Mac Pro won't boot *unless* I hold option key

[macgruder]

My Mac Pro (early 2008) has a strange issue. It won't get past the grey screen (before the Apple) unless I hold the Option key, and choose the Boot disk manually.

* it only happens after a shutdown
* restart it starts fine
* nothing in console suggests weirdness (although of course it doesn't get this far anyway at boot)

I've tried the usual: zap PRAM, permissions etc.

I do have Apple care for another few months but cannot afford the time without my computer at this point.

 

[DoFoT9]

hmmm. have you checked this through System Preferences?

 

[macgruder]

Yes, the correct disk is selected there. The computer does boot fine if I do a restart, but not if I do a Shutdown then turn it on.

 

[DoFoT9]

unfortunate!

now into the hard things.

attempt to follow this as best you can.

attempt to reset the SMC - be careful!

from there - its all shooting in the dark from my knowledge. 🙁

 

[macgruder]

fdisk is interesting. This is what I get:

$ diskutil list

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.5 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS MacPro 1.4 TB disk1s2
3: Apple_HFS SystemBackup 100.0 GB disk1s3
4: Apple_HFS Boot 13.6 GB disk1s4

(plus 3 other disks)

$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1

fdisk: 1> p
Disk: /dev/rdisk1 geometry: -5415437/4/63 [-1364690128 sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - -1364690129] <Unknown ID>
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

which seems weird with the negative number.



Now the suggestion is to do this:
type f 1 <== use your partition number here !!

but I'm not altogether confident that 1 is the correct number, and whether or not I could be doing BAD STUFF if I continue. 🙂

 

[DoFoT9]

fdisk is interesting. This is what I get:

$ diskutil list

/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.5 TB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS MacPro 1.4 TB disk1s2
3: Apple_HFS SystemBackup 100.0 GB disk1s3
4: Apple_HFS Boot 13.6 GB disk1s4

(plus 3 other disks)

$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1

fdisk: 1> p
Disk: /dev/rdisk1 geometry: -5415437/4/63 [-1364690128 sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - -1364690129] <Unknown ID>
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

which seems weird with the negative number.



Now the suggestion is to do this:
type f 1 <== use your partition number here !!

but I'm not altogether confident that 1 is the correct number, and whether or not I could be doing BAD STUFF if I continue. 🙂

below i have attached my startup disk size, etc. it is not a negative number. there most certainly is something wrong with your drive.

i would suggest running OSX Install disc (gray discs) and run Disk Utility over it - see if that can help.

failing that, Disk Warrior is a GREAT tool for optimising discs.

failing that, clone the disk, wipe it (zero out), clone back.

fdisk: 1> p
Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 1891368960] HFS+
*3: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1892042752 - 61480960] HPFS/QNX/AUX
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

 

[macgruder]

It actually might not be a problem with the drive. It may be an overflow error - the drive is 1.5TB and perhaps that is beyond what fdisk - my other 1.5TB disk gives exactly the same negative number.

Thinking about it - this may be the root of the problem. Perhaps for larger disks booting is an issue because of this. I don't want to play around with fdisk of course if it's not compatible with large disks. I wonder if there is a MacPorts version that is.

 

[DoFoT9]

It actually might not be a problem with the drive. It may be an overflow error - the drive is 1.5TB and perhaps that is beyond what fdisk - my other 1.5TB disk gives exactly the same negative number.

Thinking about it - this may be the root of the problem. Perhaps for larger disks booting is an issue because of this. I don't want to play around with fdisk of course if it's not compatible with large disks. I wonder if there is a MacPorts version that is.

i have a number of 2TB drives but unfortunately i am unable to fdisk into them properly as 2 of them are in a RAID and the other one says "resource busy" - i have a few things open 😉

this seems to agree with me that there is a 2TB limitation for MBR drives (its actually 2.2TB), but we are dealing with GUID partitions here - there is no real world physical limitation as far as i can tell even for fdisk!

am not quite sure where the problem lies, but i still do recommend Disk Warrior.

 

[macgruder]

i have a number of 2TB drives but unfortunately i am unable to fdisk into them properly as 2 of them are in a RAID and the other one says "resource busy" - i have a few things open 😉

am not quite sure where the problem lies, but i still do recommend Disk Warrior.

Thanks for your help.

I'll give DiskWarrior a shot. If you do manage to close all those open things, I'd appreciate it if you could post the fdisk output at your convenience. 🙂

I wonder if there's a non fdisk way to try to do the same thing.