i have a 2006 MacPro (Dual, Dual Core Xeon) which is currently running Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. I have read (and checked in my case) that there are 2 extra SATA ports on the mother board of the MacPro (Found them too…). Anyway, i also read that the SATA ports are turned off in BootCamp, for reasons Apple only know (cough we all know why cough). Anyway, the post i read this on was quite old, and given my Mac Pro is not actually using BootCamp (just booted from the win2k8r2 disk, and there is no Mac Partition at all on this machine) does anyone know off hand if this should work? I am hoping to take apart the machine over the weekend to see if this will actually work, but before i do, any ideas?
Mac – Using the extra SATA ports on a 2006 Mac Pro under Bootcamp
bootcamphardwaremac pro
Related Solutions
Yes it will! Just tried it with success!
My largest indicator that it would work was by reviewing high reputation eBay sellers who where selling similar cards and claiming a wide range of Mac Pros.
Successfully transfered the Airport Extreme Card from the Mac Pro 2006 in to a Mac Pro 2008
I have the following Airport Extreme Card that identifies itself in System Information as :
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8C)
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.11)
The card as pictured is:
Installation Note: There were 3 wires to choose from inside the Mac Pro (Both models), labeled 1,2,3. The longest one I thought was for the Bluetooth module, clearly not the case in the Mac Pro 2008. Anyways, I connected the shortest wire to the top antenna port and the middle length to the lower antenna port on the Airport Extreme Card. Test working great, with this configuration and logic. This is the same logic I used when I initially installed the card in the 2006 Mac Pro as well. Not really sure what the long length cable is for as pictured below.
I would assume this would be for a true 802.11n card since those had 3 antennas in their spec?
After playing with this for a 8-10 hours, I found a solution:
You have to have Bootcamp Assistant create the USB key, and download the latest drivers (first and second checkboxes) to the key. There's apparently some startup information created that will let the keyboard and trackpad work with the installer.
Once that's done, boot into the Win7 installer. It still probably won't install. However, at some point you'll be presented with an option for "Load drivers," which appears in a few different places during the install.
When you get the opportunity,
Browse (on your installation media) to
$WinPEDDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x64\Uncheck the box that says "hide drivers for unsupported hardware." (Yes, really.)
Select everything it finds.
Hit next. Wait for the drivers to load.
Exit out of the installer, closing everything until you get back to the "Install or Repair" screen (first thing you typically see when the Win7 installer boots. DO NOT REBOOT
Remove your USB key.
- Wait for a moment.
- Re-attach the USB key.
Proceed through the "Install Windows" wizard, select your target partition (probably have to reformat it as NTFS, depending on how you created it), and proceed as normal.
There appears to be an issue with the way that UEFI handles USB 3, so this may not be an issue with a USB 2 key.
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Best Answer
You can use those ports once you installed the AHCI drivers. However, you'd still need to boot Windows from a disc connected to one of the drive sleds.
They got rid of this mess with the 2009 and later machines, btw.