Hi, my hard drive was fine. But I wanted to run the Onyx Maintenance. The mac restarted and booted into the Onyx osx mount, I than ran a disk permissions. But now I can't seem to restart back into the startup dive. I can see the hard drive and I done a disk report and all is fine. But I can't seem to reboot backplease can anyone help..
OSX Mav
Mac Pro
Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)
Are you selecting your Hard Drive as the Start Up Disk?
pete
Apple menu > system preferences > start up disc: select the Mac OSX disc and click restart
I Was using onyx maintenance an it asked to be rebooted, after I booted the Mac it logged into the onyx disk image. Basically i can't restart back to my drive. when I look for the start up disk in onyx it's saying nothing is there. Though when I goto onyx disk utility (while still in the osx bootable part) I can see my Mac? I have even tried to shut down and force the Mac to boot up off one of I'm OS X installer disks but it still starts up the onyx boot drive.. Ahhhhh.. Help. Lister
Restart your Mac. Just after the startup sound, press and hold the Option/Alt key. Hold it until you see the "icons of available drives" show up. Select your Mac HD, then click on the right arrow to start from it.
Start up while holding down the option key. Select your HardDrive and once opened then go to System Preferences and make sure that it is now selected as the StartUp Disk.
Pete
I held down the option key and the drive was an option as well as the partition. I slected the startup drive and as it started a circle with an angled line appeared and then it jumped back to the OSX Utilities (Options: Restore, Re-istall OSX, Get Help, Disk Utility).
Onyx seems to have screwd up my startup drive, I can see it but just cant boot from it..
Thanks for all the help so far
Select the partition, not the drive.
ONYX is a powerful tool. Unfortunately, you may have just learned the dangers of using tools like that without a thorough understanding of what they can do, and what they can break. It appears that the OS X install on your internal drive has been damaged to the point that it can no longer boot. You may be forced to re-install OS X from the recovery partition.
These are the times when your full system backup may save you.
Pete
I'm aware that you said you were using Onyx; however, the screenshots you just posted appear to be from the recovery mode, especially the Mac OS X Utilities window with OS X Utilities in the upper left menu bar - that is definitely recovery mode (unless Onyx has the exact same user interface).
So, can you please explain exactly how you got to those windows - did you press any keys (which ones) while booting up?
Also, please show a screenshot of each entry in Disk Utilities showing the bottom of the page (which shows more info on the particular volume).
And, exactly which functions did you use in Disk Utility?
Did you try Gary Scotland's earlier suggestion for selecting the startup disk inside recovery mode?
It may bless the OS disk if it is still capable of booting - this will also provide some info if the OS disk is not listed in the Startup Disk panel.
Also try resetting the PRAM - it may clear a custom loader or other settings that Onyx setup.
Hold cmd+alt+P+R for 2 chimes at startup.
How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
NOTE: you can choose to reinstall the OS from recovery mode, it should get it back bootable without deleting your files (it overwrites system files only provided you do not erase the disk), however I would not want to do that without a backup.
Do you need help making a backup to another disk from recovery mode?
well it looks like onyx Maitence has screwed things up. And after rebooting the OSX Recovery Mode has kicked in the asked me to fix the problem. I can see the disk on the list but the strange thing is it further down the list (Last screen shot). While is the recovery mode I save a report to the HD drive so its there but the system folder seems screwed.
If I re-install OSX onto the hard rive will this overwite the apps? Most of the my files etc are on external drives so I haven't really anything on the hard drive though I would prefer to save OS X over the top rather than a clean install. I should really update to Yosamite as I was close to updating this anyway.
I dont remember holding any keys just after the Maintenance feature started in ONYX, only when I was trying to boot back into my hardive. I may need help with backing up the drive in recovery mode as I dont really want to loose anything..
Thanks again for all your help..
lister
hey Drew the Apple menu > system preferences > start up disc: select the Mac OSX disc and click restart was not availbale in the recovery mode which Gary mentioned. In the OXS Recovery window there is an option to select start up drive, but when I goto the window its blank. I should see my Mac icon, but it a message comes up ' startup drive could be found'.
Seem I may have to re-insatll OS X but I dont want to loose anything. Whats the best way to back everything up? I have a second internal drive called Sounds which I could create a backup on.
Thanks again.
Do NOT do an update to Yosemite. Fix your machine first. Only update a machine that is absolutely 100% healthy. Otherwise you risk disaster and you don't seem to be far from that now.
You should be able to reinstall OS X onto your startup drive without losing any files. That isn't 100% guaranteed though. If you have another drive that is at least as large as your startup disk, you can use Disk Utility (from recovery) to backup. Technically, Disk Utility calls it "restore". You will "restore" your current startup disk to your backup disk. Double check the source and destination disks. One of them will be wiped out entirely and replaced with the other.
After that you can try a non-destructive OS X reinstall.
You don't need any "maintenance" or "clean up" tools on OS X. If you choose to use low level hacking tools, that is your decision. Sometimes you can do fun, funky things with them. Just don't be confused by their names or branding. They hack, they do not "clean" or "maintain" anything.
The lack of a startup disk in the panel suggests the boot loader on the boot disk is missing/damaged etc.
Etresoft has covered how to backup in Disk Utility. That will allow you to get a copy of the data (assuming the disk is still in a mountable state).
You may want to verify the volume is not damaged whist in recovery mode - select the indented 'volume' for your boot disk & verify that - repair if required (the disk is the item above that). Use the restore tab for the volume to back it up.
If you cannot afford to erase the destination disk you can save a backup to a disk image - this is less flexible, but it will have al the data in one disk image. The method involves using Disk Utilities 'File > New disk image from folder…' then select the base of the boot disk as the source. Save the final disk image to the external disk. Don't use 'New disk image from volume', that option saves the 'full size' of the volume including empty space!
Note: a full backup copy can be used with Migration Assistant whereas a disk image backup cannot, but you use manual methods (or apps) to restore from the disk image.
Etresoft is also correct about upgrading - wait until this OS boots correctly.
Reinstall is the default option in the recovery menu - that does not delete your personal data, it copies the new OS files over the top of the old ones. That should replace the damaged/ missing boot loader (or whatever else is broken in the OS).
Onyx Maintenance tool - Cant boot back into Startup drive
