My Macbook doesn't recognise the startup disk
I started having problems with Yosemite and lion (installed in the same hard drive, different partitions) so i erase all and instal mavericks, the macbook is late 2009 stock but i don't have startup disk, when i install mavericks it tells me that wont boot and it went an error trying to install, so i am able to boot with the alt key but my mac doesn't recognise de boot disk, when i try to select the startup disk on preferences it tells me: "You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk.", what i can do, i can boot with the alt key but it doesn't boot automatically.
If you erase a drive, then in order to install Lion or later you must first install Snow Leopard 10.6.8. You can install Snow Leopard using the installer discs that came with your computer when it was new. You can then update the version of Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 by downloading the combo updater.
Similar Messages
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i want to erase all my macbook files and OS and reinstall the startup disk. I have backed up old files on separate HD. Whats the best approach for a smooth reinstall.? I haven't done this in years.
I found a great short article by Aaron Sumner posted 02/02 which clearly explains the process. Thanks.
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Migration Assistant doesn't see the startup disk from the old G4
Hi,
I just got my new iMac and was about to transfer stuff from my old G4 which have two internal disks. But I stumbled into serius problems right away. Migration Assistant is not able to see the startup disk from the G4. It sees only the other disk.
I have tried to disconnect the extra disk and checked that the startup disk is forced with the jumper to be the master disk. With this configuration it won't start the G4 at all. Having he jumper in the cable select slot results to shut-up with the T-button (firewire) startup and normal startup without the T-way.
What should I do? I can't figure out what the problem is.
I enclose some System Profiler data of the problematic disk if this helps to find the solution.
Model: MAXTOR 6L060J3
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 1
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD NAme: disk0s10Ok. This is really simple to do.
The idea of the dual drive iMac is that the System and Apps reside on the fast SSD and that the user directories reside on the HD.
You first need to create the same accounts on your SSD as on your old iMac.
The next step is to change the path of the user accounts from the SSD to the internal HD. Duplicate or copy the Users directories on the SSD to the HD.
Change the path in System Preferences > User & Groups > Unlock to make changes > Select User account in sidebar > Right-click > Choose Advanced Options > Home Directory > Choose the Volumes/your_hd/Users/user_name.
Restart your iMac and restore from Migration Assistant.
Remember to keep the empty directories on the SSD, in case you ever have a HD failure or replacement, you will have to change the path back to the SSD. -
IMac doesn't recognise the internal hard disk (intermittent)
Hi, I was wondering if anyone could give me an advice on this problem.
Background: A few days ago my iMac (20-inch MA877LL) would not boot up, it would sit on the gray screen with the wheel spinning for ever. I thought the OS might have got corrupted so I tried to re-install Snow Leopard from the CD. Installation fails with a message like 'the content of HD can not be changed'. I then went to Disk Utilities trying to repair the disk but had no luck with the repair so I decided to format the disk. I managed to get into my hard disk using the cmd R key combination at power up and backed up my essential files onto a external hard disk. I formatted/erase the hard disk (zeroed out) and tried to reinstall the Snow Leopard again. The installation failed again. Rebooted the system again and tried to re instal again but this time I got as far as the 'select the disk where you want to install Mac OS' but my Hard Disk is not listed, it's a blank list! Rebooted the maching again, tried the installation, this time it sees the hard disk but the installation fails again.
I have tried to change the boot source by hodling the 'alt' key down at power up, but I am only given the option of the CD drive with installation disk as the boot source i.e. no Har Disk. It appears that the Hard Disk is intermittently recognised and hence my problem with booting the maching when the problem started.
I am happy to purchase an internal disk to replace the existing one, but I have a feeling the actual Disk it's OK, after all I managed to access my data to back up and then format it with no problem. I just think there's a problem somewhere that intemittently doesn't recognise the Hard Disk.
Any suggestions will be much appreciated.You need to have the hard drive replaced. The one that is currently installed has failed.
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I don't consider myself an advanced Mac user but I'm really trying to use my Macbook Air much more than I do... but the biggest hurdle for me is that it's been alerting me that the startup disk has been full for several months now no matter what I do. I'm on 10.9.1 OSX and can't even update to the newer version because I'm always out of space. I have 4GIGs of memory and a 60GB SSD of which 52GB are in use. Using OmniDisk Sweeper, I see I have 14.6 GB in Library of which 8.1 GB is Mail and 5GB is Application Support (and I have nearly 480 MB in Caches and 191 in Containers, 131MB in Messages). As for the rest, I've deleted my iTunes content multiple times but my iTunes library STILL says 1.7GBs in Music. I also have 672MB in Movies which I moved to an external drive and trashed so I'm not sure what still exists here. I only have 2 movie files and I deleted them both! I also have 16.9 MB in hob, whatever that is.
I have 32.8 MB in Logs, 19.8 in Safari, 7.9 MB in Calendars, 5.6MB in Google, 4.3MB in Preferences (!!), and 1.6MB in GameKit (not sure what this is), 1.1MB in KeyChains.
I'm just not sure what's going on. I have everything backed up via SuperDuper on a huge external drive and when I delete on my Mac, it doesn't seem to "take." Is is syncing that's the problem? Are my iTunes music files from my iPhone reinstalling back on the Mac as are all my photos and movies? I don't have that checked in iTunes so that shouldn't be happening either.
Again, I'm not an advanced user so maybe I'm not completing a final step to make sure it doesn't sync with my other devices (I also have an iPad mini). I like to get messages on my Macbook Air when I'm not near my phone but if it means I have 131MB in Messages that I can't pare down, I'd rather not. I see no way to reduce the Messages file so that it's not so large. I definitely want to get a handle on this before I even consider upgrading to a Macbook with more RAM and a bigger hard drive.
Final thoughts: Should I delete my mail accounts and just check mail on the web? Can I delete most of the files in Application Support or leave them alone? What's the difference between the MobileSync files and the MSYNC files?
Thanks in advance for help!Go step by step and test.
1. Start up in Safe Mode.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
iTunes > Preferences > Devices
Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409 -
I have a family video DVD that was originally on tape, but is now on disc. I want to import it onto my MacBook to edit and store. However the files are IFO, BUP and VOB and the Mac is saying 'unable to import' as it doesn't recognise the file. Help please !!!!!
Those are the constituent parts of a standard mpeg2 DVD. Storing them is easy: just copy the folder to your hard drive and they will play in DVD player or VLC.
But that format is not intended for editing. To do so:
You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A/quicktime-mpeg-2-playback-component-f or-mac-os-x
(unless you are running Lion in which case see below))
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.
And from the TOU of these forums:
Keep within the Law
No material may be submitted that is intended to promote or commit an illegal act.
Do not submit software or descriptions of processes that break or otherwise ‘work around’ digital rights management software or hardware. This includes conversations about ‘ripping’ DVDs or working around FairPlay software used on the iTunes Store.
If you are running Lion:
From the MPEG Streamclip homepage
The installer of the MPEG-2 Playback Component may refuse to install the component in Lion. Apple states the component is unnecessary in Lion onwards, however MPEG Streamclip still needs it. See this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3381
To install the component in Lion, please download MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b7 beta above; inside the disk image you will find the Utility MPEG2 Component Lion: use it to install the MPEG-2 Playback Component in Lion. The original installer's disk image (QuickTimeMPEG2.dmg) is required.
The current versions of MPEG Streamclip cannot take advantage of the built-in MPEG-2 functionality of Lion. For MPEG-2 files you still need to install the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component, which is not preinstalled in Lion. You don't have to install QuickTime 7. -
How do I import an iPhoto Library (V.7.1.5) created on my old MacBook (10. 6.8) into my new Macbook pro (10.9.1) running iPhoto 9.5.1? I tried copying onto memory stick and moving to new mac, but new iPhoto doesn't recognise the library.
So what exactly did you copy over? If it's a 12 gig iPhoto Library then it sounds like the files are there. Perhaps the copy went wrong along the way.
Option 1
Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.
If that fails:
Option 2
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)
This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD -
Can i get the startup disks online for free for a used macbook i just bought?
can i get the installation stuff that i need to wipe all of the previous owners info off of my used macbook 13" laptop, so i can start over like new? my laptop did not come with all the startup disks or anything when i bought it.
No. Contact the seller, or phone AppleCare and buy replacements.
(106577) -
After upgrading my Macbook Air to OS Yosemite it doesn't recognise the 3G USB modem which was working previously. Any ideas?
Hi ..
Reset the PRAM > About NVRAM and PRAM
Those instructions are for Mavericks but will work on Yosemite as well.
Then try the USB modem. -
Hello,
I'm trying to run Bootcamp on my 15" Macbook Pro (Maverick). I have 60 gig available on my computer's hard drive and have 250 gig on a separate hard drive that I have attached, which is single partitioned (MS-DOS FAT). It keeps saying "The startup disk does not have enough space, you must have 28 gig of free space available" Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Any help would be much appreciated.Thanks for the advice Bob The Fisherman. I'm just reading what turbostar has kindly written and it appears that perhaps, if I take advice from you both, I need to free more space up on the computer's hard drive?
With the external hard drive; would it be advisable to defragment? Know of any defrag freeware for Mac OSX?
Many thanks to you both. -
My Macbook air keeps getting a message saying that the startup disk is full. I don't have picture, music, or movies on it. Im not sure whats wrong with it.
The first step is to check and see how much space really is there. From the desktop right click on the drive in the upper right corner (at least it's there by default) and select "Get Info" to see how much space it reports as free.
It's not just media files that eat up disk space, though they are often a major contributor. Do you happen to be running one of the virtual machine programs (Parallels or VMWare Fusion)? When you create a guest drive there you normally have a fairly decent amount of disk space dedicated to it and that can fill the drive.
As well, a quick fix that may buy you some time is to empty the trash if you've not done so recently. Click on the trash folder in your dock and then in the window that comes up select the option to empty the trash.
If you can free up some space, there are programs that will help you find what files and directories are using disk space. I've used Space Gremlin (in the App store) for that sort of thing, though there others. If you run that sort of utlity you'll get some idea about what is really eating up the drive space. -
TA22302 freeing up space on the startup disk on a macbook
How to free up space on the startup disk on a macbook?
By deleting files and then emptying trash. To assist you, download from the Internet OnmiDiskSweeper (free) and open it. It will show all of your files and the respective sizes. Delete what you do not need or want
Also consider either transferring files to an external disk or installing a lager internal HDD.
Ciao. -
Why doesn't my backup drive appear in the Startup Disk selection window?
I've been using SuperDuper! to backup my Mac HD to my internal Seagate drive. The Seagate is divided into Seagate1 and Seagate2. I backup to Seagate1. When I open the Startup Disk window from Preferences, only the Mac HD icon appears, highlighted, and a Network Startup icon. Seagate1 does not appear, although I've made it bootable while using SuperDuper!
I'm not on a network, as I'm the sole user of my computer at home. I am connected to the Internet via cable, but that shouldn't be a factor, I think. I don't know why the Network icon is there but Seagate1 but Seagate1 isn't.
Is there a way to make it so the Seagate1 icon appears in the Startup Disk window? As it stands if my Mac HD goes down, I won't have access to Seagate1 to boot the computer.
Would much appreciate any advice or referral to another source that could help me.Something I learned re: partitioning w/ Disk Utility: Dave Nanian at SD! referred me to SD!'s FAQs, the 1st one dealing with my problem:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5738
I told (email) him that the original partitions already showed APM, but I went ahead, anyway, following instr's in the FAQ. Notable in those instr's is to click on Options, which I may have overlooked originally. This time, when I clicked on Options, APM showed as the default in the window. I went ahead & proceeded, thinking, "Well, if APM is the default, why did I need to click on Options"?
So I raised the issue with Dave. Here's what he said: "Alas, no - it uses the existing scheme, which was likely MBR."
Lesson: When partitioning w/ DU, ALWAYS click on Options, even if APM is the default. I know DU directs this, but all I can think of why the original partitioning failed is that I did not do this. Any comments would be welcome. -
Macbook doesn't load on startup-Annoying.
When I turn on the macbook it stays on the grey screen and never loads. This has been happening more, even when I hold down option on start up it doesn't load sometimes. I have had problems with safari freezing and even force quit wouldn't work so I have had to manually shut down the computer. When I try to start it back up that is when it doesn't load. But the safari problem has gotten much better and doesn't freeze much anymore, but today on start up it stayed at grey screen. This is a annoying problem and please help! Thanks.
dictionary. wrote:
I ran the disk utility and it said that the the volume Macintosh HD appears to be ok. What is the
purpose of running off the install disk?
Because earlier you said:
Well I did the disk utility, and the permissions worked fine, but on disk it froze and I had to restart.
and then:
I tried running the mac os x install disk and it wouldn't even run on that...
So, it looked like you couldn't run the disk verify. However, if you were able to verify the startup disk using Apple's Disk Utility you don't need to check it again with the Mac OS X Install DVD. However, don't confuse the permissions check with the "Verify Disk" test.
I hope your problems don't reappear, but frankly computers crash for a _reason_ and if you haven't changed anything to fix the problem then it will mostly likely reoccur.
Given what you've told me and assuming that you did run the "Verify Disk" test and not simply the verify permissions, I'd say that you _may_ have a problem either with your hardware or with your Mac OS X installation (not the DVD, I mean the OS image that is installed on the hard drive). To eliminate hardware as the problem you might want to rerun Apple's built-in hardware diagnostics and select the extended testing mode. The extended test can take a good amount of time so I'd start it when your are finished using the MacBook for the day and make certain that you're running on A/C power and not the battery.
Next, Safari shouldn't be crashing. I run Safari for several hours each day and it is _very_ rare for me to have any serious problems with that program (let's say one crash every few months, if even that often). Of course, the frequency of problems may depend highly on what you are doing on the computer and that's why it is important to look for patterns in your work (i.e. nearly every time I do this on this website Safari crashes).
By the way, when Safari crashes do you restart your MacBook? That would probably be a good idea if you are planning to continue to use your MacBook for a significant amount of time (after the crash). Also, do you ever need to do a forced shutdown of your MacBook? What I mean is does your MacBook/mouse/keyboard ever completely "freeze" so that you can't do anything until you hold down on the power button to force a system shutdown? If you _are_ having to do frequent forced shutdowns I'd suggest that on your next restart that you run the Disk Utility to check both your permissions and disk before you begin again to use the computer.
In any case, good luck in the future. -
Hello,
I've been stuck for some hours now trying different things to install Windows 7 on my Macbook Air, and I think now is the time to call for some custom help.
I'm using OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.
So some months ago I just wanted to run Linux on my laptop so I installed rEFInd, shrunk the Macintosh HD partition by 25GB and booted on a linux live USB flash I burned using dd.
Then I used gparted to create my linux partitions.
It worked just fine, even though disk utility from OS X seemed quite unhappy about this (it seemed to have incorrect informations about the filesystem on these partitions, seeing them as journaled Mac OS while they were clearly not). At this point already, the Recovery HD from mac showed up in disk utility, which I found weird but didn't bother me.
But recently I needed windows on my Mac. So after a few tries for the triple boot, I managed to create a bootable USB stick with boot camp, which already showed me the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" and hence refused to partition/install himself.
So I thought "OK, that's no big issue, I can just partition with disk utility and then boot on the USB stick and everything will work fine". But when EFI booting on the USB flash drive I got stuck at the beginning of Windows installer with no keyboard or mouse support.
After some hours spent googling, I was unable to find a working fix for that, and as there was no support for my case (where I used bootcamp to create the bootable flash but NOT to partition/reboot) I decided to give bootcamp a try.
So I erased my linux partitions, and cleaned up everything I could on the HD with disk utility. That means I now have two partitions showing in disk utility : Macintosh HD and Recovery HD.
When using disk utility from terminal, the list is :
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 80.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_HFS Recovery HD 650.1 MB disk0s3
But boot camp still isn't happy, and the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" keeps popping after the intro and I can't partition/boot from bootcamp.
So, as I don't understand what is wrong here anymore, any help would be greatly appreciated!
I will be watching the thread a lot because I really would like this resolved (or windows installed one way or another) this weekend; so any questions on my past manipulations or config just ask!
Thank you.keyboard issues are also something of a common issue.
I wish the best threads were voted to the top of forums, something! Me, I literally burned out here, but after installing 10 Preview, wanted to "see what was going on" after hiatus of a couple years and see if anything had changed (no, not really!)
Also, these new Communities are not putting "more like this" and failing to help too.
I think rewriting Boot Camp Assistant's built in help and pdf would help a lot, and needs to be clearer and go into details. And Yosemite was not it seems tested against Boot Camp, and drivers for new Macs + new OS also lag behind. Again, common and no sign of improvement or change.
One of the tricks to the "can't partition" is rather simple - of course backup is step #1 and is spelled out - SHRINK the main HFS+ partition! then stretch it back to full length. Sometimes a reboot is needed, and sometimes even do a Safe Boot - not sure what but Recovry Mode might be a good option too. That does seem to consolidate free space, move files that are locked and cannot be moved otherwise, and allow BCA to partition, jusst be sure to have enough space left and large enough for a proper Windows install (and fudge factor).
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