Install Failed - Disk is damaged

I installed Lion on all three of my Macs without a hitch. Even a low-end MacBook C2D without problems. But as soon as my brother-in-law tried to install it on his top end MBP >WHAMMO< disk damage/errors/unrecoverable data etc. Thankfully your instructions helped a ton in getting the partition repaired and, surprisingly, found Lion to have actually been already installed! And it actually worked! We were able to boot into Lion. However, after an hour the computer ran horrendously sluggish, and the reboot took more than 2-1/2 minutes before the desktop showed up (compared to 15 seconds on my MBP, and his model is faster than mine) What happens exactly upon reboot is you get the normal Apple logo behind the white screen, the busy circle, then on his laptop, the screen blanks for like 30 seconds, then goes to the blue screen with the mouse arrow for another 30 to 45 seconds, before finally opening the desktop. Any suggestions how to fix this?

@darylfromredhill Just start your mac, after the first chime, hold down option-command-P-R (all four keys) at once, keep holding it down until the screen blacks out and u hear the Mac chime again. Then let go all the buttons and you should see your Lion installer. Assuming you've backed up all your data with time machine, I would wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of Lion on your hard drive.

Just read the entire thread.

Considering the number of crashed HDs that were ok before installing lion,

can we assume that Lion instalation is crashing peoples HDs?

Who is supposed to pay for them?

In the thread replies, how can I know who is an from apple (Apple Expert) and who is not?

That way I would know wich are the "OFFICIAL" answers (those which were written from HIRED apple advisors/experts).

I had no idea there's so many reports of this. There's definitely something wrong in this install, especially the fact that Lion needs to create a new Restore partition could be the reason why HD's are getting corrupted in this process. Fortunately my installs went smoothly, but had it gone wrong, yeah, you'd see me ranting in this thread endlessly 😝

Ok, same problem here folks. Tried most of the mentioned suggestions and now trying the Disk Warrior thing..

So I have a version of DiskWarriors on a CD but now the problem is that my Snow Leopard CD wont come out of the cd-drive :/

I have a backup but it's not very recent..

(this is thierrybcd awnsering from other account)

1. The problem is not that the Lion installer isn't appearing, it is, but I need the snow leopard (whos CD is in my drive but wont show and wont come out)

2. I ran the fsck_hfs with lion installer booted and it said it tried 3 times to repair but failed. Then I tried to investigate in disk utilities and it gave this error:

Checking volume file count

invalid volume file count

(it should be 676736 instead of 626970)

invalid volume directory count

(it should be 199041 instead of 187699)

So now I seem to have lost some files.. :/

I'll try to reboot in snow leopard and maby try to repair it there, otherwise I'm taking it to the store tomorrow

Thanks anyway for the reply!

I am happy to inform you guys that after another random PRAM-reset my Mac decided to just reboot as usual, sending me to the standard supernova desktop. All settings are factory-restored but I didn't lose any of my files.

Hope the others dealing with this problem get to solve it..

Cheers!

I want to post here that after all the problems, I checked my warrantly here under my account and was able to acces an 'advisor' because my question recently installed Lion ..... Tome was very helpful. Lion was installed before my call on its own partition. I had Time Machine set up with a backup, so we erased Machintosh HD and then we reset PRAM .... restart, cmd, opt, p, r, all fingers down at once. The machine chimes 3 times... then go forward with Lion install and then restore from Time Machine.

I am extremely frightened to reinstall the OS X LION even though I have purchased it directly from www.apply.com my entire HD was damaged and when i tried restarting my laptop the screen was this weird bright grey and these symbols kept popping up simultaneously and nothing else would happen, i took my laptop to the repair shop and had my entire hard drive replaced with a brand new one, the guy asked me if i wanted the lion os and then called to let me know that he wasnt able to install it or something and had to do it externally, although he was so soft spoken i could barely understand him, he said he needed a whole day to do it because the store would close in just 3 hours or something, i have it purchased on my app store but i dont know whether i should install it or not?

Try this:

Insert the cd or the USB key with Lion.

boot the mac.

in my system installation goes wrong. (there is only a generic message)

Now start the terminal

Go in the directory of the Lion update

find the "Install Lion somethinh" excecutable file and execute it, (it is under some directory, sorry I don't remember the exact path, and the exact name of the file )

Now a new installationa of Lion start: you are able to select the disk and go on.

(before, with DiskUtility I erased the disk and created a new partition)

it worked for me: mac mini 2010

Luca

Have no idea what you're talking about there, Luca. There is no install CD or USB key for Lion. If you've already installed Lion but damaged the HD, simply restart the Mac and at the chime, zap the PRAM (hold down alt-opt-p-r) until the mac restarts again. Upon second startup, hold down Opt until Recovery HD partition appears on the screen. Click on the recovery hd and Lion will reinstall.

I have maked a bootable DVD (http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/08/create-burn-bootable-mac-os-x-lion-install-disc/)

but you can also create a bootable USB disk (http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/08/make-a-bootable-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-installer-from -a-usb-flash-drive/)

In my system there were no recovery HD partition... I was never able to install Lion.. (mac mini 2010).

Luca

well I hit the same problem - stuck in boot disk limbo and unable to access or repair the disk partition, which was perfectly fine before I tried to upgrade.

I have not fully resolved the issues yet. I'm posting my experience and what I've done to recover the drive contents - should be straightforward for most folks - but after the guy in the Genius bar said my drive was toast - and I knew it wasn't - I figured I should post this. I was able to access the disk by dropping out of the setup and the GUI version of diskutil and firing up a shell (Terminal). From there I was able to use diskutil to mount the drive and copy my hard drive contents to an external hard drive. As the drive was mounted, I then fired up the GUI verson of diskutil and created a new image from my hard drive to an external drive. Hopefully I'm in a better shape now than before the upgrade. As I said, I have not fully resolved the issues - but at least I've recovered the data.

in summary - these steps will help you get the contents of your drive onto another drive

1. if you exit the setup, then select the Terminal application

2. when in the shell - type diskutil list to see if your hard drive is mounted

3. if the drive os not mounted - used diskutil mount <disk02s> <-- the id of the drive

4. mount the external hard drive

5. cp -Rp /Volume/<drive contents to copy> /Volume/your external hard drive

I will update this post if the suggestions in this email thread resolve the bigger issue.

Thank you so much!! I was having all of the same problems. I even went out and bought DiskWarrior but it said the volume was too severely damaged to be repaired. I followed your steps and I've got my computer back with out having to wipe the hard drive and with no lost data! (Wish I could return the $100 DiskWarrior!)

Before I try to install Lion again, I'm burning it to DVD. That way if bad things happen I can just pop out the disk.

Hi there!

I am having the same problems, receiving the same error message

I do not know my way around a Mac as well as most of the people in this discussion, but have read through all of the thread and tried the suggestions and nothing has worked. I teach in a "small" town in China so visiting my neighborhood genius bar isn't really an option. I dont have my snow leopard disk but do have the startup on an external hard drive, and as far as I know I'm the only one around with a Mac so there's that...

I have done the cmd-option-p-r and when I press the option button during startup I only have the option to choose install. Now my computer is stuck in install limbo.

I keep reading something about accessing the Terminal, but I have no idea what that is, how to do it or what to do once I get there.

If someone has enough patience, could you explain some other options like you would to a 3rd grader?

All I wanted to do was update my computer and now I just feel useless.

Thanks to anyone who can help!