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Level 1

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Can't boot after installing 10.8.3

I installed 10.8.3 today on all the Macs in the house using the Combo updater. Everything went ok on the 2011 Mini, 2012 13" Macbook Pro, 2012 (I think) Macbook Air, and 2009 17" Macbook Pro. But on my early 2011 17" Macbook Pro with 8GB of RAM and 2.2Ghz Core i7, it's been a nightmare. The install seemed to go fine, but when I rebooted after a while on the grey sreen with the spinner and Apple logo the Apple turned to the prohibitory sign (the circle with the slash through it), and there it gets stuck. I've tried with no luck:

1) boot to a recovery partition, and ran both a repair and repair permission on the drive in Disk Utility. Neither found any issues.

2) reset the NVRAM/PRAM several times

3) when I tried to boot into verbose Safe mode, after a little while a message appeard, "Still waiting for root device" and the circle with the slash through it appeared in the middle of the screen. After a few mintues, the message appears again. And it just sits there spitting that message out for long minutes.

4) after I tried safe boot and it failed, I wiped the drive, installed a clean copy of 10.8 on it, and then installed nothing but the 10.8.3 update. Rebooted and the same problem.

After the clean install and update failed, I wiped the drive again and restored 10.8.2 from Time Machine, which is where I am now and it's working and booting fine. As an experiment, I cloned the boot drive to an external hard drive, rebooted off the extenral drive, and installed 10.8.3 there. And that works. I can boot from the firewire drive with 10.8.3 on it just fine. So it seems to me that it's having a problem with my boot drive, which is an Intel X25M 160GB SSD. I'd greatly appreciate any help because this has been driving me nuts all day.

The strange thing is that now that I've restored back to 10.8.2, 10.8.3 no longer shows up for me in Software Update. It showed up on the other 2 Macbook Pros. Has Apple maybe pulled it from Software Update for my model MBP because of the problems?

Posted on Mar 15, 2013 12:23 PM

50 replies

tlattie

Level 1

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Mar 18, 2013 2:57 PM in response to islander71

I had the same issue on my 2011 Mac Mini. Was able to re-install 10.7.5 but then attempting a fresh upgrade (via app store) to what I presume is 10.8.3 killed me again. In the end updating the Intel firmware solved the problem. Only snag was that firmware bootable disk and the SSD have to be on the same SATA interface meaning that booting from USB Superdrive or plugging SSD into USB carrier were both non-starters. In the end I put my SSD into a Dell laptop and booted from internal CD-Rom drive. After firmware upgrade I was able to upgrade to 10.8.3

tlattie

Level 1

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Mar 18, 2013 3:05 PM in response to pejaham

CD will not boot from a USB CD/DVD drive -- i had to pull my SSD out of the mini and put it in a laptop with CD Drive.

g1a31ove

Level 1

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Mar 18, 2013 5:48 PM in response to jcharr1

I want to confirm that updating the firmware of my 160GB Intel SSD worked, as described above. I list my steps below.

The OS Mountain Lion 10.8.3 update did result in an unexpected failure, so if you have previously replaced the original hard drive it is likely that you may experience "Still waiting for root device" message during the verbose boot, as I did.

After spending hours of research today, I was finally able to fix the 10.8.3 issue, where my hard drive was no longer "seen" during the booting process, although it was working fine via USB cable or tested fine with Disk Utility.

Again, to replicate the fix, I have:

1. Downloaded the firmware from Intel support page

2. Created a DVD (I didn't have any blank CDs and couldn't create a bootable flash drive) with the a standard method as previously noted. It was created bootable by default - I didn't have to perform any additional actions to create a "special bootable version".

3. Inserted the DVD with the firmware into Mac Book Pro.

4. Installed the hard drive in Mac Book Pro and rebooted the laptop.

5. Pressed C during the reboot and loaded from the DVD. Don't get freaked out by the exe file. It has loaded fine.

6. Answered "yes" and "yes" on Terms of Services.

7. Agreed to hold Intel harmless if they mess up my drive or data.

8. Waited for 20 seconds for the program to run the update.

9. Got the message: firmware failed to update from 2cv102hd to 2cv102m3

10. Restarted the laptop again

11. Everything is working just fine now. And I have 10.8.3 update running now.

12. I restarted the laptop a few more time, just to make sure, it works, and it seem to be working fine.

I haven't checked whether my hard drive firmware was updated neither I tried to run the firmware update again.

It works now and I am happy move on.

Good luck you guys fixing this. And thank you everyone for contribution. G-d bless you!

jcharr1 Author

Level 1

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Mar 19, 2013 5:42 AM in response to jcharr1

I finally got it! A good while back, I had replaced my superdrive with the X25-M installed in an MCE Optibay and had put the superdrive away somewhere. I finally tracked down the orignal superdrive, put it back in its bay, put the X25-M into the hd bay, and put the burned DVD into the drive. Lo and behold, this time it booted from the disc and updated the firmware with no problem. Rebooted back into OSX, reinstalled the 10.8.3 combo update, and now things seem to all be running smoothly again.

tcl4m

Level 1

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Mar 19, 2013 7:17 AM in response to jcharr1

I am glad it finally worked out for you.

jcharr1 Author

Level 1

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Mar 19, 2013 7:21 AM in response to tcl4m

Thanks. I hope everyone else can get it sorted out for themselves, too.

lorddm

Level 1

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Mar 30, 2013 1:43 PM in response to jcharr1

I have a similar problem. Update from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3.

Crucial M4 SSD 512. MBP MD101

Please see my post for details

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4931157

Swndr

Level 1

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Apr 3, 2013 2:03 AM in response to jcharr1

Hi everyone,

I have the same problem, but I don't have an SSD drive at all - I swapped my 2009 MBP 15" harddrive last year for a Western Digital drive (WESTERN DIGITAL WD7500BPVT-00HXZT1). Been working fine until I tried to update to 10.8.3 through App Store. Got the prohibition sign.

Harddrive is definitely fine, was able to access booting from a backup. I wiped and clean installed with 10.8.1, and it booted fine. Tried the update again, same thing.

Seems like a similar incompatability, but can't find anyone else with issue and have no idea about firmware etc.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Apr 3, 2013 2:21 AM in response to lorddm

Did you ever get your problem fixed? I notice that mine was the last post on your thread - did you try the Combo updater?

Clinton

Apr 3, 2013 2:23 AM in response to Swndr

Try the Combo updater - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1640.

If it won't install, then you've likely a problem with your boot drive.

Clinton

Swndr

Level 1

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Apr 3, 2013 4:32 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thanks. I can't do an update as such now that I can't boot? Should try a clean install of 10.8.3 instead? Can download on another machine, or try the Recovery HD install?

Apr 4, 2013 11:02 PM in response to Swndr

Try the Recovery.

Swndr

Level 1

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Apr 5, 2013 2:00 AM in response to andretpen

Thanks. I did a clean install (booting from an SD card with the full 4.4GB 10.8.3 install from App Store). Same issue.

I then installed 10.8.2 (also clean) and everything is running fine.

So... the harddrive is fine, but 10.8.3 cannot 'find' it on booting.

No idea what to do now. There doesn't seem to be any firmware upgrade for the harddrive.

Worried I'm stuck on 10.8.2 forever!

Apr 5, 2013 2:22 AM in response to Swndr

There is only one thing to do if you want to use 10.8.3...downgrade the EFI firmware..but this involves other problems with the 3 Gb SATA bus speed..if you have EFI 1.7 downgrade to 1.6 and you will be able to install 10.8.3..so the best solution is to take the 10.8.2 and pray that 10.8.4 will solve that ridiculous issue.

bye

Swndr

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2013 2:28 AM in response to zubatac75

Thanks, but actually I'm on EFI 1.6 - I had to manually downgrade from 1.7 to use the harddrive for the known issues I think you're referring to...

Can't boot after installing 10.8.3