Problem upgrading from snow leopard 10.6.8 to mountain lion. Damaged partition.

Hi, here's my problem: I can't install ML and I can't go back to SL.
This is the story:
- trying to install ML on my iMac SL 10.6.8 > error: HDD is damaged and can't be repaired.
- trying to start up from original SL install disk to return to the original state > error: the contents of this disk can't be changed
- trying to start up from 'start up disk HD osx 10.6.8' > error: you can't change the start up disk, start up disk couldn't gather enough information.
- trying to start up in safe mode > the grey screen with the apple appears but nothing happens except that the computer runs warm.
- using disk utilities:
     -- first aid: verify disk: error: disc needs to be repaired. Click repair disk. // (but the repair disk button stays grey and can't be clicked.)
     -- restore: when opening the time machine back up there are just files, no disk images or something like that.
     -- erase: error: couldn't unmount the disk. // (probably because you can't erase a partition you are already using).
That about sums it up. All this is leaving me with a useless iMac.
We can't have that, can we?
Please help. Thanks.

Thanks Walter.
I just solved the problem myself. Here's what I did:
I used the 10.6.8 install disk to start the computer, in disk utilities I unmounted the partition with my OS ( HD MacIntosh ). Then I could erase the partition (I have up to date back ups of my files). After that I could install 10.6.8 again. After it is installed completely and I have run the apple software update I expect that installing ML won't be a problem anymore.
I advise anyone encountering the same problems to have a look at the posts in this community concerning the upgrade from snow leapard to lion because the same problems, and a lot of them, occured with this. Which, I think, is a sad thing.
Minus points for Apple.

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Choose About this Mac from the Apple menu, click on More Info, and compare the model identifier with MacBook5,1, which is the earliest MacBook that can run Mountain Lion and newer.
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Check to make sure your applications are compatible. PowerPC applications are no longer supported.
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So I purchased Mountain Lion online and received the redeem code from Apple. I've redeemed the download for Mountain Lion but have been having issues trying to even initiate the download. I've gone into system preferences and turned off the computer's sleep mode to prevent the computer from going to sleep during the download. When I click download, the App Store seems to load for a second and then it just goes back to saying download (as if I never pressed the button, or at least that's what it looks like). I have gotten it to start downloading once (as indicated by the icon that appeared in my dock), but about mid-way through it failed and said I had to retry.
I'm upgrading from Snow Leopard (v10.6.8) so I don't have launchpad. I'm also limited in my ability to get fast internet (I have to go to a coffee shop to get decent internet where I live). So I guess a couple questions:
1. Is there a minimum internet speed requirement for downloading Mountain Lion? (If not, I'm willing to wait at the coffee shop even if it takes a while)
2. If it isn't necessarily an internet speed issue, could it possibly be downloading somewhere where I can't see it download? (although I this seems unlikely as I have had the download appear in my dock on at least one occassion)
3. Is there anything else on my end that might be causing issues with the download that anyone can think of? (I've called apple a couple of times already so I just wanna make sure there isn't anything glaring that I might be missing before I try to call them again)
If there is any other info that might help diagnose the situation, let me know and I'll try to describe what's happening on my end
Thanks!

Yeah, that's pretty much what I have (1.5 MBps down and up). The connection isn't consistent though (it drops and reconnects on an inconsistent basis). I guess the problem I'm having is getting the download to even initiate, which has, to my knowledge, only happened once (this morning). I go back to school on Wednesday where I have a 10 MBps down and up connection. Trying to get this done as soon as possible with school starting up again next week to try and make sure everything is up and running smoothly.

HT4759 can I upgrade from snow leopard to current version of Mountain Lion on my Mac? So I can use icloud on all devices?

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Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
As your Mac is running Mac OS X 10.6, first open  > Software Update and install Mac OS X 10.6.8. This update will add the App Store, so open it and try purchasing Mountain Lion. If your Mac is compatible, the computer will start downloading Mountain Lion.
While your Mac is downloading Mountain Lion, you should make a backup of your files. Also, check if your apps are supported > http://www.roaringapps.com
If your Mac isn't compatible with Mountain Lion, see if you can use OS X Lion > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4949 If it's compatible, call Apple to purchase Lion > http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57

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will i have problem upgrading from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Maverick ?

Impossible to know. But I would make a backup before doing so, just in case. I would also do the following:
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 you wish to save yourself a lot time should you need to reinstall Mavericks at some point in the future then see the following:
Make Your Own Mavericks, Mountain/Lion Installer
After downloading the installer you must first save the Install Mac OS X application. After the installer downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing.
   2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your flash drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the leftside list. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list.
Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to an hour depending upon the flash drive size.
Make your own Mavericks flash drive installer using the Mavericks tool:
You can also create a Mavericks flash drive installer via the Terminal. Mavericks has its own built-in installer maker you use via the Terminal:
You will need a freshly partitioned and formatted USB flash drive with at least 8GBs. Leave the name of the flash drive at the system default, "Untitled." Do not change this name. Open the Terminal in the Utilities folder. Copy this entire command line after the prompt in the Terminal's window:
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Press RETURN. Enter your admin password when prompted. It will not be echoed to the screen so be careful to enter it correctly. Press RETURN, again.
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Upgrade from snow leopard 10.6.8 to montain lion on a iMac system won't boot getting a crossed out circle

Upgrade from snow leopard 10.6.8 to montain lion on a iMac system won't boot getting a crossed out circle

Clean install OS.10.6.8 update it completly. May be you ignored some firmware update.
I have two incedents.
My thunderbolt port stopped working after upgrading to ML 10.8. I booted from external 10.6 , 10.7 still didnt work. Then i clean installed 10.6.8 and ran software update it updated the thunderbolt firmware and all is well now. This firmware update for some reason didnt show up in ML 10.8.
Secondly , when i upgraded my Brother's Macbook from 10.5 to 10.6.3 it would install but stuck with crossed out circle. Then i downgraded checked for update found an efi update , then the 10.6.3 worked fine.

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iMac purchased in January 2011. Updating from snow leopard 10.6.8 to Mountain Lion. Download will not complete. At 75% downloaded it stops and says to check Internet connection. What should I do? Before the download I used Disk Utility to check/repair permissions, all software is up to date, and I emptied the trash.

First, you are downloading Mountain Lion, so this error is not related to your disk drive. The problem is apparently with the internet connection between the computer and your router or your modem and Apple's servers. So it's an internet connection issue.
At your end you can verify your connection is active and working. If you are using wireless then try using an Ethernet connection instead.

HT4413 I am trying to use migration assistant to move everything from snow leopard (10.6.8) to mountain lion (10.8.3) using a direct machine to machine ethernet cable connection but it stalls out at about 17 minutes remaining. Thoughts on how to proceed?

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Have you set both to never sleep?
Is the source (old) Mac's software up to date (including the Migration Assistant for Mac OS X Snow Leopard update)?
Is the old Mac healthy? Have you run Verify Disk on it lately?
The estimates are wildly inaccurate under the best of circumstances. How long has it been stuck?

Upgrading issue from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Mountain Lion

Hello there,
I have a Macbook Pro 15'' which I purchased nearly 2 years ago. I have a dual boot with OS and Windows with boot camp.
PROBLEM: For the past year I have been desperately trying to upgrade my operative system from snow leopard to a later version, without any success.
QUESTION: If I install Mountain Lion on an External Hard Drive, will I be able to use my mac without the external hard drive? Can I use the external hard drive only for the recovery mode? (Refer to point 2) below for more clarification)
The STORY:
First, I tried to install OS Lion. The error I had was that the OS could not create a recovery partition. The problem is well known in the community, but Apple is ignoring requests of costumers and I tried for several months to ask for a solution by contacting tech support. I did not find a solution and at the end I was mostly ignored.
When OS mountain Lion came out I hoped that the new OS would have solved the problem. I was wrong. I bought the update and I had the same problem.
The OS won't install because it can not create a recovery backup.
The problem is well reported in this post:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1167870/hands_on_with_mountain_lions_os_x_recove ry_and_internet_recovery.html
I quote the article which says the iussue is due to:"... if you partitioned the drive using Boot Camp Assistant ... the installer won’t be able to create Recovery HD...". In essence, if you used the Apple software Bootcamp to partition the Mac, then any later OS system won't recognize the partition and will refuse to install the update because they can't create a recovery disk.
Now, this won't be a problem with any other OS, because all you need to do is to manually create the partition , while OSX works only in "automatic" mode. This means I can not upgrade my OS
There are two solutions reported in the article:
1) Back up all your data and Format your hard drive. I actually refuse to do so, ^_^ as I would lose 1-2 days of work just because of the lack of support of Apple
2) Install OS on a external hard drive
This looks like a neat way out . However, I am afraid I will need to bring this Hard drive with me at all time. I was wondering if anyone has experience with this. I so, I would like to ask if I install OS mountain Lion on that Hard drive, will the external drive be used only for the recovery disk?
Please, let me know

Uh uh, I see!
Also it seems I can use my time machine backup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Assistant_(Apple)
together with Migration Assistant. This would work. Thanks
Now I need to figure out the Windows part. I need a full backup of Windows as well, with all the programs. In particular I need to be sure I can maintain the graphic card drivers.
You don't want to know how long took for me to find out how the **** I could update my graphic card drivers in Windows on my Macbook pro. Unfortunately there was a lot of misleading propaganda from Apple about bootcamp, saying that the new intel processor would have worked fine with Windows. Sad that everything was a lie. When installing Windows with bootcamp the graphic card program was unable to find and install the graphic card drivers update . Took me 2 weeks reading through thousands of angry posts of disappointed costumers to find out how to do that. I do not want to reapeat this dreadful experience.
After one year and a half with my Macbook pro I have a system I am TERRIFIED to touch. It is very very fragile, and any little change can destroy everything. It barely works. that's why I am so scared to re-install the OS

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Mail "unexpectedly quits" after migration from snow leopard time machine files to new iMac running Mountain Lion. I can run connection doctor OK. But the activity window is blank. If you try to open message viewer window then mail program crashes. Would really like to get my old emails back as the old imac is totally dead. Thanks for any help.

Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the name of the crashed application or process in the Filter text field. Post the messages from the time of the last crash, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
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Still in the Console window, look under User Diagnostic Reports for crash reports related to the process. The report name starts with the name of the crashed process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report and post the entire contents — again, the text, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

If I upgrade my macbook pro from snow leopard 10.6.8 to mountain lion, will I lose any current software, files, or need to reinstall or reset anything?

I want to be sure that I won't lose things like microsoft office (I need excel for work) or my word files. Will I lose anything by upgrading to mountain lion? will I need to reinstall things or spend a lot of time restoring and resetting to get things set up as I have them now?

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Will upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion create problems within Premiere projects?

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My Imac fails when I try to upgrade from Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I have to boot up from disk. Does anyone know how to overcome this problem?

My iMac fails when I try to upgrade from Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I have to boot up from disk. Does anyone know how to overcome this problem?   I need to upgrade in order to install latest software.

It would be lovely to know what your talking about. Upgrading from Snow Leopard does not involve discs.
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If your computer does not meet the requirements to install Mavericks, it may still meet the requirements to install Lion.
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     Lion System Requirements
       1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7,
           or Xeon processor
       2. 2GB of memory
       3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
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       5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
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To upgrade to Mountain Lion you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Purchase a redemption code at the Online Apple Store: OS X Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion is $19.99 plus tax. Use the code to redeem a download of Mountain Lion from the App Store. The file is quite large, over 4 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.
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         1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later.
         2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model
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         3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later.
         4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later.
         5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later.
         6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later.
         7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later.
To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
     Are my applications compatible?
         See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.
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         1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later
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         3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later
         5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
     Are my applications compatible?
         See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.

When downloading yosemite to upgrade from snow leopard the download appears to overload my internet and will not complete and forces a restart of my modem. Anyone else have this problem?

When downloading yosemite to upgrade from snow leopard (10.6.8) the download stops partway through and appears to have overloaded the internet, causing me to have to restart the modem.I have an Imac 8,i with 4gb of ram, which is supposed to support yosemite. Anyone else having this problem?

I am not sure it is the modem, but I use a Webstar by scientific atlanta provided by the local dsl.

Problem upgrading from snow leopard 10.6.8 to mountain lion. Damaged partition.

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