OS X Mavericks Crashed My iMac.

Install or Reinstall Mavericks, Lion/Mountain or Lion from Scratch

Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Erase the hard drive:

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.

2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the

left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on

the Security button and set the ZeroData option to one-pass. Click on

the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible

because it is three times faster than wireless.

Kappy, I had the issue of Mavericks not being installed due to a damaged HD. Your instructions plus a recent TM backup got me back in business. Thank you......

I will augment Kappy's advice with a suggestion for anyone with the "Mavericks cannot install, [hard drive disk XXYYY] is damaged. Restart your computer, use Disk Utility to repair your disk, and then try installing Mavericks again"--or words to that effect. If you are using FileVault 2, you'll want to reformat your allegedly damaged hard drive WITHOUT encryption enabled--"Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)" is what you'll want from the drop-down menu (if you had FileVault 2 enabled before, you'll likely be presented with the "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled--Encrypted)" option--skip that one).

I tried all the other suggestions after the Mavericks install first hung up and turned my MacBook Pro into a paperweight with its OS X stuck (even the clock stopped). I repaired the disk--first with Disk Utility, then Disk Warrior...then I reformatted the drive, even wrote zeroes to all the sectors (which takes about 6 hours on a 1TB hard drive!). Still, I got the "drive damaged, cannot install" message. Then, on a gut feeling, I reformatted the drive with encryption off, ran Disk Utility and tried repairing the disk (I had been getting red error messages with Disk Utility about boot sectors being bad or unaccessible, etc.)--this time, Mavericks installed right away with no glitches.

So--disable encryption, if you have it, and re-format. We'd like to believe that Apple and the software it produces should know the difference between disks that are encrypted (WITH ITS OWN ENCRYPTION SYSTEM!) and those that are actually damaged...but that's another discussion for a different time.

My MacBook Pro also crashed. Talked to Apple on the phone yesterday for several hours with no fix but a great deal of knoledge. The problem probably started when I upgraded to Mavrick.

I found a direction on Ehow to plug my mac directly into my Time Capsul whch was amazingly simple:

Instructions

1

Insert one side of the Ethernet cable into an open networking port on the rear of the Time Capsule device until the cable clicks in place.

2

Find the Ethernet port on your Mac. On Mac laptops, the port is usually found on the left side of the body. On Mac desktops, the port is usually found on the rear of the tower.

3

Plug the opposite side of the Ethernet cable into the port on your Mac to establish a connection to the Time Capsule device.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_8350793_connect-capsule-mac-ethernet-cable.html#ixzz2jtx 15cFT

I did comand>R, restart button, disabled my MacBook Pro WiFi then selected restore and found the list of backups on Time Capsul and selected one from about three days back and 4 hours later back to normal. Oh if you try to do a restore over WiFi it will take 20 hours.

I am still trying to find out what caused the original problem and Apple is helping me with that so will see...

roberpri wrote:

One last call for help? Any ideas? Otherwise, I'll have to take my iMac paperweight into someone for repair.

I think that may well be the best bet. I think you well may be looking at hardware failure, probably just shown up with the strain of trying to apply a newOSX. Nothing to do with the actual Mavericks OSX. Luckily you have your system backed up fully from before you applied the upgrade.

Good Luck

Pete

I got the 2 T Time Machine. Best investment ever.

Here is what worked for me ... Pull the battery with power cord unplugged ... Start with command r depressed ... Run disk repair for hard drive ... Restart from dr utility

Had to do this twice. Once after download. Once after install.

I am having the same problem with both my iMac and macbook. The iMac was the first casualty....I turned it on and was greeted with the grey screen and a flashing "?". Tried reboots and clearing memory, nothing. This morning, I was working on my macbook (iMac still a paperweight - apple store appointment on Monday) plugged in the USB printer to print a document and walked away to fetch coffee....when I returned the macbook was powered off. On power up, grey screen and apple logo.

ARRGH. The iMac is backed up to the TC, the macbook...not so much.

So what did they diagnose as the problem?

Pete

I keep getting a -5010F error when i try the command + r buttons. It takes me to internet recovery then after a while i get the error code -5010F appearing.

Anyone know what that means ? I couldnt find it on the apple web site.

Hi Rob,

Commiserations.

Mavericks has crashed my early/mid 2008 imac 24".

I was offered the upgrade as a free and reccomended Apple Software Update that arrived on my computer.

I stupidly assumed that Apple would not offer me an update that could harm the performance of my computer or render it useles.

Big mistake when I remember how upgrdes cooked both mine and my daughters iphone 4 mobiles leading to having get new phones.

I installed Maverick and it was running but some programs not funtioning.

I turned it off a few hours later and the next time I tried to restart the following occurred.

Grey background with apple and spinning gear visible but computer kept shutting down and trying to restart in a loop action.

Contacted Apple by phone, and, as directed, tried, but was unable to access parameter reset, safe mode, the imac wont reinstall (gets to a point where you here the installer ask about the language of choice and then freezes.)

Went to Apple Store they could see the hard drive was working but could not re install.

I was offered a $800+m repair, which I did not accept and have now escalated the issue to Apple Customer Care in Singapore.

Awaiting response by Monday on whether they will replace or repair the imac at their cost or are our old Apples being turned into Lemons by badly planned software update invitations from Apple.

I