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Help, Erased iMac HDD volume drive trying reset my iMac to factory conditions

Weaselboy said:
Boot to the USB drive then start Disk Utility. Can you see the internal drive from there? If not, it sounds like you have a failed drive and need a new one. A bad internal cable can also cause this, but that is less common.
Click to expand...

If I use the USB and go to disk utility it only shows my external drive. If I boot without the USB and go to disk utility through internet recovery mode it only shows SuperDrive, disk0 and Mac OS X base system.

I have been looking all over the internet about what could possibly be wrong with it. After reading a couple of posts and repeatedly seeing things about failed hard drive or something about SATA cables I figured that might be what was wrong, but I just wanted to make sure before I go out and buy a new hard drive or cable or take it to the Apple Store a
 
Yes, the superdrive is your optical drive, of course.
The Mac OS X base system is the system that you are booted to, which is likely that you are not booted to your local drive at all, but to the internet recovery system, which is on Apple's remote servers.
The other drive, disk0, is simply a unix designation that shows some device that is not set up properly. If your internal drive (the hard drive) was working at all, you SHOULD see the name of your hard drive partition, such as Macintosh HD - or some other name that might be familiar to you.
The disk0 label is really your clue that the hard drive needs to be replaced.

This would be a good time to upgrade from a spinning HDD, to an SSD. It will give you a very noticeable speed increase, plus it will actually be working :D
 
DeltaMac said:
Yes, the superdrive is your optical drive, of course.
The Mac OS X base system is the system that you are booted to, which is likely that you are not booted to your local drive at all, but to the internet recovery system, which is on Apple's remote servers.
The other drive, disk0, is simply a unix designation that shows some device that is not set up properly. If your internal drive (the hard drive) was working at all, you SHOULD see the name of your hard drive partition, such as Macintosh HD - or some other name that might be familiar to you.
The disk0 label is really your clue that the hard drive needs to be replaced.

This would be a good time to upgrade from a spinning HDD, to an SSD. It will give you a very noticeable speed increase, plus it will actually be working :D
Click to expand...

I will definitely look into doing that, thank you for suggesting it! Hopefully I will be able to get my Mac looked at / fixed soon.
 
emprice14 said:
If I use the USB and go to disk utility it only shows my external drive. If I boot without the USB and go to disk utility through internet recovery mode it only shows SuperDrive, disk0 and Mac OS X base system.
Click to expand...

It does sound like you have failed drive there. It is less common, but a bad internal drive cable can cause this also.
 
i have this problem too... i have a 2014 late imac 21.5... i tried command+option+r and command+option+r+p... its not worked... later i created mac os boot usb and its not worked... what will i do to solve the problem? is there any a idea?
 
evenft said:
i have this problem too... i have a 2014 late imac 21.5... i tried command+option+r and command+option+r+p... its not worked... later i created mac os boot usb and its not worked... what will i do to solve the problem? is there any a idea?
Click to expand...

If you let it boot thru, do you end up having a flashing folder with a question mark? When you use the recovery command key, do you get the apple loading bar, then it flash to white screen?
 
nope its not seems.. in the beginnig its starting black screen and later starts to flash question mark screen... of course i pushed command+r and other combinations... it was not to being anything... now i thinking and searching internet what will i do? @Joolsc
 
evenft said:
nope its not seems.. in the beginnig its starting black screen and later starts to flash question mark screen... of course i pushed command+r and other combinations... it was not to being anything... now i thinking and searching internet what will i do? @Joolsc
Click to expand...

You may have to take it to an Authorized Apple Agent to have a look. For myself, I have the 27" 2011 model and it does have issues with the graphics card. All the symptoms were ending up having white screen (maybe black screen in later models). Because there was a graphics card replacement program, I took the risk to get it looked at and managed to get the graphics card replaced under warranty (I was 2yrs out of warranty, thanks Apple).
 
evenft said:
nope its not seems.. in the beginnig its starting black screen and later starts to flash question mark screen... of course i pushed command+r and other combinations... it was not to being anything... now i thinking and searching internet what will i do? @Joolsc
Click to expand...
I suspect that your drive is failing, or completely failed.
Do you have a hard drive, or the optional Fusion drive?
Your 2014 21-inch iMac is not easy to repair, as the display has to be literally cut open (it is assembled with tape/glue)

Try a reset again.
Unplug completely, and leave for 5 or 10 minutes. Plug in what you need to boot up again.
Press and release the power button, then hold Option-Command-P-R.
You should hear the boot chime in a few seconds. Keep holding the same 4 keys until you hear the boot chime 2 more times. Release the keys during that second chime, and immediately hold Option-Command-R.
You will see a spinning globe (not the Apple icon). It will take some time to boot to that Internet Recovery.
Run Disk Utility to test the drive.
If you only see the Apple icon, and again fails to boot to anything, then you need to go ahead with replacing the drive. You have probably lost everything, unless you have a recent backup of your drive.
 
Weaselboy said:
It does sound like you have failed drive there. It is less common, but a bad internal drive cable can cause this also.
Click to expand...


You seem to be helping everyone, would you be able to help me out? I've just purchased a Mac A1181 for my girlfriend. It was under some girls admin name and they didn't know the password so nothing could be done, I decided to factory reset it following online instructions. I tried deleting the hard drive and now whwnever I click Reinstall MAC OS X and put in my Email/Password for my Apple ID it doesn't let me re-install it, it just says ''This Item Is Temporarily Unavailable'' I've also tried doing the partition thing and it says unable to unmount disk.

I don't know what to do as it won't bring up the desktop at all anymore, whenever I turn it on it just brings me straight to MAC OS X Utilities and I don't know what to do to get past it, thank you!
[doublepost=1477969571][/doublepost]
Weaselboy said:
It does sound like you have failed drive there. It is less common, but a bad internal drive cable can cause this also.
Click to expand...

I've just tried again, I've clicked Install MAC OS X and it says

''MAX OS X Lion
Mac OS X will be installed on the disk ''Mac OS X Base System''

Above it is Recovery HD with 650 MB total and 129.9 MB available
 
Viciously said:
You seem to be helping everyone, would you be able to help me out? I've just purchased a Mac A1181 for my girlfriend. It was under some girls admin name and they didn't know the password so nothing could be done, I decided to factory reset it following online instructions. I tried deleting the hard drive and now whwnever I click Reinstall MAC OS X and put in my Email/Password for my Apple ID it doesn't let me re-install it, it just says ''This Item Is Temporarily Unavailable'' I've also tried doing the partition thing and it says unable to unmount disk.

I don't know what to do as it won't bring up the desktop at all anymore, whenever I turn it on it just brings me straight to MAC OS X Utilities and I don't know what to do to get past it, thank you!
[doublepost=1477969571][/doublepost]

I've just tried again, I've clicked Install MAC OS X and it says

''MAX OS X Lion
Mac OS X will be installed on the disk ''Mac OS X Base System''

Above it is Recovery HD with 650 MB total and 129.9 MB available
Click to expand...

What year model is this? A1181 spans a few years.

It sounds like the previous owner updated it to Lion under their AppleID, and now you are trying to install Lion, but you do not have a Lion purchase attached to your AppleID.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

Do you have access to another Mac? You can go to this link and buy Lion, then Apple will send you a code you can redeem in the Mac App Store for Lion. Once that is done, Lion will be tied to your AppleID, then you should be able to install it on the other Mac.
 
Weaselboy said:
What year model is this? A1181 spans a few years.

It sounds like the previous owner updated it to Lion under their AppleID, and now you are trying to install Lion, but you do not have a Lion purchase attached to your AppleID.

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion

Do you have access to another Mac? You can go to this link and buy Lion, then Apple will send you a code you can redeem in the Mac App Store for Lion. Once that is done, Lion will be tied to your AppleID, then you should be able to install it on the other Mac.
Click to expand...

I think it's a 2007 man, that was definitely the case I think. he doesn't seem to be very helpful either, I'm trying to install Lion but unfortunately deleted the whole hard drive. Will I still be able to installl it on any hard drive? I don't have another mac but thankfully have that link open in the British version, would I be able to buy it on a PC under my Apple ID and then it could work? I'm on a windows PC currently.
 
Viciously said:
I've just purchased a Mac A1181 for my girlfriend.
Click to expand...
Viciously said:
I think it's a 2007 man, that was definitely the case I think. I'm trying to install Lion but unfortunately deleted the whole hard drive.
Click to expand...
The iMac A1181 does not exist in any year (including intel 2006 - 2007)?
iMac early 2006 17" = A1173 (max OS = 10.6.8)
iMac early 2006 20" = A1174 (max OS = 10.6.8)
iMac mid 2006 17" = A1195 (max OS = 10.6.8)
iMac late 2006 CD 17" = A1195 (max OS = 10.7.5)
iMac late 2006 17" = A1208 (max OS = 10.7.5)
iMac late 2006 20" = A1207 (max OS = 10.7.5)
iMac 24" (2006-Aug 2007)= A1200 (max OS = 10.7.5)
iMac mid 2007 20" = A1224 (max OS = 10.11.6)
iMac mid 2007 24" = A1225 (max OS = 10.11.6)

I'm not sure what OS your iMac will support since A1181 is not a valid model number for iMacs. Do you know what size screen you have?
Viciously said:
I'm trying to install Lion but unfortunately deleted the whole hard drive. Will I still be able to installl it on any hard drive? I don't have another mac but thankfully have that link open in the British version, would I be able to buy it on a PC under my Apple ID and then it could work? I'm on a windows PC currently.
Click to expand...
You can only install Lion on a Apple formatted hard drive.

You can buy Lion from your Apple link, but Apple will send you a redemption code to download Lion that can only be downloaded from the Mac App Store app (Apple Macs only).

Bootable Lion USB installers can be purchased from Amazon or eBay.
 
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Weaselboy said:
Yup... you goofed. :D

Option key boot to your TM disk then go the the Utilities menu and start Terminal. Then enter the command below. That will blow off that core storage volume you have there. Make sure you do it just like I have it including the quotes.

Then quit Terminal and start Disk Util and reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click restore and drink an adult beverage while everything gets put back in place.

Code: 
diskutil cs delete "Macintosh HD"
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1480846472][/doublepost]Weaselboy, after searching everywhere and trying a million things it seems very possible you may be the only person in the world who understands this issue that seems rather common. I have an IMac which I purchased from someone else, I did receive everything with it including the books however, there are no disc. Anyway, I have had the computer about six months it has worked flawlessly to make a long story short a few weeks ago I was going to reset the computer back to factory settings just because I had so much saved to the computer from college that was no longer needed. Anyway somehow I either completely deleted the MAC HD or I created a new image, either way now it boots to a white screen with a circle and a diagonal line through it on apple support it says that it is booting to the wrong volume.

I have tried everything yet cannot get it to reinstall nor revert back to the original settings. I am able to get into the internet recovery, and can actually ask for 'help" and connect to the internet When I attempt to reinstall OS x it tells me it is temp unavailable, to try again later. I seen on another site where i should sign into apple and then retry it which worked for some people, but not me.

I start classes again very shortly and need desperately to get this resolved. I am willing to pay for assistance, I just need help to make it worse I am from a very small town with the closest apple store being three hours away, and not having the original paper work i am not sure they would assist me if i were to make the drive. I know this forum is old but i am hoping that you still get these notifications and can help me. I can take some photos and upload with my phone if I need to, I can give you my number and you can call me, just anything that works for you. Thank you for your time and hopefully help.

Angie
 
Angie Robertson said:
I am able to get into the internet recovery...
Click to expand...

Okay... this is good and maybe we can work with this.

First tell me what year model this iMac is?

When you hold command-option-r (all three at once) then select wifi, do you then see a spinning globe while Internet recovery downloads. It should look like this.

starting-internet-recovery-mac-os-x-610x432.jpg


Then you should see this recovery screen. Are you seeing that?

OS-X_Utilities.jpg


It is important you get the globe first and then the recovery screen, otherwise you are in regular recovery and not Internet recovery.

Sio if you can get to this screen, start Disk Utility and tell me what you see?
 
Hi there
It looks that i have the simular problem as the persons above.I have deleted my hd memory:p
Do you have any suggestions what should i do?
 

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matijaaa said:
Hi there
It looks that i have the simular problem as the persons above.I have deleted my hd memory:p
Do you have any suggestions what should i do?
Click to expand...
Can you tell us what lead up to this and exactly what you did?

That base system is a installer image, and you won't be able to do anything to that partition.

If you hold command-option-r at boot and pick your wifi you should see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Do you see that?

Then you should see the recovery screen. From there use Disk Utility to format the disk. Click the erase tab in Disk Utility then select the disk at the top of the left column. Then select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in the dropdown to the right and apply that format. Then quit Disk Utility.

Now click install OS from the main recovery screen.
 
HI, IS THERE A POSSIBILITY YOU CAN HELP ME WITH A SIMILAR PROBLEM? I DONT KNOW HOW OLD IS THIS POSTS BUT I DONT KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING AND I AM DESPERATE. CAN WE CHAT/ MESSAGE/ KIK?


Weaselboy said:
Can you tell us what lead up to this and exactly what you did?

That base system is a installer image, and you won't be able to do anything to that partition.

If you hold command-option-r at boot and pick your wifi you should see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Do you see that?

Then you should see the recovery screen. From there use Disk Utility to format the disk. Click the erase tab in Disk Utility then select the disk at the top of the left column. Then select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in the dropdown to the right and apply that format. Then quit Disk Utility.

Now click install OS from the main recovery screen.
Click to expand...
 
secDJ said:
HI, IS THERE A POSSIBILITY YOU CAN HELP ME WITH A SIMILAR PROBLEM? I DONT KNOW HOW OLD IS THIS POSTS BUT I DONT KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING AND I AM DESPERATE. CAN WE CHAT/ MESSAGE/ KIK?
Click to expand...
I got your PM. Run each of these two commands in Terminal then tell me the output of each. This will allow me to see your disk layout.

Code: 
diskutil list

diskutil cs list
 
Weaselboy said:
Yup... you goofed. :D

Option key boot to your TM disk then go the the Utilities menu and start Terminal. Then enter the command below. That will blow off that core storage volume you have there. Make sure you do it just like I have it including the quotes.

Then quit Terminal and start Disk Util and reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click restore and drink an adult beverage while everything gets put back in place.

Code: 
diskutil cs delete "Macintosh HD"
Click to expand...

Good evening sir! I'm having a problem with my mac, can you please help me? I tried everything I could but I still cannot detect the hard drive. I accidentally erased the drive and now in os x utilities, everything I click startup disk, I see nothing. When I boot it up, it shows white screen and a folder with question mark. Do you know this?
 
juliodexplorer said:
Good evening sir! I'm having a problem with my mac, can you please help me? I tried everything I could but I still cannot detect the hard drive. I accidentally erased the drive and now in os x utilities, everything I click startup disk, I see nothing. When I boot it up, it shows white screen and a folder with question mark. Do you know this?
Click to expand...
What year and model Mac do you have?
 
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