Mountain Lion won't install - Early 2010 MBP...

I purchased Mountain Lion through the App Store, it begins downloading...
Download completes and I see the OS X Mountain Lion install screen, I scroll through the agreement, click agree, click agree again. It then show an icon of my HD. I select that drive and it says "this drive is used for Time Machine Backup". No its not - I have an external Time Machine drive (which isn't even connected).
So I go in and completely turn off Time Machine. I go back to the installer and it no longer tells me the internal HD is used for Time Machine, it simply says "OX X cannot be installed on "Macintosh HD".
What the heck is going on?
Hello Apple, what's going on?

Try Pondini's suggestion here > https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3957609?start=0&tstart=0
Same topic.

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HT3258 Mountain lion won't install on my MBP 8.3

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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.

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

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Mountain Lion won't install on 10.7.4. Suggestion from Apple is to completely erase harddisk and install Leopard Snow Leopard Mountain Lion. Is there no other way to install Mountain Lion

Mountain Lion won't install on 10.7.4. Suggestion from Apple is to completely erase the harddisk and install Leopard > Snow Leopard > Mountain Lion.
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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?

OS X- Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups

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,
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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 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 - 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 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 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.

Macbook Pro won't start up - Mountain Lion won't install

Hello,
I have a Macbook Pro from august 2012, today it just crashed. I tried to fix it with disk utility, but it told me that I need to reinstall Mountain Lion, because disk can't be fixed. I then tried to reinstall Mountain Lion but at first it didn't let me select the Macinosh HD, (I also have windows on it, that partition couldn't be selected either), then I restarted and when I tried reinstallation again, it didn't even showed me The Machitosh HD partition anymore. I tried NVRAM and safe boot too, without success. Can anyone help? Thanks,
Constantin

MacsReh wrote:
I installed leopard on my MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo. Well at the end during the restarting phase it took forever to restart and my power was running out so not sure if it restarted or batt went dead.
Welcome to the Apple boards:
You installed Leopard on battery power? That's a real big no no. A very risky gamble at best.
If your battery died during install, you may well have totally hosed the system.
After recharging i turned on mac and wont boot up past the apple with dots hovering it. Don't know much about macs so if you could help it would be appreciated.
See if you can boot into the Leopard DVD (hold down "C" on boot) and after the language screen, on the top left will be a menu. Select Utilities, run Disk Utility and repair your HD and permissions.
See if that gets you somewhere.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

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.

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 - Early 2010 MBP...

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