Installing Mavericks but disk damaged, no recovery or safe modes

medenius wrote:

4) When it boots up for the first time, it will give you the option to import data (like, from another computer, from an external disk, etc). Here, *even though my (internal) HD was theoretically Damaged, Failing, Locked, Irreperable, Needed to be serviced by apple, Physically Damaged, etc etc etc,* I was able to import all of my user data and applications from my (internal) HD, simply by selecting the option to import from an external disk, then selecting my (internal) HD. should be able to pick and choose what you want to import: which users, what data, etc.

Is there anyway to do this once the computer has booted?

No, your drive has major issues.

Not necessarily, it's a bit to coincedental to me. I've backed up all my files off it so can't have "major issues".

Really, we are actually still seeing comments like the one below 25 years after computers became a way of life and hard drives became dirt cheap?

"I didn't back up before I decided to install ........"

Kinda beyond belief at this point.

I had the same problem, trying to install Mavericks on my husband's iMac only for the installation to fail telling me my disc was damaged and couldn't be repaired. I spent 3 days trying EVERYTHING that was suggested in various forums, but the machine wouldn't even go into Safe Mode or start up from the original disc.

I spoke to Apple for over an hour and we exhausted all suggestions leaving them to tell me that I would have to bring the iMac into a store and probably having to pay quite a lot of money to have it fixed. I couldn't afford this so kept trying various things.

HERE is what worked for me in the end:

I connected the iMac that was affected to my old Macbook laptop via a Firewire cable. Then I started the iMac holding down the 'T' key. This throws the machine into Firewire mode.

On my Macbook the iMac then showed up as an external drive. I went into Disc Utility and repaired the Disc through that. It failed at first but upon trying again it repaired it and I then disconnected the machines and re-started my iMac. It was completely fine and NO data was lost.

I hope this helps!

Nice!!! Thank's men!!!! Work perfect here!!!!!

I just had this happen to me on a 2011 Macbook Pro 13.

Started the Mavericks install and then it said disk corrupted.

Same symptoms - couldn't verify the disk or repair it.

It kept insisting I had to format the hard disk.

But there were important files that were not backed up...of course.

I popped on a Firewire 500G external drive, installed Mavericks, migrated all the files.

After verifying that it looks like everything was there by booting to the external drive,

I wiped the internal drive, re-partitioned, installed Mavericks and migrated files.

Just wanted to say this solution worked for me too.

Hopefully, this wasn't the long way there.

I'm not used to this kind of windows-like crap from apple. Arggghh!

My laptop just switched off after installing the latest Mavericks. People have offered work-arounds but none worked for me... so....

I installed OSX Mavericks on a separate firewire drive and it works fine... with a message that my old system drive is corrupted.... but all my files seem to be there?

I'm going to extract the files, then fit a new internal drive and download Mavericks again onto that.Not sure if I will come across any problems on the way.

I don't know if it is 10.9.2 or a broken disk that has caused my problems of the last couple of days. Maybe I will never know for sure... but in the end you have to do something positive and a new drive is cheap.

dang_I_am_a_fanboy wrote:

I'm not used to this kind of windows-like crap from apple. Arggghh!

Disc failure is common to all computers and can happen to anyone at anytime. They are particularly susceptible under the stress of installing a new and hungrier OS. It doesn't matter who makes the software. Apple gets the hard drives from HD manufacturers. They are as prone to failure on Macs as they are on windows. That is why anybody who even cares slightly abut their data and ease of reinstalling should backup.

Cheers

Pete

The disk didn't fail.

It got corrupted somehow during the upgrade / install to Mavericks.

The issue I experienced upgrading was similar to several others.

I just wanted to put it out there that the install Mavericks to external HD and transfer the data then reverse the process worked to recover the data on the drive.

Your response is non-sequitur, but thanks.

dang_I_am_a_fanboy wrote:

I just wanted to put it out there that the install Mavericks to external HD and transfer the data then reverse the process worked to recover the data on the drive.

Yes I was aware of your highly technical advice......

I'm not used to this kind of windows-like crap from apple. Arggghh!

Glad all is well.

Cheers

Pete

I had a friend with this issue. This site has a list of suggestions that helped me recover his data and also upgrade to Mavericks. The process requires an external USB drive.

http://recovertextsms.com/imac-recovery.html

On my friends Mac, every disk utility tool he tried said his HD was damaged, but it was working when you would try to reboot into recovery mode... how damaged can it be if it boots into recovery?

This guide shows how to make a emergency backup of Macintosh HD from the OS X Installer so you can reinstall Mavericks. Once installed you have the option of using the Migration Assistant to bring the files back from the emergency backup.

Good luck.

Can you please explaine in details :(

A lot of people seemed to get a disk failure on installing Mavericks; is this a coincindence? I installed Mavericks on a new drive (externally) with a Lindy disk caddy and then replaced my internal drive with this disk once I had managed to retrieve everything from the old (broken?) disk. I tried every other solution but nothing else seemed to work.

I was lucky with my data and now use Time Machine on all of my computers!

Hope this helps.

BTW....I seem to remember that the (broken?) disk would load a version of OSX in safe mode. It was a few months ago now.

As suggestion, I reinstall the maverick os on my external hd, but when I try to import data from my internal drive, it always show a spin and says "Looking for source...". In another word, it seems it cannot find my internal drive. But from disk utility I can see internal hd. You know disk utility failed to repair it. Any solution to get my data on internal hd back? Thanks.