Mac Air locked disk

My Mac Air hung the other day and would only boot with the flashing question mark whichis a very terrible sign. I was able to hold the option key and get back into the disk diag screen. It says the disk is ok but you cannot select anything other than verify. I tired to do a re-install of Mac OS but it says the disk is locked. Is there anything that can be done? I have never seen an error like this before. I can install Mac OS on an external drive and the basic hardware all seem ok except it does not see the SSD so my concern is that my SSD is toast. If anyone has any ideas it would be great

There are several ways to back up a Mac that is not fully functional. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
1. Boot from the Recovery partition or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
2. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
3. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

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HT4413 I started the migration assistant but it stopped and the Mac Air locked up. I would like to undo what the migration assistant has done so far. Is that possible...and how do I get the new Mac Air unlocked?

I have a new Mac Air and started the migration assistant. It stopped at some point and the Mac Air locked up...the cursor moves but I can't get anything to happen on the screen. I would like to undo what has been done so far on the migration assistant as well as unlock the Mac Air. How do I do this?

Try recovery mode.

Mac air locked on security update screen. What should I do?

Last night, as usual, I receive a message that I should install an update for my mac air (2011) for security reasons. So, I did it before I go to the bed, but when I woke up, I found my mac stucked on the software update screen. There's no option to abort ou take any action. The status bar is stopped at the same place for many hours. Any key that I press make a "this is not permitted" noise and I don't know what should I do.
Should I do a hard-reset? Is there any other action that I can take?
I don't know exactly what is my OS X, but I really think it is Mountain Lion.

I did a hard-reset and everything is working... \o/

Mac Air locks on startup with grey apple screen and spinning wheel

when I start my MacBook Air all I get is the grey screen with the Apple and the spinning wheel. This screen does not change. Ive shutdown and allowed to charge overnite with no success. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Grey Screen and spinning wheel at startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11044
Repair Disk
Steps 2 through 8
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
Reinstall OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10763?viewlocale=en_US

Mac Air locked up. Can

I attempted to cancel a printing because it was taking a long time. I now have the box that says "Canceling" and the spinning blue and white bar. My computer is locked up and I can't get rid of it. It has been spinning for 5 hours. I can't quit Safari. I have tried

Wasn't finished. I have tried to Quit Safari. I get a little "thud" sound. I have gone to Apple menu and tried to shut down. It won't allow it. After the 58 seconds pass it says "Try quitting Safari on Apple menu bar. I have tried logging off under Apple menu and it won't log off. I get the same response. HELP! I am writing from my iPad.

I am trying to open iTunes on my mac. But a box pops up saying "The folder iTunes is on a locked disk or you do not have write permissions for this folder". Anyone know what that means? I've had my computer 2 years and its never had a problem opening it

I am trying to open iTunes on my mac. But a box pops up saying "The folder iTunes is on a locked disk or you do not have write permissions for this folder". Anyone know what that means? I've had my computer 2 years and its never had a problem opening it

I've already right-clicked on the application, clicked "get info", and changed it so all people listed in the "Sharing & Permissions" section have the "read & write" privilage.
The error message is referring to your iTunes library, not your iTunes application.
You need to check and fix the permissions of the iTunes folder in your iTunes library. This is by default located in your "Music" folder.
Select the folder Music > iTunes in the Finder, right click on it or Ctrl Click and click "Get Info". At the bottom of the contextual window thatwill pop up, disclose the Sharing and Permissions brick, change your status from Read only to Read & Write. You may need to click the padlock icon to make changes.

Startup Disk issue in new Mac Air. Replaced with another new mac, then again. MS Excel culprit?

Hey guys, I bought a macbook Air 11’ 4GB 128GB (Mid-2011(after selling my 13” macbook pro) and the problems seem to be never ending.
My primary work involves using MS Excel so I installed a licensed version of Office for Mac 2011 and started using excel on my new mac machine. Within few minutes I got a message pop-up on screen “YOUR MAC OS STARTUP DISK HAS NO MORE SPACE AVAILABLE FOR APPLICATION MEMORY”.
I checked the size of storage and there was just 5 GBs worth space left despite the fact that there was not a single photo, music, video on the new mac apart from a few MBs of excel files. I took it to the vendor (APPLE PREMIUM RESELLER) who after re-installing lion returned it to me and the same issue again popped up. Finally, they diagnosed an SSD problem and after a week of waiting, I was given a brand new shiny macbook air MC969 (same model).
I used the new one and again while using excel, the same issue has come up. I’m really fed up of this stupid error bcoz I was using the same OFFICE FOR MAC suite on my macbook pro and never suffered any such problem. I have also twice thrice completed all the steps I was told to do (like repair disk perm. Emptying the cache etc. )
Since India doesn’t have any Apple owned stores but only Premium Resellers whose replacement etc policies are not governed by Apple.
They do not even refund the money but have given an option of diagnosing the machine and replacing the problematic part.
I googled the web and found no such issued with EXCEL. Strangely, other apps in the office suite seem to work well without any issues.
I have attached the screenshots that how while using excel, within a couple of minutes, mac starts to heat up, then storage decreases and finally the error where mac becomes dead slow.
Please help me to determine where the cause lies.

The Excel files size range between 29KB to 60KB.
That's it.
I called up the reseller and he said that the replacement period is now over and mac would only be repaired.
I dont want my Mac to get unscrewed

I've just opened iTunes on my Mac with an error "The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.". I created a shirred library so that all users on my Mac can access the same library. Help?

I have just opened ITunes on my Mac and the following error occurred "The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.". When I setup my Mac I created a shared user area to contain my ITunes library so that I could share it with another user logged onto my Mac. However the error above gives me the impression that the library file is locked... I've checked and it does not seem to be locked under the "get info" fie information. Has anyone come across this before and found a solution?

You also need to make sure you have both read and write permission for the file, or for the whole iTunes folder for that matter. That's also done in Get Info for the file or folder concerned.
Read the part about changing permissions on the iTunes folder in: https://discussions.apple.com/message/11583914

When I bought my Mac Air OSX Version 10.9.2 my daughter helped me migrate the contents of my previous macbook. But in the process seems to have duplicated the iTunes library . The start up disk is almost full and plus it doesn't my iPhone. Please help!

When I bought my Mac Air OSX Version 10.9.2 my daughter helped me migrate the contents of my previous macbook. But in the process seems to have duplicated the iTunes library - How do I get rid of one. The start up disk is almost full and plus it doesn't synch properly with my iPhone 4S. Please help!

Hello nicky:
You should run repair disk from your software install DVD before you try anything else. The crash may have damaged some of your directories - and a possible cause of the "missing/not missing" tunes.
Barry

HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

I have the latest Mac Air 13" and I have a Seagate 500MB external hard disk I cant copy or Cut any files on the hard disk and I cant even delete any files. I have the settings as Read and Write in the get info tab. Please help

I have the latest Mac Air 13" and I have a Seagate 500MB external hard disk I cant copy or Cut any files on the hard disk and I cant even delete any files. I have the settings as Read and Write in the get info tab. Please helpand also note that my hard drive was formatted on a Windows 7 Laptop.

thats the problem, its in MSDos (Fat) or NTFS for Windows.
Options.....
1. offload all that data on the HD onto your PC, THEN format the HD in EXFAT for use on BOTH PC and Mac for read/write.....then reload all (or as you need) that data back onto the HD
2. get another HD, and format it for Mac OSX extended journaled.
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) ------Can read/write from both PC and Mac
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.

My mac air says " startup disk is full".How to solve ???

My Mac air has a message during starting the computer and says that startup disk if full. In the composition of my hard there are 120 GB used space on other parts, which I have not understand where is these files.

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the available space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Mac air 64 GB hard disk problem in updating the maverick os

When I updated my mac air for mavericks, it says free some space and 9 GB is required. What should I do?

Free some space on the SSD. At least 20 GBs if not more.
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

Get a third drive if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, set it not to exclude that drive, and drag the files to it. If you're moving an iTunes or iPhoto library, launch the application with the Option key held down and choose the moved library.
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Mac air keyboard locked

hello! my mac air keyboard was locked, and thus, i cannot log in. would you know how to unlock. am a newbie. thanks!

So you get to the login screen, and nothing happens when you press keys? Try clicking in the password field with the trackpad.

Mac Air locked disk

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