No Disk To Install Os X Mountain Lion

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Cloris Sopha

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:14:33 PM8/3/24

to jeyloutygec

I'm currently living in a Snow Leopard world and thinking of switching to Mountain Lion. My question is, if I have a blank hard drive how do I install the OS? Do I have to have to install Snow Leopard first and then upgrade or is there a way to skip that step?

Why are you erasing your drive before installing Mountain Lion? You will have to be running Snow Leopard when you purchase and download Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion will upgrade your Snow Leopard system. Or is it your intention to install Mountain Lion on another drive that has been erased?

Since it appears your Mac came with Snow Leopard, yes, you will have to boot from your SL DVD, install SL to your new drive after you format it, update SL to 10.6.8, purchase ML from the App Store and install it.

3. Locate the saved Mountain/Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.

You can also make use of OS X (Lion/Mountain Lion)- About OS X Recovery in the event that the drive is completely corrupted and must be repartitioned or if you have replaced the drive. If your computer is not now capable of using Internet Recovery then check out Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery.

You can also put a copy of the Recovery HD onto a 2 GB USB flash drive for use in the event the one on your hard drive becomes corrupted: OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0 and OS X- About Recovery Disk Assistant.

Once the ML installer is up and running, it lets you choose on which volume the install is to take place. If it already contains some previous cat flavor, it will offer to upgrade. If blank, a totally virgin cat will be deposited there.

Beware that if the installer you are running is part of a purchase and has just downloaded, it will self-destruct at conclusion. Be sure to save the monster to avoid having to download 4.5GB yet again. If you've an 8GB flash memory handy, you can concoct your reusable Genuine Cat Installer on a Stick. See here: Be sure to read the FAQ.

One thing that will help in the future, when you load Mountain Lion on your disk, it will create what is called a recovery partition. If your OS partition ever goes south, when you boot Holding Cmd+R when the boot sound occurs until the screen displays the recovery page puts y ou in recovery mode which gives you access to Disk Util, and a Re-Install Mountain Lion. Didk Util allows youto do any preparatiion such as prepare a new disk if you lost one. Re-Install lets you choose a disk of sufficient size for the re-install. This is Apple's strategy for not having insgtall disks any more.

I read through the answers here, and I think none of them directly answer the question. It's the usual "failure to communicate" between people who are used the the Apple way of doing things, and people who are used to other computers.

As background information - here's one way a Linux distribution might be installed onto a blank hard drive. Download the new OS installer from somewhere. Burn it on some kind of bootable media (CD, DVD, USB stick, etc.). You can do the previous steps on ANY machine, for example a Windows machine - it doesn't matter as long as you have the capability to create a bootable image on bootable media. Stick the CD/DVD/USB stick in the machine where you want to install the new OS, and boot from it, which will bring you up into the installer software. At that point it doesn't matter WHAT is on the hard drive - it can be full of zeros - because you're just going to install the new OS there.

Kappy provided some nice instructions on how to make a bootable installer for Mountain Lion, but didn't explicitly answer the original question. Once I create the installer, can I use it to install onto a blank drive? Based on my experience with other operating systems, I would expect so. But Kappy goes on to talk about how a Recovery CD can be used to install if the drive has been replaced. Why not just use the bootable loader as described above? Then Carcoul says: "If it already contains some previous cat flavor, it will offer to upgrade. If blank, a totally virgin cat will be deposited there." So that makes me think it will work.

Here's the reason I'm asking the question. I have inherited an old MacBook running OS X 10.5.8. I could use it as-is, but was thinking of buying the latest Mac OS. I was very surprised to read that I have to first upgrade it to Snow Leapord before I can install Mountain Lion. That seems like a waste of time and money. Can I just buy Mountain Lion, create an installer as desribed by Kappy, and install a brand new OS? Note - I don't care about preserving any existing files on the hard drive.

How about if I go to the Mac App Store with a new Mac that's running 10.6.8 or greater, download Mountain Lion, create an installer on USB, plug it into my old MacBook4.1, and install from there. Would that work?

My other idea is to just install Linux on this box and call it good. From what I've read, various Linux distributions will run on MacBook, but I wouldn't be surprised if some things don't work properly. I don't suppose anyone on here has experience with installing Linux on a MacBook?

I just got my macbook pro back from a harddrive repair and it was reported to have been working fine. So, I start it up and it takes me to Mac OS X instalation screen (The Snowlepard disk is in it) and I select a language and then agree to the terms and service. It then takes me to a screen that says "Install Mac OSX" as a title and below it says "Select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X". The only thing is there isn't any thing to select from.

When I came across this I noticed that I didn't have a volume under the main APPLE SSD SM1024G Media. You need create a partition under it. Click on APPLE SSD SM1024G Media, select partition map scheme is GUID Partition Table. Name the volume Macintosh. Select and make sure it is in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Select Apply. Once you see the volume created. Go back to the macOS utility screen and select install MacOS.

Switch over to Disk Utility (IIRC, should be in one of the menus), see if the HDD device is there. Click on it to select, make sure the partition map scheme is GUID Partition Table. If a volume is present (named Macintosh HD?), select and make sure it is in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Erase/repartition if needed, and see if that fixes the MIA disk issue.

Reinstall Mac OX S, when prompt to select disk for installation, there is no disk. Neither Disk Utility showing the drive. I have got my one fixed today, been told because of HDD cable. Try this one whether it fix your.

On my machine (late 2012 27" iMac), the Disk Utility choice was inside the window with the choices as to where to load the OS from. I selected Disk Utility and followed Courcouls's instructions and my problem was solved. Apparently, my new HDD wasn't being recognized by the system yet, but after "fixing" that problem, it came to life, so to speak, and I was able to continue with the installation. I'm now upgrading to the latest version of OS X, thanks to you two! Thank you!

You should be able to upgrade for free to the latest version of OS X after your system is back up and running. Go to the App Store and check for upgrades, or click on the apple logo in the upper left corner of the menu, and select About This Mac, then click Software Update (Upgrade). Hope this helps.

Niel, you are "The MAN!" I have a 2006 MacBook Pro and I just replace the original Toshiba Aries 80GB and 5400 RPM with a new Seagate 500GB SATA,16MB Cache, and 7200 RPM and I had the same issue as "emmingja" I have totally forgot about "Disk Utility". Thanks, just wish I could of installed the "Lion" OS. Anyways, thanks for your response to "emingja's" post. ?

You need to Restart, and this time answer only the "What Language" question, then wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn, then choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu and follow Courcoul's good directions above.

So I used my phone and google and tried to figure out how to fix it, and I figured out getting to the 'Internet Recovery' thing and I even got all the way into 'Reinstaling OS X Mountain Lion' when I got to the screen where it asks me to select a disk. There's no disk.

I went and looked at the 'Repair Disk' one because then I thought it was bad, but I verified the disk that's on my computer and it apparently isn't able to be fixed. It's just fine, according to that. But then why can't I reinstal the OS X!?

Hi, original poster here. I did not realize this would generate more discussion so I never checked back. I still had my warranty, so I took it to the store and got it repaired. The original problem I had was a screen with this icon flashing when I attempted to boot it up:

When I took it to the store, they told me that my computer was unable to communicate with the hard drive. I had this same problem three times in two months where this screen reappeared. Each time I went back to the store and they said the cause was different, but they were all hardware issues that physically made it impossible to communicate with the hard drive. After the third time, they simply replaced my laptop and I haven't had the same problem.

So in short: The reason you can't reinstall or move anything when you encounter this screen appears to be because nothing can communicate with the hard drive in the first place. You can't reach the disk or anything on it. So I don't believe it's possible to do anything besides take it to a physical store and have it fixed.