ML Install emergency, help!

[justperry]

Yes I am sure, I tried several disks. It spins up the disk and the finally ejects it.

You're in a difficult state now, the Installer is on the main Macintosh HD, not on a separate partition which prevents you from erasing or partitioning the HD.
You can not burn a disk, DVD gets ejected.
You don't have a separate bootable OS.

Do you have a 8 GB (Minimum) USB stick??????
If so there is still a chance, otherwise you need another Mac.

 

[kdum8]

You're in a difficult state now, the Installer is on the main Macintosh HD, not on a separate partition which prevents you from erasing or partitioning the HD.
You can not burn a disk, DVD gets ejected.
You don't have a separate bootable OS.

Do you have a 8 GB (Minimum) USB stick??????
If so there is still a chance, otherwise you need another Mac.

Was I supposed to put the installer on a separate partition? There was nothing in the instructions or online I could find about that...

The largest USB stick I have is 4 GB...

I do have another windows pc running windows 7, both only one mac.

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I just found an 8 GB USB flash drive if that helps?

 

[justperry]

Was I supposed to put the installer on a separate partition? There was nothing in the instructions or online I could find about that...

The largest USB stick I have is 4 GB...

I do have another windows pc running windows 7, both only one mac.

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I just found an 8 GB USB flash drive is that helps?

Restore the image on the USB, go into Disk Utility again and this time you also need to connect the other disk where you have a copy of the image.
Click on the USB, then click the restore tab, select the image as source and the USB as Target, be careful to choose the correct ones.

 

[kdum8]

First I just want to say thank you so much for sticking with me this far and helping me so much. It is really appreciated.

Here is what I have done. I booted up from my Snow Leopard disk by holding the c key at startup. Then I repaired my Macintosh HD using disk utility on the snow leopard disk. This worked and then upon restarting my computer I am back into my old Snow Leopard OS X and everything is back as before and working. That much is a big relief.

The question now is do I dare and try to install Mountain Lion again? My hard drive was fine before I attempted this install, so the ML installer process must have broken it. What do I need to do before attempting this process again? (Should I decide to risk it).

You mentioned that I should have made the ML copy onto DVD bootable, however one does that I don't know.

 

[justperry]

First I just want to say thank you so much for sticking with me this far and helping me so much. It is really appreciated.

Here is what I have done. I booted up from my Snow Leopard disk by holding the c key at startup. Then I repaired my Macintosh HD using disk utility on the snow leopard disk. This worked and then upon restarting my computer I am back into my old Snow Leopard OS X and everything is back as before and working. That much is a big relief.

The question now is do I dare and try to install Mountain Lion again? My hard drive was fine before I attempted this install, so the ML installer process must have broken it. What do I need to do before attempting this process again? (Should I decide to risk it).

You mentioned that I should have made the ML copy onto DVD bootable, however one does that I don't know.

Sounds all a bit strange to me, you repaired the disk before yet when you tried to boot from the internal it did not work, now you repaired it with SL Install disk and it works, hmmmm.

It's completely up to you if you want to stay in SL or try ML again.

You can partition the disk even when you are booted from it.
Have you tried to make a DVD now, and use Disk Utility instead of Toast?????

What do you mean by the underlined section.

 

[kdum8]

Sounds all a bit strange to me, you repaired the disk before yet when you tried to boot from the internal it did not work, now you repaired it with SL Install disk and it works, hmmmm.

I did attempt to repair the disk before from within disk utility in the Mountain Lion installer, but it may not have worked. Certainly the confirmation messages were different to when I did the same repair from the Snow Leopard startup disk. Hence I think the disk repair was only successful from the SL Bootup disk.

It's completely up to you if you want to stay in SL or try ML again.

Well I do want to install ML sure, just a little worried that this will happen all over again.

You can partition the disk even when you are booted from it.
Have you tried to make a DVD now, and use Disk Utility instead of Toast?????

I haven't tried to make a DVD now from within disk utility because I was waiting to hear what you said. Why do I need to do this and how would making a burned DVD through disk utility be different than making one in toast anyway? I am a little confused.

What do you mean by the underlined section.

I mean that we talked about copying the Mountain Lion installer package across to a bootable DVD in case there were problems.

 

[justperry]

I did attempt to repair the disk before from within disk utility in the Mountain Lion installer, but it may not have worked. Certainly the confirmation messages were different to when I did the same repair from the Snow Leopard startup disk. Hence I think the disk repair was only successful from the SL Bootup disk.



Well I do want to install ML sure, just a little worried that this will happen all over again.



I haven't tried to make a DVD now from within disk utility because I was waiting to hear what you said. Why do I need to do this and how would making a burned DVD through disk utility be different than making one in toast anyway? I am a little confused.



I mean that we talked about copying the Mountain Lion installer package across to a bootable DVD in case there were problems.

Disk Utility is guaranteed to work, toast may not be, there where plenty of times where another program does not make a good DVD due to permissions for instance.

Why not create a Bootable Installer USB stick, you can do that now, easy as I told you on the first page, even with a screenshot.

 

[kdum8]

Disk Utility is guaranteed to work, toast may not be, there where plenty of times where another program does not make a good DVD due to permissions for instance.

Why not create a Bootable Installer USB stick, you can do that now, easy as I told you on the first page, even with a screenshot.

I'm sorry, I have looked through the first page, where does it say how to create a bootable USB stick? Do you mean use disk utility to erase the flash drive, then drag a copy of the ML installer file across to it?

Also why do I need to make one? What benefit does it have?

Sorry I am perhaps not as pc literate as you may think, but I am trying my best!

 

[justperry]

I'm sorry, I have looked through the first page, where does it say how to create a bootable USB stick? Do you mean use disk utility to erase the flash drive, then drag a copy of the ML installer file across to it?

Also why do I need to make one? What benefit does it have?

Sorry I am perhaps not as pc literate as you may think, but I am trying my best!

Sorry, it's Post No. 28

Edit: a USB stick is better because you don't spoil a DVD.(DVD = $$, USB can be reused again and again.

 

[kdum8]

Sorry, it's Post No. 28

Edit: a USB stick is better because you don't spoil a DVD.(DVD = $$, USB can be reused again and again.

Oh I see. Unfortunately disk utility wont let me choose the Mountain Lion installer as a source in the restore tab.

Can you tell me why for what purpose I need to create a copy of the Mountain Lion installer on a USB drive?

 

[justperry]

Oh I see. Unfortunately disk utility wont let me choose the Mountain Lion installer as a source in the restore tab.

Can you tell me why for what purpose I need to create a copy of the Mountain Lion installer on a USB drive?

You need to go inside the Installer, right click on the ML Installer, then show package Contents, inside the Shared folder there is an installer, copy that one to your desktop.
After this you can select the Image on the desktop.

I will post a screenshot shortly, I have to open my external HD to change to another HD.

No screenshot, but there should be an image inside it.

 

[kdum8]

You need to go inside the Installer, right click on the ML Installer, then show package Contents, inside the Shared folder there is an installer, copy that one to your desktop.
After this you can select the Image on the desktop.

I will post a screenshot shortly, I have to open my external HD to change to another HD.

No screenshot, but there should be an image inside it.

There are lots of files and folders inside the package contents of the ML installer, but is this the install dmg you want me to copy onto the flash disk?

Also, can you tell me why we need to make a copy like this onto a usb stick? I don't understand the reason.

 

[justperry]

What about this:

Click on the dmg file, it will open, then after it opens click on the installer, it probably will ask you to restart, it then launches the installer and will install Lion over your old Snow Leopard.
Maybe now that you repaired the HD it will work.

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There are lots of files and folders inside the package contents of the ML installer, but is this the install dmg you want me to copy onto the flash disk?

Also, can you tell me why we need to make a copy like this onto a usb stick? I don't understand the reason.

InstallESD.dmg
Click on get info, it should be several GB in size, around 5 GB

 

[kdum8]

What about this:

Click on the dmg file, it will open, then after it opens click on the installer, it probably will ask you to restart, it then launches the installer and will install Lion over your old Snow Leopard.
Maybe now that you repaired the HD it will work.

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InstallESD.dmg
Click on get info, it should be several GB in size, around 5 GB

Yes it is 4.37 GB. Do I need to make a copy of this only the flash drive? If so, why?

 

[justperry]

Yes it is 4.37 GB. Do I need to make a copy of this only the flash drive? If so, why?

Not copy, copying does not work, you need to do as I told you in post 28 and restore the image to the USB, after this has been done you have a bootable installer, restart, hold the Option key and select the USB, then install it on the internal disk, up to you if you erase the internal HD or not.

It's almost 24.00 here, I check back tomorrow.

 

[kdum8]

Not copy, copying does not work, you need to do as I told you in post 28 and restore the image to the USB, after this has been done you have a bootable installer, restart, hold the Option key and select the USB, then install it on the internal disk, up to you if you erase the internal HD or not.

It's almost 24.00 here, I check back tomorrow.

OK Sure thing. Thanks for your help so far! I'll give it a go and come back.

 

[Weaselboy]

OK Sure thing. Thanks for your help so far! I'll give it a go and come back.

If you are still trying to make the USB key installer, it is easier to just use this free app rather than messing with Disk Utility.

That said, I really don't think you need to make a USB or DVD installer. It sounds like you got your disk issue fixed by booting from the Snow Leopard DVD. I think what happened is you had disk errors BEFORE you started the ML install and the installer (which runs a disk repair first) picked up those problems. Now that you have the disk errors fixed, I suspect you can just run the ML installer directly from the drive and it will work fine.

 

[justperry]

If you are still trying to make the USB key installer, it is easier to just use this free app rather than messing with Disk Utility.

That said, I really don't think you need to make a USB or DVD installer. It sounds like you got your disk issue fixed by booting from the Snow Leopard DVD. I think what happened is you had disk errors BEFORE you started the ML install and the installer (which runs a disk repair first) picked up those problems. Now that you have the disk errors fixed, I suspect you can just run the ML installer directly from the drive and it will work fine.

Didn't know about that simple program, thanks for the tip.

Also, I agree with the rest of your post, I mentioned it a couple of posts (#38) ago but should have pushed it harder, it all got lost in the many posts.

 

[justperry]

OK Sure thing. Thanks for your help so far! I'll give it a go and come back.

You got it to work?

 

[kdum8]

Now that you have the disk errors fixed, I suspect you can just run the ML installer directly from the drive and it will work fine.

You got it to work?

Thanks guys, I got it to work and was able to install Mountain Lion successfully!

As Weaselboy said, fixing the disk errors in disk utility seemed to help as when I tried the installer again it worked. Thanks for the confidence to do it!

And thank you justperry for sticking with me all this way and giving me so many suggestions. It really helped. x

Now I have ML up and running and so far it is fine.