Lion installation says my hard drive is damaged, now my Mac won't turn on!

Help! I just purchased the new Lion software app and was downloading it to my iMac when out of the blue a message popped up saying that the software could not be installed because my hard drive is damaged and cannot be fixed! I now cannot even turn my computer on. The background stays white and I have the apple logo along with other logos that just randomly pop up.... what happened?? Can anyone help me with this? I know my hard drive is not broken or corrupted! how can I get my Mac to turn back on??

Be sure to do some homework before trying again. There is plenty of advice on the internet, for example:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1161087/install_lion_over_leopard.html
As gumsie says, it is important atleast to backup your own data, photos, music etc on another disk. I would get Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and make a bootable clone of your existing Snow Leopard. Then copy the new Lion installer to this clone as well. With this, you can keep functional (and ask for help here) while you get the Lion installation working and your apps updated.

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When I try to install ios lion the installer says my hard drive has SMART errors and that I need to buy a new Hard Drive, but my computer witch has snowleprd and runs just fine

When I try to install ios lion the installer says my hard drive has SMART errors and that I need to buy a new Hard Drive, but my computer witch has snowleprd and runs just fine.

SMART is a technology that monitors the drive for signs of impending failure. You can verify that SMART is indicating a problem in Disk Utility. Select the hard drive and look at the bottom of the window. It should look like this:
If the SMART status is not "Verified" then you should back up your drive and start shopping for a new one.

I tried to instal lion but my iMac says "install fail because hard drive is damaged and can't be repaired" and my only option is to restart and it immediately tries to download it again, won't let me back to any other screen. Is there anything I can do?

I am trying to install Lion and I keep getting a fail message that says "Mac OS X could not be installed because the disk Hard Drive is damaged and can't be repaired". It only gives me the option to restart to try again but fails every time, an no other option. Is there anything I can do?

I'll guess that you're upgrading from Snow Leopard? You should be able to start using your original install dvd by inserting the disc and restarting while holding the C key. Run Disk Utility from your install disc and try to repair the drive. Then try the upgrade again.

I downloaded some videos to Premier Elements 13 from external hard drive but now the external hard drive is damaged. I tried to open the videos on the organizer which it shows the video but with a yellow ? and says missing file. Is there anyway I can open

I downloaded some videos to Premier Elements 13 from an external hard drive but now the external hard drive is damaged. While setting up my new MAC the external hard drive was dropped and I have been told by an outside source they could not retrieve the files. It had 4 years of photos and videos on it. I remembered that I had downloaded some of the videos from the external hard drive (before it was broke) to Adobe Organizer 13 when I installed the Adobe 13 on my MACOS X 10.9.5. I tried to open the videos on the organizer which it shows the video but with a yellow ? and says missing file. Is there anyway I can open these videos?
Any input is greatly appreciated!! I am sick over losing the videos and had a little hope on Adobe Organizer until I was unable to open them. I am thinking it is due to my external hard drive not being plugged in. I thought when I transferred from the external hard drive to Adobe 13 that it would be there without the external hard drive needing to be attached but maybe I did something wrong.
Thanks again for any help!!!!

jnrmendonca
It had 4 years of photos and videos on it.
To what did your camera record those photos and videos - camera's internal memory, inserted memory card, other?
Any remote chance that the latter may still exist for you to use to download the camera files to your new external hard drive?
ATR

I downloaded Lion in October and it would not install because it said "the disk Mcintosh Hard drive is damaged and cannot be repaired" Any ideas?

I downloaded Lion from the APP store onto my imac (running Snow Leopard v. 10.6.8, 3.06 Ghz Intel Core i3, 4GB Memory with over 200GB of storage space, which I also Time machine back up to an external hard drive. I also run Office for the Mac 2008, ilife 08 and iworks 09) it downloaded but then wouldn't install as it said the hard drive was damaged and not able to be repaired.
I then called apple support who advised me to run disk repair/verification of disk, and no faults were found.
We also looked at the partition disk which apparently there was 2.
Finally we started in safe mode with the original disk (DVD) of Tiger (I couldn't find the original DVD that came with the imac which I bought in Nov 2010 - although I have now found this!) in the DVD driver and the whole hard drive crashed and was unresponsive.
So, I had to take it to apple store, wipe my HD. I then re-installed Lion and all my data from my external HD and tried again, and the whole thing happended again.
So I took it back to apple who re-installed Snow Leopard which I am now running with no problem at all.
I still wish to use Lion mainly because I also use Mobile me and so want to be able to sync my iphone and ipad to my imac beyond June 2012!!
Any suggestions about what this could be or how to avoid another 2 trips into Apple Store!

I'll guess that you're upgrading from Snow Leopard? You should be able to start using your original install dvd by inserting the disc and restarting while holding the C key. Run Disk Utility from your install disc and try to repair the drive. Then try the upgrade again.

My hard drive is damaged. I'm using disk utility; can I safely use CHECKSUM? will it help or give me info?

my hard drive is damaged. I'm using disk utility; can I safely use CHECKSUM? will it help or give me info?

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

If I want to install Lions on a 2nd hard drive in my MacPro Desktop, will it allow me to do so if I have Leopard installed on the boot drive?

I have a blank 2nd hard drive that I am going to install in my MacPro desktop. The boot drive already contains the Leopard operating system. I want to install Lions on the blank hard drive. Will setup in Lions when it comes out, allow me to install Lions onto the 2nd hard drive since it should detect that I have a valid Apple operating system on the boot drive?

You can first install Snow Leopard then re-download Lion. Or you saved the original installer application then created a bootable Lion installer on a USB flash drive or DVD. Or you buy Apple's $69.00 USB flash installer.
You haven't told us what hindrances you've encountered, so you should post your own separate topic related to your problem and not threadjack another person's topic.

Can't update to Mavericks, says my hard drive is backup

When trying to update to Mavericks, the system won't do it and only says that the selected drive is used for time machine backups. This is my hard drive, and I don't use it for time machine backups.

You have got the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive, and this is the folder used by Time Machine to create backups. Because of that, the OS X Mavericks installer thinks your hard drive is being used by Time Machine.
To fix this, you need to remove the folder:
1. Open a Finder window, select the Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type:
2. Delete "Backups.backupdb", and if there was nothing in it, empty the Trash.
3. Run the Mavericks installer and follow the steps

Down loaded Mavericks, will not install on my computer because it says "this hard drive is used for time machine back up".

Down loaded mavericks, it will not install on my computer because it says" this hard drive is used for time machine back up". So I used my old computer hard drive for back up and reloaded the program but it still says the first hard drive is being used.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Make sure you have selected your MacBook Pro's hard drive as the destination to install Mavericks. If so, you have the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive.
That's the folder used by Time Machine to store backups of your files, and the Mavericks installer understands that your internal hard disk is the Time Machine drive.
To fix this, open a Finder window, select the Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type:
Then, delete "Backups.backupdb", empty the Trash and run the Mavericks installer. Finally, install OS X Mavericks

I am having trouble installing Lion on a partitioned hard drive. Help?

Aloha:
I am having trouble installing Lion on a partitioned hard drive
I have three internal HD's The first I am running the system on 10.6.8 (which is up to date) , the second I do most of my work on and the third I have partitioned into two and I am trying to install Lion on one of the patitions.
But Lion has decided it will only go on the first HD.
Above is the one I want to put it on, but it's not available and I can't change the partition scheme. None of the things the directions state are usable??
What might I be doing wrong?
Thanks
Dan Page

Thanks again for a rapid responce.
I finally got lion on one partition and my daily "SilverKeeper" backup on the other.
Since the only thing I had on the two partition Hard drive was the back up and since the backup would get put on tonight any way I changed the drive to no partitions. This gave me the ability to choose the GUID option, which I did and then I installed two partitions and successfuly istalled Lion on one of them. I even tied Lion into the iCloud successfuly.
But I am not out of the woods yet! I brought My brand new iPad to lunch and was informed that my iPad was synced to my Lion at home and I was on the cloud. That blew my mind, I was impressed.
I then read the Daily news with out problem, however, when I shut down my iPad, that was all she wrote. I can not get the iPad back on. The best I could do was see the revolving gear start and then freeze. It's on charge now and I can not even get rid of the frozen gear.
Not sure this all has anything to do with the recent installation on my main computer, but it's mighty suspicious.
Need some help!!
Thanks
Dan

Installer cant find hard drive

Now when I download update for my G4 power book IE the latest ITunes and other Apple updates the Mac installer dosent show hard drive to install to. HELP!!!!!

what OS is installed on the machine, how much free space is on the drive, is there any error message when installing and what does it say exactly?

My 2012 MacBook Pro fell and it now makes a clicking noise and shows a grey screen on startup. I'm afraid the hard drive is damaged. Is their anyway to still back up my hard drive even if it doesn't turn on all the way?

So my late 2012 MacBook Pro was sitting on my desk when the desk collapsed. The computer fell with it and I was quite scared at the moment, but thankfully I opened it up and it worked perfectly fine again.
I was later watching a YouTube video and pressed the back button. The screen then froze, and I could not force quit safari. Then this weird clicking noise started to happen. It was coming from the right of the trackpad. That's when I decided to force shutdown the computer with the power button.
I let it sit and then decided to turn it back on. The clicking noise then came back and there was just a blank screen on the boot up. Eventually a grey folder with a question mark started flashing on the screen. That was all it did so I decided to turn it off again.
I'm going to take it into the Apple store ASAP, but I'm curious if my hard drive is damaged and if I will need a new one, which would erase everything on my Mac. So I was wondering if there is anyway to back up the hard driver even if it doesn't boot up all the way, or turn on the computer all the way.
P.S. I have never backed up my hard drive so I wouldn't know what to do.

You may have damaged the HDD which is located in that spot. I would take it in for service.

I have Lion on an external hard-drive and I want to install it on the internal disk

I have Lion on an external hard-drive and I want to install it on the internal disk. How can I proceed?

I recently completed a clean install of Lion on an internal SSD. After wiping it clean, I used a thumb drive with SL on it to boot and then another thumb drive with Lion on it. It worked just fine. The only thing to be aware of is that if you use the thumb to install Lion from... it will not install a recovery partition and you'll have to use the thumb in the future.
That's what I wanted anyway so it's working out just fine. Good luck.
I should add... I used the SL thumb to actually boot from and used Disk Utlities to wipe the internal SSD. It does work and there are Apple posts that can guide you through the thumb drive process. I used copycat to create both the SL boot and Lion.

New hard drive installed on my 2009 mac book. Can I reinstall pages, numbers, etc... from the App Store? I was running Lion.

New hard drive installed on my 2009 mac book. Can I reinstall pages, numbers, etc... from the App Store? I was running Lion.

HI Corey ...
Yes. Make sure you use the same Apple ID.
How to re download apps from the Mac App Store:
Open the App Store. From the menu bar click Store > Sign In
Click Purchases from the top of the App Store window.
Select which apps you want to re download. Then right or control click where you see Installed then click Install.
Make sure and use the same Apple ID used for the original purchase.
If you can't re dowload the apps, launch iTunes. From the iTunes menu bar top of your screen click Store > Authorize This Computer. Sign out of the iTunes store and try re downloading your apps from the App Store again.

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

It's best to install Snow Leopard on one of the three remain drives without an Operating System.
You can then install the applications you need from the original media. Create a User Account using Setup Assistant.
Do you want to migrate User Accounts from the OSX LIon boot drive, or are you keeping the User Accounts separate?
Dual-booting just requires holding the option key during startup and selecting either Lion or Snow Leopard.

Lion installation says my hard drive is damaged, now my Mac won't turn on!

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