Startup Problems

[jonny550]

Hi there I am hoping someone can help!

I have a Macbook Air (1.6Ghz Intel Core i5, 2 GB 1333Mhz DDR3 mid 2011).

I updated it to Yosemite and for a time it ran perfectly with no issues. After a few weeks though I experience random crashes and have looked around online and found that it might be best to do a factory reset and roll it back to Mavericks. However when trying to do this the reinstall has failed every time for unknown reasons.

As a last ditch before taking to a shop I attempted to use a 32GB USB drive as I figured there may be an issue with the hard drive on the laptop. I have now successfully managed to get the laptop up and running thanks to Internet Recovery and I am running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63).

I have done some hard drive tests using Disk Utility and it all comes back green.

I now need to get off the USB drive and back on the Hard Drive. Please can someone advise??

I also want to get back onto Mavericks and not Yosemite ideally

Many thanks in advance

J

 

[honestone]

From what you are saying, on the 32 Gig (seems small, in terms of size) USB external drive (or Flash Drive?), you were able to install OS 10.7.5, and booting the Macbook Air from that drive. Is that accurate? If that is the case, can your internal hard drive be "seen" by OS 10.7.5?

When you used Disk Utility, did you run it "isolated"from your Macbook Air, that is, did you do a Verify and Repair Disk, and a Verify and Repair Permissions?

If you really want to know how "healthy" the internal hard drive is, you'll need a more robust Disk Maintenance/Repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro. But, to use either of those, you will need to have another Mac that has either of those programs on it, and also one that has a Firewire 800 port. If you have that, you can boot your Macbook Air in Target Disk Mode. But, first need answers to the questions mentioned above.

 

[jonny550]

Hi thanks for the response.

I am not an expert when it comes to this so forgive me if I sound a bit dumb!

The drive is a 32gb flash drive and the laptop is relying on that to run.

I can see the Macintosh HD in the devices column on the finder.

Using disk repair I just selected the Mac Hd and ran the verify and repair but the option to repair permissions didn't show. I have completely wiped the drive so as far as the laptop is concerned it is factory reset but I just can't seem to get OSX running

If I download a HD checker on the laptop running from the flash drive will I be able to check the mac had drive?

At the moment it is barely running and very slow which I guess is because it is running from a flash drive?

Cheers

 

[honestone]

Hi thanks for the response.

I am not an expert when it comes to this so forgive me if I sound a bit dumb!

The drive is a 32gb flash drive and the laptop is relying on that to run.

I can see the Macintosh HD in the devices column on the finder.

Using disk repair I just selected the Mac Hd and ran the verify and repair but the option to repair permissions didn't show. I have completely wiped the drive so as far as the laptop is concerned it is factory reset but I just can't seem to get OSX running

If I download a HD checker on the laptop running from the flash drive will I be able to check the mac had drive?

At the moment it is barely running and very slow which I guess is because it is running from a flash drive?

Cheers

Thanks for clearing quite a bit up!

Verify and Repair Permissions is not available at the "Volume" (Top) level for the hard drive, so that is why you did not see it (my "bad" for suggesting that).

From what you said, you have already used Disk Utility to Verify and Repair the drive, and then used Disk Utility to Erase the drive. Don't think you need to do anything else, assuming the drive is in "good health". It should be, given that Disk Utility did not indicate anything "bad" about the drive.

I assume you used Disk Utility to erase the drive. But, did you choose the "fastest" way to do that? It is been quite a long time since I have used Lion on my Mac, but what I am about to suggest should be similar in Lion.

When you launch Disk Utility from the flash drive, click on the hard drive's icon (don't double click it), and then select Erase in Disk Utility. On the next screen, it will say Format, Name, and down somewhat further, it will show three other "options": Empty Free Space (greyed out; if you were selecting a partition for the Erase, this option would be available), Security Options....., and Erase.... Click on Security Options, and the next screen will show (I believe 4) Erase options. Again, I can't remember what they are called, but I believe the bottom one on that screen (believe it says something like "7 pass") is the want you want to select. It will definitely wipe the drive just about 100% "clean", but it will take some time to do it. So, I would suggest you start that right before you go to sleep. By the time you wake up in the morning, it should be done.

Whether you choose to re-erase the drive or not, if you want to install Mavericks on it (I assume you still have the "Install OS X Mavericks" Disk Image file), you can do it in 1 of 2 ways (if need be, depending our your needs/desires, you can use Disk Utility to first partition the empty drive):

1. Make a bootable flash drive with Mavericks "on it". Here is a link that shows two ways of doing that (I suggest you do it the first, "easiest" way):

http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/12/make-boot-os-x-mavericks-usb-install-drive/

2. Get an OS onto your empty drive. It needs to be the last version of Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.8) or above (Lion or Mountain Lion). Then, you can run the "Install OS X Mavericks" file to upgrade from that OS to Mavericks.

 

[jonny550]

Thanks again for this.

In disk utility when I select the HD the only option available to me is erase... Security options and erase free space are grey. I did originally use the fastest option

Also I don't have a copy of Mavericks I was hoping I would be able to download now that now that I have lion through Internet recovery I would be able to work something out.

Thanks for your help so far!

 

[jonny550]

Just had a development!

I used the startup disk in recovery mode to 'restore' the OSX by copying the contents of the USB drive to the hard drive and now the laptop is running from the HD and seems to be running just fine so far.

Next step though is to get it updated but I am concerned that if I try to upgrade to Yosemite its going to cause more problems.

Do you have any advice about Yosemite? I found that when I last tried to install it, everything downloaded fine but the install just crashed with a long error log and the spinning wheel and just said it would be 'about 15 minutes' ( I left it over night and nothing changed)

Ideally I just want to update to the Last Mavericks but is this possible anymore?

Thanks

 

[honestone]

Just had a development!

I used the startup disk in recovery mode to 'restore' the OSX by copying the contents of the USB drive to the hard drive and now the laptop is running from the HD and seems to be running just fine so far.

Next step though is to get it updated but I am concerned that if I try to upgrade to Yosemite its going to cause more problems.

Do you have any advice about Yosemite? I found that when I last tried to install it, everything downloaded fine but the install just crashed with a long error log and the spinning wheel and just said it would be 'about 15 minutes' ( I left it over night and nothing changed)

Ideally I just want to update to the Last Mavericks but is this possible anymore?

Thanks

I'm assuming you meant that via Recovery Mode, using the USB Drive and Internet Recovery, that the Lion OS was installed on your internal hard drive, and that you did not actually just copy the contents of the USB drive. Is that correct? To verify this, while your Mac is off, take out the USB stick, and start up your Mac.

If I were you, here are the steps I'd take:

1. Boot your Mac from the USB stick, run Disk Utility from there, and verify that your internal hard drive is OK. Given that the internal hard drive is no longer empty, when you select that one (and only) visible partition (note I said partition. That means at the partition "level") in Disk Utility, you will be able to 1) Verify and Repair Permissions, and 2) Verify and Repair the Disk.

2. Once that is done, re-start your Mac from your internal drive, take out the USB stick, go to the Apple store, and download Mavericks. Once that completes, there will be a file entitled "Install OS X Mavericks" within your Applications folder.

3. Make another copy of that file to another location on your internal drive. To do that, click on that file (don't double click it), and while the file is still selected, hold down the Option key, and then drag the file to the other location on your Mac. This will make an exact copy of that file in another place, as after you run that Install OS X Mavericks" file from your Applications folder, it will be gone.

4. Launch the Install OS X Mavericks file, and let it do its' thing (ie, updating Lion to Mavericks).

5. Restart your Mac. If the version of Mavericks is anything less than 10.9.5, you need to install the last Combo Updater for Mavericks. You can get that here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1760

6. Finally, re-start your Mac from the USB stick, and run Disk Utility from there to 1) Verify and Repair Permissions, and 2) Verify and Repair the Mavericks partition on your Internal Drive. This might be over kill, but better to be safe than sorry.

Use your machine for a few days to see how everything works. Do this without the USB stick in. Once you are satisfied, you'll need to make a bootable backup of your internal drive to another, external device. I doubt that 32 gig flash drive will be large enough, and it would be best if you invest in an external drive. You can get external 1 TB drives for as little as between $50 and $60 these days, and especially with the holidays coming up. Stay away from Western Digital drives, as they do not "play nicely" with Macs. Get a Seagate one. They work well.

Once you get that external drive, you can use Disk Utility to format and partition the drive. You can then use the excellent backup/cloning program in "free" mode called SuperDuper! to make a bootable backup to a partition on that external drive. You can get the latest version of SuperDuper! from here:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13803/superduper

I can tell you from direct experience that having a bootable backup created via SuperDuper! has saved me at least twice. And, it is a piece of cake to do a restore from that backup.

Once you have that backup on that external drive, you can then try and upgrade to Yosemite. If you again have issues, at least you will have the bootable Mavericks backup that you can restore your internal drive to. Assuming that the upgrade to Yosemite goes well, you can again use SuperDuper! to make a bootable backup to that same partition on the external disk. And, going forward, you should be into the habit of making such a backup at least once a month, and once a week is even better. That is what I do every Saturday, for both of my machines (and I do it to two external drives, for each of my Macs (I also run some other Disk maintenance tasks as part of that)..