Mountain Lion install failed and now can't access HD

Just spoke to Apple, and they claim this failure is caused by a corrupt installer. Apparently there is no checksum performed on the download.

Suggestion from Apple:

Delete the Installer from the Applications folder, or wherever you may have moved it to;

Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver;

Set System to Sleep "Never";

Uncheck "Put Hard Disk to sleep when possible";

Download the installer again from the Mac App Store;

Try again.

No checksum. Really??

2nd install attempt now I have negative time remaining for -15 mins then jumps back to 20 mins

This release is a pile of c..p

Got it installed - took 2 hrs and had that worrying negative remaining time stuff

Hopefully this doesn't happen next time they have a release

Hi!

I think I'm having exactly the same issues with a 2010 MBP 15" and I am up to something really strange:

After you've downloaded the Mountain Lion Installer from the App Store:

Could you check the md5 checksum of your InstallESD.dmg (that's lying in /Applications/Install OS X Mountain Lion.app/Contents/SharedSupport)

I know this sounds mad, but the checksum of my file is constantly changing (which REALLY shouldn't be)

(and no... the download isn't running in the background - that is after a reboot actually so App Store isn't even running...)

Here are my results:

Did anyone solve this mountain lion install problem?

I got the same 'can't repair disk' error on restart. I then restarted with Command-S and repaired disks, but they showed no errors. I reinstalled Lion from Recovery. It took hours to download again and reinstall and then I got back to my original OS Lion.

If disk was really beyond repair, how could Lion be restored. Seems some bug in installer.

My solution: Genius Bar. They were able to back up my data to an external hard drive that we brought in. Then they helped us with the update. Great customer service!

Same issue as well, unrepairable start up disk after Mountain Lion install. After calling AppleCare I downloaded and reinstalled Mountain Lion two more times. Before doing so I used the Disk Utility to repair the disk as well as the permissions. The disk did not show any errors and there were only 3 permissions that needed to be repaired. (I was able to access the Disk Utility by holding down the option key after a force restart and selecting the 10.8 recovery disk). I also used DiskWarrior and zapped the PRAM. Still no good. Third call to AppleCare, was told the hard drive needed to be replaced (on two previous calls I was told the same thing) and I needed to take the iMac to an Apple Store. I told the technician if the drive had failed I would not be able to repair it. He disagreed 100% and offered to set up an appointments, I relented. I drove to the store and was told the hard disk was fine and that there is in fact a problem with Mountain Lion on some machines.

They recommended I go back to Snow Leopard and wait. I declined that advice. Once back home I used TimeMachine to go back to Lion. There is nothing wrong with the hard drive, Lion is working fine.

Have not had this sort of a nightmare in many, many years. Fortunately TimeMachine worked very well and got us back in business.

Suggestion is to use TimeMachine and restore to your last back-up and to wait for 10.8.1.

I have used Apple products for a long time—until now—and this is by far the worse disaster I have seen come out of that company. It is like no testing was done in beta. As bad as I hate to say it, I hope this is not the new face of Apple post Steve Jobs.

I am very shocked that AppleCare are still telling people that their harddisk were corrupted and needed replacements. For anyone who encountered this issue, PLEASE DO NOT REPLACE YOUR HD, chance that your HD is corrupted is very small. That's definitely a Mountain Lion bug. I am now upgraded to ML and the harddisk is fine, and see no clue of any corruption.

My solution is to run system migration twice, which is very frustrating and time consuming. This installaion experience is alreay bad enough while Apple Customer Service are telling people to replace their harddisk without acknowledging their own issues, that is aweful and disappointing.

Not sure where Apple is on this at the moment but I can tell you that I requested and received a credit for Mountain Lion, I'll stay with Lion. The person that responded to my e-mail acknowledged there was in fact a problem with Mountain Lion and that they are working on it. How someone in the AppStore customer service area would know this and the folks on the AppleCare phones do not is of course part of the problem. Can only guess they have received a lot requests for credit.

faifaifai wrote:

I am very shocked that AppleCare are still telling people that their harddisk were corrupted and needed replacements. For anyone who encountered this issue, PLEASE DO NOT REPLACE YOUR HD, chance that your HD is corrupted is very small. That's definitely a Mountain Lion bug. I am now upgraded to ML and the harddisk is fine, and see no clue of any corruption.

My solution is to run system migration twice, which is very frustrating and time consuming. This installaion experience is alreay bad enough while Apple Customer Service are telling people to replace their harddisk without acknowledging their own issues, that is aweful and disappointing.

To believe all three technicians I would have to accpet that the hard drive failed right at the moment I rebooted from a Mountain Lion upgrade. (me and many others). I would also have to accept that the drive heals itself while I reinstall Mountain Lion, repair the disk and permissions as well as rebuild the directory with DiskWarrior and then fails again after I am done.

It would also appear that going back to Lion healed the drive as the computer is working just fine.

"SOLUTION:

Having run into the same problem, I found that Disk Utility could not repair Macintosh HD.

I rebooted holding option, and the only two bootable volumes available in the boot loader menu were "OS X Installer" and "Recovery HD". I booted from The Recovery HD which is the old Lion one. It's version of Disk Utility was quite happy to repair my volume, update the boot partition info, and get me back to a fully functional Lion OS with all my files and software intact."

This is an ultimate solution to this problem (specially) if you dont have a back up.

Easy and simple.

Thanks a lot mate.

imacAD wrote:

"SOLUTION:

Having run into the same problem, I found that Disk Utility could not repair Macintosh HD.

I rebooted holding option, and the only two bootable volumes available in the boot loader menu were "OS X Installer" and "Recovery HD". I booted from The Recovery HD which is the old Lion one. It's version of Disk Utility was quite happy to repair my volume, update the boot partition info, and get me back to a fully functional Lion OS with all my files and software intact."

This is an ultimate solution to this problem (specially) if you dont have a back up.

Easy and simple.

Thanks a lot mate.

Unfortunatly no, but if it worked for you that is great as it could work for others. Holding down the option is what many are doing in an attempt to repair the disk using the 10.8 recovery partition, that is where the disk utilty is and where you can reinstall Mountain Lion.

Same Damaged HD install problem here.

However I was able to recover back to lion simply by booting into safe mode. (hold shift while booting).

It will unmount ML install partitions.

Then boot again and you will be back to your original HD.

thanks man, i had the same problem and was afraid i would have to restore and loose all my data, tomorrow i will back up everything and try it again. I hate that apple doesnt say this or doesnt admit they have a problem with the OS.

For an installation that is interrupted in this way, that's normal.

If you make good the file system of your Macintosh HD, simply reset NVRAM/PRAM to escape from the installation loop.