Mac hard drive failure recovery

[stolzy]

So the SSD in my MacPro seems to have failed. I've put a new disk in, but am struggling to install the OS.
I've made a USB OS X installer, but I can't get the MacPro to boot from it.

Best I can get is "No boot drive found. Install Boot Disk and restart"

What is the secret of booting from a USB stick?

 

[cookie]

i can only think of obvious stuff....

you're pressing the option key after the startup chime?

USB stick is not formatted correctly.

 

[stolzy]

i can only think of obvious stuff....

you're pressing the option key after the startup chime?

USB stick is not formatted correctly.

There is only a blank disk and the USB, so it should boot from the USB, but comes up with the boot failure message.

With OPT pressed nothing at all.

The installer creation went OK, with all the appropriate messages in the terminal. I guid formatted the usb stick before putting the installer on it

 

[ianf]

http://www.macworld.com/article/298...le-os-x-10-11-el-capitan-installer-drive.html

Seems like your USB is not bootable, createinstallmedia seems to erase it to the required format.

 

[cookie]

do you by chance have another mac you could check it's bootability with?

 

[ianf]

Must have worked then... Or he's trashed the other computer he was posting from.

 

[jonnie comet]

Apple......It just 'works'.....

(Written on an 11 month old MacBook Pro that is the most useless piece of shite that I have even spunked the best part of a grand on......seriously)

 

[shay]

won't help you to install the new os but, when you get it working, buy an external hard drive the same size as your internal drive and use superduper to backup. You will then have an external drive that is a clone of your internal, and you can boot from the external drive if the internal fails again.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

 

[shay]

smart reporter is a good app that warns you when your internal drive is going to fail:

https://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/

it's not perfect but it will warn when errors start to appear.

 

[stolzy]

http://www.macworld.com/article/298...le-os-x-10-11-el-capitan-installer-drive.html

Seems like your USB is not bootable, createinstallmedia seems to erase it to the required format.

\
createinstallmedia semed to terminate normally. In any case I GUID formatted the USB firstthe

do you by chance have another mac you could check it's bootability with?

Good idea. i tried it and my MacBook will boot from it without problem.

Thanks for chipping in both.

 

[stolzy]

smart reporter is a good app that warns you when your internal drive is going to fail:

https://www.corecode.at/smartreporter/

it's not perfect but it will warn when errors start to appear.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

 

[stolzy]

A little more diagnostics:

If I try and boot from the USB without holding any keys I get the "No boot drive found. Install Boot Disk and restart" messgae
If I boot with ALT then nothing at all happens - screen doesn't even start.

 

[stolzy]

But the computer boots fine into Windows.

 

[Blackal]

But the computer boots fine into Windows.

That's funny.............

(that aside - good luck with the restore)

Al

 

[stolzy]

That's funny.............

(that aside - good luck with the restore)

Al

Not really. i think most OSs would have difficulty booting if there were no boot disk.

 

[stolzy]

So a bit of research suggests that the MacPro is stuck in Windows EFI mode.

No idea what to do about that. A new motherboard?

 

[stolzy]

OK, for the record, I think I may have solved this.

Looks like the disk failed when the Mac was running Windows. Apparently Windows modifies the BIOS so when the Mac subsequently boots up it will only do so from a Windows disk and ALT during boot doesn't start the boot manager.

Surprisingly it seems to have been fixed by resetting the PRAM - who knew that was still a thing on Intel Macs?

 

[ianf]

Nice, i didn't know that it flipped it into legacy mode if bootcamp was on there to accommodate windows. e

Now resist urge to install windows on the new disk.

 

[stolzy]

Nice, i didn't know that it flipped it into legacy mode if bootcamp was on there to accommodate windows. e

Now resist urge to install windows on the new disk.

In fact the problem occurred even without a windows disk in the machine.

 

[Bendy toy]

Apple......It just 'works'.....

(Written on an 11 month old MacBook Pro that is the most useless piece of shite that I have even spunked the best part of a grand on......seriously)

Macs have their foibles (like anything else) but TBH I just dropped right into mine and have never looked back.

Over the last 10 years Ive had two high spec Windoze desktops both specially built by good producers. One had fancy twin monitors. Ive also had a Samsung Netbook. They have all been unreliable and caused far more hassle than they were worth. Both desktops had failed motherboards that screwed up important work and Windoze upgrades made the Netbook so slow it was effectively useless. I converted it to Ubuntu.

The Mac just works. Only real annoyance is catching my thumbs on the track pad so new typing can drop anywhere at random into my text.