Help, Erased iMac HDD volume drive trying reset my iMac to factory conditions

[Weaselboy]

Though my initial problem was that I erased the internal volume, so I have no destination option...

I don't follow. Can you see the internal from Disk Utility? If you go to the erase tab an format it, you will be able to see the blank drive and use Disk Util to restore the external to the internal.

What started all this? Is the internal a dead/bad drive?

 

[Zorana71]

I don't follow. Can you see the internal from Disk Utility? If you go to the erase tab an format it, you will be able to see the blank drive and use Disk Util to restore the external to the internal.

What started all this? Is the internal a dead/bad drive?

My macbook was purchased just a few days ago from a mac store, so I doubt the drive is bad. It all started when I needed to install windows through bootcamp and kept receiving an error. I was told to reinstall Macintosh on my computer, which I did, though something went wrong and when it finished my internal disk was gone. I then read what you suggest above and tried it. My computer works now but only with the external hard drive I reinstalled it on. I can't restore it back to my internal drive because it doesn't exist and therefore I can't choose anything as my 'destination'.

 

[Weaselboy]

My macbook was purchased just a few days ago from a mac store, so I doubt the drive is bad. It all started when I needed to install windows through bootcamp and kept receiving an error. I was told to reinstall Macintosh on my computer, which I did, though something went wrong and when it finished my internal disk was gone. I then read what you suggest above and tried it. My computer works now but only with the external hard drive I reinstalled it on. I can't restore it back to my internal drive because it doesn't exist and therefore I can't choose anything as my 'destination'.

Okay, I see what is going on there. Yosemite setup your internal as a core storage volume and that is why you could not get Windows working and can't do anything now.

So is there any data or anything on the external, or is this just an OS only on there?

If all you have is the OS, we can use Internet recovery to get the OS back very easily. If you have a fast Internet connection, this won't take long at all.

Do this.... hold command-option-r at boot (all three keys at once). You will need to select your wife then you will see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Then you will see the recovery screen.

From there go to the Utilities menu and open Terminal. Now enter the command below in Terminal to wipe the core storage volume. Enter it just like I have it with the quotes there.

diskutil cs delete "Macintosh HD"

Quit Terminal then of Disk Utility and erase the disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then quit Disk Util. Now click reinstall OS at the top and the OS (~5GB) will download and reinstall.

If you have a really slow connection and would rather copy over from the external, you can do that by running the Terminal commands from there then restore like I described earlier.

 

[Zorana71]

Okay, I see what is going on there. Yosemite setup your internal as a core storage volume and that is why you could not get Windows working and can't do anything now.

So is there any data or anything on the external, or is this just an OS only on there?

If all you have is the OS, we can use Internet recovery to get the OS back very easily. If you have a fast Internet connection, this won't take long at all.

Do this.... hold command-option-r at boot (all three keys at once). You will need to select your wife then you will see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Then you will see the recovery screen.

From there go to the Utilities menu and open Terminal. Now enter the command below in Terminal to wipe the core storage volume. Enter it just like I have it with the quotes there.

diskutil cs delete "Macintosh HD"

Quit Terminal then of Disk Utility and erase the disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then quit Disk Util. Now click reinstall OS at the top and the OS (~5GB) will download and reinstall.

If you have a really slow connection and would rather copy over from the external, you can do that by running the Terminal commands from there then restore like I described earlier.

Thank you so much! It worked perfectly! You're a life saveerr

 

[matreya]

Thank you so much! It worked perfectly! You're a life saveerr

Now all you need to do is reformat the external drive and re set it up as a Time Machine backup...

 

[swfc1867jm]

Hi I'm having the same problem but it doesn't appear to be linked to the core problem which the other people had, when I type in diskutil list I get:

-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.2 GB disk0
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Base System 1.2 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk1
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk3
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk4
/dev/disk5
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk5
/dev/disk6
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *6.3 MB disk6
(there is also abit below this but this is the most I could copy, the bit below is just the same has all this unknown stuff same as above though)

Thanks for any help.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi I'm having the same problem but it doesn't appear to be linked to the core problem which the other people had, when I type in diskutil list I get...

Can you explain a little more about what you did and what you are trying to do?

Also, run the command below in Terminal and post up the output.

diskutil cs list

 

[swfc1867jm]

I was trying to install Mac OS X Yosemite and then when my mac restarted it said that my harddrive was damaged and could not be repaired, the harddrive is only a couple of week old as I replaced a damaged one then. Because it was new I had nothing of importance worth keeping so I just erased the harddrive and now when I try to reinstall I get the above problem, where there is no option to install to any harddrive

When I type in diskutil cs list I get:


-bash-3.2# diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
-bash-3.2#

 

[Weaselboy]

I was trying to install Mac OS X Yosemite and then when my mac restarted it said that my harddrive was damaged and could not be repaired, the harddrive is only a couple of week old as I replaced a damaged one then. Because it was new I had nothing of importance worth keeping so I just erased the harddrive and now when I try to reinstall I get the above problem, where there is no option to install to any harddrive

When I type in diskutil cs list I get:


-bash-3.2# diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
-bash-3.2#

What year and model Mac do you have? Are you seeing this from recovery and what do you see in Disk Utility?

Confirm you do not have any other drives attached and this is just one physical drive?

 

[swfc1867jm]

What year and model Mac do you have? Are you seeing this from recovery and what do you see in Disk Utility?

Confirm you do not have any other drives attached and this is just one physical drive?

I have a macbook pro, 13" mid 2012 version.
Yeah this is when I try internet recovery.
In disk utility on the left I have Disk0 and Mac Os X Base System

Disk0 tab options are first aid, erase, partition and restore. The only thing on this that isn't blanked out is the restore source and destination boxes.

Mac OS X Base System tab options are first aid, erase and restore. I am able to verify disk on the first aid tab, and the restore source and destination boxes are again not blanked out, everything else is blanked out and can't be selected.

No I don't have any other drives attached this is the only drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

I have a macbook pro, 13" mid 2012 version.
Yeah this is when I try internet recovery.
In disk utility on the left I have Disk0 and Mac Os X Base System.

I'm thinking one of two things. It looks like a bad drive, but a bad drive cable can also cause issues like this. I'm wondering what was going on with the old drive (?) and maybe the cable was bad all along?

What symptoms did you have with the old drive?

Do you happen to have an external enclosure you could put this drive in and see fi you can format it from there, just to eliminate the cable?

 

[swfc1867jm]

I'm thinking one of two things. It looks like a bad drive, but a bad drive cable can also cause issues like this. I'm wondering what was going on with the old drive (?) and maybe the cable was bad all along?

What symptoms did you have with the old drive?

Do you happen to have an external enclosure you could put this drive in and see fi you can format it from there, just to eliminate the cable?

With the old drive I had the no entry sign whenever I turned it on, after a browse on the internet I quickly guessed that I needed a new harddrive. Since I fitted it it has worked perfectly up until trying to install this new platform. Seems that I'm not the first person trying to install yosemite that has had the problem though.. I might be able to get one to try with but it won't be today! Thanks for your help though and I'll see what I can do

 

[MeyleeMe]

Please I need help. I accidentally deleted Mac Hd and then i tried to start internet recovery. Until now there's no improvement. Please what should I do? We dont have Mac center here.. Thanks!

 

[Daniella Juan]

Hi!

Can I just ask for help? I was trying to reset my MacBook Pro, I researched on how to do it without using cd. I did what they say, I erased Macintosh HD from disk utility and I was trying to Reinstall OS X. I did the intructions, but when I waited for the installing, it says "Can't download the additional components needed to install OS X" I don't know what to do, I don't have any backed up and I can't use my Mac now. Anything I can do? I don't have a installer. Hope you have time to response. Thank you! x

 

[Daniella Juan]

This shows after

 

[cayita03]

Please help! I no nothing about computers. I accidentally deleted my Mac hard drive. I have gotten up to the Disk Utility and I had two partitions. It's still shows 2 but now they say untitled. I am trying to create a new partition like I read in older posts but it gives an error 61 and won't let me.

 

[Weaselboy]

Please help! I no nothing about computers. I accidentally deleted my Mac hard drive. I have gotten up to the Disk Utility and I had two partitions. It's still shows 2 but now they say untitled. I am trying to create a new partition like I read in older posts but it gives an error 61 and won't let me.

Can you tell us what year and model Mac you have and what OS X version you were on?

 

[cayita03]

Please help! I no nothing about computers. I accidentally deleted my Mac hard drive. I have gotten up to the Disk Utility and I had two partitions. It's still shows 2 but now they say untitled. I am trying to create a new partition in order to save the untitled ones to it, like I read in older posts, but it gives an error 61 and won't let me.

Can you tell us what year and model Mac you have and what OS X version you were on?

I bought the Mac in 2010 I believe. We had updated to the Yosemite a little while ago. And when I tried to recover it it asked me to install the updated Yosemite version again, which I did.

 

[cayita03]

I bought the Mac in 2010 I believe. We had updated to the Yosemite a little while ago. And when I tried to recover it it asked me to install the updated Yosemite version again, which I did. It also shows on the disk utility screen OS X Base System which was never there before

 

[Weaselboy]

I bought the Mac in 2010 I believe. We had updated to the Yosemite a little while ago. And when I tried to recover it it asked me to install the updated Yosemite version again, which I did. It also shows on the disk utility screen OS X Base System which was never there before

Did something happen that caused you to do this?

It sounds like you are in recovery and that base system is normal to see during recovery. From the command-r recovery boot can you just use Disk Utility to erase the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format?

 

[cayita03]

Did something happen that caused you to do this?

It sounds like you are in recovery and that base system is normal to see during recovery. From the command-r recovery boot can you just use Disk Utility to erase the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format?

Long story short, hubby couldn't find his phone so I used the Find My Phone app, I noticed that it pulled up the MAC home computer which I thought was odd, and like and idiot I 'erased' it not realizing that I was actually erasing the contents. I know, I know...idiot.

Yes this is the screen from the recovery boot but in the source filed I have one of the partition, 'untitled' then it has the option for the destination. I don't know what to put there since I couldn't create a new partition. And I am worried because it says underneath 'erase destination volume and copy contents of 'Untitled' to it. I don't want to erase anything else.

 

[cayita03]

Am I going to be able to restore it? All my pictures are here.

 

[cayita03]

I tried saving the Untitled partition to the OS X Base System and it gives me an error 'couldn't open target for repartitioning-error-7'

 

[Weaselboy]

Long story short, hubby couldn't find his phone so I used the Find My Phone app, I noticed that it pulled up the MAC home computer which I thought was odd, and like and idiot I 'erased' it not realizing that I was actually erasing the contents. I know, I know...idiot.

Yes this is the screen from the recovery boot but in the source filed I have one of the partition, 'untitled' then it has the option for the destination. I don't know what to put there since I couldn't create a new partition. And I am worried because it says underneath 'erase destination volume and copy contents of 'Untitled' to it. I don't want to erase anything else.

Yes, your data is likely erased if you told Find my Mac to erase the machine. The idea is to prevent a thief from accessing your data. If you don't have any backups to get your photos back from, the best thing at this point it to shut it down and take it to a company that specializes in restoring data like this. It won't be cheap.

If you just want to get it back up and running, with your data gone, you can just use Disk Utility to erase that Untitled volume to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then quit Disk Uitl and click reinstall OS at the top. That would redownload the OS and get you going, but the data would be gone at that point.

Sorry for the delayed reply, I was out for the day.

 

[cayita03]

Wow, I can't believe this. I have no words. I have no idea who can restore memory like this. Is there anyone or company you can recommend? It shows both untitled partitions right there with the same amount of space I had before.