Clean Install of Mavericks - Installation Failure

[bluemonk3y]

Trying to do a clean install of Mavericks. I erased my HD and had to re-download Mavericks and after finally finishing, it gets 10 minutes into the install before I get an "Installation Fail" "OS X can not be installed on this computer" then prompts me to restart.

What the heck! What I don't understand is I've done this exact same process with Mountain Lion and had no problems. It's an older MacBook Pro that came shipped with Leopard. I don't have the original discs that came with it (not like it'd work anyway since my drive ejects anything I put in it) and I've done a disc repair on the HD and everything is fine with it. How do I get this working? Or get ANY software on it? I can't afford the time it took to erase the HD and re-download Mavericks, again, so that's out of the question. I don't have another Mac I could download the software onto and make a bootable drive out of. And there's no Apple Store anywhere near me. What should I do?

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Trying to do a clean install of Mavericks. I erased my HD and had to re-download Mavericks and after finally finishing, it gets 10 minutes into the install before I get an "Installation Fail" "OS X can not be installed on this computer" then prompts me to restart.

Did it give you any other information other than the prompt to restart?

What the heck! What I don't understand is I've done this exact same process with Mountain Lion and had no problems.

How did you create the bootable installer?
Did you use Apples built in createinstallmedia command which can be run like this.
The older methods for making a bootable installer don't work with Mavericks, though there is a more involved unofficial manual method similar to Lion/Mountain Lion but it doesn't create the restore partition.

 

[bluemonk3y]

I haven't created a bootable install. I was just saying I don't have the option to to fix this with a bootable install because I can't access anything on my computer except disc utility. With Mountain Lion all I had to do is erase the HD and re-install the software and it worked (same as what I'm doing now with Mavericks) but during the install process it keeps failing. It says:

Install Failed
OS X can not be installed on your computer

The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again.

Then it gives me the option to restarts, and thats it.

 

[Dark Dragoon]

I'm confused as to what you are doing.

You say you don't want to redownload Mavericks, so where did you download it to?

It kind of sounds like you just booted into the recovery partition and wiped your system drive (including the Mavericks installer app if you had it), and are now trying to run internet recovery which would redownload Mavericks anyway as the install files are not located in the Recovery HD partition.

Probably at this point you'll need to reinstall from your Snow Leopard disk so you can access the Mac App Store to redownload Mavericks, and then perform either an in-place upgrade or create a bootable usb installer.

As whatever way you go you would need to download Mavericks again.

 

[Weaselboy]

I haven't created a bootable install. I was just saying I don't have the option to to fix this with a bootable install because I can't access anything on my computer except disc utility. With Mountain Lion all I had to do is erase the HD and re-install the software and it worked (same as what I'm doing now with Mavericks) but during the install process it keeps failing. It says:

Install Failed
OS X can not be installed on your computer

The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again.

Then it gives me the option to restarts, and thats it.

So you initially just did a command-r boot to recovery, then erased Macintosh HD with Disk Util then clicked install OS? If that is what you did, you did nothing wrong. It sounds like the installer is getting disk errors during the install.

Try a command-r boot to recovery again then use Disk Util to do a verify disk and tell us what you get.

 

[bluemonk3y]

sorry i didn't see the last post, i'll try the verify disc thing.

 

[HenryDJP]

sorry i didn't see the last post, i'll try the verify disc thing.

You should use 3rd party tools to do this. The built in Disk Utility's SMART verification doesn't always return proper results. I've had disk drive failures that came up as zero issues using Verify Disk in Disk Utility. I used 3rd part SMART verification tools and it showed the disk failing and Apple verified this as well at their store. You can usually get a 3rd part SMART tool for free. There are a few through Google search.

 

[bluemonk3y]

So you initially just did a command-r boot to recovery, then erased Macintosh HD with Disk Util then clicked install OS? If that is what you did, you did nothing wrong. It sounds like the installer is getting disk errors during the install.

Try a command-r boot to recovery again then use Disk Util to do a verify disk and tell us what you get.

Thats exactly what I'm doing. I verified the disc and it says "The Volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK"

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You should use 3rd party tools to do this. The built in Disk Utility's SMART verification doesn't always return proper results. I've had disk drive failures that came up as zero issues using Verify Disk in Disk Utility. I used 3rd part SMART verification tools and it showed the disk failing and Apple verified this as well at their store. You can usually get a 3rd part SMART tool for free. There are a few through Google search.

I can't access anything on my computer other than the Disc Utility, currently my computer has no software on it considering Mavericks keeps failing to install.

 

[ssls6]

I don't know what computer you have but not all mac's can do internet recovery.

 

[ruparocks]

Did you try to reset your clock? I erased my drive and noticed that the date was incorrect. To fix this, you will need to open terminal and set the date to the current date.

date MMDDHHMMYYYY