Installing rEFIt/rEFInd without OS X on Mac Pro?

[ad0mas]

Hello. I posted a thread a week ago or so about my mac pro having problems with booting. Basically I never got it to boot to OS X as it gets a kernel panic whether I boot from Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion or Maverics, whether I use DVD, external drive, internal drive or even another mac via firewire. It boots windows perfectly though. Anyways, I am currently trying to install Ubuntu on it but as I read I need to boot into OS X and install rEFIt or rEFInd which is impossible. Is there any way to install a Linux bootloader without OS X or just install Ubuntu to a mac that's unable to boot OS X? I know it sounds weird but *sigh* this is my current situation.

 

[666sheep]

You're going the wrong way. You're trying to cure the effect, not the cause. You most likely have dying graphics card. Symptoms you've described point at this. This comes from the difference between how OS X and Windows drivers use GPU clocks/power states.

 

[ad0mas]

Thanks for the reply! I actually haven't tried switching graphics card yet, I suppose that could be a cause! It all makes sense now. Would you have any suggestions for the cheapest possible graphics card for mac pro? If it turns out to be it, I'd upgrade to a better one then.

 

[hkoster1]

Hello. I posted a thread a week ago or so about my mac pro having problems with booting. Basically I never got it to boot to OS X as it gets a kernel panic whether I boot from Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion or Maverics, whether I use DVD, external drive, internal drive or even another mac via firewire. It boots windows perfectly though. Anyways, I am currently trying to install Ubuntu on it but as I read I need to boot into OS X and install rEFIt or rEFInd which is impossible. Is there any way to install a Linux bootloader without OS X or just install Ubuntu to a mac that's unable to boot OS X? I know it sounds weird but *sigh* this is my current situation.

You can always install rEFInd directly to the EFI Systems Partition (ESP), e.g. from a working Ubuntu installation (could even be a liveCD).
First install at a minimum the refind_x64.efi and refind.conf files to the /EFI/refind/ directory on the ESP, plus any icon files that you fancy.
Then copy refind_x64.efi and rename it as bootx64.efi in the /EFI/boot/ directory on the ESP. This bootx64.efi will boot by default, or is supposed to do so in a standard UEFI environment. I don't know if this works on a Mac, but you could give it a try.