unable to boot from internal HD afetr 10.6 installer stops

J

jnormie3

Registered
Hello,

I was installing 10.6 on my MBP running 10.5.8. I had launched the installer and after about 20 mins of the installation, my MBP rebooted launching the CD installer window. I went ahead and started the install and selected my internal HD. It starts the install and then gave me an error "Can't install on this HD." I went ahead and quit the installer and tried to start up from the internal HD. It starts up with the apple logo and progress circle but then just shuts back down again. I'm able to boot back up using the 10.6 installer CD, then using Terminal, navigate to see all my user files.

I guess my question is what's the best way to grab all my files off the internal hd so I can do a clean install of 10.6? I tried setting my MBP as a Firewire disk to grab the files but when connecting it to another mac, no disk drive is recognized. I thought about just launching Terminal and copying the files onto an external drive. Just wondering if that's the best route? Is there still a way to boot up from my internal HD to move my user files?

Any help is appreciated, thanks!
 
Sounds like you need a good directory structure utility. Get a hold of a copy of Diskwarrior. It should fix it up for you. Even if it cant after rebuilding the directory it will mount a preview image where you can copy all your files from there.
 
As above, and DiskWarrior has a way of fixing things that other programs do not fix. However, while you are waiting, you might try booting on your Installation Disk and see if you can at least "see" the drive--I expect you can since Terminal can. If you can, Disk Utility might repair it enough to allow you to save file or even Archive and Install to grab the files afterwards then do your Clean Install.

You may still find DiskWarrior a useful rescue to have for problems where incomplete installations or impending HD failure occurs, and you did not have a chance to back everything up.

Good luck!

--J.D.
 
I had more or less the same problem. Saving your files is quite easy via Terminal, so here's a quick "How To":

• Boot your machine with the help of your Snow Leopard installation DVD
• Open Terminal
• Plugin any external USB drive with suitable capacity, it will mount at any time
• ditto your files to the USB drives

Now, just in case you have problems doing ditto via Terminal commands, here's an example. Assuming you want to save any documents inside your user account on a disk named "Macintosh HD" in a folder "Documents" onto an USB-drive "somename", enter this command:

ditto -rsrc /Volumes/'Macintosh HD'/Users/Documents /Volumes/somename/Rescued

This will safe all files inside "Documents" inside a newly created folder "Rescued" on your external USB-drive. Proceed with all locations you need to check like "Desktop" or elsewhere until your data is safe.
Finally, unplug your USB-drive, on another Mac check the files have been copied fine.
Return to your damaged Mac, leave Terminal, launch DiskUtility and partition your damaged internal volume as usual.

Additional info:
Since ditto has -rsrc as default, it might be unnecessary to add this option in the ditto comand. I always add it because I never know if the default was altered by a user.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for all your responses ... I am typing this on my newly upgraded MBP.

What I was able to do is format an previous portable hd drive and install SL on that. Then using Migration Assistant, copy my user data onto the new portable boot drive. I then used DiskUtility to partition my internal hd and installed SL onto that hd. I then used Migration Assistant to copy my user data onto the internal hd. Everything seems to be operating fine so far.

Kind regards
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top