Will not reinstall OS X Lion

[dawgfan]

Trying the Control + R during startup to get to the screen with choices for recovery or reinstall. Let it run all last night and never did the reinstall. Just kicked it off a minute ago and fingers crossed again.

Took it by a shop last night and they ran diagnostics that indicated both HD and memory were OK.

Since it has not worked yet, can anyone tell me exactly what to expect after the "Downloading additional components. your computer will restart automatically." completes. I was asleep by the time it would've run last night, so never saw if it actually restarted. When I awoke it this morning it was back at the screen with the choices for recovery or reinstall.

OK, it got down to less than 20 minutes remaining, then jumped to over 5 hours, then jumped to the Mac OS Utilities menu with choices to Restore, Reinstall, Get help or Disk utility.

Why is it not reinstalling Mac OS X?

Any help?

 

[mrpenguin27]

Trying the Control + R during startup to get to the screen with choices for recovery or reinstall. Let it run all last night and never did the reinstall. Just kicked it off a minute ago and fingers crossed again.

Took it by a shop last night and they ran diagnostics that indicated both HD and memory were OK.

Since it has not worked yet, can anyone tell me exactly what to expect after the "Downloading additional components. your computer will restart automatically." completes. I was asleep by the time it would've run last night, so never saw if it actually restarted. When I awoke it this morning it was back at the screen with the choices for recovery or reinstall.

OK, it got down to less than 20 minutes remaining, then jumped to over 5 hours, then jumped to the Mac OS Utilities menu with choices to Restore, Reinstall, Get help or Disk utility.

Why is it not reinstalling Mac OS X?

Any help?

It looks like its just not restarting into the drive its supposed to.

Turn off your Mac, and press the power button. Immediately hold the Option Key. This should show you Recovery HD and Macintosh HD (this can vary depending on what the HD was named.) Select Macintosh HD (or whatever it's called). Once you select the correct volume and press enter, it should continue installation.

 

[dawgfan]

It looks like its just not restarting into the drive its supposed to.

Turn off your Mac, and press the power button. Immediately hold the Option Key. This should show you Recovery HD and Macintosh HD (this can vary depending on what the HD was named.) Select Macintosh HD (or whatever it's called). Once you select the correct volume and press enter, it should continue installation.

Holding Option down resulted in the Mac OS Utlilities menu, which I also get with a Control + R. Did I do something wrong?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, you misread the key to press.
It's Option, not Control (or any other key) -
Shut off (you can hold the power button for 5 seconds to force a shutdown.
Press and release the power button.
Immediately press and hold the Option key.
You should get icons for both the Recovery partition, and your system boot drive (whatever you might have named it, or the original Macintosh HD.)
Click on the boot drive to select it, and press Enter/Return.

 

[dawgfan]

Yes, my bad. I tried it again per your instructions and it did show the Recovery HD. I chose it, hit enter and it went to the Mac OS X Utilities menu again

Could it be that a recovery HD was not created?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, if you boot to the Recovery HD, you will boot to the menu (Safari, Reinstall OS X, Disk Utility, etc.)
That's the purpose for the Recovery HD, giving you access to various utilities, and giving you the means to reinstall your system, which is downloaded over your internet connection.

If that was the ONLY icon on the Option-boot screen, next step:
Choose Disk utility when booted to the Recovery HD.
Select your hard drive, and click Repair Disk.

If the installation last night failed (and it sounds like it did), you may want to consider erasing the drive, so the install is from a fresh drive (and you know that the format completes without errors) You will LOSE everything that is not backed up to some other storage, but if there's nothing important to save, then erasing is a good next step. You can do that while still in Disk Utility.

When you are ready, quit Disk Utility, which returns you to the main menu screen.
And, Reinstall OS X.
You may find that you need to connect to your router through ethernet to be more confident that the install will complete successfully.

 

[dawgfan]

Now when I do the disc utility I get errors. May have to replace the HD afterall. FWIW, previous checks indicated it was OK.

 

[DeltaMac]

What errors do you see now after running Disk Utility?
Could be all you need to do is erase the drive, and start over with a fresh install.

Which Mac do you have?

 

[dawgfan]

What errors do you see now after running Disk Utility?
Could be all you need to do is erase the drive, and start over with a fresh install.

Which Mac do you have?

Black Mid-2007 MacBook. Was 10.7.5 Lion, 2Gb RAM

500.11 GB WDCWD500 (Shown in red): S.M.A.R.T. Status: Failing
Macintosh HD: Verify Disk: The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
Macintosh HD: Repair Disk: Volume repair complete. Updating boot partitions for the volume as required.

PS - This all started a couple of days ago when the colored pinwheel started spinning every time I asked it do do something. Things would evenutally work, but only after a long time. It had been fine the night before.

 

[DeltaMac]

WDCWD500 (Shown in red): S.M.A.R.T. Status: Failing

That would be it, then. Time to shop for a replacement hard drive (SSD, if you can)
I think you would not need to be too concerned - IF you had no other, real symptoms.
But, slow performance, and lots of the spinning pinwheel, and now, the SMART fail seals it...

 

[dawgfan]

That would be it, then. Time to shop for a replacement hard drive (SSD, if you can)
I think you would not need to be too concerned - IF you had no other, real symptoms.
But, slow performance, and lots of the spinning pinwheel, and now, the SMART fail seals it...

Thank you so much for your patience and advice!