Hard Disk Damaged during Mavericks Installation

marianapaula, the only sane person in this thread seems to be Zardock. I've passed along his procedure in hopes it works for my company president, whose MacBook Pro was attacked by the vicious "Install Failed" error loop today. And to the Level-infinity, gazillion point nincompoop who said "mechanical drives fail," shame on you for bashing folks here because in the case of my company president, his MacBook has an OWC SSD with no moving parts. Nothing was wrong with it prior to the install, it got a clean bill of health from Disk Utility before the install, and he even did a block scan to ensure nothing would go wrong. But Wrong it did go!

Hopefully Zardock's trick will work.

This is clearly a bug in Mavericks insofar as Mavericks is checking SOMETHING on the hard drive that it perhaps shouldn't — something that past OS Updates have not been checking before. And that means that not all hard drives will fail during the install, but some will. From what I see, it's not a "hard drive soon to fail" problem as much as it is Apple's Mavericks installer is looking for things it should not and then when it sees something it dislikes, instead of allowing the user to then opt out of the install (until that issue is addressed), the installer keeps the user in a permanent loop. That's bad software, plain and simple.

I've been a Mac user since my 128k in 1984, and I can't tell you how many times I've installed OS updates. Backups are all fine and well and we should do them. But doing or not doing a backup is a separate issue. The main issue here is that the Mavericks installer was stupidly put together. And if the ten-thousand-point forum dwellers have an issue with that, I am happy to take my verbal sledgehammer to all of you. People come here looking for help and to discuss the issue. They don't come here to get verbally bashed by forum veterans who do little more than laugh and say "my hard drive install went smoothly, too bad you fools didn't backup." That is nasty, vindictive and wicked.

Apple, I don't care if you don't read through these forums, fix your Mavericks installer ASAP.

If this is what "free" software is like, I say we go back to the pay model.

Zardock, I tried this, and Repair disk stays grayed out. Tried restarting and just proceeding with the install again, same infinite loop of install error. 😟

Same issue, fixed using Zardock's solution, but with one difference. I had "repair disk" as an option in Disk Utility and selected it, but partway through repair received "disk cannot be repaired" message. Feeling stubborn, I selected repair disk again, and this time it was repaired without issue. Restarted from apple menu and now Mavericks installed.

it was for me too at first. Select the drive instead of the partition and it should "un-gray".

hope this helps

One question for you though. Why did you feel the need to bring backups up at all? Were you trying to troll this post? No one even mentioned backups or suing apple. You were and have continued to be completely unhelpful. It obviously was a glitch because after a few tries it installed no problem. My hard drive is fine and continues to scan OK with my various disk utilities despite Mavericks original prognosis. So people all other might be replacing their drives that dont need to like KerryGee (I hope they have fixed it with out going through that process). Be helpful or don't post. And to who ever was talking about tough love. I don't know you therefore I want none of your love tough or other wise. You're not my Dad, Mom, friend or cousin. I came here for answers not love. So keep it to your self.

My hard drive is fine too after being told it was damaged so how do you explain that. Something is wrong with the installer. I literally can find nothing wrong now that it finally went through. What responsibility do we have because a new free software is lying to us and scaring us for no reason? Help or stay quiet and stop insulting people. "Lack of understanding", of what? Start a blog if you want to rant about stuff no one wants to hear so we can not read it in peace. No one on this post asked a single question about backups or said it was apples fault that they lost all their data. That was just some random troll adding it in to stir things up.

Dannosuke

You came a little late to the party. The OP's original post (which they now edited it all out) was about suing Apple for this.

Just to clarify.

It still never un-grayed for me, but I did after 3 attempts get it to boot in Target mode, so I'm backing up once again to my server at work (just to be safe) and have booked a Genius Bar appointment for Sunday. Luckily, my AppleCare is still in effect so if there is legitimately a problem with my HD, it shouldn't cost to replace it (right?).

I still agree, though, that there's a fault in the installer. Sure, some HDs may be actually damaged, but I still think the installer is finding false "errors" for some people but not for all.

As for the comment that there "can't" be a fault in the installer or it'd be giving everyone this problem, that it's all just 1's and 0's... Well, while it's true, that's all the machine reads, there can still be bugs in the same exact file that don't show on all systems. There are so many variables from system to system that, while technically it's a variance in the computer that causes the false error (if that is indeed the case with this issue), it's still a fault in the installer that it detects a nonexistent error in the first place.

Oh ok, I thought that was really random. My bad.

Same happened to me, in the last minute it froze and later on it seems that the disk is corrupted and must be formatted al over. I do have a Time Machine backup shortly before updating but somehow the OS ML I installed on a external disk does not reconize the Time Machine backup. I also have two recovery disks, made with the Disk recovery Assistant but also these crash upon loading. WT# happend here?

Apple this is very very disappointing!!

I'm very glad! I almost had a heart attack when I saw that error message :-)

All the best.

Z

Zardock wrote:

Here's what I did to solve the problem:

When you're given the choices to reinstall from the disk, etc, select the option to repair. Then select your hard disk and select verify disk. You will see some errors in red. Whether they are damaged or simply incompatible with the upgrade I will let Apple resolve.

Once you are done with disk verification - select repair disk. If repair disk option is grayed out, reboot the Mac.

Once the disk repair is complete, reboot again and your installation process will begin again. Once you get asked to enter your icloud info, you're set.

Sadly, the above solution was not a solution for my company president. No go.

The problem on his MacBook Pro with OWC SSD is that the SSD is locked. He can't even change a filename. No file additions or deletions allowed on it. As such, it is impossible to "repair."

This is a VERY SERIOUS problem, unlike anything I've ever seen before in an OS update from Apple, OSX, OS9, OS8, System7, System6, or earlier.

One fellow mentioned it in the following Macworld forum:

http://forums.macworld.com/index.php?/topic/153284-get-your-mac-ready-for-maveri cks-os-x-109/page__pid__1032733__st__14#entry1032733

I posted a reply back with links to this thread and others. Moderator/Editor Dan Frakes wrote back only to say that he didn't think this is a "widespread" problem worthy of news reporting. He did say he'd keep an eye on it, but suffice it to say, unless he sees thousands of posts on the subject, Macworld and other news sources probably won't be reporting on it. And without reporting, I highly doubt Apple will even notice, despite the Bug Reports we are filing here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

I'm happy to report THE SOLUTION that worked for my company president.

I have a friend who had DiskWarrior 4.4 on an 8GB USB flash drive. I booted the MacBook Pro from the DiskWarior 4.4 flash drive, rebuilt the Directory, then did a File Scan. There were errors shown during the directory rebuild and file scan. Rebooting the MacBook Pro brought up the Mavericks installer again, but this time it installed. For the past hour we've been testing, and all is well.

SOLUTION: DiskWarrior 4.4

REMAINING PROBLEM: The bug in the current Mavericks installer that prevents users from opting out of the install when the installer finds HD errors. Apple should update the installer to prevent people from getting stranded. Not everyone has a friend with DiskWarrior.

JDW1

Nothing was wrong with it prior to the install,SOLUTION: DiskWarrior 4.4

Outside of your possible use of this board as a commercial for software,

.....nothing is ever wrong with any drive until something is wrong with it.

Specific data itself cannot mechanically kill a hard drive.......if a drive is "fated" to fail, it will fail on saving a picture of a fluffy bunny as soon as it will installing a new OS,.........its all just 10101010101 to a hard drive,

Slegehammer time...

OK, GAZILLION-POINT FORUM DWELLER...

First, I stand by all I've written. You are searching desperately to attack me, as eloquently as you can, but you still failed in your attempt. When our company president used Apple's Disk Utility to scan his OWC SSD prior to the Mavericks install, it got a clean bill of health, as I reported before. He did not use DiskWarrior then because he doesn't own a copy. It was only after the problem occured that I got involved and tried to help. In the end, I borrowed a USB flash drive from a friend that had DW4.4 on it. It solved the problem. End of story.

Next...

I couldn't give a flip about The Solution being "a commerical product." I reported the facts based on personal experience. The fact is, I found DiskWarrior to work. Would other Disk Utils work too? Possibly, but I didn't test those. But if someone poor soul out there stuck in Infinite Loop with the Mavericks installer can be bettered by Disk Warrior, then that's what matters most.

Next...

I myself never said any data could "kill a hard drive." Never. You are therefore directing those words to the wrong person.

Lastly...

If you glory-seeking, mic-hogging, Gazillion-Pointer Forum Dwellers cannot offer specific advice to help people out of their specific delimma, perhaps you should avoid posting in these threads altogether. It's usually a rare day when I visit these forums and find a Gazillion-Point Forum Dweller who has a humble attitude and a sincerely heart of love for helping others, taking every possible step to ensure his or her words don't brow-beat others. Most of the time I see arrogance coupled with "well, you should have done this first" from you Forum Dwellers. Step away from your computer and go outside for a while. Learn how to love your fellow man. Then come back to the forums and share your new-found love.

For now, those of you with a Mavericks Installer problem may find solace in Disk Warrior or another great Mac utility. Give it a shot. You've got nothing to lose while stuck in Infinite Loop.