Mavericks has failed due to hard drive problem

If you installed Mavericks over the top of your current OSX install instead of on a separate partition you can't go back to is as it has been corrupted be the failed Mavericks install. You'll need to go get your Time Machine backup drive and use either the Recovery HD on the TM backup drive or the built in Recovery HD on the internal drive, if it is still workable, or the Online Internet Recovery system to restore from that TM backup.

You could also try reinstalling Mavericks - some people in this thread -

Can't install mavericks because apparently my disk is damaged

have had success doing that after a retry.

Good luck

I had the same error 15 mins in to the install.

I ran disc utilities to repair the hard drive

and then to get out of the endless loop of the installer

While restarting... I held down Option while booting to select my HD drive.

Booted up normally and have everything back

wishing I took screen shots...
here is my time line

1 tried to install Mavericks

2 install failed 15 min in with an "disk is damaged" error

3 thought it was mistake and tried to reinstall it but my Hard drive wouldn't show up to install

4 Ran verify Disk Permission

5 Ran Verify Disk

6 it wouldn't let me run "repair disk"

7 thinking I had a brick and tried to quit install and restart...(I think I force restarted the frist time by hold power button)

8 when it restarted I was back at the install

9 went to disk utility this time Now I could "repair disk"

10 Ran Repair Disk

11 Tried to exit the install

12 got prompted to choose Hard disk... (was happy to see my Hard Drive in the dailog box but wouldn't let me select... can't remember the error

13 restarted but back at the Mavericks install loop

14 restarted this time holding "option" key

15 selected my HD... booted normally back to 10.8.5

16 Have all my stuff back and I'm now typing this on the same computer

I've tried starting up holding option, shift, command + r... (not at the same time, guh) and nothing has worked. As others have mentioned, my MBP just turns off/dies. If I can actually get to disk utility it doesn't let me repair the disk (the option is grayed out)--I can run verification (great!) but that's it. If/when I try and boot up from a Lion reinstall my HD is grayed out. My gut feeling is that the Mavericks install created a corrupt partition.

http://instagram.com/p/f-pBuDL_S5#

Amazing that SO MANY people have had this issue specifically with their older Mac Book Pros. Nice job Apple. My computer was working perfectly fine before this. What was I thinking installing a system upgrade while Mercury is in retrograde?!

I have a new hard drive shipping en route from Amazon. Hopefully I didn't lose four years of work since--my other awesome Apple product "time machine"--has never worked quite right.

No, I updated everything right before installing.

Same scenario here with a 2011 MBP in good working order before the Mavericks install . . . .

Apple, do we have a fix??

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

After repeated attempts at trying various things found here and elsewhere--nothing worked. For some reason my drive was 'locked" so I couldn't repair permissions or reinstall Lion. This is what I did: I went on to Amazon and bought a 1T 2.5" 7200rpm internal drive. I also bought a external cover for the drive so that I could connect the new drive to my failing MBP. After booting up in Safe Mode, I was able to use disk utility to format the new drive. Luckily I had a backup that was only a month old, so I backed up from Time Mchine selecting the new drive as the destination. This worked and in the morning (took 6 hours) my machine was running again (it had booted up automatically from the new drive in the enclosure). I shut the machine down and swaped the drives (fairly easy, you may need some precision screw drivers) and then restarted without the external (old drive) plugged in. The computer booted up perfectly... the only thing left was to plug in the old drive which is now in the external case and copy over any items not included from the back up. If you don't have a back up of your old drive, most likely you will still be able access your data... you will just need to copy over preferences, apps, etc after installing Lion on the new drive. It took a few days to get the items from Amazon but it saved me a ton of money and time from going to Apple and potentially losing all my data. Hope this helps someone out.

I have had almost the same problem. I have a late 2009 MBP with OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. I had to wipe my hard drive re-install Snow Leopard and restore my files from Time Machine. Mavericks install is a nightmare for me. Here is my post with what I specifically ran into.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5572045?answerId=23822716022#23822716022

Apple Genius said my logic board was bad along with a fan???

SO I tried creativenature's IDEA

“I had the same error 15 mins in to the install.

I ran disc utilities to repair the hard drive

and then to get out of the endless loop of the installer

While restarting... I held down Option while booting to select my HD drive.

Booted up normally and have everything back”

AND IT WORKED WOW!!!!!!! YAYAYAYYAYA!!!! PARTY!!!!!!

I really do believe that Apple Genius’s should go through some more thorough process before helping customers/developers with problems.

For example last month I had an Apple Genius tell me complete false information about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation iPad’s.