HELP!!! Mountain Lion Install Error, computer won't boot!

jikmgeo said:

Today I downloaded OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Once it finished, I installed it. It rebooted and came up with the error "Install Failed, Macinstosh HD is damaged and cannot be repaired". Macintosh HD is (and has been) operating correctly, after running tests on it about 1 week ago. But, the worst part is that when I boot into the Recovery Partion of the HD, it will not let me reinstall Lion, it just comes up with the error "Error", no discription. Already called Apple, they could not fix it. Anyone else had this problem? Please help, thanks.

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Boot from a USB or external HD maybe and then run disk utility again, format and reinstall.

If you bought a mac with install media in the box, boot up using the install CD, and in the menu bar at the top, you can find an option to format the disk. All that awaits you then is a clean install.

Same install error with Mountain Lion

I've got exactly the same install error on an iMac. Will have to see if I have a CD copy of install media.

Didn't plan on spending my whole day sorting out install problems!

Have now run Snow Leopard installation disk. When I ran Disk Utility I get the message: Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.

I also tried running Repair Disk and got exactly the same error message.

Does this mean I should just buy a new hard drive and start with a clean install?

my problem too

the same thing, buy a ML on mac app store, and mi Macintoch HD doesnt boot, the instalation fails, repair disk is unavailable, i dont know what to do. hoping apple help us!

Same for me. Unable to install. Unable to repair disk. Unable to reboot back into lion. I called apple and all they can suggest is taking it in for a replacement disk! Strange how the disk was fine yesterday and not today!

Same install error

I have the same install error. I have no install disk or utility disk that came with the MacBook Pro when I purchased it 2 years ago. Now what?

I have a similar problem. I have a 13 month old MacBook Pro, which came with Snow Leopard, which I got a free upgrade to Lion. The MacBook has been great over these last few months till MountainLion came along, I downloaded ML from the app store today, and went on to install it. At the installation I got as far as installing for 37mins then it said error occurred and came up with a damaged HD message. When I restarted, it came back up to the installation of ML, tried again and didn't work. Apparently this was a problem last year for a few "rare" folk who tried installing Lion.

So I tried restoring time machine, unfortunately it couldn't find a HD to restore onto, I then tried reinstalling Lion, it said my HD was locked. Went to repair theHD and said it could not be repaired, and I had to reformat it. I am currently reinstalling the original operating system which is taking ages!

Going to take it to the apple store tomorrow for them to have a look at, there must be something wrong with ML download for it to cripple a healthy MacBook. Anyone else had similar problems?

I encountered the same problem on my Mid 2009 MBP. I was upgrading from Snow Leopard. I tried installing Mountain Lion from the app store, and it complained about a corrupted disk. The disk was working perfectly fine before the installation attempt. I couldn't get back into my old system, and the installer wouldn't install without repairing the disk. I Solved it like this:

1. Got my old Snow Leopard disk and used it to do a Time Machine Restore.
2. Once restored, I was able to boot back into my Snow Leopard install.
3. Ran disk utility once inside of Snow Leopard and ran another verify on the disk, which showed no errors.
4. Ran a "Repair Permissions" and it repaired some messed up permissions.
5. Then I created a Mountain Lion install USB using instructions off google. (just in case it wouldn't install again, so I wouldn't need to restore again)
6. Booted the installer off the USB and it installed perfectly.

Works great now. Hope it helps!

Also, if going into the recovery mode always gives you an error message about installing the OS X, just clear your SMC, and it should go away.

So I had the same problem and followed the reinstall snow leopard procedures to the T and it worked perfectly(didn't load from USB just reinstalled) thank you for this suggestion.

My sort-of-ish fix for people who didn't back up AND whose Mac shipped with Lion

For people who (sadly, like me) didn't use Time machine AND had Macs that shipped with Lion=no install media:

Same thing happened to me....Disk Utility claimed it couldn't repair the disk, "so back up as much as you can, erase the drive, and restore the backup". Wether booting from the Install image or the Lion recovery image, either installer freaked out about my Hard Drive that was perfectly fine up till the install.

I guess if you had Time Machine you could go back and try again, but I didn't (and will every day going forward haha)...eventually I got a really crude way to save your files and get to Mountain Lion. (Keep in mind I'm lucky enough to have a second Mac and an external hard drive in the house):

1. Boot the half-installed Mac into Target Disk mode while connected to another Mac through FireWire.

2. On the other Mac, it doesn't mount right away...go to Disk Utility, then File>New>Image from Folder

3. Browse to the "damaged" hard drive under Devices

And this is where it let me open it in Finder. Maybe I just didn't wait long enough, who knows.

4. Go and copy all your files/non-MAS apps into a folder

5. Disconnect and boot your problematic Mac into the Mountain Lion Install Recovery thingy

6. Plug in an external hard drive with 10 GB-ish

7. Run the ML installer and install it on the external drive

8. Boot from that and download the USB Recovery Disk Creator thing from Apple's website

9. Grab a thumb drive (with nothing you care about on it), run the program to create a recovery disk on it (you have to be doing this form the external drive because it loads the specific version of ML to the drive for your specific Mac)

10. Boot from that (the thumb drive), go into Disk Utility, and erase your Hard Drive (after making sure you got EVERYTHING you care about onto the other Mac)

11. Back in the Recovery Menu choose to Reinstall Mountain Lion, select your now-empty hard drive, and it goes about installing like it should have

12. Thanks to iCloud, my Email, Apps, Messages, and things like that were synced on right away...Load everything else back over from the other Mac

13. Sort them back into their folders...



And there. But this seems ridiculous that it's happening to a percentage of users at all (even if its super tiny out of that 3 Million) and that Apple wants to replace your drive. Nothing's wrong with it...Mountain Lion just put mine in a coma and Disk Utility is bugged up enough that even trying to use Restore to back up didn't work...

Hope this helps others with the problem, and Apple......fix this.