Clean install mavericks failed. No bootable USB drive either. Help please.

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Clean install mavericks failed. No bootable USB drive either. Help please.

HI guys I really would appreciate some help here.

i Saw on apples site how to do a clean install of mavericks. In disk utilities I erased my osx drive and began The download of a fresh copy. I didn't back up my files as I was going to manually install my applications etc. When the download finished and it tried installing mavericks it failed, I restarted as it was the only option and it failed again. I ran disk repair and it said everything was ok. I only have Internet access at the cafe near where I live so only have it during the day. I checked online with my iphone for similar troubles and found everyone mentioning making a bootable USB version but... As it did not say that on the mac website where it showed how to erase and install a clean copy I never made a USB copy. I'm left with my macbook not able to install my os. Please can anyone advise, I have no way of getting to a Genius Bar and there is no mac service repairs in my area.

I'm now using Internet recovery. I rebooted with option-command-r. A globe came up, I am now downloading mountain lion. Is this the right procedure now or am I wasting time as I only have a few hours left in the cafe with my macbook on? Thank you in advance.

Gregg

ps- I had mavericks up and running on my previously but wanted to basically clean my system of preference files, unwanted folders etc etc. Lesson learnt. I just need advice on the steps I must take to have my system working again .

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Sep 8, 2014 5:06 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 8, 2014 5:16 AM in response to Funkmunx

What you are doing now is the correct procedure, install the Mac OS X that came on the machine. From that you can have a working machine and then install Mavericks again.

Building a bootable/installable Mac OS X on a USB drive is time consuming and not necessary for most users...it is not difficult but it takes time and precision to get it right. Perhaps something to do in the future when you have the time.

Using a coffee shop internet connection is not a good idea for installing Mac OS X...you need a good, solid internet connection to do that, one that is reliable and offers sufficient bandwidth. But you don't have much option at this point since you say an Apple store and the genius bar is not available to you.

Finish the Mountain Lion install, reinstall your applications, get the Mac up and running well, then do the Mavericks install on top of the Mac OS X you have.

You would do well to get an external hard drive, great ones are available from OWC http://www.macsales.com and make a good backup of your entire system as soon as you are finished installing Mac OS X. If you make the external a bootable copy, such as by cloning with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, you can always have a working computer...life will be much easier with that.

Good luck building Mountain Lion, and get the system running again before upgrading Mac OS X

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Answer 2

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 8, 2014 7:50 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately when it finished downloading and tried installing it failed And said ...' Because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple...support recovery etc.

I Have no idea what to do now. Can you please advise if possible. Thank you

gregg

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Answer 3

Sep 8, 2014 11:44 AM in response to Funkmunx

Ok, Gregg, backing up on the discussion, is it possible for you to get on the internet some place other than a coffee shop? Like a friend? Some place where you will have a strong connection that is secure? That would be a big plus right now.

Try doing a restart holding the Option key - that will show if there are any bootable volumes on the internal drive. Since you built Mavericks, that may have replaced the Mountain Lion recovery drive and now ML is balking at building a new recovery drive. Disk Utility cannot see the recovery partitions so you have to do a restart holding the Option key to see if one is present.

If you can do that and there is no recovery partition, do the internet restart and choose a disk erase again to make sure the disk clean, then do the install of Mountain Lion. If that fails, you could get a USB flash drive, 8 GB size, and then attempt to install Mountain Lion but direct it to install on the flash drive instead of the hard drive...of course, you will first have to use Disk Utility to format the flash drive Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) so it becomes bootable. Once that is done, you could use a cloning program to clone the Mac OS X from the flash drive to the hard drive.

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Answer 4

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 9, 2014 3:15 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Hi Ralph,

there is no other option regards Internet for me except the cafe in this small village I'm afraid. I tried doing an Internet recovery of mountain lion but after download, my computer restarted and rather then attempt to install, my screen stayed with grey background, grey apple logo and spinning colour wheel. I waited but it stayed as is. I restarted with power button held down and boot up but the same thing happened.

I Have restarted again and will attempt to put the installation onto my memory stick Using Internet recovery as advised. I'm extremely grateful for your helpful hand.

GRegg

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Answer 5

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 9, 2014 4:01 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

I Am now downloading mountain lion onto my USB stick. Can I use disk utility to install it as I have no other clone programs or a secondary computer? When I had disk utility open however, in the left box at the top was my main Hardrive (with model name etc) and underneath was the name of my mac hardrive (the one I erased, the one who's name I can change etc ). Bellow that and a horizontal line it showed my external USB stick (I erased this for the mountain lion recovery installation to download to). below that it said 'base system'. Is this 'base system suppose to be there. I looked to see if I can erase this too but the erase section was dimmed out this preventing me from takin any action. I proceeded with the download onto my USB .

IM just just making sure I'm doing this all right. 6 hours in the cafe and I have my fingers crossed. Thank you Ralph or any other who lend hand.

GRegg

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Answer 6

Sep 9, 2014 5:19 AM in response to Funkmunx

It is good to hear you are able to download the installer to the flash drive...did you download to the drive or did you direct the internet recovery to install on the flash drive? Curious because if you have downloaded the installer to the flash drive and not installed there, life should be a little easier since you will not need access to the internet now. If you can, write protect the flash drive.

You can now test the flash drive by restarting the MacBook Pro, with the flash drive in the USB port, and hold down the Option key...you should get a grey screen that shows the bootable volumes that the Startup Manager sees. Do you see the flash drive? If so you can select that to boot by moving the cursor to the flash drive, click and then move the cursor to the up arrow that appears under it and click again. If you are able to boot the flash drive you can then use a couple approaches to install.

You could do a couple things, write protect your flash drive as I said above, if that is possible, so the installer does not get erased, or copy the installer to the internal hard drive. Then run the installer from the flash drive or the copy you have placed on the hard drive. Protecting the copy on the flash drive means you do not have to download again, a big saving in time.

If you have installed Mac OS X on the flash drive, you can use Disk Utility restore to restore that material to the internal hard drive.

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Answer 7

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 9, 2014 5:49 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

thank you for your reply.

when I read your message mountain lion was installing onto my USB so I let it run and it successfully installed. So with it installed on my USB please could you help me with what procedure to take within disk utility. Thank you

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Answer 8

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 9, 2014 6:17 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Just to confirm Ralph ,

i have disk utility open. I restated with cmd r.

in the left box I see my apple hdd and underneath it is my (personally named) OS X hd. Underneath that is SuperDrive with a cd icon left of the type. Undeneath is a horizontal line. Underneath that is an hd icon with what looks like a planet on it with the word 'disk1' next to it. Underneath that is a yellow/orange hd icon with the words Mac OS X base system. Underneath this is my USB stick and under that is the name I have my USB stick 'untitled'. This is where I am right now. I would rather you knew exactly what I see in Oder to hopefully make solving my dilemma easier.

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Answer 9

Sep 9, 2014 6:52 AM in response to Funkmunx

Now that you have a bootable Mac OS X on the flash drive, restart the computer holding the Option key. When you get the grey screen showing you the startup volumes, click the Flash Drive, then click the up arrow underneath it.

Then choose the Utilities from the flash drive, Disk Utility.

Choose Restore from the buttons top center of the main window.

Now, you have two boxes you need to fill, a Source and a Destination.

Drag the disk image of the flash drive from the left sidebar to the Source box...that is the material you want to clone.

Drag the disk image of the internal hard drive from the left sidebar to the Destination box...that is where you want to make the new Mac OS X startup disk.

Click the Restore button, the cloning process can take a while so get a cup of coffee and be comfortable.

When Disk Utility finishes, Quit DU, and click the apple left side of the menu bar, Restart. Let the MacBook Pro restart normally and see if it doesn't restart on the internal hard drive. If it does, go to Finder, highlight the flash drive, and then from File on the menu bar, Eject the flash drive. That properly closes the flash drive and allows you to remove it. Removing the flash drive without properly ejecting it can cause problems later if you need to use it again.

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Answer 10

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 9, 2014 7:12 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

hI ralph,

when i restarted with option held down and chose the USB stick clicking the arrow underneath it I am presented with the welcome screen with the options of registering my mac. This screen displays the map of the world and option to select country and continue. There is no option for disk utilities.

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Answer 11

Sep 9, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Funkmunx

Hi GRegg,

Had to go out for a bit...the restart on the flash drive is saying that it thinks this is a new computer installation. You just proceed like it is by selecting the country and continuing. It is still going through the startup routine with that. Once you are fully started you can then go to Disk Utility and do the Restore process to the internal hard drive.

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Answer 12

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 10, 2014 1:07 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

You are a godsend.

i finally got even mavericks up and running again. I managed to make a boto disk from that too. thank you so much .

gregg

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Answer 13

Sep 10, 2014 4:47 AM in response to Funkmunx

You are very welcome...took a little effort but it is good to hear you are fully operational again.

A good thing to do is get an external hard drive and make a good backup of your entire system...self protection should anything happen to your hard drive. A source I use heavily is OWC, http://www.macsales.com I have four of their Mercury Elite Pro 2 TB quad-interface drives for my Macs. One on each setup for TimeMachine to use on half of the drive, and other data storage on the other half. I feel strongly about protecting myself 🙂

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Answer 14

Funkmunx Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 10, 2014 5:06 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

I Have 2 external drives. Funny thing is I deleted my time machine backup before hand because I presumed it would have the clunk and junk on the backup from the original that I wanted to clean in the first place . Lesson(s) learnt. Thanks again :-)

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