Failed Yosemite Install- Hard Disk won't mount

[pendlewitch]

Hi,
Can anyone help with this one please? I have now twice gone through the process of downloading and installing Yosemite and it has failed saying that the Hard Disk won't mount.

Is there something I am doing wrong or anything lurking about that could be the reason? I'm running 10.9.5 Mavericks which was originally a clean install via a WD Passport external bootable drive.

I have a WD External drive permanently connected for Time Machine Back ups and the bootable drive is disconnected.

Thank you

 

[MacInWin]

Let me make sure I have your configuration down. You have two external drives, one TM ad the other bootable. Correct? And when you try to install Yosemite, it fails to mount the internal drive? Is the internal a spinner or SSD? Have you tried to run Disk Utility from Mavericks to verify the drive? Have you tried downloading Yosemite and making a bootable USB stick? Can you boot to the Recovery partition and run DU from there to repair the boot internal? I'm just throwing out everything I can think of here...

 

[pendlewitch]

Hi Jake, thank you for getting back to me.

1 No Internal Spinner to the iMac
1 No external HD permanently connected to the iMac via Firewire for TM
1 No external HD which I formatted and partitioned for use as a bootable drive when I clean installed Mavericks. I disconnected this months ago.

I didn't verify the internal using DU but I ran a repair disk permissions beforehand. I'll verify it now to see if anything gets thrown up
I've not yet tried installing Yoz using a bootable USB as I was trying to avoid wiping my HD clean

You seem to be leaning towards a HD issue I've now verified the disk and results are as below)

 

[MacInWin]

No, I was just gathering information. The fact the installer reports the drive won't mount starts to point to the HD, but it could almost anything triggering the message. Given you have Mavericks, can you boot into the recovery partition? It might be that the installer is trying to mount THAT partition for some reason, although it should install, recovery partition or not.

 

[pendlewitch]

I just tried again...AFTER...the Disk verification and it installed.

Thanks for your help MacInwin...the verification seemed to do the trick although I'm not sure how..strange, almost like it was a switch that needed resetting.

I've now got vivid coloured icons and different fonts

 

[MacInWin]

Glad it worked! I'm thinking of a nuke/pave reinstall on my MBP. I did an upgrade instead of a new install and it's working, but I just wonder if it's time to clean out the chuff.

 

[pendlewitch]

Glad it worked! I'm thinking of a nuke/pave reinstall on my MBP. I did an upgrade instead of a new install and it's working, but I just wonder if it's time to clean out the chuff.

Yes I understand. I've done it the once and it certainly clears the tubes out.

Anyways, I just tested the new iPhone hook up function and called the missus from the iMac to ask her how long dinner is going to be...she's a few yards away in the kitchen...what fun

 

[MacInWin]

Yeah, my wife runs a business from home so both of us have offices. I've called her many times rather than just shout.