OSX can't be installed

[whoathere]

Quick question, hopefully. My wife has a late 2013 iMac 21.5". I replaced the HDD with a Samsung 850 SSD last weekend. I cloned the original drive, which I still have. She ran the software update today and we are getting this error now.

Anyway, if I put the original hard drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure and boot from it, would I be able to access the data on the SSD (internal) as if it were an external drive? She's spent all morning editing a wedding and was about 400+ photos in when the update crashed the iMac. We don't use time machine as a backup, so this could feasibly be lost if I am unable to access the date on the SSD. I am pretty sure the drive is fine, but we are just stuck in the loop as the system is trying to finish the upgrade.

I could also open the iMac back up and take the SSD out and put the original HDD back in, but it would be much faster and easier if I could just boot from USB and still access the SSD.

Thoughts?

 

[flowrider]

If you boot from an external HDD in a USB enclosure the internal SSD should be visible, unless the SSD somehow got corrupted. However, you will do no damage to the SSD by booting from an external drive. And the internal drive will still show up as an internal drive.

Lou

 

[whoathere]

I'm afraid it somehow got corrupted. Hopefully that's not the case. I could always take it back apart and switch the drives but I don't want to deal with that adhesive again.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Just boot from the HDD in the enclosure and see what it says about the SSD and what you can retrieve from it. Putting the HDD back will gain you nothing.

Lou