Made bootable usb, now system won't detect harddrive

[lxx33]

For a friend I made a bootable sierra usb drive. And just to be sure it was working I put it in my own system. Now my system won't boot and when I use the alt button for boot mode, I don't see any drives.
If I boot with a use I can see with disk utilities my internal harddrive.

How can I restore my system (have no backups) yet, without losing my data. Is like the mbr corrupt. can I use terminal to recover??? or do i need special programs. My data on it is very valuable and did not think my system would be messed up if I just test my drive.

Hope somebody can end this nightmare

 

[DeltaMac]

You posted in the "macOS Sierra" section.
Is that the system that you are running?
If the drive appears to exist in Disk Utilities - you might want to look at that, where you can tell in the info window how much space is used. If that seems normal for you, then (again, if you are running Sierra) boot to your Sierra bootable installer.
Reinstall macOS from the menu. That will just reinstall the system, and won't erase, or delete anything that is not part of the system, such as your files or music/pictures.
So, assuming that you did not accidentally erase your own hard drive (and you would have to specifically do that in Disk Utility, the installer does NOT have an option to erase the drive.)
When the install is complete, you should boot back up to your previous desktop. If it comes up asking you to setup as a new user, then you somehow succeeded in erasing the drive.
And, the only way back at THAT point, is to recover from your backup.
You DO have a full backup/Time Machine backup...?

 

[lxx33]

I don't know for sure I was running sierra, may be a version of Yosemite. With the sierra usb installed I can see when I enter Disk Utility on the left side of the window: APPLE DDS ect. ect. ect. When I click on that drive I see my drive and there is a complete filled blue bar ( i include a picture). In the top of that window I also see a restore button. Hope to be 100% what to do, but really need some info on it.

Any help will be highly appreciated ,

tnx

 

[treekram]

I might be misunderstanding your situation. You're booting with the USB flash drive inserted and you don't get the boot menu when pressing the option (alt) key. Have you tried booting without the USB flash drive inserted? It may take longer than normal to boot because it looks like the computer has set the boot preference to the USB drive. But without the USB drive, the system will look for other drives to boot from and after a while boot from your internal drive.

 

[DeltaMac]

There's NO partition visible in Disk Utility for your internal drive.
Do you use File Vault?
You should be able to unlock the drive, by choosing Unlock in the File menu - while you are in Disk Utility.
If THAT unlock doesn't work (because you don't use File Vault at all, or there's no unlock command in the File menu when you have that drive selected), then something has happened to your drive. ( I think the Sierra boot drive is just an unhappy coincidence)
And, NOW is the time that you need to use your backup, if you have a backup of your drive

 

[lxx33]

Sorry for not explaining my self correctly. I made a bootable usb drive with Sierra on it with laptop A.
I try to test this drive with my working laptop B. So I inserted the usb into laptop B, start bootmode and select that usb drive. After that I get a apple logo with a menu bar (I did not know it would maybe write something). If was just for showing a friend the steps. After that I showed him disk utility (but did not delete or erased something). Just to let him see the steps of installing his mac. After that I shutdown laptop B, give the usb to my friend. The next day I want to start laptop B, but without any luck. I don't have File Vault. If was just a plain install, without any backups. But I have some notes and files on it that I don't want to loose.

 

[DeltaMac]

What you did, to test the bootable installer, should have done exactly what you thought it would, without deleting, erasing, or anything else. It LOOKS like the volume on the drive just disappeared.
It's just not the fault of a USB installer.
I boot other Macs to a variety of USB installers every day - everything from Leopard to Sierra, and have never experienced anything like that, unless the drive has failed completely.
The files are important to you...
Spend some $: Try Disk Warrior.

If you recover - you need to make a backup to prevent all the drama next time.

 

[lxx33]

tnx DeltaMac,

I will look into it. And otherwise it's just an expensive lesson
many tnx

 

[DeltaMac]

Not sure if there is any lesson (other than having a backup before you need one )
As I said, your experience - losing a volume - should not have been the result of what you did. There's really no correlation between what you did, and what happened.

 

[treekram]

Not sure if there is any lesson (other than having a backup before you need one )
As I said, your experience - losing a volume - should not have been the result of what you did. There's really no correlation between what you did, and what happened.

I'd agree with DeltaMac. People do what you did all the time and it doesn't result in a non-working SSD.

If it's possible, you should call Apple and try to get an appointment at the Genius Bar. They should be able to help you or tell you that yes, indeed, the SSD is non-recoverable.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

Go into the bootable installer, open the Terminal application and type "diskutil cs list" without quotes and hit enter. Take a picture of this and post it please.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I don't know for sure I was running sierra, may be a version of Yosemite. With the sierra usb installed I can see when I enter Disk Utility on the left side of the window: APPLE DDS ect. ect. ect. When I click on that drive I see my drive and there is a complete filled blue bar ( i include a picture). In the top of that window I also see a restore button. Hope to be 100% what to do, but really need some info on it.

Any help will be highly appreciated ,

tnx

It appears that the hard drive is not partitioned. You should see a logical volume under the physical volume. See this as an example of what you should see for core storage in Disk Utility: https://blog.macsales.com/38191-roc...sierra-disk-utility-to-partition-erase-drives