MacBook Pro not booting, disk locked and can't install OS X

[jeffreywp66]

Ok. Here we go ...

1. I was working and Xcel kept closing.
2. So, I did a hard restart. Nothing. No response.
3. Then i did that again while holding down Command + R.
4. When I was taken to Disk Utility, I tried to reinstall my OS ONLY, it indicated both disks are locked. (2 partitioned drives)
5. I read online about turning on Journaling but that option is greyed out.
6. Other things I read sounded really complicated and out of my depth.
7. I DO NOT want to erase the disk if possible. (FYI, this was my niece's laptop before she died. She partitioned it which I do not know what to do with.)

Would appreciate any insights someone may have. I called a repair place after calling Apple, but they were closed. I had to leave a message. This was after speaking to an Apple Care rep who gently scolded me for having Lion on my machine and not one of the recent updates. He tried to help but wasn't sure what to do with my older, early-2011 machine running Lion 10.7.5. He got stumped with both disks being locked. Then gave me the number for a repair place.

I do not have Time Machine enabled. I have a terrabyte drive that I copied some folders and photos too but that was 2-3 months ago at least. So, I'm trying to resolve this without erasing my drive if possible.

 

[h9826790]

If you can boot to recovery partition, and you have an external HDD laying around. You can plug that into the Mac, boot to recovery partiton, and install the OS onto the EXTERNAL drive.

Once you done that, you should have a working OS (boot from that external HDD) to manage the situation. If lucky enough, you may simply copy all the files from the internal drive, make proper backup, and then decide what you want to do next.

P.S. I don’t think this has anything related to the Mac Pro. You may have better luck if you post this in the MacBook Pro or OSX forum.