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Snow Leopard - Install Failed Again and Again!

C

chaseerry

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 24, 2006
80
0
Oklahoma
I purchased the Snow Leopard Family Pack through Apple.
Installed for the first time on my MacBook fine.
Proceeded to install on my iMac but every time it ends with an "Install Failed - Please clean the disc"...
OR
"Install Failed: The installer could not copy the necessary support files".
The install will run for about 5-10 minutes then gives the message.

Both machines have the newest Leopard software installed.

I have tried booting from disc (holding C down) but still no luck. I have tried multiple times for the past two days with no success.

Any ideas?
 
The disc is brand new and clean. After putting it back in it will give the other Install Failed message.

Also, I verified the disc in Disk Utility and it verifies good.
 
chaseerry said:
The disc is brand new and clean. After putting it back in it will give the other Install Failed message.

Also, I verified the disc in Disk Utility and it verifies good.
Click to expand...

Try copying the disc to an external hard drive, flash drive, etc, and installing from that.

A lot of people seem to be having issues installing from the optical media since this is about the 100th thread on the subject.

In at least a couple of cases it has been confirmed that the optical drive of the machine failing to load SL was defective with the SL dual layer media.
 
Alright. Are you saying Create a Disk Image from within Disk Utility - then move it to an external HD - then try to run it?

I created a compressed .dmg of the Install Disc. It is sitting on my desktop but when I try to run it, it gives a message that I need to burn it to a disc first.
 
I wiped my iPod and made it an external HD. Loaded the SL dmg onto it, booted from it holding the alt key, and THEN halfway through the installation got an error about some files that could not copy to the drive. WTF?!

Ridiculous. I am buying an 8GB usb stick after work and I”m loading a pirated version of Snow Leopard onto it. Hopefully that works!
 
The point in trying a pirated version onto a USB stick is to prove whether or not it is indeed the SL disc
OR
something is wrong with my hardware.
 
Sun Baked said:
Is the Hard Drive fine, aka gone through all repairs fine?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. In fact, in my last attempt at installing it I tried the Clean Install route with my iPod acting like the SL dmg - but the install failed halfway through again. It got farther along the installation than the other attempts but still failed.

Also tried clean install with the original disc in but it failed also.

So now my iMac's harddrive is completely wiped waiting for an OS.
 
If the MacBook is a FW version, there is always using target disk mode and using the MacBooks optical drive to do the install.

I skipped over using the optical drive in the iMac and have switched to a cheap tray loading Superdrive, since the slot loader was a big headache when it came to sensitivity over the media.

Edit:

But alas, the iPod not working almost makes me think the HD on the iMac is starting to go. An OS install will usually make the bad drives rise to the surface as all those writes really stress the drive.

Always get a bunch of the "New OS Broke My HD" threads.
 
Sun Baked said:
If the MacBook is a FW version, there is always using target disk mode and using the MacBooks optical drive to do the install.

I skipped over using the optical drive in the iMac and have switched to a cheap tray loading Superdrive, since the slot loader was a big headache when it came to sensitivity over the media.
Click to expand...

I have not tried to the FW target disk mode - but I have networked the two Macs together with an ethernet cable and tried using Remote Disc. The install was going great and then all of a sudden...Install Failed!

And this is with the SL disc physically residing in the drive that it HAD success in earlier.
 
Sun Baked said:
If the MacBook is a FW version, there is always using target disk mode and using the MacBooks optical drive to do the install.

I skipped over using the optical drive in the iMac and have switched to a cheap tray loading Superdrive, since the slot loader was a big headache when it came to sensitivity over the media.

Edit:

But alas, the iPod not working almost makes me think the HD on the iMac is starting to go. An OS install will usually make the bad drives rise to the surface as all those writes really stress the drive.

Always get a bunch of the "New OS Broke My HD" threads.
Click to expand...

Wait...you just hit something there with your Edit.

Can't I install Snow Leopard on an external disk - such as my iPod - and use it instead of my internal? I believe so, correct me if I am wrong.

If that works then that surely says my internal iMac's harddrive is going - AND will prove if my SL disc from Apple is faulty or fine.
 
chaseerry said:
Wait...you just hit something there with your Edit.

Can't I install Snow Leopard on an external disk - such as my iPod - and use it instead of my internal? I believe so, correct me if I am wrong.

If that works then that surely says my internal iMac's harddrive is going.
Click to expand...

Yes, if you install on an external and it goes fine, then it is likely the internal that has kicked the bucket -- or is about to.

Really sucks that we have these SMART drives, and the SMART verification scheme rarely points out a bad drive.

Usually it is beachballs, freezes, and a noisier drive that point to dying drives.
 
Another suggestion would be to repartition your internal target drive with the Disk Utility app after booting from the SL DVD. Don't just erase, but repartition as a single partition.

Snow Leopard seems very picky about drive partitioning, but on working hardware, a repartition from within Disk Utility will (hopefully) completely replace any potentially corrupted directory data on the disk.

It's worth a shot before replacing the HD.
 
xraydoc said:
Another suggestion would be to repartition your internal target drive with the Disk Utility app after booting from the SL DVD. Don't just erase, but repartition as a single partition.

Snow Leopard seems very picky about drive partitioning, but on working hardware, a repartition from within Disk Utility will (hopefully) completely replace any potentially corrupted directory data on the disk.

It's worth a shot before replacing the HD.
Click to expand...

Good thinking. Come to think of if I don't remember repartitioning the internal HD - I just erased.

I will try this first. Then see if Snow Leopard agrees.
 
The other very likely possibility is that you've got some bad RAM in that machine. If you can, try swapping it out for other RAM chips, or just removing one and then swap in the other (assuming that will leave you with enough to install SL). Bad RAM can foul up a system install very quickly, and would definitely be capable of causing the errors you're seeing.

jW
 
Mal said:
The other very likely possibility is that you've got some bad RAM in that machine. If you can, try swapping it out for other RAM chips, or just removing one and then swap in the other (assuming that will leave you with enough to install SL). Bad RAM can foul up a system install very quickly, and would definitely be capable of causing the errors you're seeing.

jW
Click to expand...

I saw this mentioned on a couple bloggers across the Internet. Sounds odd but anything is possible with this situation. I'm still stuck at work so I have a few things to try when I get home.

Also, my iMac has 4GB (2 x 2GB) in it so that test is possible. Will do if needed.
Thanks!
 
UPDATE: Installed Snow Leopard (the original disc) onto my iPod and it was successful! Only thing is - when trying to boot from the iPod as my drive I am stuck at the light blue apple logo with a spinning progress circle. Tried booting from both my Macbook and iMac.

Thoughts?
 
chaseerry said:
UPDATE: Installed Snow Leopard (the original disc) onto my iPod and it was successful! Only thing is - when trying to boot from the iPod as my drive I am stuck at the light blue apple logo with a spinning progress circle. Tried booting from both my Macbook and iMac.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I think you need to try another copy of the installation media, it sounds like the one you have is corrupted or defective in some way.
 
Alright here are the results.

I was able to obtain another copy of Snow Leopard via a friend. A dmg - not the disc.
I made my iPod act as the Snow Leopard installer. Even tested it on the MacBook with a clean install (just for giggles). Worked flawlessly.

Onto the iMac...
Ended halfway through the installation with this message: "Install Failed: The installer could not copy the necessary support files."

Think it's a bad hard drive?

Also - I did try the RAM trick by taking a stick out, but that didn't help a thing.
 
chaseerry said:
Alright here are the results.

I was able to obtain another copy of Snow Leopard via a friend. A dmg - not the disc.
I made my iPod act as the Snow Leopard installer. Even tested it on the MacBook with a clean install (just for giggles). Worked flawlessly.

Onto the iMac...
Ended halfway through the installation with this message: "Install Failed: The installer could not copy the necessary support files."

Think it's a bad hard drive?

Also - I did try the RAM trick by taking a stick out, but that didn't help a thing.
Click to expand...

I assume you also tried the RAM with the other stick out? As in, you tried it with each chip separately?

If so, then yeah, you're likely looking at a bad drive.

EDIT: A good way to test the drive is to zero it out in Disk Utility. From the Erase tab, hit "Options" and choose the Zero option (no need to do a 7 pass erase or anything crazy like that). By writing zeros to every spot on the drive, it'll be likely to fail if the drive is bad. If the drive will successfully erase that way, then it's not likely the drive, though not 100% eliminated.

jW
 
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