Q: Unable to mount Macintosh HD
Hi, first time posting here, apologies if my knowledge on computers isn't adequate enough.
2-3 days ago I attempted to boot up my MBP and for some unknown reason it started booting into safe mode (at least, I think that's what the grey loading bar near the bottom of the screen means). The loading bar filled up, but then it shut down; the same thing happened after multiple attempts.
I then tried booting into recovery, and started up Disk Utility. "Macintosh HD" was greyed out on the left side and when I tried to mount it nothing happened. Clicking on the repair button only resulted in a loop saying something like there was an "incorrect number of thread records," eventually giving up and telling me to back up as much as I could from the disk.
I sort of panicked since I hadn't gotten around to making a time machine backup yet, but I did have a copy of Ubuntu lying around, so I salvaged all I could from Macintosh HD (curiously enough I saw a "lost+found" folder on it). Attempting to reinstall OS X didn't work, since Macintosh HD wasn't showing up as a partition.
I think repartitioning the entire hard drive would solve the problem, but I would rather not fiddle with setting up Boot Camp again. I also think reformatting Macintosh HD through Ubuntu's Disk Utility might enable the OS X reinstall program to recognize the partition again, but I was hoping for a solution where I wouldn't have to erase all of the data.
Thanks for any help you might be able to provide.
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)
Posted on Mar 25, 2013 1:56 PM