Mavericks install / 10.8 reinstall fails – HD Volume shown as locked

[mmand]

Hello all,

I ran into some serious trouble when trying to install Mavericks.

Almost new (2013) iMac with 3TB SATA Drive.

Mavericks installation failed, tried to go back to 10.9, also failed.
The problem during the installation of one of the two was that no Recovery HD could be created.

I had a Recovery HD before; after trying to resize the OS X Volume partition to create free space for a new Recovery HD during installation I went ahead and deleted my Recovery HD with the diskutil command as described by the first few steps here:
http://derflounder.wordpress.com/20...ilding-a-malfunctioning-recover-hd-partition/

Unfortunately the merging of the recovery HD with the OS X Volume failed.

Now both when trying to install 10.9 from a USB drive or 10.8 from internet recovery mode, it shows that I cannot boot from the main HD: it is greyed out and I cannot select it for installation of the OS.

I suspect that I have destroyed the structure of the drive with using the diskutil command.
A similar problem was reported (and solved) here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1651573/

However, I do not have a fusion drive and do not know how specific the steps described there are to that machine. I do not want to break the drive any further.
So I would be very grateful for any help!

The following is the output of the "diskutil list" command. The volumes shown under /dev/disk2 are my external USB drive (with a working install of 10.8 and a 10.9 installer on a different partition):

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         3.0 TB     disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *3.0 TB     disk1
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *80.0 GB    disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS External HD 74          71.2 GB    disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk2s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Install OS X Mavericks  7.9 GB     disk2s4

Thank you so much!
mmand


edit:
- Maybe I should have said explicitely that the disk is erased. It is.
- I do not know how to check if FileVault is turned on or off for the main HD. I sure did not turn it on myself, and it is turned off on my external USB HD 10.8 installation.

edit2:
Some results of using the verifyPermission command in terminal (from my working 10.8 installation on my USB drive. I guess it would not make a difference to run the command from the terminal in internet recovery mode):

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil verifyPermissions /dev/disk0
Error starting permissions verification for disk0: Unrecognized file system (-69846)
me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0
Error starting permissions repair for disk0: Unrecognized file system (-69846)

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil verifyPermissions /dev/disk0s2
Error starting permissions verification for disk0s2: Unrecognized file system (-69846)
me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2
Error starting permissions repair for disk0s2: Unrecognized file system (-69846)

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil verifyPermission /dev/disk1
diskutil: did not recognize verb "verifyPermission"; type "diskutil" for a list
me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil verifyPermissions /dev/disk1
Error starting permissions verification for disk1 Macintosh HD: Unable to determine the Mac OS X version on the targeted disk (-69831)

 

[mmand]

Analogously to the thread linked to above, my output for "diskutil cs list"

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 56374D16-C7A1-47D7-9627-5F93E61E13C9
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         2999733223424 B (3.0 TB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume AD7909DD-1F2E-4F48-848A-A7FB741BDD60
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2999733223424 B (3.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 148BBF17-B993-4F5E-BEA9-144776CD63C1
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 135EAF79-E66A-444D-B954-9DB8E94783FE
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:               disk1
            Status:             Online
            Size (Total):       2999414448128 B (3.0 TB)
            Size (Converted):   -none-
            Revertible:         No
            LV Name:            Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:        Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:       Apple_HFS

 

[mmand]

One important fact that may be the source of the problem: My Mac OS Partition is shown as "Logical Partition". I can erase it with choosing the format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", but it remains a "Logical Partition" after that (see attached screenshot from bootable install on USB HD).

 

[Weaselboy]

Whoa You have got yourself pretty jacked up here.

It does appear at some point you turned on Filevault either through the OS X GUI or using Terminal commands. Do a command-option-r boot to Internet Recovery then once the recovery screen comes up open Terminal from the Utilities menu and enter the below commands one at a time.

diskutil cs deleteVolume 135EAF79-E66A-444D-B954-9DB8E94783FE

diskutil cs delete 56374D16-C7A1-47D7-9627-5F93E61E13C9

That should kill the core storage partitions you have on there and allow Disk Util to operate. Once the commands are done quit Terminal and start Disk Util (while still in recovery). Now select the drive itself at the very top where it says Seagate 3TB or whatever brand it is... then go to the erase tab and name it Macintosh HD and select Mac OS Extended in the drop down... then apply.

That should give you a drive with one, 3TB Mac OS Extended partition.

While still there in Disk Util run a repair disk on the drive to see if any errors pop up. If that checks out okay go ahead and click reinstall OS and it will reinstall and create a new recovery partition on its own. That will get you back to a clean install of Mountain Lion. At the end of the install use the Migration Assistant to import your data from your backup disk (I'm assuming here you have a Time Machine backup).

Goes without saying here any data on that drive is going to be wiped.

 

[mmand]

Hi Weaselboy,
and thanks so much for your help! I was planning on going down that route (analogously to what you described in the other thread up there).

But then I showed my problem to a very UNIX-fluent coworker; he solved it a bit differently.
For future reference–there's a lot of terminal output here, but I think the important step he did was the following:

dd if=/dev/disk2 of=/dev/disk0 bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

With the disk names from above, this created an exact copy of my external HD (with a working 10.8.5 installation) on the internal HD. This took about 2 hours for a 80GB USB drive.
It solved the HD data structure issue.

After booting from the internal HD, I then ran the repair disk and repair permissions routines from disk utility. After a reboot I could then resize the copied (80GB) partition to the full 3TB of the internal drive.

I could at first not use the terminal, after deleting some folders in ~/Library/Preferences and re-logging in it worked though.


So now I'm considering wiping the drive completely and retry a clean Mavericks install. Although the update / install was what got me this deep into trouble in the first place, I think it would be the best thing to do–knowing that I can fall back on the solution described above.

Or does an update from the current 10.8.5 install to 10.9 make more sense (this is where it all started..)?

Probably it would be wise to stay away from Mavericks altogether until 10.9.1. The idea here was to update this relatively new (work) machine to the new system before installing software / compilers I will need.

What do you think?

 

[Weaselboy]

So now I'm considering wiping the drive completely and retry a clean Mavericks install. Although the update / install was what got me this deep into trouble in the first place, I think it would be the best thing to do–knowing that I can fall back on the solution described above.

Or does an update from the current 10.8.5 install to 10.9 make more sense (this is where it all started..)?

Probably it would be wise to stay away from Mavericks altogether until 10.9.1. The idea here was to update this relatively new (work) machine to the new system before installing software / compilers I will need.

What do you think?

I think what might have gotten you in trouble was you had Filevault turned on with the Mountain Lion (ML) install. Then however you made your Mavericks installer, I bet you made it in such a way that the recovery partition was not included. I have read forum posts about some of the USB key installer methods not bringing along the recovery portion of the install. Filevault requires a recovery partition for it to work, and not having one results in the issue you had.

I am still not entirely comfortable the partition tables are correct on your drive. I would still do the entire disk erase from Internet Recovery like I described, then reinstall ML and and import your data with Migration Assistant at the end of the install. Then just update to Mavericks over top of the ML install.

 

[mmand]

Is there a way of checking the partition tables without going through the whole process of reinstalling?

I am a bit hesitant to wipe and reinstall, as for unclear reasons the last time I had the drive erased, the mountain lion installer in recovery mode was showing an error after the "preparing installation" progress bar was full (I think it suggested to restart the installation).

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there a way of checking the partition tables without going through the whole process of reinstalling?

I am a bit hesitant to wipe and reinstall, as for unclear reasons the last time I had the drive erased, the mountain lion installer in recovery mode was showing an error after the "preparing installation" progress bar was full (I think it suggested to restart the installation).

You can do a command-option-r boot to Internet Recovery and from there verify the disk and see what it says.

Also do the diskutil list command in Terminal like I originally suggested to show the partition layout. Post up the output here.

 

[mmand]

Thanks for your continuing help with this Weaselboy!

Verify/Repair Disk from Disk Utility showed no problems.

I tried and followed this step-by-step guide for a program called TestDisk to see if I could spot anything obviously wrong with the partition map of the drive. Seemed ok to me (although I do not know much about this software):
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The outputs of diskutil (disk1 is my external drive, of no concern here):

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            3.0 TB     disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *80.0 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS External HD 80          25.2 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS External HD 80 2        53.9 GB    disk1s4

However:

me-mas709:~ mext$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

 

[Weaselboy]

That diskutil list output looks fine and I see you have a recovery partition there, so you should be okay.

The diskutil cs list shows nothing because you don't have any core storage (cs) volumes present, so you are okay there. The core storage volumes are created when you tun on Filevault encryption.

 

[mmand]

Excellent.

Thank you so much for your support Weaselboy!

 

[The Guv]

Just to share my experience, I wasn't able to revert to 10.8 after installing 10.9 as I too got the lock symbol. From what I quickly read, the 10.9 recover partition doesn't allow an older version to be installed and erasing your HDD normally won't erase the recovery as well. Apparently the solution is to do a full 1 partition erase and that should allow it to work.

I didn't finish going back to 10.8 as I found a solution to my problems but that's what I read FWIW =)