HT201316 Mountain Lion won't install - no-recovery

Mountain Lion says it can't be installed. Log said to refer to www.apple.com/support/no-recovery. I don't have RAID, so it must be:
The disk has a non-standard Boot Camp partition setup, where further partitioning was performed after running Boot Camp Assistant, or the configuration that Boot Camp Assistant created was manually modified.
Problem is, I didn't do additional partitioning. This is an iMac running Lion.
Reinstall Snow Leopard, remove my Boot Camp partition, etc after backing everything up?
The error message in the log seemed to refer to an inability to write the boot.ini file.
There has to be an easier way.....any suggestions? I did not do anything to the partitions after installing Lion. I did have to run Boot Camp Assistant and managed to boot my Windows XP install CD to re-install the Windows partition.

Sure. I followed this guy's method which was in the thread I posted
http://musings.silvertooth.us/2012/03/restoring-a-lost-recovery-partition-in-lio n/
It ended up working for me. Thanks for mentioning Winclone, ended up buying a copy. It is a pretty painless way to back up windows (with NTFS).
I took these steps
Backed up Boot Camp with Winclone (win7x64)
Turned off Boot Camp (deleting partition)
Followed directions in article including running his script
Upgraded to Mountain Lion
Used Boot Camp to create new partition
Restored using Winclone
Now it is all good! I will continue to back up Windows periodically using Winclone

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Is there no other way to install Mountain Lion?

I tried and failed for several hours to install Mountain Lion, and was repeatedly getting the "Recovery System" cannot be created error. I tried all the tricks: resizing the drive partition, booting from an external boot drive, all to no avail. After reading other users struggling with the same issue, I had determined it to be a boot camp drive error. However, I didn't want to have to erase and begin anew when I came upon a possible solution. I had long ago renamed my boot camp drive with a "." (".windows" for me) in order to avoid having the partition show up on my desktop. So, I boot into windows and renamed the c: drive without the "." ("windows"), and reboot into os x. The install then went off without a hitch. I hope this will be helpful for others struggling with this issue that may have renamed their boot camp drives in a similar manner.

HT204347 Mountain Lion won't install on my laptop. I'm trying a fresh install

Mountain Lion won't install on my laptop. I'm trying a fresh install

Which OS X is currently installed?
Make sure your Mac meets Mountain Lion requirements > System requirements for OS X Mountain Lion

No Recovery - Mountain Lion won't install but Lion Recovery worked (until Mountain Lion messed it up).

When I tried to install Mountain Lion it gave me the "this disk does not support some features, like FileVault or Recovery Mode..." message. However, my Lion install at that point had a working Recovery Partition (I confirmed it after I got this first message - booted with it). I also have a cloned backup so I clicked continue. The install failed and gave the "No Recovery" message. Then I tried to boot in Recovery Mode and a screen came up saying "Installing" and the giant X with what looked like a progress bar with diagonal blue lines moving left to right, but no "time remaining" or other info indicating it was doing anything. I let this go on for about 10 or 15 minutes then restarted my computer. In Disk Utility I repaired permissions and disk repair was ok. I'm not using RAID or BootCamp - just one partition (plus the Lion Recovery one. The Mac is a newest model MacMini with an OWC SSD (I first thought the SSD might be the problem but it worked with Lion, so...)

Just Follow this procedure...
1. Go To BOOT CAMP and create a BLANK PARTITION. Say a minimum of 10 GB. You do not have to install anything on this.
2. After you create this, go back to ML installer and now you will see 2 HD's. one will be your main HD and the second one will be the one you just created.
3. Install the ML OS X on the main hard drive. Once installed, reboot the machine go to DISK UTILITY and delete the blank partition you had created.
4. So, now you have your HD at its full capacity.
Try this it should work.

HT201316 Mountain lion will not install and sends me to support/no-recovery

I can't load Mountain Lion since it doesn't support recovery any way around this glitch

Hi,
I had the same problem, unable to install Mountain Lion due to recovery problem. After a long investigation I found out that my Recovery HD partition was only 613.6MB and it should appearently be 650MB !
--- BEFORE ---
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            119.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             613.6 MB   disk0s3
What I did to solve this was to delete the Recovery HD partition using the following steps:
* In terminal window write the following: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
* Go to Disk Utility where you now should have debug menu. Select the option to show all paritions.
* Delete your Recovery HD partition.
* Make sure that you have at least 650MB free on your OSX drive. If not decrease the size of your OSX partition.
* Install Mountain Lion and it will then automatically create a new Recovery HD partition.
--- AFTER ---
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            118.9 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
I hope this can be helpful to someone.

HT3258 Mountain lion won't install on my MBP 8.3

Having problem upgrading to mountain lion
Installs up to restarting
After restart still on OSX 7.5

Do a backup. Is the installer still in the Applications folder? It should have disappeared if the installation attempt got to the restart point.
Try booting into the Recovery Volume using either command - R or by holding down the option key during restart. Run Disk Utility/Repair Permissions and Verify/Repair the hard drive. If everything checks out, you can then try to reinstall normally.
I would copy the installer before installing and move the copy to a safe place. This will keep you from having to download it again if the installation isn't successful.

The Mountain Lion Won't Install On My 2010 MacBook Pro

After I downloaded the Mountain Lion; it won't install because it says my hard drive is on a back up drive for the time machine. I've never used Time Machine and I only have one hard drive. I wasn't able to locate a backup file for time machine. Any suggestions on how to resolve this?

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Macbook Pro Late 2011, Bought 6 months ago.. Mountain Lion won't install

I recently bought a new macbook pro 6 months ago, and with lion, I have tryed to download mountain lion but it does not work, it says this disk cannot be used to start up your computer, i tried clcking on the recovery partion as well but that also does not work, I would be very gratefull if you can help, if you need any extra information just ask!

Install from USB stick (min 8 GB) ...
If you do not know how to do this see the link below ...
http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/17/make-bootable-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-usb-install -drive/
Second ... Boot from USB drive (select the alt key on restart)
3rd ... Before installing the system - do disk format
Only the partition (GUID) allows the installation of the system.
Take a look at the following picture ...
Regards Adam

Mountain lion won't install after drive wipe

Good morning.
I recently was handed down a 2008 13" macbook (unibody)
But my friend forgot to take all his information off the computer so he told me how to make a
Recovery USB drive and wipe and re-install mountain lion.
Everything goes great with the wipe and creation of the new partition so I move forward to
Reinstall OS X I go through the EULA then it asks me for my Apple ID that the mountain license is
Associated with and proceeds to download the os.
It takes about 40 min and it says it will reboot.
Problem is it hits 100% downloaded stays there a few moments
Then restarts back to the recovery options screen. Thus not continuing
The install.
How do I fix this and get mountain lion back on my macbook.
Thanks

spritzdog wrote:
When I go to Disk Utility, that option is not available, it is greyed out?
Did you select the partition (indented, under the main line for the drive)?
The sample is on an external, but should be the same on your internal. If not, please either post a screenshot of yours, or note what's different.
I don't want to reformat the drive and loose everything? What can I do?
Does that mean you don't have backups? If not, that's risky. Hard drives fail, things go wrong, people delete things in error.

Mountain lion won't install - downloads but says file is corrupt

I have purchased mountain lion osx from the App store and downloaded 3 times. Each time I try and install, it says the download is corrupt and that I should uninstall/try again. Any advice?
Trying to upgrade from 10.6.8 install of os on:
Model Name:          MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:          MacBookPro6,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether your problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Mountain Lion Won't Install on Mac Mini (Late 2014)

My relatively new Mac Mini (Late 2014) is running Yosemite.
I have purchased Mountain Lion in order to run a favoured version of sound editing software which is not compatible with either Yosemite or Mavericks.
Attempts to download my purchased Mountain Lion from the App Store result in the following message "We could not complete your purchase. OSX Mountain Lion is not compatible with this computer".
The 'Learn More' button takes me to the support article which states that Mountain Lion requires hardware of Mac Mini (Early 2009 or newer).
In terms of software, it requires that Lion is already installed.
My query is do I need to purchase Lion and install it before I can install Mountain Lion?
My concern with this is that Lion itself requires Snow Leopard itself installed on the machine!
Cheers,
Lou.

That is correct. Versions of OSX prior to Yosemite do not have the divers to support the 2104 Mac Mini.
You may be able to run ML as a virtual machine (VM) using a VT app like the free VirualBox and paid parallels.
However,you may not be able to get a copy of ML to install unless yo have another Mac that allows you to download the installer.

Mountain Lion won't install because it says my Mac HD cannot be used to start up my computer?

I've tried redownloading Mountain Lion but that didn't work. I've also gone into start up disc in my settings and restarted my computer with my Mac HD. It isn't partitioned. Any help here?

Just Follow this procedure...
1. Go To BOOT CAMP and create a BLANK PARTITION. Say a minimum of 10 GB. You do not have to install anything on this.
2. After you create this, go back to ML installer and now you will see 2 HD's. one will be your main HD and the second one will be the one you just created.
3. Install the ML OS X on the main hard drive. Once installed, reboot the machine go to DISK UTILITY and delete the blank partition you had created.
4. So, now you have your HD at its full capacity.
Try this it should work.

Mountain lion won't install on macbook pro 3,1

We have a MacBook Pro version 3,1 computer with 10.6.8 running.
Plenty of disc left, 2 Gb RAM.
The install process goes in a loop, from app store to www.apple.com/osx to pushing the "upgrade" button and back to the app store page.
I'm not really a Mac kind of person, it can tell.
I ran a hard disk utility to check and correct permissions but it didn't help.
any thoughts out there? I just want to run lightroom 5 and it needs 10.7 or better.
Can I buy 10.7 someplace?
Thanks
Darrell

Hello darrellsmith,
While i currently have no solution or suggestion for your problem, i would like to mention that even though Mountain Lion technically supports your model MacBook Pro, i advise against upgrading to mountain lion. It will put significant strain on your system resources and most tasks will perform very slow. If you really do need Mountain Lion, at least upgrade your RAM to 4GB. I know that 2GB is the minimum requirements but you'll lose those 2GB by just booting up and starting Safari. Add the software you want to use on top of that and your performance will be severely impacted.
Also, make sure you have a good backup of all your data. Upgrading an older system and skipping a major release in the process can create some issues or bring issues to light that you already had but just were not aware of.
A possible solution could be to create a bootable installer on an external drive, instructions can be found here.
For your system, OS X 10.6.8 would be the recommended OS and will give the smoothest performance. You will, as you've noticed, be limited to the applications you can run.

Mountain Lion won't install on mid-2010 iMac with Snow Leopard

Using the same Apple ID I used to purchase Mountain Lion on my Mac Pro, I signed into the Mac App Store on my iMac and downloaded Mountain Lion with no issues. The iMac is running 10.6.8.
When I launch the ML installer and accept the terms, the install screen appears but the Install button is greyed out as is the icon for my hard disk, Macintosh HD. Below the OS X Mountain Lion banner it says "OS X cannot be installed on "Macintosh HD".
Snow Leopard was installed on this machine as part of a family pack and I still have the DVD. Nothing shady going on license-wise, is I guess what I'm saying here.
Anyway, no reason is given and no options are offered other than the Back button at that point. And I can't seem to come up with anyone having a similar issue in all my "research". So any help or insight would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Doug

I recommend backing up your system, and before going into the install, checking disk utility > verify disk > macintosh hd partition > to make sure the partition is okay.
If there is anything wrong with it, you will know here. Sounds like the disk may be locked or there is an issue w/the partition "macintosh hd"
also, maybe the partition was created incorrectly... check to see if the partion is MAC OS EXTENDED JOURNALED and not case-sensetive

Mountain Lion Won't Install on hard drive

I am trying to install Mountain Lion on top of Lion on my startup/main sys hard drive. It says it can't install becuase the drive is not formatted as Mac OS extended with Journaling, use disk utility to turn on journaling or reformat the drive. When I go to Disk Utility, that option is not available, it is greyed out? I don't want to reformat the drive and loose everything? What can I do?

spritzdog wrote:
When I go to Disk Utility, that option is not available, it is greyed out?
Did you select the partition (indented, under the main line for the drive)?
The sample is on an external, but should be the same on your internal. If not, please either post a screenshot of yours, or note what's different.
I don't want to reformat the drive and loose everything? What can I do?
Does that mean you don't have backups? If not, that's risky. Hard drives fail, things go wrong, people delete things in error.

HT201316 Mountain Lion won't install - no-recovery

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