Install Failed - Disk is damaged

I'd like to thank bart2906 for this - after working on this problem for more than six hours these steps did the trick - I had to run "fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk0s2" twice before the repair worked - I used Disk Utility for repairs at least 3 times earlier in the day to no avail. But I have my files back and am no longer stuck in limbo! Hope to update all software on Leopard and then backup my files carefully before trying Lion again - thanks for this - it was a salvation (I also reset my PRAM, not sure if it mattered, but I'm just so glad after trying so many things that this actually worked!)

im having the same issue "Mac OS X Lion couldn't be installed, because the disc Macintosh HD is damaged and can't be repaired." can someone give me a summary of what to do to fix it, i dont whant to lose all my files.

please help!!!

So i had this problem but i somehow fixed it.

I grabbed my OSX installer CD and i booted it up in there. I then used the disk utility and unmounted my harddrive "MACINTOSH HD" and i ran the verify/repair scan and it was successful.

I mounted it back and restarted and booted with the MAC OS X Installer.

Now it is installing... Hope this works.

Here's my story, with lots of guesswork but success in the end. Installing onto macbook pro 15" which came with snow leopard i got install failed retry loop. I tried starting up from sl disk but it just went into endless grey screen and i had to reboot. I zapped pram a few times, left it powered down a while, and every other suggestion i read here. Since i had burned a lion install dvd i tried booting up from that and it worked. Luckily i had a recent time machine backup so i just erased the hard drive with disk utility, then reinstalled lion from the disk. Once it installed without a glitch on the clean disk i imported all my data from tm seamlessly. It's been a long struggle but lion is now working. It reminded me a bit of the old days of looking for extension conflicts in os 7 or 8, os really hasn't improved much.

Hello! Hoping someone still involved with this thread may help out!

I have read through the thread and have tried several of the suggestions (restart with cmd+opt+p+r, restart with "option", restart with "c") Unfortunately nothing has worked.

I just relocated cross-country and do not have a copy of snow lepord on a dvd on hand. Also the closest Apple Store is over 2hrs away. I'm not super savvy when it comes to knowing how to use Disk Utility or Terminal, so the more detailed the advice the better 😉

I have most of my work backed up on a drive, but I don't have TM set-up and there are files that would need to be recovered before I would want to just erase my HD (yes yes I know TM or a recent back-up should have been made).

Thanks to anyone who has the time and patience to help me out!

Hello... Last night I had a very similar problem with my MacBook Pro and 10.7.5. I had the same errors as you have been posting and the laptop would not restart and kept giving me the same errors. When I did disk verify and repair, it would verify but when I try to repair, it came up with an error that said basically to reformat and reinstall. Luckily I have Time Machine and hard copy/paste backups...

Now, 8 hours later my computer works well, and much faster than what it was doing before this. The culprit was the crash recovery files that had been collecting from Microsoft Word. I noticed that the hard copy/paste would stop abruptly and warn me about one file each time I tried. Then, I recognized the pattern and erased all of the temp directories associated with Office 2008. Then, I verified/repaired permissions first and I verified/repaired disk. At the beginning I was given a lot of red lines, after the deletion, I had none and the computer seems to be fine.

I know this is probably not what is hapening to all. But, I wanted to share my experience as well. I was just getting ready to reformat and did not have to so far.

Same problem. Stuck in endless loop disk repair is greyed out will not let me change startup disk back to harddrive. Updating operating system should not brick a perfectly good working computer for ******** technical reasons, no? Installed on my other computer with no problems, something is wrong with this install. When I can get to my office I can fix this with time machine backups but still strongly resent apple for wasting hours of my life on something they should have fixed by now.

I FIGURED OUT HOW TO FIX THIS! Mavericks royally messed up my HD and I was freaking out because I didn't have a back-up. After much research online and going back and forth from different forums here is how to fix your "damaged" HD.

So basically to save your data (if your disk is cannot be repaired in Disk Utility or you can't access it or if you keep getting stuck in the loop), you have use an external hard drive as the start up disk and install Lion or Mavericks on that then transfer your files from the HD to the external. Then shut down the computer, remove the external (so it tries to boot up on its own), go into Recovery Mode then to Disk Utility and do a level 7 erase (it will be in your security options under erase. It's the Most Secure one that the US Department of Defense uses. This will take about 12 hours and once that is done, restart your computer in Recovery Mode then reinstall Lion. To transfer your data back on your computer, plug in the external and use it as a hard drive, your data will be under the User folder and whatever username you use. I bolded the most important part as it seems most of the forums don't include it. TAKE THAT APPLE.

Taramason, this is the same problem I've been battling all evening after upgrading to Maverick. How do I install maverick on an external hard drive? And then how do I transfer my files from my HD to the external since I currently cannot get to my HD?

Thanks for your help!!!

Plug your external in to your computer in which the "damaged" HD is in, then go to Reinstall OS, when it asks which drive, select the external. Once it's installed it will ask if you want to transfer info from another Mac then click that and select your HD. Make sure your external is partitioned in the GUID format. You can do that in Disc Utility.

Thanks, I tried that but it is telling me that my external drive is used for time machine back ups so it will not let me install it there. My other option is the the Recovery HD but it tells me that is locked. I'm just stuck in limbo on these screens with no where to go on to. I wish I never would have tried to install Maverick.

If you have a recent Time Machine back-up then your data will already be on that. You either need to move your time machine back up to another computer or another external if you still have data on your HD you need to recover. Your external needs to be empty for this to work. If you already have a Time Machine back-up then you can just simply erase the HD.

In addition to what I just said, in order to erase your external, use Disk Utility (just do a soft erase not the level 7) then create a new partition. Before you apply, go to options and select GUID Partition Scheme. Make sure it is also MAC OS Extended (Journaled).

Same here. Installing on my IMAC. Have no clue what to do. And can't use trackpad.

Charles C n Miami wrote:

Command R doesn't help.

In what way does command-r not help? Does it not start the Recovery OS? (Do you not see Mac OS X Utilities?)