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unable to complete mac os x 10.5.8 reinstall

My macbook was continuously freezing whenever i was on it. My only option was to force shutdown. I decided to reinstall the operating system (mac os x 10.5.8). While trying to reinstall the operating system it continually frooze and caused me to have to force shutdown. After many forced shutdowns and restarts i was finally able to get through the two install discs, but I am not able to transfer my memory off my external harddrive. It continues to freeze and not allow the transfer to complete, whether in safe mode or normal.

Any advice on my particular problem? As you can probably tell I am not very advanced in my macbook knowledge. Any help would be much appreciated... Thanks.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 9, 2012 4:11 PM

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Posted on Aug 9, 2012 4:14 PM

Sounds to me like either you hard drive is dying or it needs to be reformatted. You might try this:


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions


Boot from your Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.


If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Booting From An OS X Installer Disc


1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.

2. Restart the computer.

3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.

4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.

5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

17 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 9, 2012 4:14 PM in response to jhigh03

Sounds to me like either you hard drive is dying or it needs to be reformatted. You might try this:


Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions


Boot from your Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.


If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Booting From An OS X Installer Disc


1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.

2. Restart the computer.

3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.

4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.

5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

Aug 14, 2012 5:16 PM in response to Kappy

Ok, I went through the steps listed. It showed that the hard drive was verified. No errors were listed after pressing the Repair Disk button. And the Repair Permissions completed.

Does this mean the hardware in the computer looks to be good? Do I continue to reinstall the mac os x 10.5.8? What should I do if I encounter the macbook freezing again during os x installation or after everything is complete?


Sorry for so many questions. I never would have figured this out on my own and I really appreciate you time and help. Thank you.

Aug 14, 2012 6:19 PM in response to BDAqua

in the install log it showed 36 lines with the message- localhost installdb [169]: Unconditionally closed persistent conection 1-36


localhost OSInstaller [146]: verify/repair failed with error -9957 (filesystem verify or repair failed)


localhost OSInstaller [146]: The install failed- the installer encountered an unknown error that failed the install.


then 36 lines with the message- local host installdb [174]: _PubToPrivRef(): unable to find db handle 1-36


localhost unknown[66]: 2012_08_14 17:47 Mac os x Installer[146] (CarbonCore.framework) FSEventStreamStart: ERROR: FSEvents_connect() => Unknown service name (1102)


localhost OSInstallern[146]: installAutoFSMonitor: open failed




*I am not sure if this helpful. Let me know if i should post anything else.

Aug 14, 2012 6:32 PM in response to jhigh03

Good work! 🙂


Can you afford to erase the drive & lose any info on it?


If so...


1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*

3. Click the Erase tab.

4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.

5. Select your Mac OS X volume.

6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion do a new install.


The Zero One Pass may write out any bad blocks.

Aug 14, 2012 10:06 PM in response to BDAqua

Unfortunately i have run into the problem i was facing earlier. While trying to perform the Zero Out Data it stopped and froze. Now should i force shutdown and restart and try again?


The mac book freezing has been happening since before i decided to try and reinstall the mac os x. Also during the attempts at reinstalling the mac os x and finally in this most recent attempt.

Aug 30, 2012 3:33 PM in response to BDAqua

So i purchased a new hard drive and successfully installed it. I then installed the operating system and tried to transfer over all my information from my external drive. In doing so I have run into some problems. It seems that the computer is now running off of the external drive and not all of my information has properly transferred over.


Im guessing i did something wrong and it did not transfer to my macbook.


Is this the process that i should have went through? http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-Mac-OS-X-v10-5-Leopard/751/1


If so, do i go back and start over? Im confused.


Thanks for your help.

Aug 30, 2012 4:12 PM in response to BDAqua

Well maybe i should say misplaced. My itunes is saying i dont have the right version and my iphoto has multiple pictures of the same picture. If my external drive is not connected the macbook will freeze if already turned on or will not finish the start up process until the external drive is connected.


I transferred the information during the reinstall of the operating system. I clicked the option to reinstall and transter information from an external drive (or something along those lines).


It seems that it did not put the information on the mac harddrive.

unable to complete mac os x 10.5.8 reinstall

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