Mac OS X Install failed!

[Navigator98]

Hi guys,

Thought I'd upgrade to Lion, because I was getting a little bored with Snow Leopard and I wanted to get the latest Xcode which is only compatible with Lion.

I downloaded the app from the Mac App Store, ran it and at first it seemed fine. Then the computer rebooted, and went to the Mac OS X installer. The install would not progress, and a few minutes later a HUGE exclamation mark came up saying "Install failed".

Tried rebooting, no avail, it went back to the installer...
Tried Disk Utility in the installer, no avail.

Then I remembered I had a backup OS X drive, so I inserted it, booted it up and tried to run Disk Utility on there. It said something like: Macintosh HD cannot be repaired. Backup as many files as possible and erase the drive.

Ok, at that point I was freaking out a little, but I checked in finder and saw I was still able to read from the drive. But I saw the drive had !ONLY! 1,18gb of free space! So I thought, maybe this is the problem... Then I went to my Downloads folder on the Macintosh HD, selected some files, dragged them to Trash and it said something similar to: You have no permission to delete/move these files.

I clicked 'Get Info' on the drive, it said Read only. Then I click the lock (the one you need to authenticate to edit permissions etc) but I was only able to set 'Ignore ownership on this volume'. I still couldn't write to the drive.

So I even tried to insert my Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD, tried Disk utility, but it gave me the same result.

If anyone could help me, I would be very thankful, as erasing the files is no option for me. The Macintosh HD is still completely intact, the installer only created some new folders named Mac OS X Install data etc...

Thanks in advance!

-Navigator98

 

[Damo01]

if you have not tried or done so, you have to repartition or erase the hard drive using Disk utilities before you can install the OS X and then use Migration Assistant to restore a backup copy onto the OS X lion.

 

[Navigator98]

if you have not tried or done so, you have to repartition or erase the hard drive using Disk utilities before you can install the OS X and then use Migration Assistant to restore a backup copy onto the OS X lion.

But isn't there a way to make the drive write-able again? It now shows up at read only, even in the installer.

 

[Damo01]

But isn't there a way to make the drive write-able again? It now shows up at read only, even in the installer.

so you can't open up disk utility from either lion installation media or snow leopard installation media and go to the partition tab and go to the drop down box to create new partition? is it greyed out in other words? The hard drive has to be reformatted to be rewritable again. How much free space did you have before you attempted to install mac os lion?




You might have to contact apple for assistant...

 

[Navigator98]

I can open Disk utility on the Lion install media, but it only allows me to verify the disk because it's read only and when I attempt repairs, it fails because the drive is locked and read only. Even when I try a clean install it gives me "Drive is locked" error.

 

[Damo01]

Where are you booting off the Lion installation media from?

 

[Navigator98]

Reviving a dead thread but... (Solution found)

Okay guys, sorry for the very late reply, but I wanted to tell everyone I was able to fix my problem by installing OS X Lion to an external HDD & then installing DiskWarrior on it, letting it fix the Macintosh HD for some time & then magically it booted again in Snow Leopard ofcourse, but it works again (i'm writing this reply on it now ) By the way, I also found out what was the cause of the problem, you can see my new thread on it
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14654945#post14654945

Thanks for your help anyway!