PST MD

Q: Installing Mavericks but disk damaged, no recovery or safe modes

So I have a 2009 Mac book. I downloaded OS X Mavericks successfully this afternoon. But when I try to install it, it tells me: "The OS X upgrade couldn't be started because disk is damaged and can't be repaired. After your computer restarts, back up your data, erase your disk, and try installing again. Click restart to restart your computer and try installing again." Okay, fine, but annoying. So I hit restart and end up at this exact same error message. And when I open disk utility, the repair button is greyed out. When I try and open in recovery mode (holding down command - r) it just takes me back to the OS X installer and the error message. When I try to restart in safe mode, my entire computer just shuts off.

 

When am I supposed to do now? Luckily I backed up my computer last night. But I'm a grad student and a teacher. I need my computer to work. Help?

Posted on Oct 22, 2013 9:45 PM

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Q: Installing Mavericks but disk damaged, no recovery or safe modes

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  • by Stuka87,

    Stuka87 Stuka87 Oct 22, 2013 9:54 PM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2013 9:54 PM in response to PST MD

    You are not alone. Same exact issue here. And I do not have a recent backup. If I could just boot to the OS and run my backup, then I would be fine with formatting. BUT... thats not an option.

     

    Tried deleting the installer from the recovery drive to stop the loop, but I can't as the drive is write protected.

  • by richfromut,

    richfromut richfromut Oct 22, 2013 10:08 PM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2013 10:08 PM in response to PST MD

    Exact same problem here. I need my computer for work tomorrow. When I follow the instructions on the screen it won't let me repair the disk as it suggests. When it reboots it just tries (and fails) to install Mavericks again. It won't boot in safe mode. I can reboot in recovery mode but there are no choices there that are useful to a user like me. I just need to get back to Mountain Lion where I was this afternoon. Everything was working great until I decided to upgrade. It just my computer to work like it did a few hours ago.

  • by willy0317,

    willy0317 willy0317 Oct 23, 2013 9:28 PM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 9:28 PM in response to PST MD

    I have downloaded mavericks, but when trying to install I get "The OS X upgrade couldn't be started because the disk Macintosh HD is damaged and can't be repaired. After your computer restarts, back up your data, erase your disk, and try installing again." But I can't do any repair. Any tips?

  • by Stuka87,

    Stuka87 Stuka87 Oct 23, 2013 9:33 PM in response to willy0317
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 9:33 PM in response to willy0317

    I went ahead and bought an update to Diskwarrior (mine is a few years old). It will fix the issue I have. I just have to wait like 3-5 days for it :/

  • by Guru Evi,

    Guru Evi Guru Evi Oct 23, 2013 9:39 PM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 9:39 PM in response to PST MD

    You can always boot the Mac in Target FireWire/Thunderbolt mode and then backup your hard drive to another machine. Then format your hard drive in Recovery Mode and reinstall.

  • by PST MD,

    PST MD PST MD Oct 24, 2013 7:44 AM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 24, 2013 7:44 AM in response to PST MD

    Solved my problem by reformatting the hard drive and performing a clean install of mavericks. Then I migrated by mountian lion backup to mavericks. It took several hours longer than I expected but otherwise I'm satisfied.

  • by mattolds,

    mattolds mattolds Oct 24, 2013 6:44 PM in response to richfromut
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 24, 2013 6:44 PM in response to richfromut

    I've got the same problem.  I didn't back up before I decided to install Mavericks.  I get a "Install Failed"...because the disk Macintosh HD is damaged and can't repaired.  It tells me to back up my data, but I can't even get to a screen that lets me do that.  I'm really stuck and frustrated.

  • by Dog One,

    Dog One Dog One Oct 25, 2013 4:59 AM in response to mattolds
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 4:59 AM in response to mattolds

    You've got to get out of the Mavericks loop where you can't repair or erase the disk (you don't want to erase your disk)

     

    1. Restart your Mac

     

    2. Hold down Command-R during startup and OS X Recovery springs into action. It will take a few minutes, but you should be back in the land of the cats (lion etc) http://www.apple.com/au/osx/recovery/

     

    3. Once the recovery partition has loaded, you have two options,

     

    a) restore from time machine back up or

     

    b) open Disk Utility and use it to run a disk repair routine on your main boot drive.

     

      bi) After any found errors have been fixed, you can then reboot normally and try the installation again.

     

    I chose a), waited 6h to restore from Time Machine. Then tried again without any problems. If you don't have Time Machine or 6h, b) might be a better option.

  • by mattolds,

    mattolds mattolds Oct 25, 2013 6:00 AM in response to Dog One
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 6:00 AM in response to Dog One

    Thanks so much! The unfortunate thing is I don't have a Time Machine Backup and when I try to 'repair disk' through disk utility, I get an error message saying disk utility cannot repair disk. What would you say area options at this point? Thanks for the help.

     

    I'm ordering an external hard drive today so I can start using time machine.

  • by richfromut,

    richfromut richfromut Oct 25, 2013 6:18 AM in response to richfromut
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 6:18 AM in response to richfromut

    Took my MBP to the Apple store. They ran diagnostics and could not repair the HD. They reformatted the HD and installed 10.8.5 for me fresh. The tech thinks that something happened to corrupt the partition tables. When I got home I upgraded to Mavericks with no issues. Resolved for me. Thanks all!

  • by putnik,

    putnik putnik Oct 25, 2013 6:27 AM in response to mattolds
    Level 3 (795 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 25, 2013 6:27 AM in response to mattolds

    If you are feeling adventuresome, you could try forcing a re-write of the GPT.  I remember way back when it was de rigeur for solving a disk problem.

     

    You need to enter Disk Utility and go to the Partition tab. Reduce the size of the disk a little. Click on "Apply" and let it finish.  Then you can expand it again to the original size and "apply" again.  This only serves to make it do the re-write.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-10-25 at 14.24.54.png

     

    No guarantee this will solve anything!

  • by Christo G,

    Christo G Christo G Oct 26, 2013 3:09 PM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2013 3:09 PM in response to PST MD

    Reposting this from my other post in a similar thread. This is if you don't have a backup of your stuff and your only option is to wipe the disk.

     

    If repairing the disk doesn't work there are two work arounds to at least save your data before wiping and doing a reinstall.

     

    (Make sure to have tried to repair the disk from recovery mode. Cmd+R during boot and from there use the disk utility to try to repair it. It shouldn't be greyed out. If it still fails, read on.)

     

    1. Hook up another mac to yours with a firewire cable. This is what Apple support told me to do. Instructions here:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

     

    2. If you don't have another mac you can install OSX on an external hard drive. This is what I did. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5911

     

    From there you can access your file system and backup your files. Then you can proceed to wipe the drive and do a fresh install.

  • by newtomacnh,

    newtomacnh newtomacnh Oct 29, 2013 5:50 AM in response to PST MD
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 5:50 AM in response to PST MD

    Same thing happened to me.  Went to Apple store and they told me that my only options were to wipe out my hard drive completely or to buy and have a new one installed and *hope* that I could then recover some of the info from the crashed/corrupted one.  Clearly Maverick has major issues! 

  • by PlotinusVeritas,

    PlotinusVeritas PlotinusVeritas Oct 29, 2013 10:13 AM in response to putnik
    Level 6 (14,806 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 10:13 AM in response to putnik

    I see the error code on the corrupted RAID drives-----  Writing lastMountVersion as FSK

     

     

    I've seen that before and it's discussed here a bit

     

    http://www.sooperarticles.com/technology-articles/data-recovery-articles/how-res olve-mac-journal-magic-bad-error-340304.html

     

    MAC operating system has a feature of journaling the file system due to which the chances of fault flexibility together with providing protection to the file system preventing from the hardware failure incidents and sudden power turn off. The journal plays vital role comprising all the confidential information that are required by the MAC operating system so that it could be returned to the previous working station.

     

    These journals being vital component of the MAC operating system if gets corrupted, leads into serial results. It may turn the whole data inaccessible by means of turning the volume unmountable. Once user undergoes such disaster the only thing that leads to recover the situation is the valid backup as the data can be restored and the corrupted can be removed from the hard disk without being worried about the data loss issue.

     

    While the corruption is encountered in the HFS volume of the MAC operating system then error that is encountered with the user is stated below:-

     

    HFS(3): Journal replay fail. Writing lastMountVersion as FSK!

     

    jnl: is_clean: journal magic is bad (0x1fd17 != 0x4a4e4c78)

     

    HFS: late jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).

     

    jnl: open: journal magic is bad (0x1fd17 != 0x4a4e4c78)

     

     

     

     

    While the corrupted HFS + volume is attempted to be mounted, the above shown error triggers on the screen. The corruption of journal being the major cause turns often turns to smash up the entire MAC volume to an extent along with damaging the command line. Although you may find the disk utility option as well as the command line application facilitated in the MAC operating system which you may use in order to get the issue resolved. If possible try disabling journal and further turning it on.

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