failed to open OS X installer

Question

failed to open OS X installer

So my iMac had been throwing up the spinning beachball of death about 2-3 minutes after booting up. Not sure if i had a hard drive going bad or if the kids loading something on it that is wrecking havoc. I don't have a time machine back up, so took the option of booting into recovery mode and downloading OS X to reinstall. It got done downloading and then rebooted. It hangs at a screen that says "Failed to open OS X Installer. the Path /System/Installation Packages/OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged.

I get two options: Restart or Startup Disk.

How do I get past this?

Posted on Aug 29, 2015 1:33 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Aug 29, 2015 1:41 PM in response to kenfromfairview

Restart. Now, try this, but check that you have sufficient free space on your hard drive for an installation - approximately 20 GBs.

Reinstalling OS X Without Erasing the Drive

Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears.

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.

When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the indented Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu.

Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Continue button.

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

Reply