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my macpro 2x2.66 first gen just took a dive and I AM TERRIFIED- as I am broke right now!!!

one and a half years ago I pulled a drive out of my macpro and put it in a box for long term storage, I stored it properly, it had a lot of older recordings on it and I didn't need them in the comp, so I took out the drive and put in a new larger one.

last night I pulled out that drive and decided to pop it in and pull some older songs up. as soon as I started the computer the fan went totally crazy, I've never heard it spin that much or that fast in 3 1/2 years with this comp, it worried me immediately!

she just went to a gray screen and stayed there, then nothing else happened so I powered down.

I took the drive back out and restarted the comp.

keep in mind that this drive had been formatted on that actual computer and used on that computer for a year and a half before being removed to make room for a larger drive. it has NEVER been attached to another computer, EVER.

I powered her up and got a folder with blinking a question mark.

so I tried a restart, no luck, was going to try and boot from the install disc only to find that my computer would not recognize the DVDRW drive, would not even open it. forced the drive open using a paperclip and inserted the statup disc, nthing, it would not even recognize that the drive or the disc was there.

stripped out all 3rd party hardware, pcie cards, USB, Firewire etc, all HD's other than the boot drive, tried again, no luck.

the computer itself will not recognize any of the HD's, DVDRW or any internal hardware.

reset PRAM, nothing.

so I try restarting the computer in target disc mode, no luck, just a gray screen with the folder and question mark.

then I break out my laptop and start it, (macbook), in target disc mode so I can treat it like a bootable external drive, FW400 connected to the tower. once the macbook is in target disc mode I start the macpro tower, and she see's the bootable external drive and fires right up. running off the macbooks drive like it was just an external FW drive.

I run for a few minutes and do all the diagnostics I can, nothing though.

so I then insert my OSX install disc into the macbook dvdrw drive, it recognizes the disc and loads into the bootable disc from the FW macbook drive.

at this point I run disc utility on the tower and it will not see any of the drives in the tower(all 4 are re-inserted at this point).

then I run the apple hardware test from the macbook under FW target disc mode, it shows the proper specs of the tower and recognizes all ram and processors accordingly, the tower looks fine but will not recognize the internal HD's or DVDRW drive, no internal hardware peripherals are being seen.

I run the apple hardware test twice and it passes both tests perfect.(extended test).

I am so lost as to what to do next.

a few odd details.

if I just power it up it goes to the folder and question mark icon.

if I start while holding down the option key for a booy menu it will stay at the blank grey screen, no folder with question mark, no icon of any kind.

the computer functioned perfectly when booted from the macbook in Target disc mode, all processors and ram functioned and checked out perfectly.

please suggest anything you know that I have not tried yet, I really cannot afford this right now.

mac pro 2x2.66 ghz with 7GB Ram-OSX 10.5.7 for the record.

Very serious indeed! I would pull EVERYTHING out of the machine. RAM, PCIs, EVERYTHING you can including the processors if that is easy enough. Then I'd carefully blow out the works and reinstall just the essentials and the RAM the machine came with and try that. If you get a boot up, then I'd start adding in things one at a time until things go south and hopefully you'll find the culprit. It may be the motherboard or some other component that the diagnostics are missing for some reason.

I have similar fears as my machine has been freezing or acting strange after about 6-8 hours powered on. Restarting clears the problem so I am suspecting an OS problem and while I have reinstalled the OS and reformatted the HD (restoring from TIme Machine) the problem persists. In may case, I am hoping it means simply installing a new HD with a clean OS install, but OTOH I am hoping that I can just hold out until a snag a new Mac in a month or two when the news machines are released. But that's my problem. As always, it's a matter of how much $$$ one can throw at the problem.

I've got a G4 sitting in storage for this very purpose - emergency backup - but the thought of going back to a G4 is not a happy one and I'd just as soon go back to OS X 10.4 on the G5 if I have to. I would hate that as well.

Scary stuff! Good luck. Keep us posted. K?

Call Apple.

mike_o wrote:if I just power it up it goes to the folder and question mark icon.

All may not be lost. Have you had a look at this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440

The question mark in the folder only indicates that the startup or system drive can't be found. The fact that no tower drives can be found may indicate a bus problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if booting in target disk mode, would not the diagnostics routines only diagnose the boot disk and computer?

I feel your pain.

Could you have mistakenly disconnected the physical connections inside the Mac to the drives or bent a pin in the connectors when you were changing drives?

If you are convinced the drives are physically connected, did you try holding down the option key when starting the Mac? that forces it to look at all the connected drives to allow you to select a startup partition.

tried every single one of these suggestions, including calling apple, I need to take her in now, wish me luck on a cheap bill


and when I ran the diagnostics from the laptop dvdrw drive it properly tested the tower, it showed all the proper ram amounts and everything.

it depends on which disc is the target and which is the system.

I had the tower as the system and the laptop as the drive only.

You tried restarting while holding down the option key correct?

That will let you select the startup volume...

Let us know the outcome... please. And good luck!

KEVORKIAN wrote:You tried restarting while holding down the option key correct?

That will let you select the startup volume...

oh yes, definately, goes only to gray, no folder with question mark, nothing but grey.

Sounds like a hardware issue. Have you pulled all your RAM and PCI cards? Leave the original RAM. If nothing, then replace that and try any added RAM (removing the original RAM). The fact that you can't even see to a drive probably means there is some circuit on the main board that needs repair or is not completing. But it could still be RAM or a peripheral.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Sounds like a hardware issue. Have you pulled all your RAM and PCI cards? Leave the original RAM. If nothing, then replace that and try any added RAM (removing the original RAM). The fact that you can't even see to a drive probably means there is some circuit on the main board that needs repair or is not completing. But it could still be RAM or a peripheral.

already done and all the ram is fine and checked out under apple hardware test on both passes.