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

[vassili golfidis]

Hey,

i have a problem

i have a old white macbook that i got from my mom cause she didnt used anymore. I have my own macbook pro.
I used the Hard Drive of the old macbook and i formated it to use it als external HD.

Now i want to reboot the old macbook and use it as a extra macbook but because i erased everything from the HD it won't work. when i put the HD in there is a question mark folder.

PLEASE HELP I TRYED EVERYTHING !

 

[AcesHigh87]

Hey,

i have a problem

i have a old white macbook that i got from my mom cause she didnt used anymore. I have my own macbook pro.
I used the Hard Drive of the old macbook and i formated it to use it als external HD.

Now i want to reboot the old macbook and use it as a extra macbook but because i erased everything from the HD it won't work. when i put the HD in there is a question mark folder.

PLEASE HELP I TRYED EVERYTHING !

You'll need access to an OS X installer (disk or otherwise) in order to install the operating system. If you wiped the drive you can't just try to boot from it and expect the OS to work; it literally doesn't have one.

 

[vassili golfidis]

so if i buy this, how do i put it on the hard drive ? i mean i have to restore it on the hardrive ? i have a harddrive mount box

 

[DeltaMac]

If your mom still has the original restore DVDs, you can use those to reinstall OS X.
There should be two DVDs, with grey labels. Boot to Disk #1, which should be the OS X install.

 

[AcesHigh87]

so if i buy this, how do i put it on the hard drive ? i mean i have to restore it on the hardrive ? i have a harddrive mount box

As Delta just said, the easiest way is if you still have the original DVD's. Without those you'll need a USB with a bootable installer on it. There are guides online for how to create one of those.

Basically, put the DVD os USB in and hold Option while you boot. It will come up with a screen asking what you want to boot from. Select the DVD (Or USB) and you should be able to get to an install screen.

Alternatively, since you have a 2nd mac (your macbook pro) and a sled for the drive (I assume that's what you mean by a mount box?) You could take the macbook hard drive out, plug it into your macbook pro, and then use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to copy your drive over. When you re-install the drive in the macbook it should be able to boot. This assumes you can fit your drive onto it's drive and that you are running an OS it can handle though so you may want to watch out for that.

If you still have the original DVD's, honestly, that's your best bet.

 

[slaterg74]

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#

I have this same problem and i need help. I can't see any system when I use the the Startup disk, but I know I have a good disk.

 

[Weaselboy]

I have this same problem and i need help. I can't see any system when I use the the Startup disk, but I know I have a good disk.

Tell us a little more. What year and model Mac are you on and what OS X version?

When you say startup disk... what exactly are you booting to?

 

[slaterg74]

Tell us a little more. What year and model Mac are you on and what OS X version?

When you say startup disk... what exactly are you booting to?

Its an early 2011 Macbook pro and have OS X Lion. Also, im trying to boot to the Macintosh HD but it doesnt show up in startup disk.
P.S im in recovery mode because it show a folder with a question mark when restart. Im sorry im new

 

[Weaselboy]

Its an early 2011 Macbook pro and have OS X Lion. Also, im trying to boot to the Macintosh HD but it doesnt show up in startup disk.
P.S im in recovery mode because it show a folder with a question mark when restart. Im sorry im new

Sounds like maybe your drive is bad, or maybe the drive cable is bad if you can't even see the drive.

Can you boot to Internet recovery and see the drive from there? Hold command-option-r (all three at once) at boot to start Internet recovery. Join your wifi then you should see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads and starts. Once that is done you should see the recovery screen. From there start Disk Utility. Once you get to that point can you see the Internal drive in Disk Utility?

 

[slaterg74]

I can see the drive when I go into Disk utility.

Sounds like maybe your drive is bad, or maybe the drive cable is bad if you can't even see the drive.

Can you boot to Internet recovery and see the drive from there? Hold command-option-r (all three at once) at boot to start Internet recovery. Join your wifi then you should see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads and starts. Once that is done you should see the recovery screen. From there start Disk Utility. Once you get to that point can you see the Internal drive in Disk Utility?

I can see it when I go into disk utility but i cant see it when I go to startup disk

 

[Weaselboy]

I can see the drive when I go into Disk utility.


I can see it when I go into disk utility but i cant see it when I go to startup disk

Are you in Internet recovery (after seeing the globe) like I described? If you are use Disk Utility from there to erase the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Utility and reinstall the OS.

Why are you doing this all to begin with?

 

[slaterg74]

Yes, im in recovery mode but it cant reinstall mac os X because i guess its because it cant find it. A friend sent me his computer from all the way in washington, so i wanted to delete everything on it so i used disk utility to delete it, but when i restarted it it just showed a folder with a question mark. Now im in disk utility in recovery mode and it shows that the macintosh HD is OK when verified and repaired

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes, im in recovery mode but it cant reinstall mac os X because i guess its because it cant find it. A friend sent me his computer from all the way in washington, so i wanted to delete everything on it so i used disk utility to delete it, but when i restarted it it just showed a folder with a question mark. Now im in disk utility in recovery mode and it shows that the macintosh HD is OK when verified and repaired

Just to be clear... you are Internet recovery (command-option-r boot) like I described? After entering your wifi, did you see the spinning globe like this, then after that the recovery screen?

If so, have you formatted the drive like I described?

Then when you click reinstall OS X it will download the OS over the Internet and install it.

 

[slaterg74]

Just to be clear... you are Internet recovery (command-option-r boot) like I described? After entering your wifi, did you see the spinning globe like this, then after that the recovery screen?

If so, have you formatted the drive like I described?

Then when you click reinstall OS X it will download the OS over the Internet and install it.

View attachment 636866

yes but i did not press option but left it out and used cmd+r and shows me the same screen. It says Mac OS X Utilities and shows restore from time machine (which i cant because i dont have one), Reinstall Mac OS X (which shows a picture of lion circle but it says it cant), Get help online, and Disk utility

 

[Weaselboy]

yes but i did not press option but left it out and used cmd+r and shows me the same screen. It says Mac OS X Utilities and shows restore from time machine (which i cant because i dont have one), Reinstall Mac OS X (which shows a picture of lion circle but it says it cant), Get help online, and Disk utility

If you want help... you need to do what I am asking. We just went in circles here.

command-option-r is Internet recovery and will give you the OS that came from the factory. So that is what you need to do.

Just command-r boots to the local, hidden recovery partition and is very different. It will require you to enter an AppleID that is attached to a Lion "purchase" through the Mac App Store. You don't have that, so it will never work for you.

Using Internet recovery like I described will bypass that requirement and get you the OS without requiring the AppleID.

 

[slaterg74]

Okay, its showing me the screen with the globe on it and show a time. I sorry i didnt know what i was doing

 

[Weaselboy]

Okay, its showing me the screen with the globe on it and show a time. I sorry i didnt know what i was doing

No problemo... it can be very confusing.

If you are getting the globe, I think you are going to be all set now. Just follow my earlier instructions to erase the drive then reinstall.

 

[slaterg74]

it says "an error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."
[doublepost=1466350507][/doublepost]It says "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Trying running again" when i was trying to install Mac OS X Lion.

 

[Weaselboy]

it says "an error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."
[doublepost=1466350507][/doublepost]It says "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Trying running again" when i was trying to install Mac OS X Lion.

Okay... just to confirm. You got the globe then the recovery screen and erased the internal drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Util... the tried the reinstall?

If you did all that, it sounds like you dd everything correctly and perhaps the download got corrupted somehow. I would restart and try again.

 

[slaterg74]

No problemo... it can be very confusing.

If you are getting the globe, I think you are going to be all set now. Just follow my earlier instructions to erase the drive then reinstall.

It says "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Trying running again" when i was trying to install Mac OS X Lion.
[doublepost=1466352417][/doublepost]

Okay... just to confirm. You got the globe then the recovery screen and erased the internal drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Util... the tried the reinstall?

If you did all that, it sounds like you dd everything correctly and perhaps the download got corrupted somehow. I would restart and try again.

The same thing happened when I restarted it
[doublepost=1466353404][/doublepost]

It says "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Trying running again" when i was trying to install Mac OS X Lion.
[doublepost=1466352417][/doublepost]

The same thing happened when I restarted it

Is there something I can do in terminal or with the "Mac OS X Base System" in disk utility

 

[pbissegger]

Hi all, I was wondering if I could have some help as well. I am have the same type of problems as those posted in this thread.

I have a MacBook Pro 2009 version which I retrofitted with an internal drive (OWC SSD) about a year ago. It's been really fantastic in performance.

A couple weeks ago I started getting Spinning Beach Balls of Death - and it degraded drastically to a machine which was so slow and could barely boot, so I decided to wipe everything (after I ran the Apple Hardware Utility and the drive looked OK).

After trying restore from Time Machine, and then regular recovery mode, and then Internet Recovery Mode (all failed), I decided to wipe the drive in Disk Utility (Erased the Volume) and wanted to install OSX onto it - but I can't get it to work - because OSX cannot find a drive to install it onto.

When I do Internet Recovery, I get the following screen:

I can see my main physical disk (OWC Mercury) and Disk0s2. I cannot Mount Disk0s2, and I can't create a new partition / volume - everything is greyed out. I can't do anything. Here is the Terminal view of the above:

The really weird thing is, that once I've gone into disutility (either the GUI or CLI version) once, the Disk0 disappears, and this is what I get when I go in a 2nd time...

and

So no disk0 at all !!!

Finally, unfortunately I have a NAS for Time Machine Backups, so I don't think I can boot from that (I have seen one of the threads in this section that suggested it). But I do have an external G Drive which I could use if required if I need that to dump OSX onto for a temporary boot solution.

So any suggestions would be extremely appreciated !

Thanks, Pete

 

[Weaselboy]

So any suggestions would be extremely appreciated !

You have a failed drive or a failed internal drive cable. No amount of trying to reinstall is going to fix this until you replace the bad hardware.

You won't be able to boot from the NAS and your 2009 model does not have Internet recovery. So you will need to access a physical boot media somehow, like the original install DVD or a bootable USB key installer.

 

[AppleNewton]

I've heard a lot of failures with owc based ssds, find something from Samsung instead, they're definitely more reliable.
If you have an Apple Store or authorized service provider near by, you can probably bring in a flash drive or an external drive and have them install a bootable installer for your or reinstall the OS on your new Mac.

Unless you have a second Mac you can do this yourself as well.

 

[pbissegger]

Thank you both Weaselboy and AppleNewton for your feedback and support. I will source a new drive.

FYI I am sorry, I made a mistake in the above, I realize I have a Macbook Pro (13 inch, mid 2012) - model MacbookPro 9,2.

So a couple of final questions:

1. When I get the drive, I assume I can use Internet Recovery to get to get to OSX utilities (I have been using Internet recovery as part of my "trials" over the last couple of weeks). Then from there, should I reinstall OSX or would it be better / faster to restore a Time Machine Backup (does a Time Machine restore include installing the last version of OSX) ?

2. Given my OWC drive died within a year, I would like to explore getting a Samsung replacement. But the great thing about OWC was that you could enter in your Mac Model # and it showed you what drive you needed. Is there a Samsung site I could go to that could tell me what drive type I need to get for my MacbookPro9,2 ?

Thanks for your help, Peter

 

[AppleNewton]

Internet recovery should be accessible to that model.

Samsung Evo 850 series are compatible