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HELP! HD locked on reinstall!

Weaselboy, can you help me?

I have an early 2009 MacBook. I tried upgrading to El Captain a while ago and the install failed. I gave up a while ago, but would like to try again. Tried to follow your directions from above in recovery mode, but I'm having troubles. I would like to just get it back to the OS I had before.

I've tried a few things and may have messed it up even more. Think you could help?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
jorddaaan2009 said:
Weaselboy, can you help me?

I have an early 2009 MacBook. I tried upgrading to El Captain a while ago and the install failed. I gave up a while ago, but would like to try again. Tried to follow your directions from above in recovery mode, but I'm having troubles. I would like to just get it back to the OS I had before.

I've tried a few things and may have messed it up even more. Think you could help?
Click to expand...
I'll try. Can you explain where you are getting stuck? Are you able to command-option-r boot and get to the recovery screen?
 
Weaselboy said:
I'll try. Can you explain where you are getting stuck? Are you able to command-option-r boot and get to the recovery screen?
Click to expand...

Thanks, I can do command-r boot, but when I tried command-option-r boot it doesn't work. From command-r boot I can get into the terminal though.
 
Weaselboy, I've never joined a forum.... However, after following the advice you've offered in this thread, I figured it couldn't hurt to reach out.

Having issues with my Macbook pro and trying to wipe my HD and start fresh. Of, course I preferred to keep my files, but that part seemed pretty unlikely. (I've tried soooooo many things over the last 2 days)

I'm in terminal and tried a few things first.
The last thing I have showing is the response from my "diskutil cs list" command. Again, it's all whacky. Could I send you a screenshot?
 
jorddaaan2009 said:
Thanks, I can do command-r boot, but when I tried command-option-r boot it doesn't work. From command-r boot I can get into the terminal though.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry... I missed that you have a 2009 model, and that would not have Internet recovery, only the command-r disk based recovery. Why did you undertake this to begin with and exactly what have you done so far?

Lost in CyberLand said:
Weaselboy, I've never joined a forum.... However, after following the advice you've offered in this thread, I figured it couldn't hurt to reach out.

Having issues with my Macbook pro and trying to wipe my HD and start fresh. Of, course I preferred to keep my files, but that part seemed pretty unlikely. (I've tried soooooo many things over the last 2 days)

I'm in terminal and tried a few things first.
The last thing I have showing is the response from my "diskutil cs list" command. Again, it's all whacky. Could I send you a screenshot?
Click to expand...

What issues are you having and what model year is your MacBook Pro?
 
What issues are you having and what model year is your MacBook Pro?[/QUOTE]

I believe it's a 2010, Model# A1278... (Does that make sense?)

Also, here's the pic, showing my response from terminal , after the diskutil cs list command... and trying to delete "Macintosh HD" It's currently powered down.

Any advice is super appreciated.....
Thanks!
20170312_212431.jpg
 
Weaselboy said:
Why are you doing this to begin with?
Click to expand...
The progress bar on the boot screen (Gray, with the Apple logo) wouldn't fully progress.... been that way for months.

I tried opening in Safe mode - no luck. Tried opening in recovery mode - no Luck. Tried opening in single user mode and run "fsck -fy" and it would modify HD, but still say it was corrupted. (Something about an incorrect number of threads). Cycled through 3 attempts twice over, and it couldn't fix itself. Then I tried to reinstall the OS from the Disk Utility menu - I was locked out of my HD.

This is when I found your thread.

I'm very much a computer noob, but I've been following the advice of various posts...
(I think I even tried to reset the PRAM thingy)
I'd still like to recover my files, but feel like that's not really feasible anymore.

At this point, anything to save my computer from a garbage can would be helpful!!
 
Lost in CyberLand said:
The progress bar on the boot screen (Gray, with the Apple logo) wouldn't fully progress.... been that way for months.

I tried opening in Safe mode - no luck. Tried opening in recovery mode - no Luck. Tried opening in single user mode and run "fsck -fy" and it would modify HD, but still say it was corrupted. (Something about an incorrect number of threads). Cycled through 3 attempts twice over, and it couldn't fix itself. Then I tried to reinstall the OS from the Disk Utility menu - I was locked out of my HD.

This is when I found your thread.

I'm very much a computer noob, but I've been following the advice of various posts...
(I think I even tried to reset the PRAM thingy)
I'd still like to recover my files, but feel like that's not really feasible anymore.

At this point, anything to save my computer from a garbage can would be helpful!!
Click to expand...
From what you are describing here, it sounds like you have a failed drive. This can also be caused by a bad internal drive cable.
 
Is there anything I can try before throwing in the towel?
Assuming a failed HD means I'm now the proud owner of a glorified paper weight, right?

Did the pic of my screen give you any clues as to what's going on?
 
Lost in CyberLand said:
Is there anything I can try before throwing in the towel?
Assuming a failed HD means I'm now the proud owner of a glorified paper weight, right?

Did the pic of my screen give you any clues as to what's going on?
Click to expand...
Short of replacing the drive and cable, not really no. If you want to keep the laptop, it would be worth buying an SSD and new cable and installing those to get it running.
 
Weaselboy said:
I'm sorry... I missed that you have a 2009 model, and that would not have Internet recovery, only the command-r disk based recovery. Why did you undertake this to begin with and exactly what have you done so far?


about a year ago I was trying to upgrade it to el capitain. But while it was installing there was an error. I've tried installing it several times, but it keeps failing. My current goal is just to get it back to the OS it had before so that the computer works again.
Click to expand...
 
about a year ago I was trying to upgrade it to el capitain. But while it was installing there was an error. I've tried installing it several times, but it keeps failing. My current goal is just to get it back to the OS it had before so that the computer works again.
 
jorddaaan2009 said:
about a year ago I was trying to upgrade it to el capitain. But while it was installing there was an error. I've tried installing it several times, but it keeps failing. My current goal is just to get it back to the OS it had before so that the computer works again.
Click to expand...
Just to save some time, it would probably help Weaselboy if you could provide which Mac year/model you have and which OS that you want to return to.
 
jorddaaan2009 said:
about a year ago I was trying to upgrade it to el capitain. But while it was installing there was an error. I've tried installing it several times, but it keeps failing. My current goal is just to get it back to the OS it had before so that the computer works again.
Click to expand...
What error do you get?

So you are on Lion now and does it boot at all, or only to recovery?

While in recovery what does Disk Utility first aid tell you?
 
Weaselboy said:
What error do you get?

So you are on Lion now and does it boot at all, or only to recovery?

While in recovery what does Disk Utility first aid tell you?
Click to expand...

I get a long list of errors when the install attempts to run. Do you need screenshots?

It goes straight to installing el captain if I do a regular boot. Fails every time. So I can do both, but a regular boot is pretty useless.

I tried first aid on everything I could, but I always gave me a green check mark.

Also, I tried following your instructions given to others before I asked you. I think my problem following your instructions is that my computer is saying that none of the drives are valid corestorage logical volumes groups.
 
jorddaaan2009 said:
I get a long list of errors when the install attempts to run. Do you need screenshots?

It goes straight to installing el captain if I do a regular boot. Fails every time. So I can do both, but a regular boot is pretty useless.

I tried first aid on everything I could, but I always gave me a green check mark.

Also, I tried following your instructions given to others before I asked you. I think my problem following your instructions is that my computer is saying that none of the drives are valid corestorage logical volumes groups.
Click to expand...
Do you have an external USB drive of some sort you could try to install the OS to? It would be very slow, but just do it as a test to see if it works. That would tell us if the internal drive is bad (which is what I am thinking is the issue here).
 
Weaselboy said:
You could just go somewhere like Best Buy and get an external USB drive. Something like this. Then command-r boot to recovery again and format the external to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then select it as the install destination.
Click to expand...

Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about an external drive with OS X Lion already installed on it.

I do have an external hard drive.

Could you walk me through how to format the external hard drive properly please?
 
jorddaaan2009 said:
Oh, I see. I thought you were talking about an external drive with OS X Lion already installed on it.

I do have an external hard drive.

Could you walk me through how to format the external hard drive properly please?
Click to expand...
Sure... attach the drive then command-r boot to get back to recovery. Then start Disk Utility and go to the erase tab. Then select the external drive in the left column. Then in the dropdown to the right pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format then apply that format. Then quit Disk Utility and click install OS X up top and when it asks where to install it, point it to the external drive.

Once it is all done you should be able to option key boot and boot to the external. If that works it pretty well proves your internal drive is the problem.
 
Weaselboy said:
Sure... attach the drive then command-r boot to get back to recovery. Then start Disk Utility and go to the erase tab. Then select the external drive in the left column. Then in the dropdown to the right pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format then apply that format. Then quit Disk Utility and click install OS X up top and when it asks where to install it, point it to the external drive.

Once it is all done you should be able to option key boot and boot to the external. If that works it pretty well proves your internal drive is the problem.
Click to expand...


Am I supposed to click the "erase" button after I change the format in the drop down?
 
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