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2012 Mac Pro reaches grey loading screen then shuts down

I have a mid 2012 Mac Pro running High Sierra. This is the second time this has happened - last time I restored from a backup, but that's not working this time, and I'm worried this would still happen again.


The problem

If I turn the computer on, it will make the wakeup noise and present a grey screen. After a few seconds I get a grey apple logo and a loading bar below. The bar moves along for about a minute and makes it 2/3 across. I hear a click from the computer, like a fan or disk turning off, and then a moment later the entire computer shuts down.


What I've tried

Safe mode (holding shift while booting) doesn't work. I can reach the boot selection menu and recovery mode (and EFI boot, in case GRUB can help me). I booted into recovery mode and tried disk utility.

Here's my disks:

  • OS X Base System 2 GB disk image - passed a first aid check
  • DATA internal disk (this is a HDD I use for time machine, it's in the first HD slot inside the machine) - first aid was greyed out, and it's not my boot disk anyways
  • Mac OS HD 959 GB, 20% full external disk (I'm 80% sure this is the internal SSD, but I can't ever find it) - fails first aid check. Here's a few lines I think are relevant:
...
Incorrect block count for file temp716219
It should be 29 instead of 0)
Invalid index key
Invalid sibling link
Rebuilding catalog B-tree.
The volume Mac OS HD could not be repaired.
File system check exit code is 8.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.
Problem -69842 occurred while restoring original mount state.
File system verify or repair failed.
Operation failed...

After this, I tried restoring from backup. Two different disks failed with the same reason:

Validating target...
Validating source...
Could not recognize "/dev/(nul)" as an image file
Could not validate source - Invalid argument
The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error 22.)
Operation failed...

This is where I've stopped.

I have access to another mac (Mojave) and I still have the flashdrive I used to upgrade to High Sierra. I'm not affraid to dive into the terminal or take the machine apart if needs be.

Any direction is appreciated!

Mac Pro

Posted on Aug 7, 2019 4:55 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 27, 2019 7:16 PM

Here's what I wound up doing. I had a Ubuntu installation flash drive sitting around, so I used that to wipe the entire Mac OS HD - not just the partition, the entire disk. I think I formatted it as FAT, it probably doesn't matter. I used the High Sierra flashdrive to reformat the disk, and then reinstalled MacOS with my backup.

This obviously destroys your data, so don't try it if you don't have a backup. You also need a way to reinstall MacOS.

I never did find out what caused the issue, but I've been running for a couple weeks now without any problems.

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 27, 2019 7:16 PM in response to lordpowerwalker

Here's what I wound up doing. I had a Ubuntu installation flash drive sitting around, so I used that to wipe the entire Mac OS HD - not just the partition, the entire disk. I think I formatted it as FAT, it probably doesn't matter. I used the High Sierra flashdrive to reformat the disk, and then reinstalled MacOS with my backup.

This obviously destroys your data, so don't try it if you don't have a backup. You also need a way to reinstall MacOS.

I never did find out what caused the issue, but I've been running for a couple weeks now without any problems.

2012 Mac Pro reaches grey loading screen then shuts down

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