Not able to start Mac Pro to the Startup Manager.Any help?

[Dakarai]

I have a 2008 Mac Pro. Not able to boot it to the startup manager, by holding down either the right or the left option key of my keyboard. Whenever I tried for this, the booting process remains freeze and not asked for password. The screen is appeared as dark for few moments. Wondered about the firmware password. For a security feature Firmware Password Utility, not easy to find the exact documentation. My question is, how to access the startup manger? Any suggestion will be appreciated….

[Broad-Man]

Generally the Firmware security have three modes of operations:- one is ‘Disabled’, other is ‘Command mode’, which is used to unlock it by allowing a password and the final mode is ‘Lock down’, it does not provide a password to unlock it, it is also disable everything. I suggest you, to clean your firmware and restart it into the ‘Command mode’ and able to use the option with a password.

[newtech]

The ‘Lock down/ Full’ mode of Firmware which indicates that, until you clear you firmware by using the ‘Firmware utility’ or the ‘Operating System’ CD/DVD or by manually clear the password, nothing can be unlocked, not even with a password. The ‘jamf binary’ uses built in Apple tools to set the firmware password from the command line. You are not able to ‘netboot’, ‘single user mode’, ‘boot from any media’, target mode boot‘ or any for any other normal boot.

[TEcH GuRuJI]

I had an experience about this type of problem, found everywhere but found nothing. Lastly got a coding that really help me to overcome from this problem. Would like to offer you, may be this is not an exact terminology for your issue, try this.

bash-3.2# jamf help setOFP

Usage:	 jamf setOFP -mode <none | command | full> [-passhash <passhash>] [-password <password>]


	 -mode 			 The security-mode to set in Open Firmware. Valid options are: 

					none	 No limitations will be applied to booting 

					command	 A password will be required to switch the boot device via OF

					full	 A password will be required to boot the computer

	 -passhash 		 The hash to set the security-password to in Open Firmware

	 -password 		 The password to set the security-password to in Open Firmware

bash-3.2#

[techman]

I read the above issue properly and would like to share something about this. I found somewhere that some portables were not able to boot at the start up manager in MAC, and it caused not updating of EFI. If your issue is matches this then update your EFI and SMC version in an latest version for your machine. Then try to boot your machine. And there is no need of holding down the right or left key

[Trio]

As you mentioned that, the boot manager freezes in your Mac Pro and not asked for password, it is a good one, I would like to ask you have you the left option whether it is working or not? If you formatted your hard drive , then you need to boot from your original operating system restore DVD while holding the key. Run both of the standered and extended tests. Make sure that your bootable disk shows boot manager screen during installation.

[Shen]

The new hard drive is formatted. It clears a small hardware test which is its partition. Apple doing this from the 2007/2008. So, It is must that you have to hold the "D" key of your keyboard while you reboot our system for an hardware test of the keyboard without any support. Do this one it will help you. ALong with press the power button, then your MAC Pro will might be miss the option boot manager window.

[Ninja-X]

I had an that problem on my keyboard and I did a hardware test on my keyboard which helped me very much. So, I would like to provide you the script for the test, try this one it will works:

$ nvram -p
efi-boot-device	<array><dict><key>IOMatch</key><dict><key>IOProviderClass</key><string>IOMedia</string><key>IOPropertyMatch</key><dict><key>UUID</key><string>461C20E9-8BFA-46E6-8B02-A22C482C1D21</string></dict></dict><key>BLLastBSDName</key><string>disk0s2</string></dict></array>%00
efi-boot-device-data	%02%01%0c%00%d0A%03%0a%00%00%00%00%01%01%06%00%02%1f%03%12%0a%00%00%00%00%00%00%00%04%01*%00%02%00%00%00(@%06%00%00%00%00%00`%aa8%%00%00%00%00%e9 %1cF%fa%8b%e6F%8b%02%a2,H,%1d!%02%02%7f%ff%04%00
SystemAudioVolume	0
prev-lang:kbd	en:0

[Milton.J]

There is the same model and same making procedure for the video card, but if it fails after some days then the company will replace it. In the replacement of the card will be in the same slot. The four slots of the lower most. The startup manager will properly integrated with the new slots of the graphic card. Some cards I would like to share you which gives the better performance like Sonnet, SATA bridge and the other HighPoint Technology RocketRaid cards.