How can I fix my corrupted hard drive?

My hard drive is corrupted.  When I boot up my computer, it appears with a question mark inside a folder.
Then, I pressed "option" while rebooting to get to the Disk Utility.  I verified the disk, and it said it needed repair and hit the repair button; however, the repair button is greyed out.
I attempted to reinstall my operating system.  It was locked and asking for a Macintosh HD password.  I unlocked the locked drive, and tried again to reinstall my operating system, which shows up as Mountain Lion, which I did have in the past.  Since then, I had upgraded to Yosemite.  I get a message saying that I can't reinstall my operating system since I have had a newer version.
Any ideas on what I can do?
Would it work if I erased my operating system, then tried to install it again?  I obviously want wiping the computer to be my last resort.

Install a new HDD,.
Ciao.

Similar Messages

  • My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

    My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

    Invalid sibling link may not be fixable by Disk Utility. (Disk Utility is very conservative, and will not attempt repairs that might cause you to lose data.)
    It is an indication of serious Directory damage.
    that leaves
    a) third-party Utilities that will take those risks, or
    b) re-initializing the drive (which deletes all your data) and restoring from another backup source.
    c) "Copying off whatever files you can salvage" has gone by, and you cannot copy anything off a drive that will not mount. You may be able to use "rescue" programs such as prosoft engineering Data Rescue to copy files to another drive, but that sounds a lot better than its reality. You may get many files, but not get ANY filenames.

  • How can I use my external hard drive for my iphoto instead of my mac book pro memory?

    i don't know if this question has been asked before: how can I use my external hard drive for my iphoto instead of my mac book pro memory? just like itunes all my song are save on my external hard drive. make sense?

    Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
    And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
    And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
    LN

  • How can I backup an external hard drive using Time Machine?

    How can I backup an external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro using Time Machine?

    Attach drive, open Time Machine preferences, be sure external drive is not in the Exclude list.

  • How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?

    How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?
    I have been using Windows to write files to my 1TB WD external hard drive and I do not want to format to loose the files capacity of around 500GB
    Someone, Please help

    Hi Allen,
    Is there any way to store the back up to Mac and restore after formating?

  • How can i add an external hard drive to my time capsule

    How can i add an exteranl hard drive to my time capsule

    yes, plug a USB drive .. correctly formatted.. in.

  • How can a format an external hard drive to Fat 32 format

    how can i format an external hard drive to a Fat 32

    Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT)  Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

  • How can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

    how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
    It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

  • How can I partition my external hard drive supporting mac OS in one partition and windows OS in another?

    Hello everyone, how can I partition my external hard drive supporting mac OS in one partition and windows OS in another?

    OK. Start with:
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two (2). Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Click on the Erase tab in DU's main window. Select one of the two partitions, preferably the first one, change the Format type: to MSDOS then click on the Erase button.

  • How can I use a firewire hard drive on a new Macbook with one USB-C only?

    How can I use a firewire hard drive on a new MacBook with only one USB-C?

    kaz-k is correct about FireWire not being supported by any possible connector or adaptor to USB-C and never will.  However, there is no such thing as a FireWire Hard Drive.  There are only SATA (or if it is a really old one, ATA,) drives in a FireWire enclosure.  If you can remove the drive from the case/enclosure - bust it open somehow if it is a glued-up unit - then the drive can be placed into a regular USB3 enclosure. Then it can connect to the new MacBook via any one of the adaptors Apple sells.

  • How can i get an internal hard drive cable replacement?

    how can i get an internal hard drive cable replacement?

    I believe iFixit sells them:
    http://www.ifixit.com/
    You can also go to an Apple store, they won't sell you the part, but they will replace it for a fee.

  • How can I completely wipe the hard drive with out the Mac OS X disc? I don't need any of the info on the computer.

    How can I completely wipe the hard drive with out the Mac OS X disc? I don't need any of the info on the computer.

    You can't unless you have a bootable system on an external drive you can use. Otherwise, you need either the original disc that came with your computer or a retail copy of Snow Leopard DVD. The latter contains 10.6.3, so your model must be capable of booting from that or an earlier version of OS X.
    You can purchase replacement discs from Apple:
    Apple Store Customer Service at 1-800-676-2775 or visit online Help for more information.
    To contact product and tech support: Apple - Support - Contact Apple Support.
    You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
    After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

  • How can get formatted data from hard drive

    how can get formatted data from hard drive?

    No chance without special tools/knowledge. There are companies that can do it, unless you use multiple format or rewrite data with special erase ustility or unless you have done low level format.
    Regards
    Milos

  • How can my daughter use the hard drive in the Time Capsule ...

    So, I am in Oklahoma and my daughter is in Tennessee...
    She has a Time Capsule where the Wi-fi base station quit working, but the hard drive may be OK.
    She bought an Airport Express to use as a wi-fi router.
    The question, then, is:
    How can my daughter use the hard drive in the Time Capsule to do Time Machine backups?
    Thank you very much for your insights.
    Roberto

    It can be done but is very messy. That is assuming the TC is still functional which I kind of doubt.. the wifi is seldom the only thing that will die .. so whatever problems it has the wifi would be the least of it.
    Anyway.. do a factory reset to get started.
    The Factory Reset Gen1-4.
    Unplug your TC. Hold in reset. and power the TC back on.. without releasing reset for about 10sec. When the status light flashes rapidly; release it.
    Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel..  add no more pressure after that.
    TC will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations.
    No files are deleted on the hard disk.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
    If the LED is not lit then the TC is dead, not just the wireless.
    The setup for using the TC is explained in the bottom of this thread.
    TC in a second local network.
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4817218?tstart=30
    The idea is to set the TC to provide router function.. and the computer plugged in by ethernet to as a second network.. but there are rules on how this is done which I have explained in that thread.
    I notice that Mountain Lion deals better with order of network priority than Snow Leopard used to .. so it might not need to have manually set gateway and dns.. although I would still recommend it. It simply stops the second network causing issues.
    It is much easier to simply purchase an external drive and plug that in.
    It is cheaper, faster and more reliable than using the TC for TM anyway.
    Plus a lot of the later machines no longer have ethernet ports.. and using dongles is far from neat.. although thunderbolt to ethernet is IMHO necessary accessory for anyone without ethernet.

  • How can I use my external hard drive on both pc and mac, but also being able to use it to back up my mac data?

    I want to be able to transfer some of my files from my laptop to my macbook, but not all of them. I have a NTFS external hard drive and I have heard about reformatting it so that it can read/write across both systems, but can I still use this hard drive to back up the data on my macbook? If I can, how should I go about reformatting the hard drive?

    FORMAT TYPES
    FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
    Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
    Maximum file size: 4GB.
    Maximum volume size: 2TB
    You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.
    NTFS (Windows NT File System)
    Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
    Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
    To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:
    For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
    Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability.
    AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
    Maximum file size: 16 TB
    Maximum volume size: 256TB
    You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.
    HFS+ ((((MAC FORMAT)))) (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
    Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
    Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
    To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
    Maximum file size: 8EiB
    Maximum volume size: 8EiB
    You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)
    EXFAT (FAT64)
    Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
    Not all Windows versions support exFAT. 
    exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
    AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
    Maximum file size: 16 EiB
    Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
    You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive.  See "disadvantages" for details.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Installation developer suit 10g on windows 7 64-bit

    Dear all, I have successfully installed oracle 10g and developer suit 10g in my lappy which runs on windows 7 64-bit, I am able to launch form builder, create a new form and compile it. But when I runs the form the the internet explorer 8 crashes. Pl

  • Just completed new build and can't get through POST

    Hello to all on the forum, First time posting here, but have spent two days looking for similar issues.  Found a few, none of which address my particular set of circumstances.  Setup is as below, and upon power-up, I see the MSI splash screen, then q

  • DEP stops Itunes From Working Help plz

    I just got 2 new ipods and cant even use them my sisters Itunes works on her computer we got Same OS (Vista) and I try many ways of trying of fixing it and checked online I cant find anything and my sister in Collage so I can use her computer

  • Limit change access to all useres exept the one that created the document

    Hi, I wonder if it's possible to limit the change access only to the user that has created the document when it's in a specific status. This is what the customer wants: When a document is set to status K the document should be locked and no other use

  • Just got touch. Can't see movies on Itunes

    Hey I just got a new touch. It's awesome but I can't seem to download or even preview movies in Itunes (from the ipod itself). It lets me look for them, even select a movie. After than I see nothing other than a grey box that says 'Preview'. Nothing