Impossible to install Lion / Snow Leopard

[Thorin]

Hi everyone!

I'm posting here because I'm pretty much running out of ideas on how to get my MBP (mid-2010, 13", 2.4ghz) to get back together with OSX.

At some point, I got massive slowdowns in Lion and tried to reboot but couldn't, and was eventually redirected to 10.7's recovery partition. Repair disk utility told me this disk could not be repaired and I had to format, which I did, but since then I haven't been able to install OS X at all..

I've first tried to install Lion from the recovery partition, no success.
Then I've tried to install it from a bootable USB stick. Same fate.
Then I've tried to install SL with the original DVD. failed again.
(all of those operations were tried several times on a GUID partitioned, S.M.A.R.T.-verified HDD, on an OS X extended journalized partition)

I've run the apple hardware test which found a 4 hdd/11/40000004: sata (0,0) error.

As a last option I've tried to install windows 7, and there comes the big surprise, it works flawlessly -I mean as flawlessly as a windows can work - ! (I'm writing this message from my windows partition...)

My question is, why can't I install OS X? If my HDD was dead, I guess W7 wouldn't work either, would it?

 

[QuarterSwede]

Did you try wiping the entire drive (partitions and all) and starting clean?

 

[Thorin]

Yup, done that, converted the whole thing into empty space. Sadly, it didn't work ...

Thanks for trying though !

 

[QuarterSwede]

It has to be hardware related or some really basic level software glitch. I'd call Apple or take it in.

 

[Thorin]

To keep you guys posted, the HDD got from bad to worse (long boot times, restorations, etc.) until it finally died two days ago, after 18 months..

I just ordered a Seagate Momentus XT 320 gigs, we'll see how that works !