Booting up MacPro from external START UP DISK

Booting up MacPro from external START UP DISK MacPro show padlock with space fo pass word..

#1 JAET

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Posted 13 November 2012 - 01:24 PM

My MacPro logged out after a session.
When I tried to re-start it stays on sppining wheel.
I tried rebooting from an external USB drive with MAC OS X 10.6.3 clone but it gives a padlock and an option for a password, but my password does not help.
Any thoughts?

JAET

This post has been edited by JAET: 13 November 2012 - 01:27 PM

#2 bastion

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Posted 14 November 2012 - 08:17 AM

JAET, on 13 November 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

At some point in the past someone enabled the firmware password protection on your machine - possibly before it was your machine if you're not the original owner - the effects of which include blocking unauthorized booting from external media.

Given that you presumably don't know that password, the way to clear it is to open the machine, change the amount of RAM and then turn the machine on while holding cmd-opt-P-R until the machine has chimed three times. After that you can shut down and put the memory back to the way it was.

#3 JAET

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Joined: 13-November 12

Posted 17 November 2012 - 08:10 AM

bastion, on 14 November 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

JAET, on 13 November 2012 - 01:24 PM, said:

#4 JAET

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Group: New Members
Posts: 3
Joined: 13-November 12

Posted 17 November 2012 - 08:17 AM

Bastion,
Thank you for your advice.
I carried out instructions and was able to start up MacPro with Snow Leopard 10.6.5 installer.
Used Disk Utility to repear MacPro Disk permissions. However, after res-atrt, Mac Pro is still spinning on white screen and I decided to abort after 45 minutes.
I am thinking of Cloning HD and reformat to reinstall softaware.
JAET