Mountain Lion installation failed

Same prroblems here. Tried pram reset and everything, but no help! This is really annoying, again. Last time I had trouble with lion installation, and my battery went down from 6 hours to 2 hours. That time it took apple 6 months to fix the problem, and they even called me. Did anyone else had problem with battery and lion? Is there anything we got in common that could cause the problem? Should we just take our laptops to apple and demand new ones?....

I never had problems with Lion that came intastalled in my new MBP. I also had a clean installation in my iMac. Now, with ML, (almost) everything is going wrong. A new experience for a Mac user since 1991!

I downloaded ML from the app store to the MBP. No problem. All was fine and I had a great day at work.

Back home, I tried to install ML to my iMac. No way: "Warning: we could not complete your purchase. The product distribution file could not be verified. It may be damaged or was not signed."

Then I tried to get help, from Apple. Nice words but so far no real help.

Then, for some idiotic reason, I decided to reinstall ML tothe MBP from the AppStore again. Maybe to see if that would replace the missing "distribution file". All seemed fine and smooth. However, the MBP i7 now works like a frying pan! Eats up close to 7GB ram most of the time and empties 25% of the battery in 10-15 minutes! Otherwise, all works...so far.

I never, never, had to run PRAM and stuff like that in my life, and, believe me, I have and had many Macs...

I think I go to the Mac Shop before the MBP melts down!

I don't have the time and the knowledge to go through all these workarounds that are even not guaranteed to function.

Any CLEAR explanation for this?

All same issues here. Tried all the resets, wipe disk, re-install and after getting ML running on my mid-2009 MBP it crashed again and the name of the disk was now 0s2 and wanted me to reinstall. Went to apple store and was told my hard drive was dead. They said that they are seeing this with ML installs. Still, I have to pay to have my HD replaced because I don't have apple care. I love apple products but I am very disappointed.😟

Had similar problems while installing ML. Repair disk, PRAM reset, etc. didnt work. Never had any isses with my mid 2009 MBP before this incident. Went to the Apple store and they mentioned that the hard drive is dead. They mentioned that ML installation is quite heavy and hard drives which might have a few bad sectors will fail. Finally, as a last resort tried the erase disk option and installed ML again. Everything works fine now although ML says I need to replace the battery. 🙂

Need to be careful with these installations and time machines backups are even more important before proceeding with a new OS.

If you have a backup, I would suggest trying to format and reinstall.

I got failure errors after updating and after a format and reinstall was all good. however, needed to take iMac back to Apple Store to get iLife software put back on, since it is not part of the clean install. They said always bring in the machine before formatting, which I could've done but if they told me to replace hard drive, I wouldn't have formatted and reinstalled myself.

Backups are ciritical and its a lesson learned for me. I now have all Macs at home backedup through Time Capsule. Hopefully, that won't fail......

There is always hope! I wrote before that my brand new MBP was working like a frying pan. Well, I went to a local Apple repair shop and they told me: Turn on the activity monitor and leave it open with the icon prompted at the dock. In the activity monitor select CPU and sort %CPU by descending activity.

When the computer starts frying and desperately turns on the ventilation jump onto the activity monitor and see which process is at the top, likely using > 80%CPU. Then, you know who's guilty.

I did it and found out that it was the crash reporter. With a little more inspection of the processes, I found out it was the anti-virus which probably is not able to cope with Mountain Lion.

trashed the antivirus and started working with ML. its now over 3h wop work and no buzz. total peace and quiet and a great OS. Really faster than Lion.

In that blessed store they also told me the installation problems are all from variations of this theme which explains the huge variety of crazy symptoms that you people have been describing.

So, don't throw your hard drives away like that. They are costly and are probably fine. Its the apps that are not ready for this new OS.

All my hapiness doesn't take away the pain that I will have to find which app(s) is(are) actually preventing the installation of ML on my iMac. But I will find out.

Good luck and many thanks.

I had the same problem while installing ML on my MBP

I ended up putting the ML Install App on a thumb drive, wiped the HD and then tried to install again off the USB Thumb Drive, then i got the failed error again.

I reset PRAM and now all seems to be installing fine. Glad i had all my files backed up.

Finally got my MBP running after 2 trips to the Genius bar. Turns out the Ram that I used to upgrade my machine from 4g to 8g was bad. Reinstalled old ram and loaded ML and it runs great. Lost everything but I am able to piece together stuff I had from other areas. It has been a learning experience and I will always, always backup from now on. ML is great once it starters working right.

Same Problem.... I've done everything I see suggested here and elsewhere. At this point I am fully confident there is no solution. The only option is to take the machine in and get it looked at and those results vary. All I know is my drive was fine, I maintain it regularly and have never had any issues with it until ML told me there was a problem.

I am Shocked at this issue and the number of people suffering. ML is turning high end valuable systems into trash and no one at apple will take responsbility or solve the problem. It's amazing there is no simple "CANCEL INSTALLTION" button to return your sytem to you. All I want is my macbook with Snow Leopard, all my files, pictures & music back. I resent the fact apple can't fix it and declares there is a problem with my HD when clearly it is their software that is the problem. How did this happen??? This should NEVER have been released as it is now.

I had the same problem that has been described through out this thread, and I have solved the problem, and the HDD did not fail as stated by Apple to many people. The HDD was corrupted by the Mountain Lion installer. I will describe how I got the information off my HDD on a fresh installation of ML.

1. After the original install, I got the installation error and the bad HDD messages. I do not need to go into that here as it has been described by many.
2. The macbook pro was stuck in the installation / error loop every time I restarted the computer.
3. I attached an external drive to a USB port and rebooted.
4. The installation window came up again. I went to disk utilities, picked the external drive and partioned for new ML OS installation.
5. Once the partitioning was complete, I exited disk utilites and started the ML install process again. Once it gave me the HDD choice, I chose the external HDD attached to USB
6. Once the installation was complete, ML installer gives you the choice of migrating information from time machine or and old system. My internal HDD was the corrupted drive and still in the computer. This HDD showed up in the migration assistant. I chose it, and after 2.5 hours all the data was migrated to the new drive.
7. I then removed the corrupted drive from the MB Pro and installed the new HDD with the fresh installation.
8. Booted up and all data, applications and settings were as is running in ML
9. NOTE THE CORRUPTED HDD WAS NOT A BAD DRIVE! THIS FAILURE IS COMPLETELY DUE TO ML INSTALLER. I HAD TO USE THIS METHOD AS MY TIME MACHINE BACKUP WAS SEVERAL MONTHS OLD AND I HAD DATA THAT I NEEDED.

If you are not familiar with changing the HDD in your model, go to http://www.ifixit.com and enter your mac specs, and it will give you a step by step guide.

As a follow up to this post, the drive I attached was not a retail cased USB drive, it was a bare drive I bought from newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136835

And I attached to the USB port using:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

I have since reformatted the Mountain Lion corrupted drive, and I am using it as external storage. Drive works perfectly fine, which proves the dive had not failed.

Yeah, I got the same problem as jbwhitehurst

My hard drive was working fine on my iMac. Tried to install os x mountain lion from the app store, and then my hard drive fails and I'm at risk of losing all of my files. I've attached a picture of the screen that shows up.

How would I go about copying my files onto an external hard drive or backing up my Macintosh HD drive so I could reload it after erasing the disk?

I rarely post, however, because of a major screw up with Mountain Lion, I will. I have been using mac computers since 1987, have obviously installed and upgraded multiple OS new and upgrades and never, I mean never had a problem with any of them, until now. The install stalled with the message that the hard disk needed repair. I thought all of my data was lost, except for time machine backup, which was not as current as it should have been. Losing that data would have been a royal pain.

Went through the restore OS from Time Machine, then tried to repair the disk with apple disk repair utility. Not repairable. Why? I still don't have a clue. After reading multiple threads, decided to go ahead and buy DiskWarrior. This was a weird experienc. Loaded it onto external hard drive, hooked my MacBook Pro as Target disk. Loaded in DiskWarrior as hardware probelm. ???? Immediately went online to see what advice about this message. Looked like a massive coincidence had hit my laptop. Worked perfectly until loading Mountain Lion, the decided to have hard disk melt down. Suddenly, DiskWarrior indicated it was ready to rebuild my directory. The hardware warning was gone. A few minutes later, directory repaired. Rebooted, same problem. Can't load OS X, need to repair hard disk. Apple disk repair still unable to repair disk. Used DiskWarrior, repaired it no problem.

Deleted original OS 10.8 dmg. Rebooted and downloaded fresh copy of OS 10.8. This time install went flawlessly. Mountain Lion transferred all info flawlessly. Mid 2009 MacBook Pro running flawlessly and actually more smoothly now than in Lion.

1. I think original download was somehow corrupted and that is what screwed up the disk directory.

2. I do not know why apple Disk Utility would not repair the disk and Disk Warrior would. Expensive fix, but ultimately worthwhile. Did it mysefl and did not have to mess with "Genius" bar.

3. I will never go so long without backup again. That was a big mistake.

My advice:

1. Be sure you have smooth download of entire Mountain Lion file, if not, start over. My download was paused a couple of times.

2. If the install is messed up and you need Disk Repair, buy DiskWarrior and repair directory, it works flawlessly. If it initially says your disk has hardware problem, wait a few minutes while it finishes entire evaluation. It may well disappear like mine did, then actually repair the directories without a problem.

3. Be sure you have deleted old OS 10.8 Install file and load fresh one.

4. Install OS 10.8 and you should be OK.

5. Good luck.

Mountain Lion seems to have some problems, but many of them may be due to server overload at apple, delayed download with incorporated unrecognized code problems. If there is any delay, start over and get a smooth download.

Disk Utility is too light weight. Apple needs to beef it up. This is my biggest complaint. Apple utility should be able to fix disks. We should not have to spend $100 to fix a disk, but there you are.

Once fixed however, back to usual beautiful, flawless apple experience.

I've had the same issue:

1. After upgrading my MacBook Pro (late 2007) to Mountain Lion, I started seeing the system.log filled up with this:

Jul 31 07:49:04 MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: hfs: set linkcount=1 on vol=Macintosh HD cnid=33347212 old=2

Jul 31 07:49:04 MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: hfs: clear hardlink bit on vol=Macintosh HD cnid=33347212

2. I ran Disk Utility > Repair Disk. I got the same errors as the original poster, and it failed to fix them. Afterwards the disk was unmountable.

3. I'd had issues with this disk before, so I decided to replace it with a new one. I installed it, and restored my backup of Mountain Lion.

4. After a few days, those same errors came back. Tried repairing them, and the same thing happened. So again, I restored from a backup. I ran DIsk Utility right afterward, and there were no errors.

So at this point, I'm just waiting for it to happen again, or for Apple to fix this issue. I'm pretty sure it's not the disk, since it's happened on two separate ones.

adarjo0422 wrote:

I had the same problem that has been described through out this thread, and I have solved the problem, and the HDD did not fail as stated by Apple to many people. The HDD was corrupted by the Mountain Lion installer. I will describe how I got the information off my HDD on a fresh installation of ML.

1. After the original install, I got the installation error and the bad HDD messages. I do not need to go into that here as it has been described by many.
2. The macbook pro was stuck in the installation / error loop every time I restarted the computer.
3. I attached an external drive to a USB port and rebooted.
4. The installation window came up again. I went to disk utilities, picked the external drive and partioned for new ML OS installation.
5. Once the partitioning was complete, I exited disk utilites and started the ML install process again. Once it gave me the HDD choice, I chose the external HDD attached to USB
6. Once the installation was complete, ML installer gives you the choice of migrating information from time machine or and old system. My internal HDD was the corrupted drive and still in the computer. This HDD showed up in the migration assistant. I chose it, and after 2.5 hours all the data was migrated to the new drive.
7. I then removed the corrupted drive from the MB Pro and installed the new HDD with the fresh installation.
8. Booted up and all data, applications and settings were as is running in ML
9. NOTE THE CORRUPTED HDD WAS NOT A BAD DRIVE! THIS FAILURE IS COMPLETELY DUE TO ML INSTALLER. I HAD TO USE THIS METHOD AS MY TIME MACHINE BACKUP WAS SEVERAL MONTHS OLD AND I HAD DATA THAT I NEEDED.

If you are not familiar with changing the HDD in your model, go to http://www.ifixit.com and enter your mac specs, and it will give you a step by step guide.

Hey guys,

First of all, I would like to thank user "adarjo0422" for his solution because it worked for me.

I took my macbook to the Applestore to see what the problem was. As I had expected, the guy at the Genius Bar did not say that this was a common problem. In other words, Apple was not taking responsibility for this rampant problem that seems to be occurring with everyone. Anyways, they told me that I had to take my hard drive to a data recovery specialist, which would've cost me around $250 in addition to obtaining a new hard drive. I found this to be total BS. Therefore, after doing some research, I ran into this thread and solution. I can happily say that I was able to recover all my data without taking my hard drive to a specialist.

DO NOT BE DISHEARTENED! This solution may work for you. The catch is that you need an external hard drive.

Kudos to adarjo0422!