Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

mindblah

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 14, 2011
1
0
Right off the bat I'll admit it was stupid to jump into trying to install Mavericks to the only partition without having taken adequate precautions (no backups or recovery disks), but unfortunately it's done. (the failed installation attempt, not the installation itself!)

I'm on a mid-2011 MBP that was running Lion. I attempted to install Mavericks DP from the installer on my HD. The system rebooted and the installation started, but after 1 minute into the estimated 43 minutes for the installation to complete, I get an "Install Failed" message: "OS X could not be installed on your computer. The OS X upgrade couldn't be started because the disk Lion DP GM is damaged and can't be repaired. After your computer restarts, back up your data, erase your disk, and try installing again. Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again."

Restarting just repeats the process and the same problem recurs. I went into "Disk Utility" from the Installer's menu, and trying to verify the offending volume returns "This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk". Unfortunately the "Repair Disk" option stays greys out.

Is there any way I can "revoke" the installation process (via the Terminal perhaps?) and get back to my previous set up with Lion (without losing data, obviously), so I can start over the right way this time?

Any advice is appreciated.
 

r0k

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,611
75
Detroit
Right off the bat I'll admit it was stupid to jump into trying to install Mavericks to the only partition without having taken adequate precautions (no backups or recovery disks), but unfortunately it's done. (the failed installation attempt, not the installation itself!)

I'm on a mid-2011 MBP that was running Lion. I attempted to install Mavericks DP from the installer on my HD. The system rebooted and the installation started, but after 1 minute into the estimated 43 minutes for the installation to complete, I get an "Install Failed" message: "OS X could not be installed on your computer. The OS X upgrade couldn't be started because the disk Lion DP GM is damaged and can't be repaired. After your computer restarts, back up your data, erase your disk, and try installing again. Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again."

Restarting just repeats the process and the same problem recurs. I went into "Disk Utility" from the Installer's menu, and trying to verify the offending volume returns "This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk". Unfortunately the "Repair Disk" option stays greys out.

Is there any way I can "revoke" the installation process (via the Terminal perhaps?) and get back to my previous set up with Lion (without losing data, obviously), so I can start over the right way this time?

Any advice is appreciated.

I would think you can reboot holding down option and pick the recovery HD. Hopefully the FIRST thing wiped during a Mavericks install is NOT the recovery HD and you can get Lion back using recovery. Once you have Lion back, I suggest you resize Macintosh HD using Disk Utility and create a test partition to install Mavericks. It will install just fine on an empty partition. I know because that's what I did. I used a USB disk and created 2 test partitions on the thing and put 10.9 DP on one of them. It boots fine. My Macintosh HD is untouched. I also named my target partition Mavs so there was no chance I would pick the wrong "Macintosh HD" to install 10.9 on. :eek:

I have 2 continuous backups and one occasional backup. I use Time Machine to a Time Capsule over the network. I use crashplan, but mostly to back up my documents. Lastly, I use CCC whenever I'm doing a drive upgrade or migration. If 2 out of 3 of these should blow up, hopefully the third one provides recovery of much of my data.

Good news! In the release notes it says reinstallation from the recovery partition is NOT supported. Hopefully this means DP1 leaves the recovery partition alone and you can use it to get back to your previous OS. Looks like you may have lucked out on this.
 
Last edited:

cactus26

macrumors newbie
Nov 18, 2013
1
0
Right off the bat I'll admit it was stupid to jump into trying to install Mavericks to the only partition without having taken adequate precautions (no backups or recovery disks), but unfortunately it's done. (the failed installation attempt, not the installation itself!)

I'm on a mid-2011 MBP that was running Lion. I attempted to install Mavericks DP from the installer on my HD. The system rebooted and the installation started, but after 1 minute into the estimated 43 minutes for the installation to complete, I get an "Install Failed" message: "OS X could not be installed on your computer. The OS X upgrade couldn't be started because the disk Lion DP GM is damaged and can't be repaired. After your computer restarts, back up your data, erase your disk, and try installing again. Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again."

Restarting just repeats the process and the same problem recurs. I went into "Disk Utility" from the Installer's menu, and trying to verify the offending volume returns "This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk". Unfortunately the "Repair Disk" option stays greys out.

Is there any way I can "revoke" the installation process (via the Terminal perhaps?) and get back to my previous set up with Lion (without losing data, obviously), so I can start over the right way this time?

Any advice is appreciated.

I got same exact problem, can you please share your solution? if you got it fixed.

Thank you..!
 

Akira Yashiro

macrumors newbie
Jun 5, 2015
1
0
I removed Apple slow HD in Mac mini late 2012 388LL/A and installed Samsung CT 550 256SSD and 1TB HGST 7200 drive and created a Fusion drive 1.25TB. When I try to install Mavericks OS from Apple Restore site, it failed. I also used an original Apple Installation DVD to install which also failed. Stalled screen says "cannot install Mac OS on this disk. Reboot and try install again.” I did PRAM set too but the same message goes on and on for two days without being able to install Mavs. I checked partition using Disk Utility but it says OK. I try to resize the partition but it doesn’t allow me to change it.I have been spending 2 straight days to install Mavericks on the Mac mini all in vain. Could anyone help me by providing a possible solution? P.S. I also tried to install using external Mavericks OS Installer (USB flash drive). Thank you !
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.