Mountain Lion install failed and now can't access HD
Currently on a Early 2011 high-end Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard.
I downloaded and then went to install Mountain Lion, everything was fine and it began to restart for the install after the initial loading thing. However, when it came to install it gave me an error that roughly said the drive is damaged and can't be repaired, telling me to click restart and try installing again. I did this, (taking slightly longer and the colour of the background became more yellow at one point) but instead of the logon pane it went to OSX Utilities.
On Disk Utility, it said Macintosh HD was unmounted. Below that, under 'disk1' Mac OS X Install ESD appears and then below that under 'disk2' Mac OS X Base System is shown. I tried to mount the HD but it didn't work, and when I tried to repair the disk it said it couldn't be repaired and that I should back up my files. I do think my files are still present, I was able to access them on the Burn pane through the finder window. I then tried to reboot using the Macintosh HD startup disk but that then said it didn't have enough information to do so.
This person's problem (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3192437) seemed almost identical to mine, however I have files I need and cannot afford to lose them. What do you suggest I do to retrieve my files? That is what I am solely concerned for right now. I backed up the most important files earlier, but I really do not want to lose everything.
Whatever you do, DO NOT REFORMAT THE DRIVE. You can just get a small <500Gb EXTERNAL bus powered drive, dismantle it and follow the instructions above. If you already have one then that's even better.
The drive I'm showing here is the drive that used to be inside of my computer. It took apart an old 320Gb seagate drive. The connections on these drives are all universally interchangeable. They just add some circuits and a USB (or other) interface. I would just get the cheapest drive that you can get that is for laptops and looks simple to take apart. (This is almost exactly the drive that I did this too http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-Portable-External-ST903203FAA2E1-RK/dp/B 001FWIE0K/ref=sr_1_56?ie=UTF8&qid=1343340447&sr=8-56&keywords=seagate+external+h ard+drive)
The "old internal" drive should still be able to allow you to install ML on the "new" drive as long as you tell it to. It sounds complicated, but it's really not once you get in there and start doing it. It was actually quite easy.
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Mathew SmithYou only need the powered exernal drive, OS X reinstall is free to install on the external drive.
Hold the option key and boot from the extenral drive.
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