Hi Alex, Yes, I’m saying that you should totally wipe the HD. That is, after starting up from the thumb drive, go to Disk Utility and re-partition your drive to one partition named Macintosh HD. Any subsequent partitions should be done later on the live drive. This will ensure that the Recovery Partition is created properly. Not sure where the other individual got there info but this is sound practice. If you used DiskMaker X to create your bootable Mavericks Installer, on the thumb drive or the built-in “Create Install Media” utility of the Mavericks Installer, then a proper Recovery Partition will be automatically created. If you used the Disk Utility method, then the Recovery Partition must have already existed in order to create a proper installation. The problem in your case is that you need to do a total re-format, so, using the existing Recovery Partition is not of any benefit. Refer to
http://www.macworld.com/article/2056561/how-to-make-a-bootable-mavericks-install-drive.html for info on these limitations. In addition, if you didn’t perform a complete wipe during your last clean install, these errors may have carried over thus any disk structure issues would have persisted. Hope this makes sense. Later… Tim Kilburn Fort McMurray, AB Canada On Jun 6, 2014, at 9:34 AM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: > Thanks. I’m in the beta partition now, copying a few files over to my > external hard drive. The problem is here too: Finder just hung for about > thirty seconds, while my Mac’s HD made the sound I’ve come to dread. Still, > it’s working, thankfully; my main partition won’t even boot. > > As to wiping, I’m still not sure what to do. I mean, I know how to format the > drive from the OS X on my thumb drive and then install, the question is, what > do I do with my partitions? I have two, one Macintosh HD and one OS X Beta > Partition. When I did a clean install back in March, I had only the Macintosh > HD partition and so didn’t need to worry. I reformatted that partition, but > didn’t actually erase it, as people I asked told me that completely erasing > the Macintosh HD partition could turn out badly. Are you saying that I should > format the entire drive, wiping out both partitions? If I do that, won’t it > affect the installation of the OS, or will the installer partition as > necessary? > On Jun 6, 2014, at 12:43 AM, Tim Kilburn <kilbu...@me.com> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> For expediency purposes, I wouldn’t worry about re-mapping partitions etc., >> you’re just going to wipe the drive and re-partition anyway. Regarding >> grabbing those files, if you startup from your thumb drive, then go under >> it’s Apple menu to Startup Disk, you should be able to select the 10.9.3 >> beta partition as your startup disk. if things are OK in that area of the >> HD. Once you’ve started with that version of the OS, you could quickly get >> the files you want and place them onto whatever media you want. You could >> then go ahead and do the total wipe/re-partition and re-install from your >> 10.9.3 thumb drive. It’s best to do it from there since it needs to be done >> from a external source in order to completely reformat the drive. >> >> If you’re unable to startup from your beta partition, then the drive is in >> fairly rough shape and you’d either need to use Terminal commands to grab >> those files or just give up on them. >> >> HTH. >> >> Later… >> >> Tim Kilburn >> Fort McMurray, AB Canada >> >> On Jun 5, 2014, at 9:51 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: >> >>> Thanks guys. I have a thumb drive with Mavericsk that I’ve used before, and >>> that I keep around now that we have a couple Macs in the house. I’ll use >>> that. Before I do though, is there any way to copy off any other files I’d >>> like to keep, ones I could recover but that it’d be easier just to have if >>> I can get them? I could probably boot into that beta partition and copy, >>> but I don’t know if I’ll have the permissions to do that. I’ll also need a >>> way to erase the beta partition, if that is indeed the problem. I only >>> tested one OS, the 10.9.3 beta a month ago, but I suppose it could have >>> caused the problem. Anyway, can I erase that from Disk Utility on the >>> recovery HD, and if so, how would I do that and merge its space back to >>> Macintosh HD? >>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 11:11 PM, Tim Kilburn <kilbu...@me.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> I agree with Chris that it could very likely be a software thing. So, >>>> since you have a Time Machine backup that is fairly up-to-date and you say >>>> that you have your important files backed up, I’d go for the reformat and >>>> reinstall option. If you don’t have an external HD or the cables that I >>>> mentioned earlier, there is a neat little utility within the Mavericks >>>> Installer that allows you to build a bootable Mavericks installer on a >>>> flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size. If you wish to go that way, I >>>> can share instructions with you. >>>> >>>> Later… >>>> >>>> Tim Kilburn >>>> Fort McMurray, AB Canada >>>> >>>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 9:00 PM, 'Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries >>>> <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> You mentioned a 50GB partition for OSX betas. So were you running beta >>>>> OSes on this box? If so, it's at least plausible that the beta OSX had >>>>> some kind of bug which mangled data structures on the drive and, since it >>>>> had access to your non-beta partition, it could have mangled your regular >>>>> OSX boot drive as well. In other words, this could still have been a >>>>> software issue. >>>>> >>>>> CB >>>>> >>>>> On 6/5/14, 9:17 PM, Alex Hall wrote: >>>>>> Hi all, >>>>>> So, here's the status of my Mac Mini's hard drive. >>>>>> >>>>>> * Two repairs from the Recovery HD resulted in an error telling me to >>>>>> format ad re-install. >>>>>> * I did just that at the end of March, and given that two repairs >>>>>> couldn't fix whatever errors have accumulated after three months, it >>>>>> seems like the drive itself is having problems. >>>>>> * The SMART status of the drive is "verified", not "failing", which >>>>>> seems odd given the previous points. >>>>>> * The drive is partitioned into two: 450gb for OS X, and 50gb for OS X >>>>>> betas. I don't yet know if the beta partition works, but both share a >>>>>> drive so I'm not optimistic. >>>>>> >>>>>> Any ideas? I looked at replacing the drive, but the iFixIt instructions >>>>>> are scary and require special tools. The Mini is not under Apple Care >>>>>> protection, and my nearest Genius bar is almost three hours away. Am I >>>>>> just doomed, or is there a check/repair/miracle program I could run? Any >>>>>> suggestions are appreciated. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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