El Capitan update has totally rogered my Mac Pro

dMajor

dMajor

macrumors member
IMG_0308.JPG


Hello again fellow apple-ers,
10 years I've been using apple computers and I've never seen this screen before. Arghhh!

I recently bought a secondhand Mac Pro 3,1 and it's been going along swimmingly, but this morning I installed a bunch of software updates from the App Store. It was a safari/itunes/security update to el capitan. The MP tried to restart itself and this is as far as it's managed to get. I left it for a couple of hours but no improvement. Have done SMC and PRAM resets. Am about to start messing around with recovery modes etc. Can anyone inform me as to what this screen actually means? "Can't find HDD" maybe?

I'm half backed up, but there is some stuff I may have to lose if I go for a clean reinstall. Have other spare MP but can't seem to connect with the busted one via "Target disk mode". I have them connected via firewire and am pressing command+T when starting faulty MP but it doesn't show up as an external drive on the other Mac Pro. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any other way to recover data? Can I take the system drive out of an MP 3,1 running El Capitan, and stick it in an empty bay in MP 1,1 running Lion and rescue some files before erasing?

Appreciate any info/advice,
Cheers,
Dan
 
dMajor said:
View attachment 685791

Hello again fellow apple-ers,
10 years I've been using apple computers and I've never seen this screen before. Arghhh!
Click to expand...

This sign means it can't find its system folder (not the HD). Have you tried booting by pressing Option on your keyboard? I've seen this happen when the Startup Disk wasn't specified in System Preferences.
 
Hi Morpheo!
Ok, I just tried that (i believe it's called the "startup manager"?) and I got my "SYSTEM" disc as the option. I selected that and it went on booting with the apple logo and the progress bar BUT it gets to halfway complete and then apple symbol disappears and we are back to the nasty sign in the photo. Iv'e now tried for "recovery mode" and "safe mode" but can't access either. It does the same thing everytime.
Got any other ideas?
:)
 
h9826790 said:
The boot drive is a SSD or HDD?
Click to expand...

It's a HDD.
*UPDATE - I have managed to get "Target disc mode" working and am in process of backing EVERYTHING up. Phew! That's the main concern rectified. Might make myself a usb boot and and do a clean install once backup is complete.
 
Sounds like it got its knickers in a twist during the upgrade. Either that or upgraded to a level not supported by your machine. Perhaps.
 
Thought I would mention that the "prohibited" symbol appears when the detected booting system can't boot your Mac. It is often because of a corrupted or missing system file, or a missing boot file, or just a wrong version of macOS - too old, or too new. I would suspect that the first (corrupted or missing system files) will be where the fault lies.
It's probably the result of some random glitch while upgrading your system, which does happen occasionally. The fix would be reinstalling your macOS system, which is easy, and safe to do.
I would suggest that, for the reinstall, and for troubleshooting, you make sure that the ONLY drive in the MacPro is the one that you want to boot from, with El Capitan, if that's the one you want to use. Boot to your recovery system (start while holding Command-R), and reinstall OS X. That won't erase the hard drive, but will just do a reload of the system files and components, and SHOULD fix your problem.
 
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dMajor said:
It's a HDD.
*UPDATE - I have managed to get "Target disc mode" working and am in process of backing EVERYTHING up. Phew! That's the main concern rectified. Might make myself a usb boot and and do a clean install once backup is complete.
Click to expand...

Once you are backed up, and if it is really important stuff, you should have a 2nd backup offsite.

You could run diskwarrior on the drive and make sure your directory is okay, if you can boot at all after that I would run the 10.11.6 combo updater. That might replace any wonky system files. Also you can use the restore partition in the mac (CMD-R) to boot and use disk utility.

Good luck, that's the worst thing to see!

I just took five machines from Mavericks to El Capitan (10.11.6) - was nervous as hell - I had all the backups, just didn't want to have to restore everything.
 
dMajor said:
View attachment 685791

Hello again fellow apple-ers,
10 years I've been using apple computers and I've never seen this screen before. Arghhh!

I recently bought a secondhand Mac Pro 3,1 and it's been going along swimmingly, but this morning I installed a bunch of software updates from the App Store. It was a safari/itunes/security update to el capitan. The MP tried to restart itself and this is as far as it's managed to get. I left it for a couple of hours but no improvement. Have done SMC and PRAM resets. Am about to start messing around with recovery modes etc. Can anyone inform me as to what this screen actually means? "Can't find HDD" maybe?

I'm half backed up, but there is some stuff I may have to lose if I go for a clean reinstall. Have other spare MP but can't seem to connect with the busted one via "Target disk mode". I have them connected via firewire and am pressing command+T when starting faulty MP but it doesn't show up as an external drive on the other Mac Pro. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any other way to recover data? Can I take the system drive out of an MP 3,1 running El Capitan, and stick it in an empty bay in MP 1,1 running Lion and rescue some files before erasing?

Appreciate any info/advice,
Cheers,
Dan
Click to expand...

Had the same thing happen on my iMac the other week. I was actually using the computer then it froze when I opened a new tab in safari. I had to do a hard restart and saw that sign.

Luckily I keep all of my media backed up on a second hard drive and I use time machine. But I took this opportunity to do a totally clean install from scratch. The hardest issue I ran into was the error the Apple Store gave me when I tried downloading Sierra. I kept getting ""Unknown Error (4)" on every Mac I used. That's including different Apple Store accounts.
 
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If the OP is still the question at this point, his MacPro3,1 would have come with Leopard, so would have had an installer DVD (well, in theory). But OP was trying to use El Capitan. I have heard that some users have made bootable OS X (and recent macOS) DVD installers, that actually worked. I have too much time invested in this box full of various OS X thumb drives with every macOS since Tiger, not sure that I would ever want to try to make an installer DVD out of an installer that didn't come that way. And, then hope the DVD drive that I have would read the DVD well enough to actually complete the install process. There's way too many questions for that to be a productive result these days.
 
jbarley said:
Just where would one find an El-Capitan "install DVD" today?
Click to expand...

Not El Capitan dvd. The mac pro is 2008 so when the first owner brought the mac it might come with os x dvd. It could be lion 10.8 or Snow os x. U need to find out what its. Once u find out u can get a copy dvd from ebay or amazon.
 
Hey guys,
Thanks for all your replies/advice!
Got everything backed up and did a clean install off a bootable usb stick.
All running good now, must have hit a glitch with that security update.
cheers,
Dan.
:D
 
dMajor said:
Hey guys,
Thanks for all your replies/advice!
Got everything backed up and did a clean install off a bootable usb stick.
All running good now, must have hit a glitch with that security update.
cheers,
Dan.
:D
Click to expand...

Yeah be careful with those update thing especially if ur using PC graphic non flash card. I always stuck from my work 2 or 3 days every time I upgrade those security thing
 
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