Can't Install Mac OS X 10.8 after erase

Hi Kurt,

I really appreciate you trying to help me.

when tried that the erase button is disabled.

Per your second screen shot. If you choose the Partition tab, can you repartition the drive, or is that option also grayed out?

the partition tab is accessible but the rest of it is grayed out. no other button is clickable.

There is a known bug in Mountain Lion regarding trying to erase or repartition Fusion drives, as noted in this discussion. However, Disk Utility shows your drive as a 2 TB model, which means it is of course under the 3 TB problem level.

If this is indeed a Fusion drive, I don't have any experience trying to get past this issue. One of Apple's support documents explains that a special version of Disk Utility is needed to handle a Fusion drive, if that is what you have.

Another thought is, if you boot to the drive you're trying to erase (if you can), is it encrypted with FileVault? If it is, you must first decrypt the drive.

thanks for your help.

this is not mountain lion this is el captain.

Can anyone help? How do I get this special disk utility.

Can anyone please help?

Hi! Please help me. I'm having a similar issue with an old MacBook (mid 2010). I erased the HD and I'm now installing OS X using the installation DVD that came with the purchase. However, it's stuck on 33 minutes remaining and it's been like thtis for more than 5 hours now. I can't quit the installation cause a prompt says that I might mot be able to start up the computer if I don't finish installing. What should I do? I hope you could help me. Thanks!

In this case, the prompt is more dire sounding than necessary. It just means the OS won't be completely installed, and the drive then of course is unlikely to be bootable. But it was an erased drive to start with, so big deal.

Since it's obviously hung, just quit the installation. Reboot to the DVD and start the process over. Erase the hard drive again with Disk Utility before trying to install OS X. Also, when you open Disk Utility, click on the physical name of the drive at the far left. Then look at the lower right of Disk Utility's window and make sure it says the drive is partitioned as GUID. It should be, but just look to be sure.

Thanks for the reply! I clicked on Disk Utility before trying to reinstall the OS and this is what I see.

Any tips on what I can do next?

The drive may be failing, which would account for the freeze during the installation of OS X. The drive also lost it's partition layout.

Boot to your installation media again and launch Disk Utility. Highlight the physical drive just as you did in the image above. Click the Partition tab. Change the drop down menu for the number of partitions from Current to 1 Partition. That will activate the Options button below the graphic. Click Options and choose the radio button for GUID Partition Table and click OK. Then click Apply. It will take about 30 seconds for Disk Utility to create a new partition scheme. When done, quit DU.

Install OS X.

Hi, thanks again for the reply! It's only now that I was able to try your suggestions. However, the installation using the DVD seems to be stuck again. It's been on 36 minutes remaining since it started almost 2 hours ago. I also tried Internet Recovery but when I entered the apple id and password, it says "This item is temporarily available. Please try again later." Any solution to that? By the way, when I use the installation DVD that came with the Macbook, Snow Leopard is the OS. But through Internet Recovery, it's Mountain Lion.

Oops, I meant OS X Lion (10.7)

A DVD will always install whatever OS is on it. When you you boot to Internet Recovery Mode, it first looks to the hidden partition on the drive and will install that same version of OS. If that partition is missing (which we already know it is), it drops back to Lion.

And that can depend on the model. We have a Mac Mini that shipped with Snow Leopard that has a firmware update available for it that would add the ability to do an Internet Recovery Mode startup. However, it then also makes it impossible to install Snow Leopard from its own original disks! So that firmware update is NEVER gonna' happen on this Mac since the entire reason for purchasing it was to run PowerPC scanner software that is highly unlikely to ever be updated to an Intel native version.

It would appear then that your Mac has had a firmware update applied to it that allows Internet Startup Mode. Or, since any Mid 2010 models sold in early 2011 were so close to the switch at Apple from Snow Leopard to Lion, it may have been built with the firmware for Lion capability, but shipped with Snow Leopard disks anyway. But that's strictly a guess. Our mid 2010 Mac Pro was purchased early 2011 to get one of the last ones that shipped with Snow Leopard, but it has no Internet Recovery Mode ability.

So I can't quite be sure what's going on with your Mac. That it stopped at about the same point can suggest various problems. One being the DVD has something wrong with it. Two, the optical drive has a problem - but stopping at the same point would be pretty unusual for a hardware issue there. Three, the hard drive may have a faulty block/sector it can't get past. To possibly fix that, you would to a single pass erase on the entire drive with Disk Utility. Any bad blocks will be mapped out. This will take a while.

Any of these may be the issue, or maybe even none of them. They're just some of the more common reasons for any computer.

I am having problems after wiping disc clean, I am getting as far as install OS X Lion screen. It asks me to select a disc to install to but I am not given any options.

I have used the utility and repartitioned as you describe above.

Thanks

Jim

Are you certain the drive partition map is GUID, and format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

Hd is defective. Im out of luck