Yenny Manzi
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Q: Which Disk to choose from Repair Disk after doing SMC and PRAM reset on my iMac?

My iMac's hard drive was changed about a year ago, it worked fine until a couple of months ago.  When powering it on, it would shut off while loading.  I did some researched and learned to finally turn it on by doing the SMC and PRAM reset.  However, when I get to the only menu OS X Utilities: "Restore from TimeMachine, Reinstall OS X, Get Help Online, and Disk Utility." I don't know which one to choose? I didn't want to restore from TImeMachine since I am not sure if this is what I should do, at this point there is nothing valuable in it's files since everything went to an external hard drive when it was changed, and after that we didn't really saved anything in it afraid that we might fill the memory with files, pictures, etc.... I went  to "Reinstall OS X" to check it out and the drives that I saw were the following: "Recovery HD 650 MB total - 155.6 available AND Macintosh HD 2 TB total - 2 TB available" (I am assuming that the new drive is the one that I changed about a year ago?) I went to the Disk Utility and the following appears: "2 TB TOSHIBA DT01ACA- Macintosh HD" and "disk 1 - Mac OS X Base System" since I am not sure what to do I am leaving it alone as well. Please any recommendations, advice, guidance will be much appreciated, I don't know much and I am trying to avoid the language barrier where I am at right now, last visit to the store was very confusing, frustrating and expensive.  Thank you in advance.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)

Posted on Jan 31, 2016 6:29 PM

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Yenny Manzi

Q: Which Disk to choose from Repair Disk after doing SMC and PRAM reset on my iMac?

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  • by Rhett Crandall,

    Rhett Crandall Rhett Crandall Jan 31, 2016 6:45 PM in response to Yenny Manzi
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 31, 2016 6:45 PM in response to Yenny Manzi

    If you want to lose everything then do the reinstall osx but if you dont do the Thime Machine

  • by Yenny Manzi,

    Yenny Manzi Yenny Manzi Feb 1, 2016 12:39 AM in response to Yenny Manzi
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 1, 2016 12:39 AM in response to Yenny Manzi

    Thanks for your guidance, I tried reinstalling OS X Mountain Lion, but I get a message from the App Store that says "This item is unavailable." I kept trying at later times, but the same message appears. And I also tried to Restore from TimeMachine, but it's asking to: "Select the disk that contains the Time Machine back up you want to restore". Or, "If you have an external disk, you can connect it now".  There are two CD's that came with my iMac: Mac OS X Install DVD and Applications Install DVD....what do you advice? Thanks again.

  • by K Shaffer,

    K Shaffer K Shaffer Feb 1, 2016 1:28 AM in response to Yenny Manzi
    Level 6 (14,340 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 1, 2016 1:28 AM in response to Yenny Manzi

    The Mountain Lion 10.8(.5) is an item bought through the Apple Store and downloaded via

    use of special download code from the App Store; so it would be in your purchases, there.

    An installer could have been created for offline use, a standalone that could connect the

    Mac to the correct download server; if done ahead of time.

     

    • How to reinstall OS X on your Mac - Apple Support

    • OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support

     

    • Apple OS X and Time Machine Tips:

    http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

     

    If your computer shipped with a system older OS X, it should or could have a recovery

    partition installed; with Lion 10.7 or Mountain Lion 10.8, as indicated in support article

    and if you did that, it may work again if you replaced the hard drive.

     

    • Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support

     

    The OS X Recovery has a version of OS X Utilities, so you don't need to use old original

    install-restore DVDs; sometimes the original disc media won't work after a significant

    upgrade past the original OS X. And sometimes a firmware update will affect this, too.

     

    Some ideas on using OS X Recovery in general may or may not apply; due to details.

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+reinstall+OS+X+10.8+from+os+x+recovery&t=ffsb

     

    Since I'm not sure what the situation is, not even sure where the problem occurs.

     

    Please be more clear in what you have done, and in the previous installation if

    you did upgrade the computer to use OS X Internet Recovery, use that to install

    the last system it had. A good backup, not just Time Machine, is always advised

    and a clone (boot-capable copy of OS X) is also a great idea for restoring a Mac.

     

    Good luck in this matter!

  • by Yenny Manzi,

    Yenny Manzi Yenny Manzi Feb 1, 2016 1:45 PM in response to K Shaffer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 1, 2016 1:45 PM in response to K Shaffer

    Thank you for all the guidance.