You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Trying to reinstall OS X

Hi all,

my Macbook Pro 13" 2010 with OS X Mavericks get stuck and crashed by simple using "space keyboard" to preview a picture. When I tried to turn it on, it wasn't possible to get through the spinning wheel and Apple logo disappeared.


- By rebooting, I used ALT+CMD+P+R to resetting the PRAM, I tried CMD+R to Recovery OS X, SHIFT to Safe Boot, and even ALT to Reinstall OS X and CMD+SHIFT+R to Internet Recovery.

- I got Time Machine Backup, which I can't use to Restore as well because OS X Installer still just "Searching for disks..."

- Then I used Disk Utility: to Verify Disk, Repair Disk, Partition and at the end, Erase to Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a message: "Disk Erase failed with the error: Unable to write to the last block of the device."

Disk Utility missing part under the internal HDD?:

User uploaded file

- As last option I used Terminal with the command "diskutil list" with this resolution:

User uploaded file

I tried following commnads:

- diskutil unmount force /dev/disk0

- diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Test /dev/disk0

- date 042109582011 and current time as well

- disk0 is without GUID_partition_scheme (GPT), EFI and HFS, but Terminal can't recognize the command "sudo" to edit something (/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin), and I see also notice "no corestorage logical volume groups found" after put command "diskutil cs list"

...as much I'm Googling, as much I feel more and more lost in this stuff 😕


What I did wrong? It all caused OS X Mavericks? When I got previous version of OS X I have't any problem like this.

Can anybody help me out of this circle please?

Thank you guys in advance for any advises,

desperate Peter 😊

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 2010

Posted on Jul 29, 2014 12:25 AM

Reply
7 replies

Jul 29, 2014 2:29 PM in response to petler

CMD+SHIFT+R to Internet Recovery.


FWIW, Internet Recovery is Command + Option + R. I try not to dabble in Terminal - it's not my area of experise. However, have you tried this: Boot into Internet Recovery (takes quite a while), once you see the Utilities window, use Disk Utility to not only wipe your drive, but repair first it as well. When done, choose to reinstall OS X. This should work (if the hard drive isn't failing).

Jul 29, 2014 2:53 PM in response to petler

The system shipped with Snow Leopard no?


You should fall back to the original DVD that was shipped with the system. Boot from that repair the disk and if you have to install 10.6 then upgrade to Mavericks.


Internet recovery will only work on that machine if you installed the EFI Firmwate update. See Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery

Jul 31, 2014 10:43 AM in response to petler

I took off my HDD from Macbook Pro and I connected it with iMac, where I could finally make partitions, verify or repair disk again. Everything looks fine with HDD. It can indicate, that Flex cable could be damaged, bec. on Macbook Pro I still can't changing partitions, erasing etc. with an error "Couln't unmount disk." and by Restore from Time Machine Backup or Reinstall OS X Mountain Lion I'm still getting the same error messages: "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."


Here are info about disk and it's partitions from Disk Utility:

User uploaded file

User uploaded file

User uploaded file

Thank you in advance for helping me to move along.

Trying to reinstall OS X

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.