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Power Mac Pro does not load Installer

Hello,

I recently installed macOS elCapitan on an old Mac Pro G5 I purchased on EBay. Unfortunately I ran a software update which resulted into a boot-loop after installation and restart. Form there on I tried the recovery mode a thousand times to re-install the elCapitan OS again. Somehow the old macOS 10.6 recovery (it's snow leopard I think) was additionally installed on the disk. Due to that I completely formatted the entire hard drive with an external SATA adaptor via my MacBook and plugged it back into the Mac Pro. The hard drive is now completely empty. After preparing a macOS elCapitan installation USB-Drive, I tried to re-install the OS via booting from USB stick.

The issue now is, that I can select the USB Stick from the boot menu, but as soon as I hit ENTER, only a gram screen appears and nothing happens. Maybe somebody of you has an idea what I can try to install the OS again? I switched harddrives, tried different drive slots within the Mac Pro, different USB Sticks for startup - so to speak I have absolutely no more ideas to figure out what's the issue with that Mac.



Thank you for any Ideas!

Mac Pro, OS X 10.11

Posted on Dec 7, 2019 7:21 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 7, 2019 7:50 AM

A properly made USB-stick Installer creates over 20 RAM disks for temporary work files. It does not need another drive of any description to get you to the Installer screen. It will, in fact, produce an installer screen with NO drive installed in the machine.


The conclusion is that if you are not getting to the Installer screen, you have either a bad USB-stick Installer, or a Hardware issue.


The silver tower Mac Pro is not a powerPC G5. But the 2006 and 2007 models can not run ElCapitan, they are limited to 10.7.5 Lion, unless they have been modified.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 7, 2019 7:50 AM in response to valentin60

A properly made USB-stick Installer creates over 20 RAM disks for temporary work files. It does not need another drive of any description to get you to the Installer screen. It will, in fact, produce an installer screen with NO drive installed in the machine.


The conclusion is that if you are not getting to the Installer screen, you have either a bad USB-stick Installer, or a Hardware issue.


The silver tower Mac Pro is not a powerPC G5. But the 2006 and 2007 models can not run ElCapitan, they are limited to 10.7.5 Lion, unless they have been modified.

Power Mac Pro does not load Installer

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