Why can't I boot from disk to re-install Lion?

After I stupidly moved some .kext files to a folder in my desktop in the hop it would help solve an ongoing problem, I now cannot get into my computer as it gets stuck on a screen telling me to turn it off and back on again. I am now trying to re install the operating system and for some reason I can't boot my disc, even by holding 'C' at start up. However, I am able to do the internet recovery, but when it comes to entering my apple ID it comes up with a message saying you must use the apple ID used to purchase Lion. This is the only Apple ID I have ever had and I have double checked via my email addresses! I am very confused as it is very frustrating but I accept that it is due to my own stupidity, but if anyone has any idea on how to help it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

Did you purchase this computer used?
And, which OS do you have on the install disk? What does it look like?

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Me too!
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Why can't I boot from the OS X DVD on my Intel iMac?

I'm trying to boot from the Mac OS X Tiger CPU Drop in DVD that came from the Apple Refurb Store with my Intel iMac.
I have tried holding down the C key on start up and it doesn't work. It boots like normal to the hard drive
I have tried using the Start up Manager, but all it can see to boot from is my installed OS X system on the hard drive and my Windows Boot Camp partition.
The CPU Drop in DVD is all that shipped with my machine. Can one even boot with it?
My problem is Photoshop Elements refuses to start up, giving me EXCBADACCESS and KERNINVALIDADDRESS alerts. It crashes every time about half way through starting up. Trashing it's preference folder doesn't fix the problem. In fact, my Preference folder keeps filling up with folders labeled with jibberish names.
I found a discussion thread that I should boot from the original disk that came with the machine and use Disk Utilities, but I can't even boot from the DVD drive.
What step am I missing?
TIA
Kathryn

Hi knittsings!
It's only possible to boot an Intel-based iMac from a grey-labeled DVD, so if you received a black-labeled DVD, someone made a mistake packaging your refurb. The correct DVDs should have been in the smaller box with the User Guide and other small, square documents, along with the mouse and remote. If you find the grey-labeled DVDs in there, just keep the drop-in DVD, they won't need it back since they make them:)
If you don't find them in there, call Apple, or log into your account on the Store page and find your order's link for customer follow-up/issues.
Message was edited by: myhighway

Why can I not boot from a disc or drive?

In order to repair my HD, I have tried to start from a DVD (a bootable DiscWarrior 4 disc), but when restarting holding down the c-key, the disc drive is not recognized and the iMac starts up as normal and my log-in icon is shown. I have the latest Lion update.
I have also tried to start up from a bootable memory stick which I made after installing Lion, but this does not work either.
I have also tried to start up from a DVD using the option key, but the drive is not given as an alternative. The same happens if I try to start up from the "Startup drive" preferences from the Apple menu - the disc drive is not shown as an alternative even if it contains a bootable disc.
I try to get booted from another bootdrive in order to repair the Harddisc.

Hi, StenErik. If I were you, I would forget about FireWire Target Disk Mode. I'd start the Powerbook from a retail OS X 10.4 installer DVD, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, select the hard drive, reformat it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", check the box for installing OS 9 drivers, and then install Tiger. I can't explain why this should make the resulting installation any different from what you have installed now. But it seems to me there must be some detail you've failed to mention and we've failed to think of, and that detail, whatever it is, is much more significant than it seems: significant enough to prevent your Tibook from booting. Therefore, reverting to the most basic installation procedure possible, with as few external variables as possible, seems a useful thing to try. To minimize variables even further, disconnect all peripherals from the PB while reformatting and installing.
As Hardy has suggested, the size of your drive is not the issue. A 120GB drive should be fine.

Why can I not boot from my new hard drive?

After replacing my hard drive (40 Gb) with a larger (120 Gb) drive the computer will not boot. I can boot from the 10.4 system CD and have managed to install the system without problems, but after restarting the computer I only get to see a folder with a flashing question mark in it.
My computer is the first of the Titanium series (400 Mhz). The hard drive is a Seagate momentus 5400 rpm. Is there a compatibility issue here? Any input would be greatly appreciated!
PowerBook G4/400 Titanium Mac OS X (10.4)

Hi, StenErik. If I were you, I would forget about FireWire Target Disk Mode. I'd start the Powerbook from a retail OS X 10.4 installer DVD, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, select the hard drive, reformat it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", check the box for installing OS 9 drivers, and then install Tiger. I can't explain why this should make the resulting installation any different from what you have installed now. But it seems to me there must be some detail you've failed to mention and we've failed to think of, and that detail, whatever it is, is much more significant than it seems: significant enough to prevent your Tibook from booting. Therefore, reverting to the most basic installation procedure possible, with as few external variables as possible, seems a useful thing to try. To minimize variables even further, disconnect all peripherals from the PB while reformatting and installing.
As Hardy has suggested, the size of your drive is not the issue. A 120GB drive should be fine.

Why can't I boot from a USB stick Ideapad Laptop?

Hi
I just bought new Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P and i've got a problem with installation an Windows 7 64x from a bootable stick.
The OS on laptop is FreeDOS and from this level a cannot install the windows os. The DOS system won't boot from usb stick and there's no BIOS so i can't set the boot order.
As i try to run setup.exe from d: drive(which is flash drive) i receive message that i cannot open this file in DOS system.
I prepared the USB stick according to this solution:
1) Open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in either Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8 Pro.
2) Insert the target USB boot media device into an available USB port.
3) Type "DiskPart" in the command prompt.
4) Type "List Disk” (make note of the disk number of the target USB drive).
5) Type "Select Disk X”, where X is the target USB drive noted in step 4.
6) Type "Clean”.
7) Type "Create Partition Primary”.
8) Type "format FS=fat32 quick”.
9) Type "Active”.
10) Type "Assign".
11) Type "list volume".
12) Type "Exit".
The error still persist and i can't go any further with win installation. I strongly asking for help and advice.
Team please assist.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hello and welcome,
Are you booting in UEFI or legacy mode?
IIRC if you want to boot and install in UEFI mode you need to format your USB stick FAT32 (which you did) and enable CSM support in BIOS.
You should also be using SP1 media. If pre-SP1 some additional file manipulation is required to get the installer to boot in UEFI mode.
Installing Windows 7 in native EFI mode from USB
If you're booting and installing in legacy mode (which I suspect you are if running FreeDOS - just a guess on my part) you need to format that USB flash drive NTFS.
(You don't say, but I also assume you've copied the contents of a Win 7 install ISO or DVD to that flash drive...)
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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Why can't I boot from an external scsi drive?

In a previous post, I mentioned that my hard drive died. While trying to find ways to work around it, I dug out an old 4 GB SCSI drive I used to use with my old Mac, and hooked it up. When I booted from the OS 10.3 install disk, I was aboe to install the OS on the external drive, and choose it as the startup drive before rebooting. When I rebooted, however, the Mac could not see the SCSI drive as a startup drive. I tried it several times, changed the SCSI ID, erased the drive and reloaded the OS, repaired the directory with Disk Warrior, all with the same results.
What am I doing wrong?
Dave

What model SCSI card do you have installed? Some cards are driver-based, like the Adaptec 2906. Its driver is loaded from the boot drive, as the extensions are displayed across the screen during the startup process. As such, drives connected to that type of card can't be designated as the boot device. A newer SCSI card that's firmware-based, like the Adaptec 2930, can be used for booting the computer. If you have a card that's firmware-based, then you may need to update the firmware with a newer (Mac OS X) compatible version.

Why can't I boot from an SATA drive on P6N SLI-FI?

I have a P6N SLI-FI, running XP Pro 32bit. Two sata drives are configured as a striped array and I boot from an IDE drive. It is stable but not as fast as I'd like.
I'd like to install XP-Pro 64 bit on another sata drive. The CMOS setup utility sees the new drive, but it is not listed as a drive I can boot from.
Must I configure it as a single raided JBOD drive? If so, I am a little confused about what utilities to copy to a floppy drive for windows to use when installing the new OS. The manual says to copy the contents of :\\nVidia\System\C55+MCP51\RAID to a floppy. Neither the original CD nor the downloaded utilities have a RAID subdirectory to C55+MCP51. There are subdirectories called :\\nVidia\System\C55+MCP51\IDE with subdirectories Win2K and WinXP. Both have subdirectories called raidtools, sata_ide and sataraid. Do I want Win2k or WinXP for XP64? Which subsequent directory should I choose?
I have ver 2.4 of the BIOS.
Thanks
Steve

Quote from: Maesus on 07-December-07, 08:51:33
Try :\\nVidia\System\C55+MCP51\IDE one
Maesus: From the downloaded files (having specified WinXP 64 bit) I can see :\\nVidia\System\C55+MCP51\IDE\Win64. It is too big to fit on a floppy, containing subdirectories raidtool, sata_ide, and sataraid. I'm trying with the sata_ide and sataraid directories now. I will report on any success.
WinXP wants txtsetup.oem: it is within sataraid. I'll try putting the contents of that directory in the root of the floppy.
Did that, now WinXP reports that the driver .(..x64...) is corrupt. I'll try a fresh copy as soon as I can download from the internet.
It looks like the problem was bad floppy disks. I finally found one that was formated and could hold the files. WinXP64 is installing now. I wonder if Microsoft will ever realize that floppies are unreliable media that are ready to be tossed in the trash heap.
I have to say, life is much more convenient with a KVM switch between computers running WinXP and Ubuntu. This is a little frustrating, but it is much better being able to switch between the recalcitrant install and a working computer with a couple of keystrokes.
Quote from: MarkJohnson on 07-December-07, 15:20:54
I remember having a similar issue when SATA RAID chipsets first came out that you had to treat the single drive as a RAID and even load in RAID drivers. Maybe since the chipset is already in RAID mode it wants to be setup as a single drive RAID 0.
I also had this issue with my Intel chipset recently as it wouldn't work as a single drive RAID and I had to turn RAID on and off in the BIOS whenever I wanted to dual boot off my third hard drive. But I'm sure the nvidia supports the single drive RAID, at least the AMD chipset did.
also, one last thing is to make sure the drive is enable in the BIOS. It may not have enabled the drive properly.
Good Luck
-=Mark=-
Mark: I think that's the exact problem I have. Once you convert any sata drives to raid, they all have to convert to be seen.

Why can't I boot from my windows install disk using an external dvd drive?

My internal disk drive is broken on my computer, so I'm using an external one, but when I put my windows install disk in, it shows up when I'm using the computer, but it doesn't show up when I hold ALT on startup. Why is this?

Alt/Option Boot code is all in ROM. It shows an Icon for each potentially-bootable Volume.
Your Windows install DVD is not directly bootable, and so it does not show an Icon. (An OS 9 Installer CD would not show an Icon either.)
To install Windows, you need to research the use of Boot Camp, the software that provides Mac drivers and facilitates the Installation of Windows on a Mac. There are also Windows restrictions on the use of external drives which you may have to meet.

Why can't I boot from my hard drive internally but no problem externally?

Being unable to 100% solve my problem based off solved problems I have decided to log in. I will start from the very beginning. The computer is the Macbook late 2009 unibody. I upgraded the ram from 2GB to 8GB. everything was going smoothly until like 2 months ago. My 250Gb Hard drive was geting maxed out and in the midst of downloading I was getting warnings to free space so I was deleting and downloading the same time.....and then boom...the computer froze. Couldn't forse quit or anthing only choice was to manually power off. when I powered back on the screen was grey and would not start. I reserched solutions and ended up resetting the PR ram. after that the screen changed to white and nothing happened for a long time I was stuck...until......:
I bought an external hard drive incasing. and like magic everything I thought I lost was right there booting externally. Now I'd be fine with that if not for the reason I bought the computer in the first place, which is to be ultra portable and kep me awake as I work nights as a security in various changing post on a nightly basis. lugging the external case around has complicated a system that was working fine to the point of death.
So over time I have acumilated these things:
a 16 GB hp flash usb currently holding the bootable snow leapard DVD installer
a 500GB wd scorpio blue hard drive from an old PC pased laptop
a 250GB toshiba hard drive (came with laptop snow leopard installed)
a 250GB can't think of the brand cause I'm using it now hard drive (mountin lion installed)
neither Hardive holding apple operating systems will boot internally but boot externally. I have tried putting snow leopard, lion and mountin lion on the scorpio blue but everytime I get the same result, an install failed error. So you may have guessed, I was hoping the scorpio blue as my last hope, getting an operating system on it maybe I could boot internally but for what ever reason it won't intall fully any mac os X. So at this point I want to know if it's possible for me to just put a windows operating system on it ad if it may be able to boot that way.
EXTRA INFO:
when partioning the hard drive, if I have it connected internally, the computer recognizes it but I get cannot unmount errors. externally everything moves smoothly but it won't install the operating system. Currently I'm running mountin lion externally and I have the big hard drive inside the computer and it shows up as "untitled 1" it contents is two folders "Mac os X Install data" (red icon attached) and "private" It tells me I don't have permission to look inside the mac os folder. if I drag a fle from my computer to untitled 1 it says "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."
HELP! whatever it takes I just want to boot something without lugging this external case everywhere.

Hi Too_Talls,
I'm not quite sure I have totally understood you. Please correct me if I am wrong but this is how I've read your symptoms:
MacBook not booting
Plug in external hard drive, choose that as the startup volume. MacBook boots.
Remove internal hard drive and replace with hard drive that has OS installed. MacBook not booting.
Remove replaced hard drive, plug it in to usb port. MacBook starts up fine
Does the above correctly summarise the problem?
If it does, then the fault can only be one of two things.
The SATA connector is not fully seated into the hard drive.
The SATA connector ribbon cable is damaged and needs replacing.
The good news is that, obviously, everthing else in your MacBook is okay (logic board etc) else it would not start up when an external hard disk is plugged into the usb port.

Why can't I boot from external HD?

I made a bootable clone with Carbon Copy Cloner onto an external FW HD. I went into System prefs and changed the startup disk, and when I restart, I get a flashing "?" and then the Mac boots into the internal HD...
I've cloned internal disks a million times (OK, like 5 times) and it has always worked INTERNALLY...
Could it possibly be the FW enclosure? IT was a cheapie...
Any other explanations? Tips? Tricks? Hints?
Thanks

Bohemian
The term "My Book" is not sufficiently definitive. The link I gave, and the link that jsd2 gives, do not make a +"blanket statement"+ about all "My Book" drives; they list those "My Book" models that are unable to boot a PPC Mac. Either your model is not in that list or WD have got it wrong.
It is merely that WD does not 'support' the process, how could they with so many different types of chips out here...
The reply is in the link I gave:
WD then attribute the cause of the problem to Apple, but without explaining how it is that the problem does not affect other makes of drive.
Anyone interested should see the comment at the foot of that link for an explanation by "baltwo" as to the reason why those certain models will not boot a PPPC Mac.
=-=-=-=-
jsd2 is the "jd2" mentioned in the link I gave. Thanks (again), jsd2.
Andreas

Can't log in with valid password, can't boot from disk, can't access disk utility, in single user mode can't reset password as appears locked in caps mode with '?' for forward slash, can anyone help?

Can't log in with valid password, can't boot from disk, can't access disk utility, in single user mode can't reset password as appears locked in caps mode with '?' for forward slash, can anyone help?

Which keyboard layout you were using? German, French ... I suppose your layout is reset to the default: US and you are unable to find the "?" or "/" ...
Please have a look into the keyboard viewer, to see how the layout of your keyboard is actually.
marek

Why can't I upgrade from 10.5.8 to 10.6? My MPB spits out the disc before it ever appears on the desktop.

Why can't I upgrade from 10.5.8 to 10.6.3? My MPB spits out the disk before it ever appears on the desktop. The Snow Leopard disk is brand new, was still in shrink wrap until I opened it. I do have the hard drive partitioned, running Win XP with Boot Camp, if that might be the issue.

Hey vlntrg,
I have a 2002 model Powerbook that will sometimes (most of the time) refuse to mount a CD or DVD. It just grunts for a while and then spits it back out. When this happens, I will slap the bottom of the machine several times with an open hand, not too hard and not too soft. I read this somewhere online (I forget where), and I was hesitant to try it, but it was cheaper than replacing the SuperDrive.
This will often allow me to insert and use the CD or DVD. I have also noticed that I have less trouble when the machine is cold than when it's warm.
I've not had this trouble with my MacBook Pro.
Another thought. Would it be possible to boot your machine in target disk mode and update your software using a friend's Mac? I'm sure there are others here who can better answer that question.
Hope this helps.
Andy

Why can't I copy from Microsoft 2011 Word to apple postage stamp email?

Why can't I copy from Microsoft 2011 Word to apple postage stamp email?

You probably ended up purchasing a Mac OS X 10.6.3 DVD. I have posted previously about this. I will edit this once I find the post again.
10.6.3 is incompatible with the Mac Pro you are using. You must install the version that came with your computer or newer. (Yours came with 10.6.4)
If you do not have the original discs:
There is another way to do this that I just remembered when one of my co-workers asked me if I had a 10.6.6 disc.
You need two macs: NEW and OLDER.
Connect NEW and OLDER via firewire cable. (NEWER is probably firewire 800, so you may need a firewire 400-800 adapter or cable)
Boot NEW into "Target Disk Mode" by holding down 'T' at boot until the Firewire logo (looks like a Y) appears.
Boot to Install Disc in OLDER.
Once you have booted to the install disc, it is the same process as installing it onto the internal drive, except you need to choose the Drive in the other computer as the target drive. The drive that you want to install to will look like it's a firewire drive (so it will look like a mounted usb drive but with that 'Y' symbol on it.)
MAKE SURE NOT TO INSTALL OVER THE GOOD DRIVE!!!!!
Go ahead and install Mac OS X.
Once it finishes installing and OLDER shuts down hold down the 'Option' key right after the chime. Select the drive that you just installed Mac OS X on. It should appear just as it did in the Installer.
Once it has booted and you have logged in: run software update and update to the latest version of the OS. Once you have finished updating, shutdown the computer. Unplug the firewire cable. Turn off NEW, then turn it back on. It should work properly.

After installing Lion I can't I boot from the Techtools CD.

After installing Lion I can't I boot from the Techtools CD. I have purchased the upgrade for Photoshop CS5 because CS2 does not launch in Lion 10.7.3. However I need to get the serial number for CS2 for the upgrade. I have waited over 30 minutes for the boot but never get more than the Apple logo. Any ideas anyone?

Boot disks can't change when the firmware changes, lock you out.
Techtools obviously uses Linux as a boot OS, so you need a Lion version.
CS6 coming out in about 30 days, for 10.7 and 10.8
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