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Is this a bios or hard drive problem??

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Apr 14, 2012
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Motherboard
Mac Pro 3,1 (Early 2008)
CPU
Intel Core i7-3770k (3.4 GHz)
Graphics
NVidia GeForce GTX 560-Ti
Mac
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Classic Mac
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Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
I used to have a broken but functional yosemite build. But for some reason my hard drive didnt want to be read by the mac. So i played around with the UEFI settings and now I can't even boot up on the SSD! I couldnt make a brand new install as it wont load the USB even.

I tried unplugging the problem causing hard disk and that made the installer USB work up to the setup screen where I cluldnt even find the SSD in Disk Utility. If I try to boot up my install from the USB it gives me a white/gray

I would never have done a reinstall of my system while on a deadline (need to finish something in 18 hours) still havent finished work on it, need more time! But the hdd failed on me. Both are readable in UEFI and boot options, I just can't get OS X to read them, or for anything to boot when my HDD is connected. Just to make sure: when my hdd is connected nthing works. It just shows me a blinking _ with a /\ above it.

Any help pleasee!
 
I used to have a broken but functional yosemite build. But for some reason my hard drive didnt want to be read by the mac. So i played around with the UEFI settings and now I can't even boot up on the SSD! I couldnt make a brand new install as it wont load the USB even.

In the UEFI/BIOS - load Optimised defaults option, Hard drive/SSD to AHCI mode. See this Ivy Bridge guide for more information:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/bios-uefi...gigabytes-7-series-lga-1155-motherboards.html

I tried unplugging the problem causing hard disk and that made the installer USB work up to the setup screen where I cluldnt even find the SSD in Disk Utility. If I try to boot up my install from the USB it gives me a white/gray

Only have your OS X installation connected until you can get this running again.

I would never have done a reinstall of my system while on a deadline (need to finish something in 18 hours) still havent finished work on it, need more time! But the hdd failed on me. Both are readable in UEFI and boot options, I just can't get OS X to read them, or for anything to boot when my HDD is connected. Just to make sure: when my hdd is connected nthing works. It just shows me a blinking _ with a /\ above it.

Any help pleasee!

Some questions - Do you have a HDD with Yosemite installation that was slow to index and a new blank SSD? What is the model of your motherboard?
 
In the UEFI/BIOS - load Optimised defaults option, Hard drive/SSD to AHCI mode. See this Ivy Bridge guide for more information:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/bios-uefi...gigabytes-7-series-lga-1155-motherboards.html

Whoops! Looks like I've been following the wrong guide! I followed this guide and it did some progress. Now I'm back to where I started. My HD can't be read by OS X, but OS boots fine

Some questions - Do you have a HDD with Yosemite installation that was slow to index and a new blank SSD? What is the model of your motherboard?

I have a 2 TB HDD that I keep for storage while my 64 ssd is for boot. My motherboard is GA-Z77-D3H.
 
Whoops! Looks like I've been following the wrong guide! I followed this guide and it did some progress. Now I'm back to where I started. My HD can't be read by OS X, but OS boots fine.
I have a 2 TB HDD that I keep for storage while my 64 ssd is for boot. My motherboard is GA-Z77-D3H.

Lets see if I have this correct. You have an SSD installation drive that is now booting but the data is on a second HDD that your OS X installation does not see?

Make sure that the SSD is on Sata port 0 on the motherboard. Try the data drive on different Sata ports and see if there is any change - Disconnect power cable to do this process.
 
I did but no luck. The weird part is that everything opens up normally when I disconnect the hard drive. Sure it works normally(sometimes) when it's connected, but when I disconnect the HD I can even open up the installer USB(the one I used to install yosemite). As soon as I connect the HD however, the yosemite installer cannot detect either drive. Really frickin weird
 
Can this have anything to do with the fact that last time the OS was able to read the HD, (it was still faulty) so I did a disk repair, and while it was finishing up (it told me the disk had been repaird, but said something about fixing somethig for boot) while it was finishing up I opened something and it disconnected at that moment, and I havent gotten it to reconnect since
 
Does the data drive have a partition with another OS or OS X installation on it. Your data drive could also be on a different Sata controller. Not sure why the USB drive would cause an issue.
 
Does the data drive have a partition with another OS or OS X installation on it. Your data drive could also be on a different SATA controller.



No it doesn't it's just filled with my project files. I have no idea what to do. I CAN try reinstalling yosemite, but since HD isnt readable from the installer, I'm pretty sure that's a dead end. i have a working ML installation USB (from the appstore file i used to make my first build) but when I boot with it I land on a blackscreen after installer apple logo. This is an easy fix problem but I've tried all the bootflags I could find and nothing works. i think I need the right combination of flags. If we're stuck on Yosemite, maybe ML will fix all this?
 
Can this have anything to do with the fact that last time the OS was able to read the HD, (it was still faulty) so I did a disk repair, and while it was finishing up (it told me the disk had been repaird, but said something about fixing somethig for boot) while it was finishing up I opened something and it disconnected at that moment, and I havent gotten it to reconnect since


It could be related - but it is probably just coincidence The problem is how to get the SSD up and running and working well before reintroducing the data drive. If everything has been hanging together by a thread then the safest thing I think would be to get a new HDD and try a fresh installation. Then see if it is possible to migrate the data across from the data drive. If you have a sata>USB kit that would let you try plugging the data drive into a USB port to see if it was accessible.
 
Well, ****. I was hoping it wouldnt come to this. But I've looked up a lot of other things, and accompanied by your message, I think this is confirmation enough that nothing can be done.

It's 10 PM now and I need to submit a file to a competition before 5 AM. Now the programs I need to run this are on the HD unfortunately and I'll need at least a night to redownload them. So basically I'm stuck with nothing I can do. I know this is pointless to you, i'm just venting.

I'm confident that I can get the data back, and even if i cant, I have a backup from a few months ago. Sure I'll lose a **** ton of data, but it's better than nothing. I've come to a realization that this is because my HD is a seagate. This is the second hard drive to fail on me (backup drive being the other one) I'm pretty sure my constant (at least 12 a day) hard shut downs since I upgraded to Yosemite are what helped in this too.

Once again, thank you very much. You are an awesome gentleman.
 
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