OS X V10.7 Lion :: Stuck In Recovery Mode - Cannot Erase Hard Drive
Mar 28, 2012
I tried reformatting while running Snow Leopard, but the option was grayed out and the install disc made the computer hang at the white bootup screen. I figured I'd just upgrade to Lion and do a clean install (not an option).
After upgrading to Lion, I booted into recovery to erase the hard drive. I did it and it took less than ten seconds (bad sign).
Now I can't get past recovery and the hard drive is still full.
Bought a used 2011 iMac. Wanted to wipe everything clean from previous user and install lion. After installing lion I went into the recovery mode by pressing apple r, then wiped the harddrive clean, and now am trying to reinstall lion over the internet. At first it was working fine, eta was 90 mins. When it got down to 4 mins it suddenly went back up to 90 mins and has been stuck there for 5 hours. The computer is not frozen since I can move the mouse and everything.
I can not access the recovery mode. If I reset my MAC while holding "command-R" it just brings me to the desktop. If I reset holding "option" it will show me the HD but no recovery option. If I access the disk recovery from the desktop, any option to erase HD is greyed out. I have done all system updates and I can't access the internet recovery option either....
I'm planning on selling my Macbook tomorrow!
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
So I recently erased my 2007 iMac through recovery mode. That process went fine. But when I went to go install the latest version of the mac OS (still through recovery mode) it comes back with a window reading basically that process I just did failed. I did this process many times, it doesn't work, and now at the moment I have iMac sitting in recovery mode and I can't do anything on it. Should I bring it into a store?
I want to add Drive Genius and Disk Warrior to my recovery Hard Drive partition on my Macbook pro. I can make it visible but can I add them to the patition once I make it visible or is it read only or exactly the right size for what's on it?
Info: 2 mbp's, mac mini, ipods, iphone 30, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
I am trying to reinstall lion on my 2012 13' Macbook Pro, but when I press the option key I do not see the option for Recovery. I recently changed the Hard Drive. Is it only something you can do with the original Hard Drive that came with the computer?
I have a MacBook Pro running OSX 10.7.2 and it recently stopped booting. Got the gray screen with the folder that has the question mark on it. I have attempted to use Command + R to do a Internet Recovery of the system, but once I get to the Mac OS X Lion screen to select where i want to install OSX, there are no hard drives listed.
So I figure, the hard drive (Hitachi 500GB that came with the Mac) is damaged or not functioning correctly. This doesn't seem to be the case because I can hook it up to a notebook SATA hard drive enclosure, connect it to my other MBP and read all the contents of the drive! This was good news, as i was able to copy off all important data, etc.
Using Disc utility, the partitions check out, and the drive appears to be functioning OK.
Verify and Repair volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemChecking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
I have purchased a replacement hard drive and am waiting for it to arrive in the mail.
My question now is this:
Am I able to do some kind of time machine backup, make an image, or do some kind of target drive restore from this hard drive since it is accessible on my other computer?
I don't mind reloading the operating system on the original MBP, but would really like to avoid the process of setting up all the applications, settings, etc if this drive is in fact functional.
I replaced a 1 TB external drive partiotioned in 2 with a 3 TB extrnal drive run/store my corbon copy cloner back up and time machine.
The 3 TB drive was successfully partitioned through the disk utility and both back ups are installed and the initial back up is complete.
My question is about the 1 TB drive. I want to completely erase all data from the drive in order to use it for a different use.
Using disk utility one of the partitions deleted without incident when following the same protocol the second partition produced error messages.
Volume erase failed
Volume Erase failed with the error:
Couldn’t unmount disk.
If I try to eject the disk
It says it will not eject becaus e a program may be using it...
The only program that utilized this partition is Carbon Copy Cloner which is not being utilized on the new 3TB drive.
I do not see where there is a option to have more than on disk chosen for this purpose so am unsure why the disk utility is seeing the old partion as still in use.
I think it is pretty unsafe to not have a password befor entering the recovery mode.Since one can reset passwords on even admin accounts how come there are no password requiret before entering Recovery mode? It is completly idiotic and totaly unsafe and an easy ways for f.i thiefs to wipe the computer for data.
I've just transferred my data to a new computer and now need to erase the hard drive on my old one.. I've tried Disk Utility, increased the security, and tried 'erase' but I keep getting an error message "couldn't unmount disk". I've gone into Partitions and tried deleting the HD there as well but I get the same message. I just want to get the computer securely wiped and would like to keep Lion as the operating system.
my macbook pro today started to freeze at logo scrren. I tried to start it up in both safe and recovery modes but it doesn't work either. I got the system to start in safe mode only once and the scrren looked like in the attached image.When I tried printing the screen instead of taking a photo with my mobile, the image appeared to be normal (without those noisy rectangles), but it wasnt. Then itried restarting but it's been impossible. As i said i tried booting on safe and recovery modes but the circle below the apple logo appèars and then it freezes again. I read about aproblem with the graphic card similar to mine in earlier models, I don`t know if it is the same problem.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.4), 9400M/9600MGT
My Mac Pro main boot drive us encrypted. I booted into recovery mode the other day & it wouldn't let me boot back o my main drive. Now upon start up I can't enter either recovery mode nor safe mode nor chose the main drive to boot from. I'm absolutely stymied in what to do.
I am going to be selling my trusty 12" PowerBook G4 to a friend soon, and putting the money I get from that towards a last revision 15" PowerBook G4. After I transfer my data from the 12" to the 15", I want to completely and securely erase my hard drive. The thing is, I don't know how to do this! I've never formatted/erased a hard drive before.
I am using a macbook with an Intel Core 2 Duo (about two years old) and I am running leopard (10.5.8).
I have been using a Western Digital 250GB External Hard Drive with a firewire connection to utilize Time Machine for the past 6 months. All was going reasonably well until recently. (It would occasionally get stuck backing up and I would have to restart my computer and then backup again, but otherwise ok)
Last week I turned my computer on and it didn't recognize the drive. It gave me the "Initialize" "Ignore" option screen. I tried everything before I tried erasing it, but eventually I decided to lose all of that backed up data and just erase the drive and start from scratch. (I backed up on a different drive prior to trying this.)
Anyway, now when I go into Disk Utility and click on the Erase tab and then try to erase the drive (doesn't matter which erase option I choose) it says it is unable to erase the drive. If it is plugged in w/the Firewire cable then it gives me an "Invalid Argument" error. If it is plugged in with the USB cable, it gives me a input/output failure error.
Does anyone know if I can fix this drive? Any ideas as to what may have caused the problem in the 1st place. Months ago I accidently unplugged the drive without ejecting, but it worked for for a long time after that.
I'm in a bind. I want to sell my MacBook Pro, but my dad threw away the installation DVDs that would allow me to erase the hard drive. What's the best option here? I was thinking that I could purchase the upgrade version of Leopard on Ebay since it's cheaper than the full version of snow leopard... but would that allow me to erase the hard drive?
Is there anyway to erase my hard drive on my old broken mbp? (fried logic board) I want to sell the whole unit, but feel that the only thing i could do is take out the hard drive and sell everything else. Id prefer to not have to dismantle my mbp as it is somewhat time consuming. Is there a way to erase it within the mac?
I have a sata hard drive from an 07 iMac. It was the system drive and today I got a filesystem question mark when booting.
I have already swapped the drive and have the machine back up & running with a backup from 15 days ago. I would like to now go into this drive and try to recover the more recent data.
What I have tried:
Plugging into an external sata interface via usb and it DOES spin up macos recognizes it as a 2tb drive but no file system (this is incorrect, it is a 250gb drive)
I can't seem to find any instructions online about how to do this, step by step. Want to make sure all personal data is erased. I'm interested in performing a full format that at the very least zeros out the data on disk.
Macbook OS X 10.5.8 and a WD 10EAVS 1TB External Hard Drive. That's all. I was given this by a fellow student on campus who was graduating. So I want to use this to store my iTunes Library (my Macbook's hard drive ran out of space). Here's what I do:
- Macbook is turned on and running
- I plug the external hard drive into a working outlet --> Hard drive turns on
- I plug the external hard drive into the mac using a USB connection --> Disk Insertion Error message: the disk you insterted was not readable by this computer
- It is not readable so I open it in Disk Utility (the hard drive is listed/recognized)
- I attempt to erase and/or partition the hard drive in order to format it in Mac OS Extended OR Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but I get one of these two messages: "Disk Erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed." OR "Disk Erase failed with the error: The underlying task reported failure on exit."
I attempted to look up what these mean or how to fix the problem but nothing is really working. I was able to format the hardware line to MS-DOS (FAT) and the sub-line as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but I don't even know if that's right or not.Basically, I need my computer to recognize this hard drive whenever I plug it in and to run smoothly as "extra space" to store my music on.I haven't had A LOT of experience with external hard drives but enough to get things done. But this problem is a killer.
first off, long time MacRumors reader, finally joined the forum now in search of some aid.There are some other threads on a similar topic I know, but I was hoping for some So, the Hard drive in question is a Western Digital 5400rpm 320gig purchased from Amazon about 8 months ago, now the Hard drive has decided to die. I saw some early signs, but did not realise that the drive was in that bad of a condition at the time. Now, when attempting to boot into Mac OS X I get stuck at the Apple logo, with the little wheel spinning infinitely. I had a boot camp partition which worked, but could not help me and is no longer an option either. I tried using the Leopard boot disk, but Disk utility didnt do anything for me in terms of recovery or repair, I attempted to use the terminal to make an Image of the drive on an external, but it fails about 10% through, I'm assuming from corrupted data.
A few months ago it was dropped and would not boot past the Apple screen. I presumed it was faulty from the fall and instead of repairing it I figured I would just buy a new computer.
Anyway I have just purchased a new MBP 13" and I'm trying to get everything off my old laptop. It is going into target disk mode but the MBP isn't picking it up.
It is finding it in the disk utility but its just showing the beachball. To make matters worse I can't boot from a CD as the Superdrive is just chucking out CD's (guessing its bent from the fall).
Guessing its dead and Im going to have to try and get it data recovered, just seeing if there are any other ideas?
