MacPro 2013 No Internal HDD

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Level 1

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MacPro 2013 No Internal HDD

I have been given a 2013 MacPro and it doesn't have an internal hard drive.

I am able to power up the unit and all the lights come on and everything seems to be sounding and working correctly, except when I connect a HDMI cord from the unit to the monitor, I get no signal. I tried different monitors and different HDMI cords and still nothing.

My understanding is that possibly there needs to be an internal drive attached with an operating system for the MacPro to be able to put out a signal. Maybe I'm wrong but would someone be able to pass on some advice on what's that best way to go about fixing this.

Thank you, kindly.

Posted on Feb 27, 2025 08:34 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

138,635 points

Feb 28, 2025 06:57 AM in response to lukey9910

this is the dark foot-tall cylinder model, right? Not the 2012 42 lb silver tower?

Restart and hold down Command and R keys. The screen should light up offer you some Utilities or a re-install.

How to start up from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

If you truly have no drive, the BIG question is whether it previously ever ran 10.13 High Sierra or later. that would get you the firmware needed to support an aftermarket internal.

The non-obvious other soltion is to connect an external drive, such as a USB drive, and install MacOS on that drive.

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Answer 2

Feb 28, 2025 07:27 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

if you can get to Recovery, you should get a stable display, and its built-in Disk Utility can tell you about Drives.

Caution: the drive holding or named MacOS Base System of size about 2GB, is pulled for the computer's ROM. It is a disk image, and it is the software that runs Recovery. It has NO space for a new install.

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Answer 3

Mar 3, 2025 08:25 PM in response to lukey9910

if you can not get a gray screen with some icons in Recovery that Mac may not working properly.

NO drive needs to be present to invoke Recovery. it creates some small RAM disks for it's workspace (sometimes as many as 28).

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Answer 4

lukey9910 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 3, 2025 07:53 PM in response to lukey9910

Thanks for your assistance, I tried all these things but unfortunately I'm still getting no output. Might be worth taking it into Apple.

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MacPro 2013 No Internal HDD

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