OS X Mavericks install - Corrupted Harddrive

I had following issues:

During Mavericks install thru update from Mac App store:

- Update failed and system notified that hard disk was corrupt.

- Tried to boot in safe mode - not successful

- Tried to repair hard disk - not successful

- Tried to Erase hard disk - not successful (disk coulnd't be unmounted due to some running processes)

- Tried to Recover from Time machine backup - not successful

- Tried to continue install using <-- arrow -- not successful (same HD Failure error)

- Disk was in Locked mode due some running processes in Macintosh HD that Mavericks update had initiated causing disk lock and couldn't do anything about it.

Tried following to fix the issue:

- Formatted 16 GB usb drive in Mac Extended Journaled and installed Mavericks on it, looks like clean install needs only about 13 GB of space.

- Made this usb Startup Disk

- Started machine

- Checked what was causing Macnitosh HD to be in locked position by running following command in terminal without quotes("")

"lsof /Volumes/Machitosh/ HD\"

found four processes were running thus causing disk lock.

Noted down all PIDs and killed each of them using following command without quotes(""):

"cd /Volumes/Macintosh/ HD\"

"kill -9 <PID>"

Then:

- Tried to erase disk (Macintosh HD) using DiskUtil - Successful

- Started computer in Recovery Mode and installed Mavericks in Macintosh HD - Successful

- Made Macintosh HD as startup disk and started machine - Successful

- Imported files from Time Machine Backup - Successful

The whole process took about 5 hours last night.

It is not necessary to fully install Mavericks in external drive. You should be good with any bootable Mavericks usb drive.

http://osxdaily.com/2013/10/23/create-os-x-mavericks-install-drive/

Hope this helps people who are having similar issues.

himalikid, I'm a little confused by what you wrote...

You could not have used the following line in the Terminal (without the quotes) unless your hard drive name is so misspelled:

"lsof /Volumes/Machitosh/ HD\"

But even though my hard drive is named "Macintosh HD" I was not able to get the following line to do anything in the Terminal (without the quotes):

"lsof /Volumes/Macintosh/ HD\"

So what I did instead was type "lsof" in the Terminal (without quotes) and then I dragged my HD icon from the Desktop onto that line in the Terminal. That inserted a "/" character. I then hit Return. Then it took a few seconds to list out hundreds of lines of... well... whatever it is you wanted to list, apparently.

But I don't understand this part of what you wrote:

Noted down all PIDs and killed each of them using following command without quotes(""):

"cd /Volumes/Macintosh/ HD\"

"kill -9 <PID>"

For example, right now on my functional Mac, I have only one "PID" (I did a Find in Terminal to determine that), as follows:

Skype 20975 james 9w REG 1,2 5 57051097 /Users/james/Library/Application Support/Skype/Skype.pid

So to kill that PID I need to type a "cd" command to switch to that "Skype" directory shown, and then after that I type "kill -9 <Skype.pid>" (without the quotes)?

Why can't Activity Monitor be used to accomplish the same with much less hassle (for those who don't know their way around the Terminal)?

Thanks for your time.

All ditto. Maverick upgrade failed hard drive damaged error. Cannot access computer. Really starting to hate Apple.

There is another thread on this support forum were most users seem to get around the Mavericks Upgrade bug by having diskutility repair the disk. However in my case it did not help. Additionally the Macintosh HD was not mountable in target mode in order to backup my files

Here is how I got around:

- plugged in an external harddrive that could be formatted.

- in the installer selected the external harddrive as the disk on with the upgrade needed to be upgraded.

- once installation completed Mavericks will run fine from the external drive and the so called corrupted internal drive is mounted and visible...

- import users with the migration assistant: all date is recovered!

- reboot with option key to select another boot volume

- select OSX installation volume

- use the diskutility to format the internal drive

- install Maverickx on the internal drive

- import the users again from the external drive with the migration assistant.

Everything fine ... and so is the harddisk... so it was a Mavericks Bug!

while it was a pain in the ***... it is fixable... Nevertheless again an example that Apple is losing its edge...

For those of you with a locked hard drive, just wanting to recover your files and return to Lion, try plugging in an external Hard Drive. Enter Recovery mode when turning on (cmd + R) and enter Disk Utility. Select the external hard drive from the left panel, and select the partition tab. select "one partition" and "Mac OS Extended (journaled)" from the drop down menus. Be sure to select options and select "GUID Partition Table"

Apply the partition. Now quit disk utilites and re-install Lion, you should be able to select the external Hard Drive. After it has installed you should be able to access your corrupted hard drive from "Finder" and copy your files onto your external hard drive.

Thank you Jochen Bonne. Your method worked for me. What a pain in the butt though. In the process of upgrading to Mavericks, it managed to render my Macintosh HD useless, and render my Time Machine backup system useless. I was in it deep. But I know my drive was good, so it was a matter of getting it out of that stupid zone so I could copy my data off it. Your method worked! Thank you!!

The only thing I ran into, was that I could not use diskutility to format my internal drive as part of the OSX installation. I had to be booted on the external drive, so the Mavericks install did not have its grubby little hands on it. From the external drive OSX, I was able to format my internal drive (which whiped the origianl Mavericks installer and associated files) and retry the install off a different external USB stick. As per himalikid's post above (thank you himalikid!) http://osxdaily.com/2013/10/23/create-os-x-mavericks-install-drive/

Currently, I am 8 hours away from being back to normal. Final steps of installing Mavericks and copying user data back to the original/internal drive.

What a journey.. learned a lot... but not sure if that was the best use of my weekend. I agree with your closing comments Jochen. The latest release of iOS have been riddled with problems as well. I hope Tim Cook is paying attention.

I lost 1.5 days of work resolving this issue. I was up to Mountain Lion on my Mac, but of course no reinstall DVD in this App Store era. I was able to reformat my Macintosh HD with my Snow Leopard DVD, which did not recognize my Time Machine on an external drive. Therefore, I opted to use the Migration Assistant offered during the install, which could see my Time Machine backup. After the install, I could not log in using the sole password I used on this Mac. Although it took and hour on the phone with Apple Support, I was able to reset my password. I was told by Apple Support to login and install upgrades until the App Store appeared and then upgrade straight to Mavericks. After a forced reboot from the first OS upgrade, my login screen just kept cycling back to itself - apparently related to some application which was incompatible with Snow Leopard. (I am, among other things, running Parallels Desktop 9 with Windows 7 on a virtual machine).

Therefore, I reformatted the Macintosh HD once again, reinstalled Snow Leopard from the DVD, ran through the upgrades until I successfully installed Mavericks, and then Mavericks recognized my Time Machine on the external hard drive. I used Migration Assistant to copy from external drive to the Mac my files, applications and settings.

This all worked to get me back up and running on the Mac, but getting our company domain to see my virtual Windows 7 was another story and took me yet another hour and some finger crossing to not lose my Windows user profile. From that point on, all systems are a go. But what a lot of time lost to get there.

I too find it extremely unlikely that an OS upgrade could somehow corrupt hardware, but that's exactly what happened to my hard drive. My less than three years old Mac Mini is effectively bricked. The hard drive has failed completely. Just after I installed Mavericks. I followed this troubleshooting sequence:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570

And eventually I managed a restart using my OSX Recovery CD, even made Disk Utility try and repair the hard drive.

But no. It's dead. I can't quite believe it, but yes, Mavericks ate my Mac Mini!

There is another post showing a solution. It has to do with the date being incorrect. Type 'date' (without quotes) in terminal. If it is messed up (mine had year 2000). His solution worked perfectly for me.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5488549?answerId=23542239022#23542239022

You are consistently the least helpful person on any of these support threads. Rather than providing any type of assistance for resolving this issue which has 'coincidentally' affected an immense number of users hard drives who had absolutely no issues before attempting to install mavericks, you have only repeatedly told people how it was their own faults and defended apple like it's your job even when you have had as little information and evidence to go on as you have criticized others for using as the basis of your conclusion. If you have nothing helpful to say and only want to passive aggressively make others who are already having severe issues feel worse then just stick to calling yourself a full time ******* instead of a 'pro'

mashev wrote:

You are consistently the least helpful person on any of these support threads. Rather than providing any type of assistance for resolving this issue which has 'coincidentally' affected an immense number of users hard drives who had absolutely no issues before attempting to install mavericks, you have only repeatedly told people how it was their own faults and defended apple like it's your job even when you have had as little information and evidence to go on as you have criticized others for using as the basis of your conclusion. If you have nothing helpful to say and only want to passive aggressively make others who are already having severe issues feel worse then just stick to calling yourself a full time ******* instead of a 'pro'

And what have you contributed other than this little diatribe?