Snow Leopard installation failed after Lion

Question

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Snow Leopard installation failed after Lion

Hi,

i need help and its urgent.

Comp:

MBP early 2011 13" i5

Steps:

Downloaded Lion from App Store
Upgrade SL to Lion

After a while, lion start freezing and it wont to boot any more. ( spin on boot)

Decided to downgrade to SL
Booted from original SL Disc.

Repair / Erase HDD. And there was some errors after HDD repair (Some node not erased...)
Repaired OK.

Starting installation

Installation Failed

I was made Boot DVD with Lion earlier.
Try to boot from lion DVD.
Installation Failed

Booted agan from SL DVD.

Again erase whole HDD, unmount and try to repair structure with command fsck_hfs -rf /dev/disk0s2 (that was a my volume)
There is some errors, but it was repaired succesfully. For any case i was start command agian. No more errors.

Restart, reboot and same thing. Installation failed.

On my External HDD i try to install Lion. Everything perfect.

Restart the comp and booted again with SL again.

Same steps for my external HDD. erase repair...

Next i was try to install SL on my External HDD.
Installation faild

Again booted from SL DVD and try agin to erase whole disk.
Starting installation again.
After few houres whit some log errors it was installed on my external HDD.

And again i try too install Lion to my internal drive. After few houres it was installed, but i was unable to wrok anymore. Very hard to boot and when it was
booted, it not repsonded. it freeze when i start anything.
Again erase, repair internal HDD

Copy whole install DVD SL image to my external HDD with SL(just for case that maybe is optical drive issues) and try to install SL .

Same thing. after reboot, installation faild.
I also try to test my Ram memory with Memtest. No errors

What the ****'s Going on here?

I cant any more to install SL on my comp even if my HDD looks ok?

What i can do now? There is no apple support in my country.

Obviously Lion was "scratch" my MBP.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 26, 2012 4:27 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2012 4:59 AM in response to Alex011

Update:

i was erased HDD with zero out data option and there is no errors on HDD

Reply

Answer 2

David Cun

Level 4

1,427 points

Feb 26, 2012 5:13 AM in response to Alex011

Alex, sorry you're having this problem. But, please start from the beginning. Did your MBP come with SL? Was everything OK when running SL before? Are you using the SL Install Disk that came with your MBP?

Reply

Answer 3

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2012 5:21 AM in response to David Cun

Yes I'm using my original SL DVD. it was perfect before Lion. I wish i didn't install Lion...

Reply

Answer 4

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2012 7:43 AM in response to Alex011

Update

this is the install log errors

Error writing cache to /Volumes/MACOSX/Caches/com.apple.FindSystemFiles.plist

Failed to enumerate /Volumes/MACOSX/Library/Caches, cannot prune (
"com.apple.user*pictureCache*"

Reply

Answer 5

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,810 points

Feb 26, 2012 1:31 PM in response to Alex011

You didn't check the SMART status, did you?

Reply

Answer 6

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2012 1:34 PM in response to HACKINT0SH

Sorry, Didn't mention. Status is Verified

Reply

Answer 7

Feb 27, 2012 12:41 AM in response to Alex011

Alex011 wrote:

Update

this is the install log errors

Error writing cache to /Volumes/MACOSX/Caches/com.apple.FindSystemFiles.plist

Failed to enumerate /Volumes/MACOSX/Library/Caches, cannot prune (
"com.apple.user*pictureCache*"

seems to be an issue with the installer.

i think you can install lion directly to your computer. when you boot your computer, then press option key, do you an option to do something like recovery mode?

Reply

Answer 8

ds store

Level 7

30,745 points

Feb 27, 2012 7:58 AM in response to Alex011

Your machine can hold c boot 10.6 from the disk, so Apple didn't turn anything off.

You've used Disk Utility to Zero the drive before installing 10.6, so that (should have) eliminated a failing sector.

Only thing I can think of is you didn't select the manufacturers name and drive size that represents the drive itself on the far left in DU, rather you selected only the Macintosh HD (slightly indented) which represents only the OS X partition on the drive, missing erasing the EFI partition and GUID partition map which are hidden and need to be restored to 10.6 status. (10.7 changes things)

Try again selecting that and zeroing the drive again, then installing 10.6 after you have cleaned and polished the bottom of the disk with a very soft clean cloth and a bit of rubbing alcohol to cut the oils/grease/fingerprints.

If the 10.6 disk fails again, call Apple and get a replacement 10.6 disk for your machine before they stop making them. Make DVD copies of the 10.6 disk, instructions online, also a boot 10.6 USB key.

If the second 10.6 disk fails, you likely have a mechanical problem with your hard drive, install 10.6 on a DU, Paritition: Options: GUID, Format OS X Extend (J) powered external drive and hold hte option key to boot from it to confirm.

Lots of info in this old thread of mine

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3358920

Reply

Answer 9

David Cun

Level 4

1,427 points

Feb 27, 2012 8:50 AM in response to ds store

I agree with 'ds store', make sure you're selecting the HDD itself, not the OS X part.

I don't like that you got disk errors both times, on a 2011 computer...?...

Reply

Answer 10

Alex011 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 28, 2012 6:38 AM in response to David Cun

Thanks for all suggestions. Yes, I was erased HDD not partition. I found that is HDD fault. I have try with new HDD and everything works fine.

The question is the Lion guilty for that ? Becasue I had the problem to install SL on my external HDD after Lion installation (to install I needed almost 2 houres and there was the same errors as I posted) .

One thing. Even with smart status Verified and without errors with disk utility, my HDD has a lot of bad sectors which i was found with Tech tool surface scaning.

So if enyone has a same problem, dont trust "repairing tool" and "smart status" to much, because in my case everithing it seemed be OK.

Best regards

Reply