Disk Utility Problems - Emergency, Please Help!

[smallnshort247]

Hi guys,

So I accidentally deleted Facetime on Lion, so I tried to bring it back via Time Machine, except it brought back all 10GB of my apps. I obviously didn't want that, so then I just figured I'd go into the Lion boot settings (when you boot up and hold the option key and go into the OS settings. So in Mac OS X Utilities, I went into Disk Utility and erase and tried to create a new partition just to make sure it was fully erased. Except now when I try to install Lion, it can't find my internal hard drive. I think it says that it's locked or something? It's grayed out in disk utilities now. So how can I make it so that I can re-install Lion on that hard drive inside my MBP? I'm leaving for a family reunion tomorrow and I REALLY need my Mac since I'll be doing video editing and uploading pictures to it. Thanks for your help!!!

 

[treestar]

Try to erase the entire drive. Maybe you are trying to erase only one partition of the drive. I don't know why you aren't seeing either partitions in the installer. You should be installing Lion from a DVD or a USB boot disk now.

 

[smallnshort247]

Try to erase the entire drive. Maybe you are trying to erase only one partition of the drive. I don't know why you aren't seeing either partitions in the installer. You should be installing Lion from a DVD or a USB boot disk now.

I've tried that too. But when I go in to either restore from time machine or do a clean install of Lion, it never brings up my HDD as a drive I can use. Only my external drive.

 

[treestar]

Try the Repair Disk option. If the disk shows up ghosted in the sidebar and repairing doesn't help, there is a chance it's corrupted or has failed. It seems unlikely though. Disk Utility should be able to fix the problem if it is fixable. You can usually mount problematic drives when you run a Linux Live CD and you can reformat from there. Other than that, pop your HDD into another computer or an external enclosure and try to mount and repair it that way, but those aren't common methods in everyone's reach.

If you are running the Lion installer from a DVD or a USB disk and you can't get Disk Utility to mount, repair, or erase the HDD then you are in bad shape. Maybe you can try your old Snow Leopard install disc.

 

[smallnshort247]

Try the Repair Disk option. If the disk shows up ghosted in the sidebar and repairing doesn't help, there is a chance it's corrupted or has failed. It seems unlikely though. Disk Utility should be able to fix the problem if it is fixable. You can usually mount problematic drives when you run a Linux Live CD and you can reformat from there. Other than that, pop your HDD into another computer or an external enclosure and try to mount and repair it that way, but those aren't common methods in everyone's reach.

If you are running the Lion installer from a DVD or a USB disk and you can't get Disk Utility to mount, repair, or erase the HDD then you are in bad shape. Maybe you can try your old Snow Leopard install disc.

I think one of the two things you said before did the trick. Now it's restoring my time machine backup and will take about 4 hours. Thanks so much for your help!!

 

[treestar]

I'm glad. Enjoy your family!