In need of MP2009 service manual

[gugucom]

I believe you are thinking too complicated. Just use header "B". Nevertheless I'm showing you pics of my 2009 MP.



In this pic you can see how I have replaced the black SATA cable "B" in the special harness with a red standard SATA cable. The harness remains in place though to provide header "A" with the SATA signal and both headers with power. On the logic board side I have capped the unused cable with a red plug to prevent potential short circuits.



Here you can see how I plugged into header "B" with a SATA power adapter to get Molex power. Header "A" is shown unplugged from the ODD.

Unless you want to fit multiple drives as i my case you do not need to go to all this effort. Any single SSD or SATA HDD will plug directly into your header "B".

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[gugucom]

Oops, it is getting confusing. The OP was having a 2009 MP but the last question was about a 2008 MP. So please disregard most of my comment. There is no SATA harness in the 2006 ODD bay only IDE cables. A standard Sata cable as in my pic has to be fitted. For 1 cable a 90° connector is ok but if you ever need two the other needs a straight connector due to space restrictions.

 

[Nadav35]

You missed the point..

What I want to do is replace, and get rid of the IDE/PATA connectors and take the sata/power cable from a 2009 mac pro and TRANSPLANT it in my 2008. I already know that the ODD ports are bootable(OWC provided this for me), and now that I have AHCI installed in windows 7, they would be bootable as well going into bootcamp..

But, my main point is I need to see a picture of your SATA optical cable and the connector at the other end of it. Why should I waste money on converting PATA-SATA using adapters(sticking PATA-SATA adapters on the backs of my super drives), when I can just get the 2009 mac pro's dual sata connectors?

Could you show me what the other end of the sata optical cable looks like? I believe its a combo of sata connectors on one end and a sata connector that plugs into a sata port on the motherboard.

 

[gugucom]

I have shown you the pictures that I have, and believe me you cannot do what you want to do. Let me explain.

The 2008 and 2009 have a completely different power supply design for starters.

The 2009 provides the total power from five cables into one connector from the PSU into the logic board. Then the logic board has a propriatory 4-pin socket which feeds into a proproatory cable harness that runs from the logic board to the ODD bay.

The 2008 has several separate power cables which are ending in different connectors mainly going to the logic board, but to different locations. One cable terminates already in the ODD bay where it has two Molex connectors.

To finish off the description of the 2009 ODD harness: It has 90° SATA cable connectors "A" and "B" on the logic board side and a square four pin power cable running 5V and 12 V. On the ODD bay end it has two integrated Data and Power SATA headers "A" and "B".

If your desire is to run two SATA optical drives in the bay you should fit the standard SATA cables as described and simply fit your Molex power from the IDE power cable to the two optical drives.

Be aware that straight SATA connectors will not fit under the fan unit on the logic board and two 90° connectors will not fit side by side. You will have to mod the fan unit to make some space. At least that was necessary in a 2006 which to my knowledge had the same logic board and fan unit design. If you force the fan unit over the connectors you may bend the logic board and brake a trace in it. This would be a 500$ replacement.

 

[Nadav35]

Ok

Did you get my other message regarding about my paying you to help me get my SATA optical drives to be bootable, or to allow booting of windows installer, or windows in general via the ODD sata ports. As I mentioned to you before, i tested OS X and it boots fine there.. But I don't understand. I have AHCI enabled in bootcamp, but yet when I connected the sata drive to the odd ports, it failed to boot it saying: the disk you have is not bootable. Is there a way to get it to boot? tHE MORE i thinka bout this, I think its time for me to throw away the 2008 mac pro and just get a 2009. What do you think? Can you help me, if I pay you say, $50.00?

I have shown you the pictures that I have, and believe me you cannot do what you want to do. Let me explain.

The 2008 and 2009 have a completely different power supply design for starters.

The 2009 provides the total power from five cables into one connector from the PSU into the logic board. Then the logic board has a propriatory 4-pin socket which feeds into a proproatory cable harness that runs from the logic board to the ODD bay.

The 2008 has several separate power cables which are ending in different connectors mainly going to the logic board, but to different locations. One cable terminates already in the ODD bay where it has two Molex connectors.

To finish off the description of the 2009 ODD harness: It has 90° SATA cable connectors "A" and "B" on the logic board side and a square four pin power cable running 5V and 12 V. On the ODD bay end it has two integrated Data and Power SATA headers "A" and "B".

If your desire is to run two SATA optical drives in the bay you should fit the standard SATA cables as described and simply fit your Molex power from the IDE power cable to the two optical drives.

Be aware that straight SATA connectors will not fit under the fan unit on the logic board and two 90° connectors will not fit side by side. You will have to mod the fan unit to make some space. At least that was necessary in a 2006 which to my knowledge had the same logic board and fan unit design. If you force the fan unit over the connectors you may bend the logic board and brake a trace in it. This would be a 500$ replacement.

 

[UltraNEO*]

Did you get my other message regarding about my paying you to help me get my SATA optical drives to be bootable, or to allow booting of windows installer, or windows in general via the ODD sata ports. As I mentioned to you before, i tested OS X and it boots fine there.. But I don't understand. I have AHCI enabled in bootcamp, but yet when I connected the sata drive to the odd ports, it failed to boot it saying: the disk you have is not bootable. Is there a way to get it to boot? tHE MORE i thinka bout this, I think its time for me to throw away the 2008 mac pro and just get a 2009. What do you think? Can you help me, if I pay you say, $50.00?

Dude, is this your thread?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10516420

BTW, here's a HOW TO thread.. Maybe it'll help you for free!?
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=126089&st=0

 

[gugucom]

Hi Nadav,

I can see your problem now. It has been reported by other users as well. For instance Tesselator had the same problem and I mentioned it in my Howto for AHCI.

I have never run into it myself due to different setups that I use. I think I know what to do to solve the issue.

My understanding is that the Windows installer perceives the SATA ports in a different way when a RAID array is installed prior to installing Windows. For some unknown reasons it thinks that the residual SATA ports are external connections.

The work around is quite simple I believe. You have to remove your RAID array temporarily. Then your installation will most probably go ahead on the ODD SATA port. When you have finished with the Windows installation simply add the RAID drives back into your setup. They should work as they did before. Booting Windows from a HDD should not be a problem.

If this will help you or if you continue to have problems please let us know about it.