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The 2013 revamp of the desktop Mac series known as the Mac Pro.

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Mac Pro 2013 Not Booting with New SSD and Adapter

Hi,

I replaced the original drive of a Mac Pro Late 2013 - A1481 (https://support.apple.com/en-us/112025) with a Crucial P3 (https://www.amazon.it/Crucial-Plus-500GB...) and a compatible adapter (https://www.amazon.it/OLVINS-Adattatore-...).

Unfortunately, with the new drive, the computer turns on with the fan at maximum speed and doesn't send any signal to the monitor. If I remove the drive, the boot proceeds normally (Apple logo + missing OS image).

When I try to use a bootable USB with Big Sur, the USB seems to be read, but the monitor still shows no signal.

I’m not sure if this is an issue with the compatibility of the new components (both are supposed to be compatible) or related to the Mac's firmware. I read that the Mac firmware needs to be updated first. I know Big Sur was installed on this Mac before, but then it was reformatted and Linux was installed, after which the original drive failed.

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot further or should I just give up considering that I no longer have the original SSD working ?

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2 Comments:

Clearly this SSD and adapter won’t work in your system.

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According to this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/pci...

they should be both compatible.

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I think this is still recoverable! But you need to first setup a bootable Big Sur OS installer drive. Using a second Mac reformat it to GUID and a journaled file system. Then copy to it the OS installer file, now follow this guide Create a bootable installer for macOS

Now with this drive plugged in an the original SSD installed you should be able to delete all of the partitions and reformat the drive as a single partition using Disk Utility, now run the OS installer. That should do it.

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Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, the original SSD was broken and is no longer available to me. Purchasing an "original" SSD is out of the question due to the high prices for this purpose.

I tried to boot the Mac without an internal disk from a USB stick with the Big Sur installer to attempt to install it on an external SSD drive, but the installer does not allow me to do so, giving an error "the computer does not have a disk with a boot firmware" (is there a way to do this?).

The situation is frustrating because the Crucial P3 is declared by many to be compatible with this Mac along with the corresponding adapter. I have no other ideas. I will try to determine if they might be defective or wait until I have an NVMe of another brand.

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@teeaaa - I’ve never got a M.2 SSD to work within a Mac Pro Trashcan (I have one). I ended up going with the OWC drive which is a pin compatible drive (unlike a M.2 which needs an adapter). I have a 1TB drive holding the OS aw well as my Apps, 2/3 of the drive is left empty! I use external RAID drives for my content.

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UPDATE: Not wanting to give up, I had the opportunity to try booting the Mac Pro with two other NVMe drives + the same adapter:

An obscure "Netac M.2 220 PCIe" disassembled from a Chinese MiniPC

A more famous WD BLUE SN500 (Model WDS500G1B0C)

In this case, I can boot the Mac, but when using a Big Sur bootable USB drive inserted, both drives are NOT detected in "Disk Utility."

Before throwing everything in the towel, I read that in order for the drives to be recognized, it is necessary to update the Mac's bootrom. Not having the original disk, I don't know which version I have.

Can I see it from inside the installer (for example with a CLI command) or force the bootrom update somehow from the USB installer ?

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@teeaaa - How did you create the USB Big Sur drive? As I think that’s your issue here. A Bootable OS installer drive will be the primary drive when the other drive doesn’t have the needed OS. But that still assumes the internal drive is the correct drive.

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Sorry - I don't think I fully understand this. The Big Sur installer is just a 64 GB USB stick that was created by another Mac with the "classic" diskutil CLI command.

It was then plugged into one of the ports on the Mac Pro to start the installer, the only other drive was the internal NVME which however is not seen by Disk Utility.

so I'm stuck.

By the way I have also ruled out the problem related to BOOTROM ,

I found and used this tool :

https://github.com/MuertoGB/MacBRTool

which confirmed me that the Mac Pro already has the latest bootrom installed (418).

So either I am falling into a set of unfortunate NVME(s) that are not compatible with this mac, or the adapter is having problems, or there is some other issue that I can't diagnose.

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