Help - "Installation failed" Mac OSX could not be installed

I had a very similar experience to those listed above with my 24" iMac (both Essentials and BaseSystem errors. The kicker is that I'm using a "drop disc" for this upgrade, so every time that this failure happens (now on time #4), I have to reinstall 10.4 from the iMac's restore DVD before trying to upgrade with the Leopard CD.

My new plan was to use an external hard drive to "restore" the upgrade disc using Disc Utility. Not only was the install work, but it was much faster than by disc, I estimated that a bare-bones clean install of Leopard took only 10 minutes. The most time-consuming portion was restoring the DVD to the external disc, which took about 45 minutes. I hope this is helpful for everyone else.

Patrick,

Interesting. I've been watching this forum (and others) for early adopters of Leopard to gauge their experience and it hasn't been particularly pleasant. 🙂

I too have 3rd party memory I added to this MacBookPro.

To be clear, after your Leopard install, you did go back and add your 3rd party memory and now Leopard is running fine with your 3.5GB full memory?

Micah -

I'd love to know how you did this... I have done a 'restore' to my (clean, freshly formatted) external firewire drive and the leopard install says:

"The application "Install Mac OS X" cannot be used from this volume".

I had a similar problem. I made sure all 3rd party apps were removed, repaired permissions, and checked the disk before even throwing in the Leopard disk (first time I've actually done that).

Put the disk it and chose the "Archive and Install" method because I wanted the cleanest install possible on this older Dual 2GHz G5 tower. Everything worked out fine, and it got to the "about one minute left" part of the install... then failed saying that it could move my User folder for some reason, and to setup a new account and move files manually or something -- I can't remember the exact text.

Fine.

Restarted the machine, and it didn't boot into the OS right away but the install CD again. I figured it must not have fully installed, and the last thing I wanted was to boot a half installed system. This time I chose "Upgrade" and it ran perfect (or so I thought...).

On first boot of the machine, I was greeted just as if I had done a fresh install with no users on the machine at all. I thought it was weird, but I had no choice, I had to set up a new account. After finally logging in I noticed that it created the Previous Systems folder and moved most of the user data over. My Desktop folder (which had a ton of files that had yet to be archived to our backup server) -- GONE. My folder of web icons I've been slowly building from scratch over the past year or two -- GONE. My JobLog information with all of my billable time since October 17th -- GONE. My Microsoft User Data folder -- GONE. Thank the Lord I had switched to using Mail just a few weeks ago. Otherwise I'd have over a year's worth of company email wiped out.

Needless to say, I lost a lot of data, A LOT. I've been using Mac's exclusively since the 7.5.3 days and upgraded to every OS that has hit the scene... this is the first this has ever happened. I'd like to think that if it had a problem moving a User folder over, it wouldn't just DROP the data all together.

Please refrain from the "you should have backed up before installing" comments, because trust me, I know. It was a stupid rookie mistake that I can't believe I made.

If anyone has any suggestions what-so-ever, please let me know as soon as you can you.

:-P

Was able to succesfully get Leopard loaded by using my Macbook pro in target disk mode, it must be an issue with the Superdrive installed on my emac.

Tried to install from the Leopard install disc twice last night and received the "installation failed" sign both times. Following the second failure I read the description more closely and noted that it said my install disc was damaged. I made a copy of the DVD (had to shell out $20 for a pack of DVD+R DL discs) and reinitiated the installation tonight. BINGO! Success. On inspection of the Leopard DVD I noticed the disc surface is badly scratched (circumferential scratches (the very bad kind) and not radial ones) so I will approach Apple with a request to exchange my install disc for one that is in good condition. My experience seems to confirm the "batch of bad (damaged) discs" theory.

FWIW, I had been fighting the validation error during installation since last night. 10 attempted installations last night all failing due to package validation errors during the installation. This afternoon, I returned my Leopard DVD to the Apple Store for a new one with hopes that the rumor of bad installation media was true. Sadly, the new media did not fix the issue.

On a hunch from a forum post regarding a defective memory chip, I pulled out my 3rd party RAM chip and left the original 1 GB chip in. I had no reason to believe this would resolve the problem as I've had no issue with the RAM to date (I'm a heavy Parallels user).

The Leopard installation completed without issue. I added the RAM chip back and all is good. If you're experiencing installation problems and you've upgraded your RAM (which most 1st gen MBP users would have by now), give it a try....

After spending 5 hours chasing down numerous 'failed' installs (the DVD verifies OK, I removed the extra memory,...) I am restoring my 10.4.10 BU and going back to work. Even if perchance it did install, it sounds like there are more than a few app-compat issues waiting in the wings.... I don't have time for this grief...

I'll install 10.4.11 when it comes out... and then maybe 10.5.1 in a few months... maybe....

Did you try starting up your Tiger CD with the "C" key held down? Otherwise try to get hold of a copy of DiskWarrior and do the same with that. I finally got my Powerbook back that way. There is clearly a major problem with this upgrade because there are tens of thousands of people who have had difficulties. Apple should do the decent thing and stop asking people questions about the details of their computers that have been working perfectly OK with Tiger, and issue vouchers for 10.5.1, when it comes (as it inevitably will, once they have fixed all the issues) to everyone who has had their data destroyed by this glitchy thing.

How do you know "there are tens of thousands of people who have had difficulties"? The thread in this forum with the largest number of posts of install problems has about 200 unique individuals posting to it & more than not report a third party OS behavior modifier that Apple didn't write & doesn't control was the culprit for them, & that was only if they chose the Upgrade install method. There are many different threads that report problems, but nothing like ten thousand of them, or ten thousand total individuals responding with similar problems.

Plus, the problems range from the mysterious to the obvious. A lot of people apparently are impatient & abort the install, thinking for some reason this won't cause problems. Some ignore a warning that their copy of the installer DVD is damaged & use it anyway, then wonder why the install failed. Causes for many of the more mysterious problems are starting to emerge, & a lot have nothing to do with anything Apple could do anything about.

More to the point, anybody running without a backup is running on borrowed time, upgrade or not. An old saw in the computer world is that there are only two kinds of users: those that have lost data & those that will. Users who learn this the hard way (usually) become convinced backups are a necessity.

You're being very dismissive. I've a 10 month old top spec imac with no 3rd party software, in fact its been wiped clean 3 times now. I've 2 brand new leopard disks that Apple sent to me and neither will work. Are you still telling me its my fault? There is definitely an issue

I'm not saying it is your fault, but it may not be Apple's either. Have you run Apple Hardware Test to see if it finds any problems with the Mac? Even components supplied by Apple can fail or go out of spec.

This is a user-to-user forum. If you will supply us with more info, we can probably help, but "top spec iMac" isn't much to go on. Any RAM installed after your initial purchase (Apple branded or not)? Will your DVD drive read other double layer DVD's without problems? What exactly do you mean by the Leopard disks will not work? Do they fail the integrity check, result in an 'installation failed' message, or something else? If the install failed, is there a log & if so, what does it say.

Please remember that you are talking to users here & not to Apple; & that you must obey the Terms of Use or your posts will be deleted from public view. This pretty much requires that you confine your comments to ones focused on technical issues, which will greatly increase the chances that your fellow users can & will help you.

I'm having the same problem.... "Essential" Package, and on one or two other tries the "epson printer drivers" package or something to that effect.

Tried all three installation types but to no success.

Have tried approx. 10 installations on same mac. No success.

Have chosen "options" have unchecked "printer drivers". no success.

Macbook pro 15"
2.16GHz
2 gig original Apple Macbook pro ram
NO 3rd party apps

Family pack OS X Leopard disk.
Worked on 2 other Macbook Pros. Not the third one.

I'd agree with the other fella. this is a MASSIVE problem.

Gone back to Tiger.
Installs fine.
Tried Leopard again.
Install Failed "essentials" package.

Finally, I give up, back to Tiger.

Having very similar problems on my PowerBook G4 (1.25). "Install Failed" - "... could not validate BaseSystem ...". Happened first on an upgrade from Tiger, then happened again on an Archive and Install, and again ⚠ on Erase and Install. I guess I'll try swapping the DVD at the nearest store - but I'm going take the PowerBook with me and try the install there - just in case.
While DVD production problems can happen - and I hope its that simple - this seems to be more widespread. In any case I'm not happy to have to spend this amount of time on what should be a simple upgrade.