Accidentally deleted Macintosh HD, Recovery HD corrupt!!

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Level 1

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Accidentally deleted Macintosh HD, Recovery HD corrupt!!

So I accidentally deleted my Macintosh HD while trying to reformat the drive (since the disk couldn't be repaired, I had to reformat and then restore it.) But erasing the content of the disk caused the OS to be deleted, so now I can only boot up through the Recovery HD. I had tried installing OS X Maverick a while back, so when it boots into the recovery drive it says "Installing OS X Maverick" for a few moments and then gives me the message "Installation failed." So I can't access the normal 4 recovery options to either reinstall the OS or restore from a back up. I don't have the original OS disk and the Apple store said to access online help. The internet recovery option also turns back with the error "apple.com/support." PLEASE HELP!

MacBook Pro, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Jul 25, 2014 5:04 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 25, 2014 5:29 PM in response to paromasoni

Good. You can use Internet Recovery: Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery. Use the following procedure:

Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion Using Internet Recovery

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 Internet Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.

Partition and Format the hard drive:

Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your newly installed hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. 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. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

This should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.

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