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

Deleted all partitions, Now cant boot or anything. Help!

F

Fatalix

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 2, 2016
5
0
Hello, im new in this forum.
I recently bought a macbook with Yosemite installed.

I decided to reinstall the whole thing through disk utility, but ended up formatting the whole thing. Recovery disk, Mac disc, the whole thing. When i try to boot it up, a folder with a flashing ? comes up. I tried to download different .amg installations and make a bootable usb on a Windows pc in Trashmap with the Mac osx yosemite AMG file on it, but i cant even get anything to select when i boot up Recovery or when pressing alt down. Keep on getting White screen or this folder flashing no matter what i do. Downloaded 5 different os x bootable installations..

Im kind of stuck here. Have been messing around for days. Is my only option is to buy a new harddrive to get it up running?

Ive by mistake deleted everything and forgot to make a new partition i guess, and now it doesnt know what to boot up on.

Can anyone help here?
Thanks
 
It would help to know which model of Mac you have.

Since we do not know, if your Mac is new enough you can boot to Internet Recovery (Command-Option-R) and restore the OS your Mac shipped with.

Another option is to buy a bootable USB thumb drive with the Yosemite installer from eBay.

EDIT: For the future, it is a good idea to have a recent complete backup before reinstalling a OS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fatalix
CoastalOR said:
It would help to know which model of Mac you have.

Since we do not know, if your Mac is new enough you can boot to Internet Recovery (Command-Option-R) and restore the OS your Mac shipped with.

Another option is to buy a bootable USB thumb drive with the Yosemite installer from eBay.
Click to expand...

It is new enough to use the internet Recovery, but when i try it doesnt come up with anything. Just becomes blank.
Its an old Macbook, 2011 ish, came with yosemite. I bought it off a friend, so no Apple id connected to it either... Thats why i began with the bootable USB installing. Got stuck at the installer when it wanted Appleid.

Problem is i cannot get it to boot from the USB. Cannot get anything up to make me choice what to boot. When i try to get it into Recovery, no partitions show up. Its just blank! Or shows up this flashing folder :/
 
Internet Recovery does not work if it's an Early 2011 and even if it has the firmware patch for it you could not install Lion, because you never bought it. On a Late 2011 it should work.

Does it have still an optical drive? Than you could buy Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on DVD and update it to 10.6.8 to get the App Store. Then you can upgrade to El Capitan 10.11.2 for free.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Have you tried an SMC and NVRAM reset?
 
OP: You can't boot from USB unless you have a bootable Mac OS on the external USB HD and hold the Option key at startup to select the external USB drive as the startup.

There is no such thing as a 2011 Macbook (the closest is Mid 2010 then a 2015). Do you have 2011 MacBook Pro 15" with a dGPU? They have a known problem with the dGPU failing and causing a unusable computer.
 
I also expected it is a MB Pro. You should look at the backside for the model number and year. But don't post the Serial Number (S/N) in the forum. I can look for a website, where you can type it in to identify the exact model.

https://checkcoverage.apple.com
 
CoastalOR said:
OP: You can't boot from USB unless you have a bootable Mac OS on the external USB HD and hold the Option key at startup to select the external USB drive as the startup.

There is no such thing as a 2011 Macbook (the closest is Mid 2010 then a 2015). Do you have 2011 MacBook Pro 15" with a dGPU? They have a known problem with the dGPU failing and causing a unusable computer.
Click to expand...

Its pretty scratchy at the back so its unreable. Its a 13" MacBook, NOT pro.
I tried to make a bootable USB on Windows 10, for macbook with Yosemite on it, but nothing shows up when i boot up pressing option key down, or cmd+r.
I tried the reset cmd+opt+r+p, and nothing changes either.

It does have an optical drive yes, but how Can i install the new os from a cd, when i cannot see any harddrives?

My MacBook was fully functional before i decided to reformat. It all screwed up when i deleted the partitions in Disk Utility.
 
Erdbeertorte said:
Internet Recovery does not work if it's an Early 2011 and even if it has the firmware patch for it you could not install Lion, because you never bought it. On a Late 2011 it should work.

Does it have still an optical drive? Than you could buy Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on DVD and update it to 10.6.8 to get the App Store. Then you can upgrade to El Capitan 10.11.2 for free.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Have you tried an SMC and NVRAM reset?
Click to expand...

It had a recovery drive untill i formatted it all away... Tried cmd+opt+r+P, no changes :/
 
Fatalix said:
Its a 13" MacBook, NOT pro.
I tried to make a bootable USB on Windows 10, for macbook with Yosemite on it, but nothing shows up when i boot up pressing option key down, or cmd+r.
I tried the reset cmd+opt+r+p, and nothing changes either.
It does have an optical drive yes, but how Can i install the new os from a cd, when i cannot see any hard drives.
Click to expand...
I have not read of anyone successfully making a Mac bootable USB installer with Windows 10 and it appears it has not worked for you.

You can use the gray install DVD that came with your MB (they should contain Lion OS 10.5) if you have them.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+OS+X+10.5+Leopard/751
Hold the c key on startup after the DVD is already in the optical drive. Once you started from the DVD then you can partition, format, and then install OS 10.5. Then you have to work your way back to OS 10.10. I think you may have to install OS 10.6.8 before jumping to to 10.10.5. If you do need to install OS 10.6 first then you would have to buy it if you don't already have the DVD.

Do you already have the full installer app for Yosemite available (the app is named "Install OS X Yosemite" and is 5.73 Gb)?

I think it would be easier to buy a full Yosemite USB thumb drive installer from eBay as mentioned in my post #2. Boot from the USB thumb drive, partition/format your drive, and then install Yosemite. Done.
 
OP:

Do you have an Apple Store anywhere nearby?
I suggest you take it to them and ask for help. You seem to be flopping around like a fish here.

Does the friend you bought it from have any Apple install DVD's?

There are (cough) "non-official" places from which to obtain copies of the Mac OS, but you have to be careful about which one you try. Some work, others don't.

I think your best bet would be to get ahold of a 16gb flash drive, take it to the Apple Store, and see if you can get a version of the OS capable of booting and installing to your MacBook on it...
 
Meanwhile, let me ask my question here.
I did the same and now all partitions are deleted and I don't have any Mac OS DVD/DMG to boot.
Windows DVD can boot itself but can't be installed saying the partition is in GPT format and is not able to make a partition of its own.
Assuming that I don't need any Mac OS at the moment, is there a way just to make a FAT partition and install Windows there?
 
shahnazari said:
Meanwhile, let me ask my question here.
I did the same and now all partitions are deleted and I don't have any Mac OS DVD/DMG to boot.
Windows DVD can boot itself but can't be installed saying the partition is in GPT format and is not able to make a partition of its own.
Assuming that I don't need any Mac OS at the moment, is there a way just to make a FAT partition and install Windows there?
Click to expand...

You have to delete every partition on your Mac with in the Windows installer. Then create a new one, what will be formatted to NTFS and you should be able to install Windows only.

Without the EFI Partition a Mac is nothing else than any other PC, you just don't have a BIOS.
 
Last edited:
Erdbeertorte said:
You have to delete every partition on your Mac with in the Windows installer. Then create a new one, what will be formatted to NTFS and you should be able to install Windows only.

Without the EFI Partition a Mac is nothing else than any other PC, you just don't have a BIOS.
Click to expand...

I did the same. Deleted all partitions and made just one 'Unallocated' partition. But when I click "New" and set any size for a partition it does nothing, no partition is added!
Even I went further today, ran 'diskpart' using cmd (Shift + F10) and changed the disk format to MBR which then let me install the windows but in the middle encountered an error saying it misses a file or sth like that and from then on it says the BIOS does not let you install windows on this partition.
Now trying to make a bootable USB of EL Capitan and refurbish everything from the beginning.
 
shahnazari said:
I did the same. Deleted all partitions and made just one 'Unallocated' partition. But when I click "New" and set any size for a partition it does nothing, no partition is added!
Even I went further today, ran 'diskpart' using cmd (Shift + F10) and changed the disk format to MBR which then let me install the windows but in the middle encountered an error saying it misses a file or sth like that and from then on it says the BIOS does not let you install windows on this partition.
Now trying to make a bootable USB of EL Capitan and refurbish everything from the beginning.
Click to expand...

Maybe something changed in the Firmware since I have done that. Must have been in 2010 on a Late 2009 27" iMac, from what I can remember. Also it was probably Windows XP.
 
Erdbeertorte said:
Maybe something changed in the Firmware since I have done that. Must have been in 2010 on a Late 2009 27" iMac, from what I can remember. Also it was probably Windows XP.
Click to expand...

Yeah certain changes must have been done so far.
Now I'm making an EL Capitan MAC bootable USB with my PC via TransMac app but it's about 4 hours of copying the files and has reached 85% !!!
Patience must be taken into account for such things !
I'll post the results for further assistance.
 
Managed to Install Windows 10 using a merely 64bit version DVD (Thank God it is equipped with a DVD drive since I couldn't boot it with my Windows 10 Bootable USB).
Made a Bootable Mac EL Capitan using TransMac in my PC (after a long formatting procedure) but the Mac doesn't recognize it as an external bootable device.
Did so by PowerISO and again no success in USB recognition.
Burnt the DMG file bootable on a DVD (9GB) by PowerISO and again no success in booting the Mac with either of them.
:(
Any solution (Except internet recovery)?
 
Once more, thanks to the DVD drive !
Finally bough a Yosemite DVD from local sore and now trying to resolve all issues.
Ouff...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back