IMac partition screwy

Hi all,
I have a 2010 iMac, I recently discovered a friend was using it and forcing it off with the power button, not shutting it down. Unsurprisingly something went wrong and now on boot it just shows a folder with a question mark.
Recovery mode works fine (this is a partition on that same physical disk, right?) but can only see "disk1: OS X Base System" of 1.27GB.
There is, however, above the line, a drive called MEDIA of 0 bytes. I can't erase or partition this.
Any suggestions?
PS If it matters it is (was? ) running 10.9.4

Hello Peteindigital,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Please follow the steps in the article below, in order, to troubleshoot this issue where your Mac will not boot past the flashing folder icon.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Take care,
Alex H.

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IMac partitioned for Windows 7 Pro. Can I upgrade to Maverick without loosing Windows data?

I am currently running 10.6.8 on my iMac (summer 2010) and have partitioned it to run Windows 7 Pro. I would like to upgrade to Maverick so need to know if I will loose the applications and data on the Windows partitioned part of my iMac? I can back up the data but not sure about all my applications. Any help will be sooooo appreciated.
Thanks,
'Snowed in Sonora'
P. S. Hope I've posted this inquiry properly for this elite forum.

Yes, and with your external hard drive, the external hard drive has to be configured for Boot Camp and have Boot Camp installed before you proceed. I suggest giving yourself an external drive a little larger if at all possible than the internal, so you have a possibility of installing a separate rescue partition, if needed.

IMac "Partition failed" Message

I like to partition my 1 TB hard drive into two equal sizes and then reinstall Snow Leopart on one of them. I have upgraded to Maverick that gives me problems I can't put up with but like to keep it for the time being.
Partion failed Message is: Partion failed with the error: Coldn't modify partition because the files system verification failed.
Any help out there?

Solved the problem myself, here is what I did:
I use only OS X utilities and Apple Time Machine Backup. One must also know the last backup date when Snow Leopard was active.
1. make copy of Hard Drive (OS X 10.9.1, all Apps and all User data) on external USB drive (I used a USB powered drive) using Disk Utility Restore. Disk Utilty Help outlines the procedure.
2. boot system using the copy from step 1 (follow: “Select startup disk” procedure ie. Option key) Booting and running any apps will now take much longer so be patient).
3. make sure the copy from step 1 is really bootable and only then erase entire internal hard drive to be able split it up into two partitions (breaking it into two partition without erasing will not work ref: my original Partition failed message)
4. create 2 partitions on the erased hard drive (I called one Maverick HD and the other SnowLeopard HD)
5. copy the external USB drive (made in step 1) using Disk Utilities Restore onto Hard Drive Partition (you may have named Maverick HD). Make sure the Maverick HD partition is bootable using “Select startup disk” procedure.
6. Restart System and use “Recovery tools” (Command-R). This will let you select the recovery source in this case "Restore from Time Machine Backup", press continue
7. Select your Time Machine Recovery Drive (in my case an external USB drive), press continue
8. Select the recovery date (Time machine will also display the OS X version), press continue
9. Select the Destination drive (you may have named it SnowLeopard HD), press restore
This will restore the OS X version, all Apps and User data active at that date. If your user data is out of date restore the latest data from your Time Machine drive.
Now you have two bootable versions to select from using the "Select a startup disk" procedure (on startup press the option key and select your startup drive).
I have deliberately only used Apple apps for all procedures because they are part of the OS -no extra cost- and should be the safe to use.
Similar procedure should also work using Carbon Copy Clone or the like.
PS: above should also work going back to Lion or Mountain Lion

IMAC Partitioned Drive 3rd Party S/W Not Working

I partitioned my Hard Drive to load Yosemite (could not upgrade to it otherwise).
Now I find that I cannot use third party software such as Office as it appears in the other partition's Applications and not those on the dashboard. When I copied Word to the dashboard it claimed it was not properly installed and I would have to reinstall it. Perhaps this is a Yosemite problem but I believe that it is more likely to be a residue problem from the partitioning. Any ideas?

Checking to make sure she has the right verizon.net password is as easy as logging into verizon.net - If it works, that's the right password. If not, you may need to reset it via the "Forgot Password" link or contact tech support to have it reset.
Based on what I can find on Earthlink's website, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to use their outgoing servers though. Their outgoing server uses port 587 and should work, even on a Verizon connection.
If a forum member gives an answer you like, give them the Kudos they deserve. If a member gives you the answer to your question, mark the answer as Accepted Solution so others can see the solution to the problem.
"All knowledge is worth having."

Can't restart to iMac 21.5" desktop after deleted Windows XP Partition...

Ok fellow Mac heads. If you could help me out here I would deeply appreciate it. I bought a brand spanking-new iMac 21.5" 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo about a month ago. I completely love it, but a week ago a friend of mine gave me a copy of Windows XP Professional and I thought it would be a great idea to try out BootCamp and partition out about 32 GB out of my 1 TB total HD and see what Windows looks like on my new iMac.
Well I ran though the instructions through BootCamp Assistant app, and all went well, Windows installed, and then I got a black (Dos-like) screen telling me that I had to press any key to continue and finalize the Windows install or press any key to escape. Well, there was not a key I could press that would do anything.
So I start freaking out. I end up holding down the "option" key and restarting. I boot to the Mac desktop instead of the Windows CD/disc in my optical drive still. So...I can...get to my iMac partition and desktop. So Then I completely and totally remove the partition and Windows through BootCamp Assistant app and one would think I am good to go.
The PROBLEM is...now if I hit "restart" on my iMac it takes me to a "black / blank screen with one small blinking curser" in the top (left) hand corner of my screen...and NOTHING...happens. And I can't boot back to my iMac desktop unless the original Windows XP disc is in the optical drive and I hold down the "option" key on my keyboard and then power-back up.
Can someone please shed some light on my situation and give any hints/suggestions/steps I can take to fix this issue? I would really, really...appreciate it. Many, many thanks to any/all of you out there.
Sincerely.
Smartmediaman (at) gmail (dot) com
<Edited by Host>

HI,
Try booting from your install disc and reformat the drive.
http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/27/snow-leopard-the-installation-process/
Carolyn

Why can't Disk Utility wipe my old iMac in Target Disk Mode?

I want to donate my old iMac G3 with all my personal data removed.
As all my old start up disks are long gone I went online and followed advice to wipe it remotely. I connected the G3 via FireWire to my 15" MacBook Pro (late 2008, running OSX Lion 10.7.5) and restarted the G3 in Target Disk Mode. I opened Disk Utility, selected the drive (not the iMac partition), selected Erase, renamed the drive and chosen the 7 pass option. And waited...
After leaving it overnight, I awoke to find it was still preparing. I then Skipped that stage (it gave me the option) and left it for 24 hours. It was still skipping, so I had to Force Quit Disk Utility. The G3 is perfectly fine, and Disk Utility works as I just erased a memory stick as a test.
What's going on?

You need to do the following:
Drive Partition and Format
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 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. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Only use a single-pass to zero the data. Any more is overkill and will take many hours to complete.

Resizing of main Mac partition taking a while

Hi,
Recently, I removed the 450 GB partition I had for Windows 8 (Boot Camp) in order to get a full terrabyte of space on my main OSX/iMac partition. It's the only partition that's left on the hard drive. I selected the hard drive via Disk Utility, went to Partition, and resized the Macintosh HD partition back to the default amount (999.49GB) in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
For the past couple of hours, it's been stuck at "preparing to partition disk." Is this normal? I couldn't find any other questions similar to this one online. This is the iMac 27" late 2013 model (i5 processor, 1 TB SATA HD [not fusion]) running the preseed version of OSX Yosemite 10.10.1 for general reference.
Thanks for the help!

Try doing it from Disk Utility in the Recovery Volume.
OS X Recovery
OS X Recovery (2)

Can't put my finger on what's wrong with iMac

From the beginning:
My wife asked me to copy a couple scratched dvd-rs the other night. The superdrive couldn't read one, but the other showed up on the desktop. I tried to copy it and got an error that the iMac couldn't copy the disc. Thinking it might just be a difficult disc to read, I tried again. This time, the iMac seemed to lock up -- the superdrive revved up, then revved down s-l-o-w-l-y until it stopped. The cursor was ineffective, and I had to hard reboot.
Upon reboot, not all my external drive images mounted. I have three external drives, one fore iTunes, one for Pro Tools, and one for back up. All three showed up, but only two of the three partitions of the backup mounted. I entirely unplugged the iMac and all peripherals, reset the PRAM, and ran the quick Apple Hardware Test. It showed nothing wrong, so I repaired permissions on all the disks and rebooted. Still only two of the three partititions on the backup mounted, so I called LaCie. They suspected a bad drive and sent out a replacement for my backup.
When the backup arrived, I hooked only that drive up to the iMac, partitioned it, and proceeded to back up my iMac internal drive to its destination partition using SuperDuper. All seemed to be going well yesterday morning when I left for work, so I thought the problem was solved. But when I got home, I got an error in SuperDuper (i took a screen shot if details are necessary) that there was an error copying the drive -- an error 5, input/output error. I stopped SuperDuper and tried again, and it picked up where it left off for a half hour, then gave me a similar error.
I unplugged all drives and ran the extended Apple Hardware Test. It was still running when I went to bed, but I woke to a message that there are no problems detected.
Any ideas what's going on here? I had been noticing some pinwheeling in the past several months, but ONLY when I opened Mail and my PoP account took a while to load messages. Do I have a bad drive? Bad logic board? Then why didn't the Hardware Test show it? Or, do I just need to buy something like DiskWarrior to rebuild my main directory?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I don't find AHT very trustworthy... unless it actually finds a problem, & it sure seems like some hardware problem.
Way too many console loggings I think.
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode & see if we still get thise listings in Console...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.
Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Bootable clones on iMac

Hi Guys!
I have two macs:
1 - 20-inch 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac - 3GB Ram
2 - 1.5GHz Mac mini G4 - 512MB Ram
On the iMac I created a 20GB partition and installed Windows XP using Boot Camp. Everything went through perfect. I boot holding down ALT and I can either log on to the iMac partition or to the Windows one.
Connected to the iMac, I also have a 500 GB external drive that I split in two, and created a bootable copy of the iMac using SuperDuper!, and I use the other partition for Time Machine.
Everything working great on the iMac.
Now my question. Can I use SuperDuper and another external drive to create a copy of the Mac mini and boot it using the iMac. I do know the copy wouldn't be bootable on the mini itself because my drives are USB2, and only my Intel iMac can boot using an USB2 drive.
But my idea is to create a copy of the mini and use it on the iMac... this way booting holding ALT would give the choise I already have:
1 - the iMac
2 - Windows
3 - SuperDuper! iMac copy
and now
4 - SuperDuper! Mac mini copy
Is it clear? Please let me know. I can explain better.
Thanks for any response

No. You also cannot boot a PPC Mac from an Intel system. You can boot a PPC Mac from a PPC version of OS X, and you can boot an Intel Mac from an Intel version of OS X. They are not interchangeable.

Backup for Bootcamp partition

Is there a way to backup my bootcamp partition to TM? The TM application doesn't give alot of options other than to exclude things, but not to add.
If I look in TM backups of my computer, the "C" drive is not shown. When I look in TM to see if the C drive is being excluded, it is grey'd out, not offering the option to exclude OR include it. In documents/virtual machine, there is NOTHING. I read somewhere that the entire virtual machine is stored here which would make for easy backup, but it appears to be more of a 'document' storage folder (unless I am missing something hidden, but that doesn't appear to be the case).
I run my business AutoCAD through Fusion and would like to backup the system at least once a week, just for the mere fact of settings, etc. All other project and business data is stored on my iMac partition, which DOES back up through TM. Any suggestions??

I read somewhere that the entire virtual machine is stored here which would make for easy backup, but it appears to be more of a 'document' storage folder (unless I am missing something hidden, but that doesn't appear to be the case).
Since you decided to use Fusion to work with a Bootcamp partition, you don't have Windows in a real Virtual Machine file. Parallels and Fusion can build their own virtual hard drives (really just files on the mac), with the OS, applications, and files on the Mac hard drive.
Apparently, you haven't used that option, but rather are using Fusion to work with a real MS-Dos partition that was created by Bootcamp. Time Machine can't work with a partition like this. I guess you decided to use Bootcamp for performance reasons, but it also means you will probably want to use a program like WinClone to back it up. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25932
In addition, if you do decide to use a Virtual Machine file to run windows instead of a Bootcamp partition, you will still probably want to exclude the VM file from the Time Machine backup because Time Machine will want to create a whole new copy of the entire VM file every time you use windows. I just manually copy the VM file to an external drive on occasion.

Help Before I Buy an iMac

I have an HP Desktop and I'm ready to convert to the iMac. I have a question:
I would like to purchase the iMac, partition the hard drive and install windows XP on it, move EVERYTHING over from my HP to the partitioned drive to the windows side of my Mac, so that I won't lose programs I've had for years, etc.
Is that possible ???

Your data files such as you music, photos, MS Office files etc are probably saved in your "My Documents" folder on your PC. My recommendation is to move the contents of that folder onto an external HD, when you get your new iMac and load Windows simply move all those files from the external HD to your iMac. It's just a drag and drop process. When you load Windows on an iMac it runs identically to your HP machine (well it's probably going to be faster than your HP) so it's really no different than buying another HP, Dell, Toshiba, etc Windows box.
Also if you buy your iMac at an Apple store inquire to see if they will provide this service to you.
You might get some useful hints from these links:
http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/
The application software is products such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop etc if you have a license and want to move it to your new iMac you will have to do an installation just like you did when you bought the software and ran it on your HP. Obviously you need to have valid licenses and need to understand what each application's license allows you to do. Every software manufacturer is a little different. For example Microsoft's basic license allows the use of the software on one machine only, however if you are moving to a new machine you need to ask Microsoft how to do that.
BTW when you ask us to elaborate it would be helpful if you told us what to elaborate on.

2 mac partitioned volumes on my original mac hard drive.

Hello. I originally had my iMac partitioned with xp on the other half. I was trying to erase some free space on my mac and for some reason(sure it was user error!), I now have 2 partitioned hard drives that are mac formatted and I can't delete the one that was originally xp. This is keeping me from re-using boot camp to re-install xp. Help!

Note to users
Seriously it is ridiculous to use improper and unsupported ways to access your files - iPhoto is a SQLite database and direct access to the database contents is not supported - you should use the proper tools as described above - doing otherwise does not work well and endangers your photos as small errors on a user's part can damage the database and corrupt it causing dataloss
What you need a forum for it to explain to you haw to use the program since you do not bother to read the help information or take the tutorials
LN
PS also note that posting erronous suggestions on two year old threads is not really a smart idea either

IMac Wont boot, can't unmount, can't reinstall

Hi Community, I'm really hoping you can help me as this one has me stumped.
I have a 2010 (i think, i can't boot it to check) iMac, through a power cut it now won't boot to OS X (Yosemite 10.10)
I have tried to boot it to recovery and can not reinstall, i have 3 partitions
imac
recovery hd
BOOTCAMP
I have tried a disk repair on the iMac partition which is greyed out and it says it can not repair it and i should back up my files and reinstall. Here comes the tricky part no matter how i boot the mac to Disk Utility i can not remove the old partitions, i get the error that the drive can not be unmounted no matter what i do, i have tried from external HD, USB flash and from internet recovery.
If i boot to window the machine starts fine and i can see windows, and i can then see the iMac drive listed in windows. Ive tried PRAM/NVRAM resets, when OS X does try to start the progress bar gets to about half way and then the machine just sits there at that.
Is there anyway i can boot to anything that will stop it from first mounting the drives so i can nuke the partition table and start fresh without having to remove the drive from the drive.
In disk utility if i attempt to mount the iMac partition it reports "Cant Open Drive"
Im not bothered about the bootcamp partition or the existing partitions, i just want to get the iMac running OS X again.

After banging my head against the wall, and Apple suggesting a genius bar appointment to replace the drive (at cost) i have resolved the issue. It was a bit of a hack but might help some one else who has the same problem
1) Boot to Windows (Bootcamp)
2) Go to partition manager in windows.
3) Delete the Apple partitions that are listed in the window.
4) Resize the windows partition, this forces windows to re-write the partition table it would seem
5) Boot to recovery with CMD + R
6) Open disk utility and you will only see the Bootcamp partition and nothing more, you can now unmount it.
7) erase the disk with GUID partition layout, repartioning as required
8) Install OS X from the same recovery instance (i used Internet recovery as i was attempting with USB and Internet)
The above *may work with a USB bootable device.
Hope this helps just 1 person who was stuck and couldn't find a solution in my predicament.

Time Machine questions: Handling backups for multiple Macs to one FW drive

I am reviewing the Time Machine thread and seeing a lot of helpful information, but I would like to ask something I haven't quite found yet.
We have 2 Leopard Macs, a MacBook Pro and an intel iMac... with plans to upgrade another MBP from Tiger to Leopard at some point.
In planning for Time Machine, we set up a 1 TB drive, attached it via FW 800 to the iMac, partitioned it GUID for Intel, and made 3 partitions, one for each planned Mac we want to back up to it.
I started Time Machine on the iMac first and the first backup of about 100 gb took maybe 4 hours.
Then we tried to start the Time Machine backup for the MBP over the network (wireless). It was understandably much slower and quit with some error last evening, so I took advantage of the pause to move the notebook to a wired ethernet connection. It got even slower so this morning I directly connected it FW 800, erased what had been backed up, and started over. So far, so good. 6GB out of 100 in 10 minutes or so. The idea being, if we can get the first backup completed faster over wired connection, maybe doing the incrementals over wireless network will be okay. Sounds like some folks are doing that successfully. I am hoping that works out.
Questions: Was it necessary to partition my 1TB drive into a partition for each Mac's Time Machine backup? I did make each partition bigger than the hard drive it is designated for.
To get the MBP to mount the external FW drive on its desktop, I had to disconnect the drive from the iMac. Is there any way I can connect the FW drive to both the MBP and the iMac (the drive has two FW 800 out connections, so it is physically possible)? I'm thinking (from reading posts of others with notebooks) that one strategy is to connect your notebook to your Time Machine drive at night and let it back up, but it'd be great if I could leave the iMac connected while doing so. Is there a way the volumes on the drive can mount on both desktops?
When I try wireless again, I'm seeing mixed posts regarding whether the MBP will need a password to log in to the remote volume each time, or only the first time when the Time Machine backup is established... if I could get clarification on that, it would be helpful.
Thanks!
thanks

What do you see on your notebook when you click on your TimeMachine icon in the Dock?
My notebook is mounting the backup drive on an hourly basis, running a backup, and looking like it is doing something... but when I then look at TimeMachine, I can't see the backups. (On my iMac with the drive directly attached, I see a progression of windows showing all the hourly backups the last 24 hours, etc.) I just called Apple to ask why this is so, and they told me they couldn't help me because wireless Time Machine backups aren't supported.
I know backups to a hard drive attached to an Airport Express Base Station are not supported. But when they say "You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. +Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices+"... well, how can you DO that?

Time Machine recovery on a new computer

I have an old Intel Core Duo Mac Book Pro that was running OS 10.6.8 and a newer iMac running 10.7.4. Both were being backed up using Time Machine onto a Time Capsule. My Mac Book Pro has had some serious problems and I would like to recover the back up from the MacBook Pro onto a Partition on the iMac. The MacBook Pro had a 250GB hard drive (200GB used for OSX). I partitioned the iMac to give a clean 250 GB partition. How do I recover the MacBook Pro Data onto the iMac partition?
Thanks

Pondini has some info..
http://pondini.org/TM/16.html
Read all the links ..or Q14-17 on restore.. there are a number of methods.

IMac partition screwy

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