Upgraded iMac with SSD - Can't install Mavericks

[seme332]

Hey Guys.

I bought a Samsung SSD, put it into an external case and connected it via USB 3.0 to my iMac 21" Late 2012. Then I saved all my files and deleted everything on the disks. Also, I formated both into Mac OS X Journaled (Extended). After that I tried to make a DIY Fusion Drive. I used the terminal commands recommended on tutorials of the internet. All that went fine. The HDD and the SSD were shown as one disk and everything seemed ok.

Now I tried to install Mavericks. After a couple seconds into the progress I got an error telling me that Mavericks could not be installed because it was not able to create a recovery disk. I tried several times and even did the whole process with the fusion drive again... Nothing.

Also I noticed that in disk utility it tells me that my disk "Macintosh Fusion Drive" has 1.12 TB of Storage but also that 1.11 TB were "in use" which cannot be true since there is nothing on the disk?!

Anyone knows how to fix this?

Thanks!

 

[maflynn]

From what you post, you are trying to do a Fusion disk with an external disk connected via USB and an internal disk?

I have to believe the installer is having issues with that, and secondly I think that's a risky proposition since its possible that the external drive can be dismounted and/or unplugged. Why not pull the hard drive from the iMac and put the SSD in (and then place the hard drive in the external case that you have)

 

[seme332]

Yes that's what I am trying to do... And if that would make problems, shouldn't there already be problems when fusing the drives together in the terminal?

Also: I do this because it's a late 2012 21.5 inch iMac which I cannot upgrade easily since the display glass is glued to the aluminum enclosure. Also I didn't want to ruin the apple warranty because that's what would happen if I opened it up.

 

[maflynn]

My opinion, is that you're doing something beyond the scope of what apple envisioned. While you could fuse them together it seems, having a removeable drive as part of the fusion array is a bad idea imo.

Just my $.02, sorry I don't have any wisdom to impart in correcting the issue of installing OSX on this set up.

 

[swordfish5736]

you could try manually creating a recovery partition.

here are two links with info on creating the partition, though dated from lion

http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...ing-recovery-hd-to-a-corestorage-volume-group
http://www.dmitry-dulepov.com/2011/09/how-to-create-mac-os-x-lion-recovery.html

here are some corestorage commands

http://blog.fosketts.net/2011/08/05/undocumented-corestorage-commands/

 

[Fishrrman]

What you need to do is pursue a course of action that will create the recovery partition on the external SSD BEFORE you attempt to "fuse" the two drives.

Obviously, that will involve "starting over".

I would suggest doing it this way:
1. Break the existing "fusion" back down into two separate drives.
2. Reinitialize the external SSD and do a "clean install" of the OS onto it (during which the recovery partition gets created automatically)
What follows assumes you have an alternate way of booting the Mac (that is, a THIRD drive with a bootable copy of the OS on it)
3. Use terminal commands to "fuse" the internal drive and the "main" partition (the one that contains the OS) of the SSD. Of course, this will "wipe the OS" from the SSD, so it will have to be replaced, but the recovery partition should be left untouched.
4. Once done, restore the OS from your backup.

Now you should have a "fused" drive with the OS ending up on the SSD, and the recovery partition will be there, too.

HOWEVER --

There is no compelling reason to fuse the two drives.

If the SSD runs fine as a "standalone" drive, just "let it be".

You will have two drives to manage on the desktop, but that's no problem. I keep no less than SEVEN drive volumes always mounted and accessible to me.

The SSD will run FASTER as a non-fused drive, in any case.