Deleted Macintosh HD

Question

Level 1

0 points

Deleted Macintosh HD

Hello.

So my Macbook was not starting up. When turning it on the screen only showed the Apple loading symbol in the center but the hard drive would not boot. I assumed it crashed and decided to try reinstalling the operating system (I was OK with losing all my data).

I have no installation discs and no back up on Time Machine. However I have a copy of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 on a USB stick. I used disc utility and attempted to replace the Manictosh HD with Mountain Lion. This was clearly the wrong approach, because I ended up deleting the Macintosh HD and when trying to boot with Mountain Lion I just had a do not enter symbol.

I still have Recovery HD but I the other hard drives say locked. Am I screwed? What can I do to restore my hard drive?

Please help.

MacBook

Posted on Feb 5, 2013 11:27 AM

Reply

Answer 1

BGreg

Level 6

17,552 points

Feb 5, 2013 4:15 PM in response to Vanessa K

If you boot holding the command and r keys down, what happens? Do you get to the recovery screen?

Reply

Answer 2

Vanessa K Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 5, 2013 8:57 PM in response to BGreg

Nothing, I just get a 'do not enter' symbol and blank screen. If I boot holding option i get the Recovery HD selection...

Reply

Answer 3

BGreg

Level 6

17,552 points

Feb 6, 2013 4:12 AM in response to Vanessa K

Once you get to the recovery HD and it's menu, have you tried Disk Utility to repair the hard drive or is the hard drive not visible to Disk Utility? If you can repair the hard drive and there are no terminal issues, you could also re-download the operating system.

Reply

Answer 4

Vanessa K Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 6, 2013 4:55 PM in response to BGreg

In Disk Utility the only drives listed are "80.03 Toshiba..." (the name of the internal hard drive) and "Mac OS X Base system". I believe i replaced the Macintosh HD with Mac OS X base system..

I tried repairing and verifying the internal hard drive but no problems were found. The Mac OS X base system has no options for repair, its greyed out.

Is there a way to get back Macintosh HD hard drive?

Reply

Answer 5

BGreg

Level 6

17,552 points

Feb 8, 2013 3:33 PM in response to Vanessa K

Since you can get to the recovery HD, I think I would just download OS X 10.8, start fresh.

Reply