Cannot install Snow Leopard over 10.5.8 because "can't boot from" boot disk

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Level 1

29 points

Cannot install Snow Leopard over 10.5.8 because "can't boot from" boot disk

I closed all my apps.
I ran the installer.
I agreed the terms.
I am ask where to install Snow Leopard.
Only one disk is available - my boot disk.
It has a yellow triangle on it.

Selecting the disk tells me "Mac OS X cannot be installed on "Macintosh HD", because this disk cannot be used to start up your computer.".

Rebooting and attempting an install direct from CD yields the same results.

My machine is a six month old aluminium MacBook, and the only difference between it in the shop and today is that it has a customer-installed 500GB hard drive and ditto 4GB RAM in it.

Help.

Neil.

Aluminium Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 500GB customer installed HD and 4GB customer installed RAM

Posted on Aug 28, 2009 5:57 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 28, 2009 6:27 AM in response to redpola

What are the details of the hard disk partition and drive format?

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Answer 2

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Aug 28, 2009 6:29 AM in response to redpola

Hi Neil,

check with Disk Utility to see if your harddisk is using the GPT (GUID) partition table.

While in DU verify your harddisk (and in case repair it).

regards

Stefan

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Answer 3

redpola Author

Level 1

29 points

Aug 28, 2009 6:34 AM in response to William Maxwell

Hi William, here are the details.

Name : Macintosh HD
Type : Volume

Disk Identifier : disk0s2
Mount Point : /
File System : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus : Serial ATA 2
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/SATA@B/PRT0@0/PMP@0/@0:2
Writable : Yes
Universal Unique Identifier : 563134B4-E285-3A9A-9C99-82BAC6CBB81E
Capacity : 465.4 GB (499,763,888,128 Bytes)
Free Space : 73.1 GB (78,447,783,936 Bytes)
Used : 392.4 GB (421,316,104,192 Bytes)
Number of Files : 1,991,815
Number of Folders : 391,908
Owners Enabled : Yes
Can Turn Owners Off : Yes
Can Repair Permissions : Yes
Can Be Verified : Yes
Can Be Repaired : Yes
Can Be Formatted : Yes
Bootable : Yes
Supports Journaling : Yes
Journaled : Yes
Disk Number : 0
Partition Number : 2

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Answer 4

redpola Author

Level 1

29 points

Aug 28, 2009 6:37 AM in response to Fortuny

Hi Stefan,

I don't know how to use the Disk Utility to ascertain whether my HD is using GPT (GUID) partition table but I bought the machine new, installed a brand new 500GB drive in it and then installed Leopard in as default a manner as possible.

I've pasted the disk info also in this thread if that's useful.

I've since rebooted, repaired permissions, repaired disk, and the SL installer still thinks my disk is non-bootable.

Neil.

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Answer 5

Aug 28, 2009 6:38 AM in response to redpola

I have the same problem.

The "Take Control of Upgrading to Snow Leopard" mentions this as a rare problem in the troubleshooting section, and says the solution is to make a clone (Superduper/CCC) of the "yellow triangle" volume and install Snow Leopard onto this then clone back to "yellow triangle" volume.

I am in the middle of doing this, currently installing onto the clone which did not have yellow triangle.

No explanation of cause, and no other suggested workaround.

I had repaired permissions, run Diskwarrior etc on my Leopard boot volume before trying Snow on it.

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Answer 6

Aug 28, 2009 6:39 AM in response to Mike Boreham

My boot vol is/was GUID

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Answer 7

redpola Author

Level 1

29 points

Aug 28, 2009 6:43 AM in response to Mike Boreham

Hi Mike,

Sorry you're having the same problem. It's very frustrating! I'm making some noise about it because as a consequence of being in the software biz for years, I keep machines as vanilla and default as possible whilst serving my purposes as best I can - so I hopefully tread a very well worn QA path. That I am suffering problems probably means a great many more are doing the same.

Unfortunately your solution isn't a good one for me - I simply don't have 400GB of space anywhere nearby. I do have Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule so maybe a solution is to do a vanilla install and clean disk and then a restore. I don't fancy this much though.

I can't help feeling that this is a simple defect in the installer disk detection though, that it uses some custom code rather than systemwide routine to detect bootability.

Neil.

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Answer 8

Aug 28, 2009 6:54 AM in response to redpola

Same with my machine;

In uninstalled PGP desktop (from within the program by the way) and that did the trick.

New version PGP desktop snow Leo compatible on its way:

http://blog.pgp.com/index.php/2009/08/sneak-peek-pgp-whole-disk-encryption-for-s now-leopard/

Martin

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Answer 9

dordoka

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2009 6:54 AM in response to redpola

Exactly the same problem here.
GUID partition table, created during Leopard installation a while ago, only one partition, no bootcamp,... nothing, all vanilla.

Same error and yellow exclamation over my Macintosh HD volume, either launching directly the installation assistant from Leopard or booting directly from the Snow Leopard installation DVD.

I totally agree that this is an Installer bug and the workaround is not acceptable: that actually means that the upgrade procedure is faulty and not useful for a not yet determined number of users...

Please find a better workaround for this.

Thanks very much.

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Answer 10

Aug 28, 2009 7:00 AM in response to dordoka

Please run this command in Terminal and send the output to this thread, thanks:
df -k

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Answer 11

redpola Author

Level 1

29 points

Aug 28, 2009 7:05 AM in response to William Maxwell

Hi Bill,

splat:~ neil$ df -k
Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 488050672 411196520 76598152 85% /
devfs 116 116 0 100% /dev
fdesc 1 1 0 100% /dev
map -hosts 0 0 0 100% /net
map auto_home 0 0 0 100% /home
/dev/disk1s3 6578972 6497048 81924 99% /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD
/dev/disk2s2 15208656 5659312 9549344 38% /Volumes/redpola
afp_0TSQUm1B8Jr700mE1H0Pyetl-1.2d000004 974665392 793955116 180710276 82% /Volumes/Data
/dev/disk3s2 974665360 793987852 180677508 82% /Volumes/Backup of splat
/dev/disk4s2 9524 8724 800 92% /Volumes/Capture Data 8.2

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Answer 12

dordoka

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2009 7:05 AM in response to redpola

Hi Bill

thanks a lot for your quick response. Unfortunatelly I'm at work right now so I will provide you with the output later today when I get home.

Thanks very much!

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Answer 13

redpola Author

Level 1

29 points

Aug 28, 2009 7:06 AM in response to Martin Matthey1

I'd like to publically confirm that I am running PGP Desktop 9.10.

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Answer 14

gicmo

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2009 7:09 AM in response to redpola

I had the same issue on my MacBook (aluminum unibody). I had a linux & linux swap partition; after I removed those with gparted the installation worked just fine. I have heard that osx likes to have 128k space between partitions and maybe that wasn't the case.

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Answer 15

Aug 28, 2009 7:22 AM in response to redpola

redpola wrote:
I'd like to publically confirm that I am running PGP Desktop 9.10.

Which means you're probably running the full disk encryption which modifies the volume to the point it can't be used for upgrade purposes.

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