Mavericks Install Help!

[Dan4954]

I am trying to make a bootable USB for mavericks. I am stuck here and don't know what to do. I downloaded mavericks to the 3TB hard drive and tried to run it by starting the Mac and holding alt/option. Once the install starts it says "Install failed: OS X could not be installed on your computer. OS X can't be installed on the disk because a recovery system can't be created."

http://i.imgur.com/KdjSCEr.jpg

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Are there any other partitions on this 3 TB drive?

Did you enter the following code using Terminal and then enter your Admin password? You won't see your password but that is normal, just type it in and press Return.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction

I take it you also formatted the USB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

 

[Dan4954]

Yes I did. I've been working on it and got it to work. I booted from my external hard drive. Now I'm trying to figure out how to pull files off my hard drive. I opened finder and it was there. And I was able to open my user folder. But now it disappeared from Finder. I can still see it with disk utility. Any idea how to get into that hard drive to recover files?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Did you check in Finder ~> Preferences to see if the option to show connected Devices is checked? Is the user account on your 3 TB drive the same name as on your Desktop?

 

[Dan4954]

Yes the option is checked. It was there for a minute then just disappeared. And I think the user account name is a little different. Would that prevent me from seeing the internal HD?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

No I was just wondering about potential Permissions issues with your files … strange that is did that … do you have Mavericks installed on your Mac? Have you tried restarting back into your Mac then restarting with Option and selecting the 3 TB drive?

 

[Dan4954]

Yeah that's true. It is really weird. I'm on mavericks. I'll try that and see what happens

 

[Dan4954]

I'm able to see it now. I don't know if this is the best way, but I am copying all the main folders from the internal HD to a folder on my desktop. It's 250 gb so it will take a while. But it looks like that HD is on it's last leg and I definitely don't want to lose that data. Is this a good way to go about salvaging data from that HD? I don't know what else to do

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Did you use Time Machine? You could restore a backup to the 3 TB … for music and your personal files drag and drop should work but are you expecting to copy apps as well? Exactly what are you copying?

Have a look at this …
OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mavericks

Scroll down to "Choose A Connection Method"

 

[Dan4954]

Time machine wouldn't let me select a source to backup. It would only backup what I'm currently running off of. Which is the external 3Tb HD. I just grabbed the applications folder, user folder, library folder, and a few others off my internal HD hoping to save anything I can. I can't open migration assistant right now because Finder is copying all those files. It will be another 4 or so hours till it's done. I can give it a try after that though.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Time machine wouldn't let me select a source to backup. It would only backup what I'm currently running off of. Which is the external 3Tb HD.

I meant Time Machine on your internal drive …

I know it's a bit late …

OS X: Manually migrating data from another Mac:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6101


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