sys file in windows/system32/drivers by renaming it to extension .bad

 

3) Was working on some stuff in windows for a few days so I stayed on that side for awhile. Was trying to copy a large folder (30 GB)  to my Bootcamp drive, but windows gave an error that it was out of memory. This would be followed by the Bootcamp drive locking up completely so I'd have to hard shutdown. Did this a few times. Eventually got the issue corrected by Over Provisioning the drive (forgot to do that before installation of Windows).

 

4) A few times whle accessing the recycle bin, MacDrive would warn me that my project backup partition was damaged or corrupted and asked if I wanted to mount it. Decided around this point to switch back to OSX using the Bootcamp control panel, lo and behold all of my OSX partitions had been turned into windows drives!

 

4) Panicked, I shutdown and restarted, holding the option key. The only drives that showed up were Windows (disk 0) and Recovery 10.10.5...all OSX drives are not visible in EFI as mac drives.

 

5) I uninstalled MacDrive and reverted the old AppleHFS.sys file to its normal state. Drives are all accessible within windows (and all files are seemingly intact, didn't go exploring too hard for fear of more BSOD's). No change in boot camp control panel or at system boot. Mac drives still shown as windows drives.

 

6) Tried booting into the internal Recovery...didn't work. Would cause an endless loop of showing the apple and the loading bar would get to about halfway before it reboots and tries again.

 

7) Tried Resetting the PRAM and SMC...PRAM reset didn't go as advertised...it would chime once, get grey screen for 1 second and then about another 20 seconds til another chime (I"m holding cmd+opt+P+R the whole time), so I don't think it's the "2 chimes" for PRAM reset.

 

8) Created a bootable yosemite recovery drive (twice!), but would only load halfway followed by a restart. endless loop again.

 

9) Internet recovery doesn't work...all methods of recovery result in endles loop of restarts.

 

10) downloaded gdisk for windows as suggested here: Mac drive no longer showing up as boot option? but not sure how to use it to repair the drives.

 

 

Any help in repairing at least one drive enough for me to get back into OSX and/or recovery would be greatly appreciated!

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Nov 10, 2015 9:11 PM

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Q: all OSX drives got converted to windows drives, HELP!

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  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 10, 2015 9:40 PM in response to johndough247
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    Nov 10, 2015 9:40 PM in response to johndough247

    Since the MacPro has the advantage of removable drives, I suggest you remove all drives. Find a blank SATA or external USB/FW drive and try to install Yosemite on this new drive after SMC and NVRAM reset and boot from it. Boot into Internet Recovery with this blank drive, if possible.

     

    If you can boot properly, install your PCIe SSD and verify that your Main OS X boots. GDisk can be used to repair the GPT. Unless drives were converted from GPT to MBR, they should still be GPT which may help in other drives being recoverable.

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 3:26 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 3:26 AM in response to Loner T

    Thanks for replying...I"m not sure if it will help but i'll remove all drives and let you know. I'm doubtful because every attempt at booting into recovery has failed thus far. However, I just remembered I might have a SATA drive that was only used in this mac and removed before everything went crazy, so I'll remove all and try that.

     

    In case that doesn't work, do you need me to show the gdisk report of the drives? Considering I have 2 cloned backups and time machine backups, I really need to get one of them working somehow.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 11, 2015 4:49 AM in response to johndough247
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    Nov 11, 2015 4:49 AM in response to johndough247

    You may want to capture the

     

    diskutil list

    diskutil cs list

    GPT for each physical disk

     

    before you start removing drives.

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Loner T
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    Nov 11, 2015 3:06 PM in response to Loner T

    Removed all 5 drives and inserted my project drive (no OS on this drive, but has only been used in Macs). Only the 'question mark folder' appears...which begs the question: if no OSX drives exist in the machine, then is running recovery is impossible right? I've tried the internet recovery shortcut and nothing (I think I read that mode is only available to macs that originally shipped with Lion or later...2009 Mac Pros were on 10.5 or 10.6 right?

     

    diskutil list, etc...aren't those terminal commands? I can't get into OS X or any recovery options yet so that's kinda impossible...if gdisk in windows can do it, please explain how (and thanks for your help so far).

     

    I'm gonna put back all the drives and go back into windows to see what gdisk can tell me. Let me know how to proceed.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 11, 2015 3:37 PM in response to johndough247
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
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    Nov 11, 2015 3:37 PM in response to johndough247

    johndough247 wrote:

     

    Removed all 5 drives and inserted my project drive (no OS on this drive, but has only been used in Macs). Only the 'question mark folder' appears...which begs the question: if no OSX drives exist in the machine, then is running recovery is impossible right? I've tried the internet recovery shortcut and nothing (I think I read that mode is only available to macs that originally shipped with Lion or later...2009 Mac Pros were on 10.5 or 10.6 right?

    This is expected behavior because there is no internal or external bootable disk. You can use Internet Recovery if your computer is in Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support or is a later model.  Here is a list of OS X build by year/model - OS X versions and builds included with Mac computers - Apple Support . If you have the Grey disks, the first disk can be used to boot. You also mentioned the Yosemite disk previously. Can you try to boot from it.

     

    diskutil list, etc...aren't those terminal commands? I can't get into OS X or any recovery options yet so that's kinda impossible...if gdisk in windows can do it, please explain how (and thanks for your help so far).

     

    I'm gonna put back all the drives and go back into windows to see what gdisk can tell me. Let me know how to proceed.

    Put only your PCIe SSD and check if your OS X comes up. We may have to do this one drive at a time.

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 6:09 PM in response to Loner T
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    Nov 11, 2015 6:09 PM in response to Loner T

    Loner T wrote:

    This is expected behavior because there is no internal or external bootable disk. You can use Internet Recovery if your computer is in Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support or is a later model.  Here is a list of OS X build by year/model - OS X versions and builds included with Mac computers - Apple Support . If you have the Grey disks, the first disk can be used to boot. You also mentioned the Yosemite disk previously. Can you try to boot from it.

     

    Bought my Mac Pro this year second hand, didn't get the recovery/installation disks with it. The disk I referred to was a bootable yosemite installer on a USB stick (oh I forgot to mention my wife has a Macbook air...I would have tried to target disk my Mac Pro but the Air's don't have firewire). Also, as mentioned in my OP:

     

    "8) Created a bootable yosemite recovery drive (twice!), but would only load halfway followed by a restart. endless loop again."

     

    All attempts at loading any recovery have failed (and your link clearly states that my computer can't do internet recovery...and apparently no mac pro of any year can do it either...If I could get my hands on a recovery DVD that would be nice, maybe that would load, who knows...will have to go searching online for one.

     

    Loner T wrote:

    Put only your PCIe SSD and check if your OS X comes up. We may have to do this one drive at a time.

     

    I'm way ahead of you, I put each drive in one by one to test earlier this evening:

     

    disk 0 (120GB SSD):  Windows Drive. Boots to windows (most times, earlier today it restarted the computer when trying to start windows.        

     

    disk 1 (640GB HDD):  Shows recovery 10.10.5 in startup manager, but doesn't load (My very first OSX install is on this drive, used it until I upgraded to the PCIe SSD). Load meter gets to about 40% and then the computer restarts...seems like an endless loop (I let it try about 3 or 4 times without success)      

    disk 2 (2TB HDD):  No options shown (only NTFS files here). Question Mark on boot.

            

    disk 3 (2TB HDD):  No options shown (my time machine backups and my second cloned OSX partition is on this drive, just can't see them). Question mark on regular boot.          

                                              

    disk 4 (256GB PCIe SSD) No options shown. Question mark on regular boot.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 11, 2015 6:47 PM in response to johndough247
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
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    Nov 11, 2015 6:47 PM in response to johndough247

    Target disk mode will also work using TB-to-FW (800) adapters like http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r?fnode=8b . FW400 would require additional gender-benders. You have another option. Put your spouse's Mac in Target disk mode and try to boot from this Mac.

     

    Yosemite may not be supported on your Mac - http://www.everymac.com/mac-answers/os-x-yosemite-faq/os-x-yosemite-compatible-m acs-system-requirements.html

     

    You can buy

     

    SL - http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

    Lion - http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

    Mountain Lion - http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion

     

    What year/model is your MP?

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 7:51 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 7:51 PM in response to Loner T

    it's a 2009 mac pro, it's supported. Besides, it ran fine for many months without issue, only got messed up because of windows.

     

    I'd have to find a TB - FW800 Adapter, which might not be easy here (living in the 3rd world over here) and might take a long time...

     

    Is there a reason why we're avoiding going the gdisk route of trying to repair the disk?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 11, 2015 8:01 PM in response to johndough247
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
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    Nov 11, 2015 8:01 PM in response to johndough247

    Your culprit seems to be MacDrive, more so than Windows.

     

    There are two ways to use Gdisk.

     

    1. Install it on a working OS X or Windows installation, or,

    2. Use Live Linux CD.

     

    If Windows is stable, it can be tried. Gdisk on the OS X side can be complemented by gpt and Fdisk commands. They are much easier to work with. At some point, you will need to get a working OS X installation and switch away from Windows.

     

    If you are unable to boot from a Yosemite installer with no other disks on the MP, it may not be a disk issue at all. If you have PCIe cards in the system that are not needed for a basic OS X boot, you should remove them temporarily.

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 8:07 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 8:07 PM in response to Loner T

    Windows is pretty stable, and I agree I'd like to get back into OSX on this computer as soon as possible.

     

    the only thing in the PCIe slots are my SSD and my GPU (Nvidia GTX 980 Ti, flashed for Mac EFI)

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 11, 2015 8:13 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2015 8:13 PM in response to Loner T

    I just realised something, based on this article: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202796 I should be able to install Yosemite on my flash drive or my USB sata drive, using my wife's macbook, as long as its formatted the right way...maybe I should try that and then boot from that on the mac pro...another option?

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 13, 2015 7:07 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2015 7:07 PM in response to Loner T

    Ok I've installed Yosemite on an external drive and plan to try booting from it momentarily...what should I do once I get into OSX on the machine?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Nov 13, 2015 8:04 PM in response to johndough247
    Level 7 (23,613 points)
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    Nov 13, 2015 8:04 PM in response to johndough247

    We need to make your main PCIe SSD work first.

  • by johndough247,

    johndough247 johndough247 Nov 13, 2015 10:26 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 13, 2015 10:26 PM in response to Loner T

    It won't boot from the external! Now I'm really getting worried...it just restarts the machine about halfway into the loading of the OS

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