OSx install hangs at 18 minutes

Plot thickens. The Snow Leopard disk arrived from Apple, but no Apple Hardware Test disk. Anyway, I booted the MacBook from the SN disk, launched Disk Utility and repartitioned the hard drive, then uneventfully installed SN onto the internal hard drive. Then rebooted into SN running from the MB's internal drive. Then downloaded and installed all the SN updates. Rebooted. Then went to App Store and successfully downloaded the Mountain Lion installer. Rebooted and let the installer run. It got to 5 minutes, jumped back to 30 minutes, then worked its way down to 17 minutes. Then the hard drive or SuperDrive started up loud at the install froze pixelated. Again.

So I restored the Lion setup from my bootable Carbon Copy Clone. Guess I'll call Apple again to see if they'll send me Apple Hardware Test. But I am not convinced this is a hardware problem. I now know the RAM, hard drive and SuperDrive seem to be fine, and that MB runs fine on Lion.

You've never installed to an external as advise so you can't rule out the internal hard disk.

My money is still on a bad disk. Once you write to a certain point it fails. Too many varied software options used and failed for it to be software.

mrplow said:

That's a small positive step that you can boot from an external. But there's an important distinction to be made. To test the MBP disk vs the rest of the components you need to connect the external to the MBP and then install OSX. I.e. you are using the MBP the perform the installation, not the iMac as you are at the moment.
Use liondiskmaker on your iMac to create an installer DVD then use this and the external on your MBP and perform an OSX install to the external.
If this install works and subsequently boots to the external ok then it definitely points to your internal hard disk at fault (a straightforward replacement you could do yourself).
If the install still fails then it's very likely a non-user serviceable part that's at fault

Click to expand...

mrplow said:

You've never installed to an external as advise so you can't rule out the internal hard disk. My money is still on a bad disk. Once you write to a certain point it fails. Too many varied software options used and failed for it to be software.

Click to expand...

I am still missing something in what you are telling me. I have successfully installed Snow Leopard to this hard drive with the DVD Apple supplied to me this week, and prior to that I successfully installed Lion to the MB from the Mac App Store. It is only ML that won't install.

I think what you have suggested and I have not done is this:
1. Use liondiskmaker to build a bootable DVD or USB install disk for Mountain Lion.
2. Boot the MB with:
2a. The bootable ML install disk in one USB port (I cannot find a big enough DVD in town - they are all 4 GB maximum, and I have already shown that I can use the SuperDrive to install Snow Leopard to the MB from the DVD drive).
2b. A blank hard drive or large USB attached to the MBP by USB.
3. Direct the Mountain Lion install onto the external drive to see if the MB will install ML onto that external drive from one USB port through its internals to the other USB port. If that succeeds, then this is evidence that the MB's internal hard drive or the hard drive's connections could be faulty.
Did I get this right?

One thing I failed to do was a Zero Out Erase prior to installing Snow Leopard. I am trying that now. If that fails again I will try the test you recommend, assuming I got the concept right this time.

Thanks for coming back.

Yes, that is correct.

I am with mrplow thinking this is a drive issue.

Don't need a DVD, use a 8 GB USB flash drive to put the ML installer on.
I don't recommend installing any of these download only versions of OS X prior to having a bootable install disk created.

Well, erasing with Zero Out failed (18 minutes again), so I will pick up a USB thumbdrive to try bypassing the MB's hard drive.

Sounds like hard drive problems. The only was to get Apple Hardware Test discs was as supplied with a new machine. For later models that came with Lion and/or Mountain lLon hit Command D to run.

bobtomay said:

Yes, that is correct.

Click to expand...

Okay guys, I ran that test.

1. Cold booted the MB with:
1a. Bootable external hard drive (Mountain Lion) in one USB port.
1b. New 32 GB USB thumb drive in another USB port.

2. Once the MB had booted into Mountain Lion running on the external hard drive, I used Disk Utility to GUID partition the USB drive in OSX extended journaled.

3. Then I launched Finder to locate the ML installer on the external hard drive and launched it. I directed it to install to the new USB thumb drive. It did the usual 3 minute thing, then rebooted the MB as usual, then started the 34 minute install process. It counted down quickly to 14 minutes, then that fan-like sound started up and it hung. The "Time remaining" line pixelated as it has all along. I left it alone for a few minutes and the fan-like sound diminished to a lower tone. Both the high and low fan-like sounds are normal for a MacBook (hard drive spinning?). At that point I shut down the MB and reported here.

So, this is puzzling. Even bypassing the MB's internal hard drive I can't use the MB to install ML from an external drive to another external drive.

I restored my Lion clone for this MB and wrote this post from the MB. I used my iMac to install ML to that USB thumb drive and the installation went fine. This MB definitely does not want to install ML for some reason. Must be a hardware glitch that doesn't affect Snow Leopard or Lion.

Thanks for any more tips. I don't want to go to the expense and hassle of ordering a new hard drive if it might be something else in this MB that prevents ML from installing.

Followup: on a business trip. Booked ahead for Genius Bar appointment. Fixed in half an hour. His hardware test found nothing wrong with the MacBook. He flashed Mountain Lion onto the laptop with no hiccups. Right there in the store the MB connected to iCloud and I had all my personal information back. Back in the hotel room it only took me 3 hours to fully reinstall all my purchased software over the hotel's wired LAN from the App Store and third party sites, without needing a single DVD like in the bad old days. Even re-installing MS Office was painless. I just searched with Google, then the MS page I clicked on served up a form with my information on it automatically and sent me an email with the product key when I clicked download. Obviously their server recognized this device. I cloned the MB to a small PassPort backup portable external hard drive and then used the MacBook normally in meetings next day. Very impressive service. We've come a long way from portable computing two decades ago.

By the way, I had installed a new hard drive, but that had not fixed the problem.