[SOLVED] No Partition on HDD

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Vice93

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Jul 3, 2014
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TLDR: Trying to reinstall OS X but storage part of HDD isn't detected anywhere. Look here to see what I mean.
How can I find the remaining GB's of storage?

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So I got a Mac OS X 10.8 and when I start it I'm greeted with a white screen and a folder with a question mark.

Safe mode does not work.
Startup Manager does not work.
Apple Hardware test shows no errors.
Reset NVRAM does nothing.
Single-user mode does not work.
Verbose Mode does not work.

So after trying all the basic stuff I tougth I'd reinstall, however when I enter the Recovery tools and choose "Reinstall OSX" I get to the step where I am supposed to choose my HDD.

Well, there is none. It's just blank.

So I backtracked and hit disk utility to find that there is only one partiton, the one running the OS.
1gb size, 1gb in use. If I try to browse the HDD and click the "Music" tab for instance, the explorer quits.

So I'm stuck here at the moment.

I thougth I'd try to recover the partition somehow, as the partition layout is probably broken on the HDD, however I'm not sure how to do this.

I thougth I could make a bootable out of the program testdisk, but simply making an ISO out of the files (I downloaded the mac version) and burning it to a CD using TRANSMAC did not work. At least the CD is not bootable.

So this is where I'm currently at. I don't know what to do anymore. If anyone could help me onwards it'd be really appritiated.
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Hey there, Vice93!

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. 🙁 You have some mad troubleshooting skills, though!
I'd still suggest you to open Disk Utility (from the Utilities menu) and try to Repair the Disk from there, see if that will help.
If that doesn't help, I recommend you to try booting into Recovery Mode and re-install the OS X. (Keep in mind that this will result in data loss)
If none of these help, I guess you should take the HDD out (ONLY if your Mac is out of warranty!) and test it on another Mac, see how it will get detected there.

Keep me posted! Hope this helps!
SuperSoph_WD
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Hey there, Vice93!

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. 🙁 You have some mad troubleshooting skills, though!
I'd still suggest you to open Disk Utility (from the Utilities menu) and try to Repair the Disk from there, see if that will help.
If that doesn't help, I recommend you to try booting into Recovery Mode and re-install the OS X. (Keep in mind that this will result in data loss)
If none of these help, I guess you should take the HDD out (ONLY if your Mac is out of warranty!) and test it on another Mac, see how it will get detected there.

Keep me posted! Hope this helps!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Solution
Yeah I entered Disk Utility, but the option to repair is unavailable (you know when you cant click it).

Booting into recovery mode /with internet gave me 4 options; Reinstall OS (which i tried), Disk Utility (not options really), Trouble shoot with internet (cant connect to the internet anyway) and restore (there are nothing available.

I will now try to boot GParted and see how it goes. I will let you know how it goes.
 
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So I got it to boot into GParted, however I don't really have so much as a clue as to what I do here. Do you know?

When I started it I was greeted with "Invalid Partition Table" and clicking the HDD icon "GParted" doesn't work. So I guess I need to type some commands into the "Terminal" (Basically CMD).

Using google I found this thread. It is for linux, but is there any difference to mac in regards to what I write in the terminal?

What will "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M" this command do?
 
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You can try the suggested solution in this thread as well: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/139157/restore-macintosh-hd-to-its-original-partition-configuration
However, I would advise against tempering with Terminal/Linux, unless you know what you are doing.
The "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M" command basically writes zeros (fully erases) your HDD.
Still I don't think that would help a lot, because from the looks of it you might be dealing with a dead/damaged hard drive.

You can give the Ubuntu Live CD a try as well though: https://abhinay.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/repair-fix-mac-hfs-partition-using-ubuntu-cd/
See if that would help.

Keep me updated.
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Oh thanks for that link, I didn't even know about the extra utilities in that tab. I will try it out and see how it goes.

I couldn't give a damn about deleting everything, I simply want it to work again. However I've had a bad feeling about this since I started this that the HDD might've been damaged.

I don't know if this is related, but when I put in the Mac OS X installation CD that followed, I get a kernel panic error; AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement. Also (can't quite remember what it was called) under the "OS version" it says something along the lines of "No OS found/installed".

Again, I don't know if this is related or remotely impact the real issue here.
There is another error I might as well add as well, I can't easily eject the CD tray. The only way I've found is entering the hardware test and quitting.

Sorry for bombing you with all this, just thougth I'd put it out there.

EDIT: A friend told me that if the Mac OS X utilities recognize one partition, that the HDD should be working fine. Is this true?
 
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I'm not sure, it's not my mac. I'm only trying to fix it.

All I know is that the installation CD that followed has OS X 10.6 and 10.8 is currently installed on it. If there is a way to check I'll do so tomorrow.
 
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So I'm back at it and thougth I'd give this a try, however when I write "diskutil cs list" I get the message "No CoreStorage logical volume groups found". Does this mean the HDD is broken?

I tried to google it but the fixes I came across assume I can use disk utilities to edit partitions - which I can't.

Also tried: diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ HDD disk1 - with the response:
Started erase on disk 1 untitled
Unmounting disk
Error: -69888: Couldn't unmount disk

On disk0:
Started erase on disk 0 untitled
Unmounting disk
Error: -69877: Couldn't open device

The line "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0 bs=446 count=1" - gives me:
/dev/disk0: Resource busy

I also did a "diskutil list" and there doesn't seem to be any storage space except from the partition the OS is installed at:
t81z87.jpg


Disk0 being the only disk of any size at all, I tried the command "diskutil verifyDisk disk0" however it resulted in:
Unable to verify this whole disk: The target disk is too small for this operation (-69771)

diskutil zeroDisk disk0 results:
Started erase on disk0
Error: -69879: Couldn't open disk
Underlying error: 16: POSIX reports: Resource busy

^since disk0 is the OS only, does disk utilities run locally preventing any editing done to it? I did make sure I entered disk utilites /w network though, so I didn't think it'd use the disk at all.

So how can I access/find the rest of the HDD?
 
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Hi again, Vice93!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how you are supposed to proceed from now on, but I found a couple of other links that might be useful to you: http://www.macissues.com/2014/04/05/how-to-fix-deep-formatting-problems-with-os-x-drives/
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/diskutil.8.html

If these don't help you, I seriously recommend taking your Mac to professional repair services and let the tech guys there fix the issue. Otherwise, I'm afraid that the problem might persist and cause you quite the headaches.

Good luck! Hope I was useful though!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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The problem with the first link is that it assumes I can find the storage part of my HDD - which I can't.
Neither can I enter sudo mode as I don't have that part of the HDD available (/usr/bin/sudo).

Guess I'll have to get professional help, tell me this though:

I was told if I can find one partiton, there shouldn't be any damage to the HDD. I don't quite believe this to be true, but can you verify whether or not that is the case?
 
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Not true! Depending on the corruption of the drive, it can still be accessed and severely damaged at the same time. In your case, I thought we are dealing with corrupted partitions but I can't be certain anymore after all the troubleshooting that was supposed to fix the issue. This is exactly why I recommended you to turn to professional repair services.
If the damage is physical, for example, there might not be any way to fix the drive by yourself. Yet, you'd still be able to access the drive for some time, but no one can say for sure how long that will last.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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I think I just figured out the issue, you're probably gonna laugh at me...

It turns out that this whole time I haven't been accessing the old OS, I've only been on the temporarily saved utilites from the internet. Meaning I haven't recognized the HDD at all...

I feel like a dumbass now. 😛
 
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Yeah I kind of figured that once I figured out that "Apple Disk Image" is only a virtual drive and not a physical one.

I'm going to try that out now.
 
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Turns out there was some issue with the HDD. I just put in a new one and it gets detected as it should.

However, mounting the old HDD into windows, it was actually detected.
200mb was reserved to system as EFI (couldn't do anything to it), and with the rest I could do as I wanted.
So I unallocated and formated it. But shouldn't the HDD work since windows was able to detect & edit it?
After I formated it as NTFS, I could place files in it etc.

I'll stop posting after this, sorry...
 
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Use a diagnostics tool to test the drive's health and SMART status on the Windows computer. Check the HDD manufacturer's website for such a utility. If you cannot find it, use this thread with some third-party suggestions: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Let us know what the SMART data shows! :)
 
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Using CrystalDisk, there seems to be some damage, though I have no idea what to look for here.

2h7doaa.png


Keep in mind that I went into diskpart to clean the disk.

So it's nothing on it right now if that makes any difference.
 
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The utility shows that only the Reallocated Sector Count, which indicates that there were bad sectors in the past, but they got replaced. This is what drives usually do with weak sectors as a precaution which otherwise might have caused issues. However, according to everything else the drive must be okay.
My guess is you can survive on these sectors, however, it's strongly recommended to backup regularly and check the SMART data from time to time, to make sure the Raw Value of the Reallocated Sector Count doesn't increase.

I'd now try another 2.5" HDD in your Mac and try to install OS X on it, to see if that will make any difference. We might have been looking at the wrong component all along. You could also give the System Management Controller reset a try as well: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

SuperSoph_WD
 
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I'm currently installing OS X Mountain Lion, though it takes forever as I have to download it.

I said this in an earlier post, but trying to use the original OS X cd gives me a Kernel Panic Error as soon as it tries to boot it up.

No idea why this happens, but seems the CDR is fine as it booted GParted just fine.

The installation has 3 hours remaining so I'll get back to you after I've installed and perhaps reset the SMC.

Thank you so very much for your invaluable help, I can only hope there will be no more issues now. 😉
 
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I would guess that the DVD you have is not the one originally supplied with the Mac. Installation disks (apart from retail ones) are model and year specific and, in general, won't work with another model.
 
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Edit After a little google searching it seems that the Pro version do indeed have their own CD. Guess that's sorted.

Well it only says "MacBook" on the DVD's and the MacBook in question is a Pro. Seems strange that the owner would have a set of wrong Mac Disks for no reason though...

Here's Kernel Panic & The set of disks I was given

e987j4.jpg

dhaglw.jpg
 
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Those disks are dated 2009, two years before your MacBook Pro was made. They obviously dont recognize the "i" series processor. I'd guess that the owner bought them off eBay, not realizing that they wouldn't work on that Mac. Either that or got them mixed up with other disks.
 
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