Help!! OS Sierra may have corrupted my HD??

[beellllaa]

Hi everyone,

I finally became so annoyed by the little notification telling me to update to sierra that I finally stopped binge watching doctor who and hit install.

I seriously wish I hadn't at this point.

This was last night, I figured, okay, click install, let it reboot while you're making dinner, and finish it off after.

I got an error that it had failed to install. I was super confused and just figured it timed out. I restarted my computer and let it run again, but alas I got the same message. Eventually my mouse and keyboard became unresponsive, and I found my computer resetting itself again. But now, instead of installing OS Sierra, it was installing MacOS. What happened there?

Anyway, without fail, MacOS won't download/install. I am connected to the internet, I've tried multiple times for it to install. Nothing is working.

So I've been searching the internet for any type of answer at all. Now I've rebooted in recovery mode, and was trying to install OS X el capitain and it wouldn't show me my hard drive to actually install it on. Now I'm in disk utility and trying to perform first aid on my macintosh HD and it's saying first air has failed. In addition, the name Macintosh HD is greyed out, and saying the entire thing is full, but I'm positive it's not full at all.

Does anyone have any recommendations at all? Please help!!!

 

[KALLT]

What kind of Mac do you have? Model and year, please. Have you backed up your data?

 

[Greene]

Does El Capitan have the driver necessary to see the APFS drive? You might need to reformat in the Sierra installer. If this is the case, given your current trouble your best bet is to download a copy of MacOS on another machine, make a USB boot disc, and boot from that.

 

[beellllaa]

What kind of Mac do you have? Model and year, please. Have you backed up your data?

I have the late 2015 5K retina iMac. Unfortunately my external broke a few days ago so I'm stuck with no time machine back up!

 

[fisherking]

call apple at this point, and get another drive for backup now...

 

[beellllaa]

Does El Capitan have the driver necessary to see the APFS drive? You might need to reformat in the Sierra installer. If this is the case, given your current trouble your best bet is to download a copy of MacOS on another machine, make a USB boot disc, and boot from that.

I don't really know. When I try to reinstall El Capitan from disk utility (before I try to repair the disk) Macintosh HD appears, but an error appears and says I can't install. Then when I go to fix the drive, before I click first aid, it says I have only used 380gb and that I have 620gb remaining. Once I click first aid, it immediately says I have no available space at all. Then after the first aid fails to fix the drive, Macintosh HD is greyed out and still says it has no available space. From there if i try to reinstall El Capitan from disk utility, Macintosh HD isn't even an option to select to install it on.

Usually I can figure this stuff out but I really spend hours rebooting, command+r, command+s, anything I could think to try I tried ):
[doublepost=1478483934][/doublepost]

call apple at this point, and get another drive for backup now...

Thankfully my mac is still under warranty however it's a really large model. I have a travel case but I'm going to go in tomorrow and ask them their opinion and explain everything as detailed as possible. I'm not sure if a call to apple support will be helpful at this point as I think they need to just get in there and work on it in person.

 

[fisherking]

I don't really know. When I try to reinstall El Capitan from disk utility (before I try to repair the disk) Macintosh HD appears, but an error appears and says I can't install. Then when I go to fix the drive, before I click first aid, it says I have only used 380gb and that I have 620gb remaining. Once I click first aid, it immediately says I have no available space at all. Then after the first aid fails to fix the drive, Macintosh HD is greyed out and still says it has no available space. From there if i try to reinstall El Capitan from disk utility, Macintosh HD isn't even an option to select to install it on.

Usually I can figure this stuff out but I really spend hours rebooting, command+r, command+s, anything I could think to try I tried ):
[doublepost=1478483934][/doublepost]

Thankfully my mac is still under warranty however it's a really large model. I have a travel case but I'm going to go in tomorrow and ask them their opinion and explain everything as detailed as possible. I'm not sure if a call to apple support will be helpful at this point as I think they need to just get in there and work on it in person.

got it, but really... no harm in calling first; they might have some good ideas. otherwise, make a genius bar appointment, don't just walk in, or you could be there all day. good luck!

 

[Shirasaki]

Perhaps you should make a bootable USB with proper edition of Mac OS X on it so that if anything goes wrong, you at least should have a chance.

 

[bcave098]

Does El Capitan have the driver necessary to see the APFS drive? You might need to reformat in the Sierra installer. If this is the case, given your current trouble your best bet is to download a copy of MacOS on another machine, make a USB boot disc, and boot from that.

This has nothing to do with the unreleased APFS. Sounds like either the disk or volume is damaged. Best bet would be to try to backup data, reformat, reinstall. If that fails, replace the disk.

 

[beellllaa]

got it, but really... no harm in calling first; they might have some good ideas. otherwise, make a genius bar appointment, don't just walk in, or you could be there all day. good luck!

But won't they charge me for calling?
I tried to make an appointment but their system seems to make it seem like my Apple Store doesn't have appointments so I'm just gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best.

 

[Shirasaki]

But won't they charge me for calling?
I tried to make an appointment but their system seems to make it seem like my Apple Store doesn't have appointments so I'm just gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I know Apple will charge calling for iTunes issue (not iTunes Store) if applicable but not really MacBook issue. Perhaps I am wrong.

 

[fisherking]

no, if you have applecare there's no charge for a call. and you really should make an appointment, otherwise you'll be there if/until there's an opening.

keep us posted!

 

[beellllaa]

Here's a bit of an update- everyone I've spoken to (apple and non apple people) seems to think my computer skipped something during install, and make my hard drive unable to process the install. People seem to think they can save my data which is great, and that I'll need to just replace the hard drive. Hopefully this works out!! I'll update again when I have a definite solution.

 

[beellllaa]

Okay update/ Brought my computer to Apple - they ended up wiping everything and never figured out what was wrong. Lost all my data unfortunately, but now I know that I have to be on top of my backup game!

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm not sure if a call to apple support will be helpful at this point as I think they need to just get in there and work on it in person.

Call. It's not that complicated really. Macintosh HD is probably greyed out due to FileVault, they'll help you unlock that. But, be sure you have a working, erasable external hard drive before you call.

There will be some steps they'll try that might just get it working. If not, they'll help you make a backup to the external, reinstall macOS, and restore.

EDIT: Finished the thread, I see I was too late. The phone support is MUCH better at things like this. The people in the store are (a) less technically proficient, and (b) under much more of a time crunch than the phone/chat support. So they're going to default to the Nuclear Option more easily.