I think what may have happened here is sometimes if you have a hard drive that is close to failing, the workout of installing a new OS version pushes it over the edge.
How are you using Disk Utility? From command-r recovery?
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HELP! HD locked on reinstall!
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How are you using Disk Utility? From command-r recovery?
Yes, I am using command-R, I also tried it through terminal window.
The reason I don’t think it’s the hard drive is first aid says software fair and nothing about hardware failure.
I am trying to rule out software before I go down the hardware road.
Thanks
The problem here is you have no backup, so getting back your data may be rough.
You could just format the drive from recovery and reinstall, but that would wipe your data.
I would try a new try in an external enclosure then from recovery format that drive and install the OS to the external Then put the external in Mac and the old drive in the enclosure and see if you can access your data that way. Something like Disk Warrior might help you with data recovery.
First I would like to thank you Weaselboy.
I was able to get around the problem. I bought a new hard drive, hard drive enclosure, and 16GB thumb drive.
I swapped the new hard drive for the one that wasn’t working. I then made a bootable thumb drive to install High Sierra and used it to install it on the new hard drive. It worked flawlessly.
I then put the hard drive I was having trouble with into the hard drive enclosure.
I then used the migration app on the Mac book with the new hard drive to “migrate” all of the data from the drive I was having trouble with to the new hard drive.
That process takes a very long time, and once I verify it I will wipe the old drive, test it, and use it as a backup drive if it tests ok, if not I will use it as a external drive for not so important data.
But the thing is I did get my data back
Thanks again
I went to wipe an older Mac but instead of erasing I think I chose restore and restored it to the base OS. So when the computer restarted it only opens up the Disk Utility. I tried to reinstall the new OS the Hd is locked.
In Disk Utilities the drive is OS X base - I am not sure what other information to give but any help is appreciated
In Disk Utilities the drive is OS X base - I am not sure what other information to give but any help is appreciated
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012). We were using it last year but it was running really slow, it just seemed really bogged down. We wanted to try and get it cleaned off and just use the adobe suite on it, hoping that it would move faster.
Okay good... that model has Internet recovery. So try holding command-option-r at boot to get to Internet recovery. After you see the spinning globe and the recovery screen comes up, select Disk Utility then go to the erase tab and select the drive itself at the very top of the left column. Then format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and reinstall the OS.
How about reboot and try holding command-option-r. That should get you to Internet recovery where you can erase the disk and reinstall.
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I tried that also but nothing happens. Is there a certain time I should press command-option-r?
You should first see a screen where you select your wifi, then you should see a spinning globe while the 650MB or so recovery utility downloads. That time will depend on your Internet speed. Are you seeing the spinning globe?
The screen to select my WiFi comes up, but I’m not seeing the spinning globe.
[doublepost=1512417105][/doublepost]
It’s takes me to a menu where I can back up from time machine reinstall OS X
Do you have access to another Mac where you can download the OS then make a bootable USB key installer and try that method?
Are you positive you are holding command-option-r all three keys at once when you boot, because it does not appear you are?
This is the keyboard im using. I want to make sure I'm its still the same keys.
Hello Weaselboy! I am having a problem of my iMac ot detecting the Macintosh HD. I don’t have back up and I need my files. The problem started last night installing of High Sierra. Left my iMac to do the installation. Just this morning I guess there was a failure somewhere and did not finish the installation. My iMac was in recovery mode, now i’m Trying to install Sierra from a thumb drive but my iMac can’t detect the Macintosh HD drive, it is only showing the Recovery HD drive in gray. Please help. What to do?
Get back into recovery them from the Utilities menu open Terminal and run the command below then tell me what it says.
Code:
diskutil listHere’s what it says:
[doublepost=1512541683][/doublepost]Under Disk Utility the internal is showing APPLE HDD ST1000LM024 Media which is 1TB and seems full because it is colored in blue while under it is disk0s2 which is greyed out and says not mounted and has 999.35GB.
[doublepost=1512543132][/doublepost]
Here’s what it says:
[doublepost=1512541683][/doublepost]Under Disk Utility the internal is showing APPLE HDD ST1000LM024 Media which is 1TB and seems full because it is colored in blue while under it is disk0s2 which is greyed out and says not mounted and has 999.35GB.
It was all well and good until I left it overnight to update from Sierra to High Sierra. My iMac is 2012 model.
I can tell you how to format the drive and reinstall likely, but that won't get your data back. You have no backup or anything and really need to recover what is on the internal drive?