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Problem installing Snow Leopard

C

CoolPuppy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
5
0
(I tried this on another thread, but it looks dormant, so re-posting into a new thread)

Whenever I boot up the SL install disk (either plugged in via USB drive or remote disc from my iMac), I select English as my language, "Continue" on the welcome screen, and when I get to the portion where I have to choose a disk to install onto, my MBA's hard drive has a yellow triangle on it and a caption underneath that says "Mac OS X Cannot Start Up From This Disk".

I've used Disk Utility to Verify and Repair, but still get the same result.

My MacBook Air is a 2nd generation machine, 120G hard drive (45G free), and MS Office 2008 installed. Other than that (and all my music and files), it's exactly as it came from Apple when I ordered it.

I was able to install fine on my MBP and iMac.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
W

Wowzera

macrumors 6502a
Oct 14, 2008
857
28
Brazil
CoolPuppy said:
(I tried this on another thread, but it looks dormant, so re-posting into a new thread)

Whenever I boot up the SL install disk (either plugged in via USB drive or remote disc from my iMac), I select English as my language, "Continue" on the welcome screen, and when I get to the portion where I have to choose a disk to install onto, my MBA's hard drive has a yellow triangle on it and a caption underneath that says "Mac OS X Cannot Start Up From This Disk".

I've used Disk Utility to Verify and Repair, but still get the same result.

My MacBook Air is a 2nd generation machine, 120G hard drive (45G free), and MS Office 2008 installed. Other than that (and all my music and files), it's exactly as it came from Apple when I ordered it.

I was able to install fine on my MBP and iMac.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Did you perform a CRC check? Your image looks to be corrupt.
 
J

JGruber

macrumors 6502
Feb 13, 2006
348
2
CoolPuppy said:
My MacBook Air is a 2nd generation machine, 120G hard drive (45G free), and MS Office 2008 installed. Other than that (and all my music and files), it's exactly as it came from Apple when I ordered it.
Click to expand...

Based on what he said, it sounds like he just has the 45GB free, but no separate partition. If that is the case, you do in fact need another partition. 20+ GB should be good for what you need.
 
C

CoolPuppy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
5
0
I'd like to install Snow Leopard on top of my Leopard install. That's what I did on my iMac and MBP. I'm curious what's going on with my MacBook Air.
 
C

CoolPuppy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
5
0
Yes, I performed a CRC check and everything is fine.

And, yes, the partition map is GUID.
 
S

store2000

macrumors newbie
Aug 26, 2009
3
0
CoolPuppy said:
Yes, I performed a CRC check and everything is fine.

And, yes, the partition map is GUID.
Click to expand...

Any luck? I have a pretty similar/exact issue.

Hi guys,

I have an early 2009 Aluminium Macbook on 10.5.8. When I was trying to upgrade it to 10.6, I'm unable to select my Leopard partition. I get the following error when I select my current Leopard partition:

<Booted into the installer>
Mac OS X cannot start up from this disk

<Running the Installer from within Leopard>
Mac OS X cannot be installed on "Leopard", because this disk cannot be used to start up your computer.

I can easily dual boot into Windows 7 & Leopard and the details of my disk are below. I've also tried with and without rEFIt, no luck - same message. I've also tried choosing the Leopard partition from the Startup Disk system preferences panel - again, no luck.

Does any one know what the fix to this may be? This is a straight-up legit Mac ... so I would have thought it would work right out of the box!

Thanks!

Output of fdisk
===============
Code: 
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  368635540] HFS+       
*3: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 369045180 -  119346885] HPFS/QNX/AUX
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Output of gptinfo
=================
Code: 
Warning: /dev/disk0 opened read-only

Current GPT partition table:
 #      Start LBA      End LBA  Type
 1             40       409639  EFI System (FAT)
 2         409640    369045179  Mac OS X HFS+
 3      369045180    488392064  Basic Data

Current MBR partition table:
 # A    Start LBA      End LBA  Type
 1              1       409639  ee  EFI Protective
 2         409640    369045179  af  Mac OS X HFS+
 3 *    369045180    488392064  07  NTFS/HPFS

Status: Tables are synchronized, no need to sync.
 
J

jbencic

macrumors newbie
Aug 28, 2009
1
0
I to am getting this problem attempting to install Snow Leopard

i have tried both booting from dvd and through finder

this might have something to do with rEFIt as i am triple booting linux, mac and windows

i have disabled rEFIt and reblessed the main disk and still no go

any ideas?
 
S

store2000

macrumors newbie
Aug 26, 2009
3
0
jbencic said:
I to am getting this problem attempting to install Snow Leopard

i have tried both booting from dvd and through finder

this might have something to do with rEFIt as i am triple booting linux, mac and windows

i have disabled rEFIt and reblessed the main disk and still no go

any ideas?
Click to expand...

No actual fixes, but some ideas and additional attempts on this problem at
http://forums.mactalk.com.au/46/72235-snow-leopard-wont-install-9month-old-macbook.html
and
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181955
 
O

okachobi

macrumors member
Oct 30, 2007
30
0
iPartition???

I'm having the same problem and can't try the fix I read about (which is to resize the HFS+ partition using diskutil). DiskUtil tells me that "MediaKit reports no such partition", even though the disk uses a GPT.

So I did some digging and discovered that iPartition (a 3rd party partitioning tool) shows that my HFS+ partition is not "bootable". When I mouse over that it indicates that 128M must be left after the partition to make it bootable. And it does give the option to check that box once I reduce the size of the partition to make space available. I suspect that those who have succeeded with DiskUtil did so because diskutil automatically made this adjustment to make the partition bootable.

BUT, iPartition demo (the trial version) does not write the changes :-( And I don't do enough partitioning to justify a $50 utility just to see if it fixes my problem. I suspect it will...but I have no way to test it. DiskUtil would probably fix the issue as well if it let me resize the partition without the MediaKit error message....but again, I have no idea how to get rid of that message.

I have 4 partitions and am using RefIT to boot into Ubuntu. I'm wondering if the resize fails because there are already 4 partitions. I've thought about deleting the linux swap partition and seeing what happens. I've read somewhere that there is something magic about the 4 partition limit...

I just wish iPartition had a real trial...
 
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