Install Failed - Disk is damaged

Charles C n Miami wrote:

It does not start the Recovery OS. Comes back to the Install Failed window with "Restart" as the only option.

Thank you. Please try the following:

1. reset PRAM and NVRAM
2. immediately after the chime that signals a successful reset, key alt/opion until the EFI boot options appear
3. let us know whether your normal startup volume is amongst those boot options.

ssfelts wrote:

… "fsck_hfs-rt /dev/disk0s2" it says "command not found" am I entering something incorrectly?

At least one thing is incorrect. There must be a space after the fsck_hfs command.

The -r option is known.

The -t option is unknown to me.

Whilst the fsck_hfs(8) Mac OS X Manual Page is not yet updated for 10.7, it should be good enough for some of what people are trying in this topic.

4HDD/11/40000004:SATA (0,0)

ssfelts wrote:

… hardware test from the SL disk gave me the follow error

4HDD/11/40000004:SATA (0,0)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%224HDD/11/40000004:SATA+(0,0)%22 finds numerous pages with that error. Amongst the many:

Apple Hardware Test - Errorcode 4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(0,0)

Before reconsidering the possibility of a problem with Apple's installer, please:

prioritise the possibility of a hardware problem affecting your hard disk,or hard disk drive.

Thank you for reporting the detail!

ssfelts wrote:

… in disk0s2 is the 0 the number zero or letter O? Also my disk is "disk1s3" so do I use that or what you have typed disk0s2???

There may be more user-friendly information on this subject but for accuracy, I will offer Apple's diskutil(8) Mac OS X Manual Page — not yet updated for 10.7 but comprehensive enough for many purposes. Towards the bottom of the page, the relevant section is DISK IDENTIFIER

The quicker answer for this particular post only: 0 is a number, the integer zero.

I do not have anything backed up

Your profile doesn't show your locality but I recommend the following company, near me:

CnW Recovery

If data recovery is required and not possible with what's provided by Apple, search the forums — you'll find many recommendations.

I had the exact problem on my macbook pro 15 insatlling Mtn. Lion that has been discussed here, endless loop after "damaged HD", couldn't load back into SL, finally i followed this and it worked perfectly for me, except i was installing Mtn. Lion, not lion, thank y'all so much, i thought it was way worse than it was!

bart2906

Ok, I managed to resolve my problem.

I couldn't repair the disk using the Mac OSX ultilities Disk Utility that appeared during the Lion Installation. I pulled out my Snow Leopard disk, and ran Disk Utility there. Same problem, it could not repair the disk. I then tried the following:

1. In disk utility(when booted on my Snow Leopard disk), I unmounted my partition(mine was called Macintosh HD). To do this I clicked on my drive and clicked the Unmount button. I then quit Disk Utility.

2. I then opened Terminal(also found under Utilities on the Snow Leopard disk). When that opened I entered fsck_hfs -rf /dev/disk0s2. This took about 10-15 mins. It eventually ended and said that it had repaired my disk. Success! I closed Terminal. Your partition may be called something other than disk0s2...make sure you know what it is.

3. I went back into Disk Utility(while still booted on my Snow Leopard Disk), mounted my Macintosh HD drive and reran verify disk. This reported no problems!

3. I then restarted my machine and held down the Option button. Instead of seeing OSX Installer that I had seen when I had got stuck in the Lion installation loop, I had my Macintosh HD drive back! (and my Bootcamp partition)

4. Once logged in, the Lion installation app was still in my dock, so I clicked on it again, and this time it installed no problem.

Thank you. Now:

1. have handy your Snow Leopard DVD
2. quit from Recovery OS Disk Utility
3. quit from Recovery OS Mac OS X Utilities
4. at the startup disk prompt, we hope to see your normal startup volume.

If (4) is true then you might simply carry on using Snow Leopard pending further investigation of what went wrong with the attempt to install.

We might find that the volume issues most recently described by Recovery OS Disk Utility are transient. (Without getting too technical: for a system started in a certain way, certain errors might be negligible.)

The surer approach, if you see your normal startup volume, will be to start instead from your Snow Leopard DVD and use its Utilties menu to run the older version of Disk Utility.

Please let us know what happens.

----

Looking ahead, after your normal Snow Leopard startup volume is verified …

At your leisure, and before your next attempt to use the installer for Lion, check the target volume for the presence of the following directory, at the root of the volume:

/Mac OS X Install Data

If you find a software distribution there, maybe as a .dmg, resist the temptation to use any such .dmg out of context.

More useful: the directory may contain the log(s) of one or both of the two stages of installation:

• preparation
• post-preparation installation.

The logged data will be useful in any report to Apple.

Hi Jim,

You are not alone, I have exactly the same error as you! I have posted the same question here and will be keeping an eye on your thread too. Heres hoping someone out there can solve our problem.

Good luck fella!

Andy

Immediately after the startup chime:

key command-r and do not release the key until the Apple logo appears.

If the preparation or installation stage progressed as far as installation of the Lion Recovery OS, then command-r will start the Recovery OS and present Mac OS X Utilities.

If Mac OS X Utilities are offered, use Disk Utility. Copy the detail presented by Disk Utility, then use Recovery OS Safari to paste to this topic.

Same problem with my Mac Book Pro. Command R doesn't help. At installing Mac OSX Gets about 5 sec into time remaining 33 mins and then bar starts to turn yellow and then the error message. No way to revert to previous OS and won't install new OS. How do we recover?

Cmd R didn't work for me either. I'm currently doing an erase and install from my original OSX disks. It means I'll need to reinstall Snow Leopard too before I get to Lion but at least I should have a nice clean install. Looks like I'm in for a late night. Good luck guys.

Here is what it reported.

Unused node is not erased (node=924)

Checking catalog file

Invalid node structure

The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely

Error: This disk needs to be repaired. ClickRepair Disk

Can't repair because Repair Disk is greyed out.

I used the Leopard DVD Disk Utility to repair the HD and got this error.

Disk Utility stopped repairing "Machintosh HD" Disk utility can't repair this disk. Backup as many of your files as possible, reformat thr disk and restore your backed up files.

Guess that is the next action??

I have this exact problem. I want to go back to the way things were and just leave the installer boot but it wont let me. If I go to "Startup Disk" from the apple menu and choose "Macintosh HD" it will tell me it can't do it because:

"Startup Disk could not gather enough information on selected disk"

it cant and that it "could not gather enough information" .... At this point I'd rather just backpedal from this installer more than anything else. I'll be able to repair the disk and worst case scenario at least just back up my files before i start again. Any ideas?

Some further info to put on the table - here's what I get after I run disk utility and this includes when the snow leopard disk is at hand:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Incorrect number of file hard links
Bad hard link creation date
(It should be 3325742596 instead of 3340504404)
Hard link record has data extents (id = 2888169)
Checking multi-linked files.
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.

Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.

How can I even back up my files when I can't even access them because of this installer boot mode!

Someone help, please. At least to just get me out of this installer boot mode.

KMSR09 wrote:

… Someone help, please. At least to just get me out of this installer boot mode.

Earlier in this topic, three steps. Try those.

Aim to start from your Snow Leopard DVD and use its Disk Utility, first for a verification.

I already did, it doesn't help. As you can see from the log I posted the repair attempt came out futile 😟

Now I'm stuck in limbo....I can only use safari right now because its part of the installer utilities.