[SOLVED] Changing Os with Non-Apple Graphics Card

[BrentReel]

I currently own a Mid-2012 Mac Pro, which is duel booted with OS X Sierra, and Windows 10. I have 2 hard drives, with each OS installed on its own drive.

I recently upgraded my graphics card to improve gaming on Windows. I picked up a AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 7950, but I did not get the Mac version. ($300 more for the same thing -_-)

Everything works great, except I no longer can hold Alt/Option down to select a boot drive when starting my computer. It either boots directly to my default option, or stalls out on the grey screen where you normally would see the apple logo during the boot process.

I do know how to go to System Preferences > Start up disk, and then select a drive and click "restart" However this sets the default for booting.

Now, with that set to windows, I can restart and my computer automatically launches Windows. However, now that Windows is default, and I can't hold alt while booting to change it, I'm stuck in Windows until I put in my old graphics card, boot, hold alt, launch OS x, and change the default back to OS x.

So my question is, Is there a way I can restart to my windows drive from OS x, but without changing the default so that I can then restart, and be back in OS x?

And if not, is there another way you guys would suggest switching between OS, when booting and holding alt is not an option?

Thank you guys so much for the help!
I truly appreciate the help!

 

[ajpaolello]

Are you using Bootcamp by any chance? There's a way for that I know.

 

[BrentReel]

Are you using Bootcamp by any chance? There's a way for that I know.

Yes, I believe so at least. I set up bootcamp when I first got the computer in 2012 with a copy of windows 7. I then updated to windows 8/10 through Windows itself as they came out. Don't know if that makes a diff or not?

 

[ajpaolello]

As long as the partition is still there it should be fine. I think you can set in Bootcamp what drive you restart into when you restart. Not the most optimal solution but a potential work around.

 

[amtseung]

As long as the partition is still there it should be fine. I think you can set in Bootcamp what drive you restart into when you restart. Not the most optimal solution but a potential work around.

Setting the target partition before restarting is the only workaround I know of for those of us (me included) that run PC graphics cards in our Mac Pros. Mine's older than OP's (Early 2009 with a single Xeon W3540 in it), but I have to do the same thing to get between OSX and Windows. Thankfully, I have them each on their own SSD, and have a separate storage drive per OS. And yes, I'm running an HD7950 in mine too. Reference card though.

I'm pretty sure there's an equivalent way to set a target partition through Bootcamp when trying to exit from Windows, going back to OSX. I did it all the time.

If you really want to, the HD7950 should have a dual bios switch, at least on reference designs (mine has one), so you can flash the Mac edition 7950 bios onto there. I just haven't bothered, since I don't need bootcamp anymore.

 

[ajpaolello]

Interesting. Might be a way to do it.