Problems reinstalling Lion from Recovery service

I'm trying to reinstall Lion from the Apple Recovery service but keep getting told after 10 hours downloading, that installation has failed.
I'm having to do this as my machine crashed a few days ago and lost access to the operating system. I did not loose files as the machine was Bootcamped and i could access from there.
Initially, I was told that the hard drive needed repairing, which has now happened and it's passed all it's tests via the Disk Utility but still no installation.
I tried booting from a usb and the download recovery but no sucess.
Can anyone advise.

Philip Keller wrote:
John,
I think I'm "reinstalling OS X by booting OS X Recovery": I reboot with command-R depressed, or I reboot with Alt depressed and choose the recovery parition, and then I start the installation process from the list of things I can do. Are we talking about the same thing?
Yes, exactly.
I think that OS X Internet Recovery would be necessary only if you were to attempt a Lion installation with a completely empty HD, implying that even a Recovery partition has not been created. Your USB flash drive is the way to cope in that circumstance. If you can install Lion by booting the recovery partition as you described, it seems to me that it is all that is necessary and there is nothing to fix, despite the error message you see.
I'm surprised that Internet Recovery works at all, given that your Mac is not one of those allegedly eligible to use it.
Without a similar 2006 iMac to test, I can only speculate that the "abysmal distribution system" as baltwo describes it just doesn't work well with earlier Macs, and that Apple may not have tested it extensively with them. If I were you I would rely upon that USB installer much more than OS X Recovery or OS X Internet Recovery. I prefer not to rely upon any installation method that can possibly result in "the server is not available at this time" or such nonsense, but that is the direction in which Apple has been going for a long time.
An OS X installation log exists at /var/log/ that you can examine using Console, probably named "install.log". Deciphering it is another challenge.

Similar Messages

I'm having troubles with reinstalling lion from Recovery HD

Hello everybody. Please keep in mind that I'm not english, so I'll probably do some grammar errors.
Here there's my problem:
I decided to reinstall Mac OS X Lion, on my macbook pro 15" (late 2010). Everything worked well, I just wanted to clean everything and start over again.
I started the computer from Lion Recovery HD, which is, as we all know, in a separate partition.
I followed the instructions written in the documentation: I initialized the Hard Drive with a HFS+ file system from the utility disk, then, I clicked on "Reinstall Mac Os X".
After choosing the right HD and writing the username and password for the mac app store, i got an error: my account is allowed only in the Italian store (I'm from Italy, but I'm temporarily in the USA. I also wrongly forgot my Snow Leopard DVD in Italy )
Anyways, after clicking OK and writing ID and PWD again, the download of the OS finally starts (First problem solved?)
After more then 15 hours downloading, I came home but it didn't change a lot: the computer was still on recovery hd (i think it restarted by itself?), the download was finished, but it didn't install the OS, nor I could boot from the main HD. If I try to click "Reinstall Mac Os X" again, it would ask for my id and pwd again, and start the 15 hours download another time, as nothing had happened.
By the way, i checked the HD from the utility disk, and about 4 GB are used in the HD, while before the download I had initialized it, so I think Lion was downloaded there. I repeat, I can't startup from the main HD, since it's not available when I turn the computer on and press option.
Sorry for the long message, but I tried to give you the most informations I could provide. If you need other informations, tell me.
Thank you very much for the help, by know I'm stucked on a $2000 machine that has only Safari on it, with the scrolling that is in the wrong way
Alefus

Not sure what happened, but I think your best bet it to try again.

"Recovery system can't be created" error when reinstalling Lion from recovery system

I get the infamous OS installation error "Install failed... because a recovery system can't be created" – but in fact, the recovery system already exists, since I'm installing from it, and incidentally, I've previously already used it for an Internet reinstallation. I've tried about a half dozen iterations now.
Here's the exact sequence of events:
Reboot on recovery drive.
Select option to reinstall the OS from the network.
License agreement, etc; then select drive -> install -> sign into Apple store.
"Downloading additional components" message. 1st attempt consistently fails at this stage, need to restart at step 2.
Download for roughly 20 minutes, then automatic reboot -> "Installing Mac OS X".
After about 10 minutes: "Install failed. Mac OS X could not be installed on your computer. Mac OS X can't be installed on the disk ..., because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more."
I've pawed through innumerable posts of people who have gotten the same error message, but haven't found one that reproduces my circumstances. I've reviewed the KB articles "OS X: About OS X Recovery" and "OS X Lion: Installer reports This disk cannot be used to start up your computer", with no luck. Based on a suggestion in the second KB article, I've reduced the primary partition size by roughly a GB and retried - no luck.
See this thread if you want to know why I'm reinstalling the OS, even though it's (more or less) functioning and I have Time Machine backups. It would also make me feel a lot better to know that the reinstallation would work in case of real need. Thanks in advance for any help.
-- Phil

Philip Keller wrote:
John,
I think I'm "reinstalling OS X by booting OS X Recovery": I reboot with command-R depressed, or I reboot with Alt depressed and choose the recovery parition, and then I start the installation process from the list of things I can do. Are we talking about the same thing?
Yes, exactly.
I think that OS X Internet Recovery would be necessary only if you were to attempt a Lion installation with a completely empty HD, implying that even a Recovery partition has not been created. Your USB flash drive is the way to cope in that circumstance. If you can install Lion by booting the recovery partition as you described, it seems to me that it is all that is necessary and there is nothing to fix, despite the error message you see.
I'm surprised that Internet Recovery works at all, given that your Mac is not one of those allegedly eligible to use it.
Without a similar 2006 iMac to test, I can only speculate that the "abysmal distribution system" as baltwo describes it just doesn't work well with earlier Macs, and that Apple may not have tested it extensively with them. If I were you I would rely upon that USB installer much more than OS X Recovery or OS X Internet Recovery. I prefer not to rely upon any installation method that can possibly result in "the server is not available at this time" or such nonsense, but that is the direction in which Apple has been going for a long time.
An OS X installation log exists at /var/log/ that you can examine using Console, probably named "install.log". Deciphering it is another challenge.

Will recovering lion from recovery hd wipe my personal documents, such as iPhoto library etc?

I feel that after two days of debugging, my only option is to reinstall lion. I need to know if this will wipe my personal documents. Can anyone tell me?
I will be reinstalling lion from the lion recovery hd.
Thanks.

I probably should have elaborated in the first instance, but I have said it all in another thread.
The short version is that my osx 10.7.2 has become more and more corrupted over the past few days.
I can log in but the system is so unresponsive that it is unusable.
I have booted from a lion installation on a FireWire drive and once I am on, I can browse to and see all the files on my hd with no problem HOWEVER despite being able to see them, access them etc.... I can't copy them to anywhere. Keeps copying a small part of the file and then stopping with a error -36
Hence the reason I was asking if I could recover the os without backing up.

What happens if i need to reinstall Lion from a disc after my iMac ***** itself?

What happens if i need to reinstall Lion from a disc after my iMac sh**'s itself?

It depends on how bad your iMac sh**'s itself. If you can boot into the Recovery partition, then there is re-install option which will automatically download Lion from the store and install it. If you can't boot into recovery then you would have needed to create a bootable Lion dvd or thumb drive to do an install. In this case you would need to create the bootable image after downloading the Lion installer and before performing the install as the installer gets deleted upon successful upgrade to Lion.

HT4718 I had a copy of Mountain Lion on my late 2008 MacBook Pro, having replaced Lion which it came with. But the drive,crashed, so I replaced the drive and reinstalled Lion from the original disks I had. How do I get another copy of Mountain Lion?

I had a copy of Mountain Lion on my late 2008 MacBook Pro, having replaced Lion which it came with. But the drive crashed, so I replaced the drive and reinstalled Lion from the original disks I had. How do I get another copy of Mountain Lion?

A 2008 Mac won't have originally shipped with Lion. You need to install 10.6.8 on the computer, log into the Mac App Store with the Apple ID you used to purchase Mountain Lion, click on the Purchases tab, and download it.
(121465)

Reinstalling lion from itunes

does anyone know how to reinstall lion from itunes?

Download Lion from the Mac App Store, not the iTunes App Store which is only for iOS apps.

Reinstalling Mac OS X Lion from recovery encounter Problem

I am trying to install my OS X from recovery. When I select reinstall in Utilities and then click on continue, after a while it says that: " your disk cannot save the installation information please contact apple. please tell me what can I do

If you have erased the disk, then be sure you have used the proper schema:
Partition type must be GUID; Format must be Mac OS Extended, Journaled. Are you doing this from the Recovery HD? If so, then see:
Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

Unable to reinstall Mountain Lion from recovery partition

Hi there,
   I have formatted my main HDD partition and then boot from recovery partition. I have a MacBook Pro 2011 series. I have reinstalled my Mountain Lion following on screen instructions. But when It's says is OK and 100% installed and begin restart the system, it is unable to boot and automatically boot from recovery partition again.
   Can anybody help me? What I have to do?
   Thanks in advance.
   vzuritae.

Why did you start this process in the first place? Was there something wrong with the original install of Mt Lion? Like your system wouldn't startup anymore?
I suspect it is a hardware problem and may be the drive is failing.
Is your Mac a Early or Late 2011 model. Did it come with Lion Pre-installed?
If it came with Lion Preinstalled then you can use the Online Internet Recovery system to first reinstall Lion. At startup hold down the Command+Option/Alt+r keys until you see a spinning globe in the center of the screen. From that screen select Disk Utility and Re-Partition the drive as One partition. Then close DU and select Reinstall Mac OS X. If after the install of Lion is downloaded and finishes the install your system still refuses to boot up properly then you have a hardware problem and only Apple can fix a hardware problem.

Need to reinstall Lion without Recovery HD

I need help in reinstalling Lion on my iMac after a Time Machine Backup. I found problems with Macintosh HD aduring Disk Verification nd followed directions to erase it and restor from TM. When I went to do a clean reinstall of Lion by depressing Option or Cmed-R, the Recovery HD is no longer visible. I am positive that I didn't erase the Recovery partition, but now it's not there. I would much rather do a clean install with the installer but the Apps Store tells me I already downloaded it. Any help in recovering the Recovery HD or getting an internet download is much appreciated.

First, make sure you're not pressing cmd-R too early. Wait until you hear the chime.
If that still doesn't work, go to the App Store and option-click the Purchased tab. You should then be able to install it again.

Reinstalling lion from web

I am trying to reinstall Mac OS X lion from my 2011 MacBook air recovery drive but during the lion download process the count down timer keeps resetting to 30 minutes left and when I left it overnight in the morning it just gave me error message saying it could not be reinstalled.

I'm having a same problem.
my airbook was yosemite 10.10.3 latest version.
but reinstall screen has a lion image and details.
i think, reinstall process wants to lion but i need yosemite.
what is the solution??

Reinstalling lion from app store, can I still have Snow Leopard on a partition?

I rushed out too early to install Lion via Apple Apps store. Now, I realize that Rosetta is gone and so are my options to use older apps.
I have never partition my hard drive, but using disk utility I created a partition called "Snow Leopard." It divided my HD in half which is okay. I closed the disk utility window, rebooted holding down the "C" key, and saw the OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD v10.6.2. When I select it, a window pops up saying, "You can't use this version of the appl inst Mac OS X with this version of Mac OS X. You have installed Mac OS X 23.1.1."
Before downloading lion, I made a backup of my existing Snow Leopard HD using Time Machine to an external HD. When I open up a saved version dated a month ago, I see that the applications that were working in Snow Leopard now have the icon circle saying that it is not supported by Lion. This is strange since I used Time Machine to back up my HD, then turned off the app before downloading Lion. Even older versions saved on the external HD show the circle.
I read about lion and the "Recovery HD," but when I hold down the Command-R key nothing happens when I restart my computer. It also talks about using the option key but that does not work. It talks about reinstalling lion using this system, but I don't see it working.
I have now decided to download Iion again from the Apps Store, got the option key to work and as of now it is slowly downloading. I plan to make a bootable DVD of Lion before installing it again. I also can create a partition called "Lion," since I deleted my partition called "Snow Leopard," or first created a partition called "Snow Leopard" since I deleted it again from the HD. Since I still have the original Lion install on my iMac, if I create a new partition can I then get the "Snow Leopard," disk to install on that partition? I tried Carbon Copy, and it loaded in from my external HD to a previous partition but when I opened it up many documents had a "RED X," saying something about permissions. So that is when I deleted the first partition.
Now, I want to start over, and have two bootable versions, Lion and Snow Leopard. Can someone tell me the right way to do this?
Thanks,
DaisyMay
DaisyMay

Thanks Pondini,
I read #14 and your helpful hints. I am afraid to erase and reformat the drive because I am not as knowledgeable as others maybe. I have a website, and I don't want too loose all of my work and photos if I make a mistake.
I installed the Snow Leopard disk that came with my iMac i5 (2010), I first created a partition labeled "Snow Leopard." Started up the computer and saw the install icon. I selected the partition and followed the instructions, when that was done, I selected in Utilities, to back up from time machine on my external Seagate HD. When it was done, I noticed on the desk top two Macintosh HD, but changed back the name of my Snow Leopard 10.6.8. When I start up from the Snow Leopard HD, I see in the dock my older apps with the icon circle showing that I can't use them, like when I start up from Lion.
On the backup version on my external HD, I selected a date in March for the time machine backup. When I open up my external drive and select the apps it says, "Can't open up apps because it is in a time machine backup. Before installing Lion last week I backed up Snow Leopard in time machine and turn it off before installing Lion.
How can I get my old apps to work, it seems that time machine won't allow me to open up my older apps. The only reason that I am going to all of this trouble is that some older apps like File Maker Pro, Nvu, Motion Pictures HD, Switch, and a few others have some data that I want to see before I decided to trash the folders and just use Lion.
Any suggestions?
DaisyMay

How to reinstall Lion without recovery disk

I want to reinstall Lion Mountain (I have downloaded it from apple store) and I dont have a recovery disk....Can anyone help me with this?

You can make a bootable copy using:
Lion Disk Maker

How to reinstall Lion from new MBP?

Hi guys. I just bought an Early 2011 MBP with OS X Lion pre-installed. I just want to ask how to reinstall Lion? Just in case I want to reinstall the OS. Thanks! If you could post different ways of doing it, the better.

OS X Lion includes a new feature called Lion Recovery that includes all of the tools you need to reinstall Lion, repair your disk, and even restore from a Time Machine backup without the need for optical discs.
About Lion Recovery
Stefan

Sarafi won't start up. Hard drive crashed, reinstalled Lion from Safe Mode. and Safari still won'topen. I get an error message. There are no files in the extensions folder.

How do I clear the error in Safari? I've reinstalled Lion 3 times and the error won't clear.

Well Apple Suupport is still tops in every book.
The fix for my problem was so ridiculously simple, I can't beleived it worked.
But somehow the mouse install disk (stuck in the drive) was disrupting the start up. I was instructed to take the batteries out of the wireless mouse.
IT WORKED.
Not sure if anyone that's had this similar problem is using wireless devices, but take the batteries out of them, use plug in devices to work around the problem, eject the CD and if you luck out like I did, it'll work
Thanks Apple my faith is renewed

Problems reinstalling Lion from Recovery service

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for