No Destination To Select

[NMoline]

I am trying to install 10.4.4 on my pc to a partition I have set up. The problem is when I get to the select destination screen there are no destinations to choose from. What am I doing wrong and how can I make sure that 10.4.4 recognizes my Hard Disk?

[cybertlc]

You need to format it from the OSX install disc. Go to the Disk Utility and format the partition and it should show up for you.

[Arroba]

I have the exact same problem.

 

When I start the Disk Utility it doesn't let me mount the volume I want to use, and if I chose to format anything it tells me it's going to wipe out ALL partitions.

 

So I'm stuck in there .

[wmarsh]

I have the exact same problem.

 

When I start the Disk Utility it doesn't let me mount the volume I want to use, and if I chose to format anything it tells me it's going to wipe out ALL partitions.

 

So I'm stuck in there .

 

It will in fact wipe all the partitions on the disk you are installing to.

 

If you have any primary partitions after extended partitions, even on other disks, it will wipe those too.

 

You can recover the partitions on other disks if you backed up your partition table 1st. The DOS program PTEDIT (Part of Partition Magic) and a piece of paper worked for me.

 

If you have enough extra space on another disk, you can use dd (I used Linux but any flavor should do) to back up the partitions the OS X Installer is going to wipe out. (example: dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=hdb1backup bs=65536) Also write down the partition table info from PTEDIT.

 

You can then allow the OS X Installer to wipe the disk. In the process, make the OS X Installation partition exactly the size you eventually want.

 

If you want the OS X Partition on a different disk, you can dd it to its ultimate destination.

 

When done, then restore your partition table data with PTEDIT. Then dd your partitions back. (example: dd if=hdb1backup of=/dev/hdb1 bs=65536)

 

Good luck!

[Arroba]

Thank you Wmarsh

 

Being that risky, I think I'm not going to try it anyway. It's not my own computer so I don't want to mess with it that much right now.

 

By the way, I can't belive the OSX installer is this bad (unless this only happens when trying to install to a non-apple machine).

 

Thanks again.

[Arroba]

Ok, so I gave it a last try and succeeded... partially

 

In windows, I used "diskpart" to erase the FAT32 partition I had created for MAC OSX and create a new one, with the command:

 

create partition primary id=af

 

... which created a partition taking all the free unformated space I had.

 

I booted the MAC OS dvd and it still didn't see the partition, but Disk utility could see it, erase it, and later, mount it.

 

I proceeded with the rest of the installation without problems, but once I rebooted it told me I had "no operating system".

 

Using a DR-DOS based rescue-cd, I set the windows xp NTFS partition as active, and now I can see the boot loader giving me the choice between Windows XP (which boots perfectly) and MAC OSX (which doesn't boot at all, taking me back to the boot loader screen).

 

I have the "chain0" file in c:, so I really don't know what's wrong.

 

I appreciate any input, and I hope others get through the "no destination" problem as I did, only with more success

[peto315]

I've got exactly same problem. There's no other way as wmarsh described? It too radical for me

But my suggestion is to find a problem which caused this.

Situation on my disk looks like this:

[Arroba]

Peto315, try using "diskpart" in Windows (read the installation guides for more indepth how-to's) to erase the second primary partition and create a new one including the command id=af

 

This partition should be visible in the "disk utility" inside the OSX installer, so you can erase it and mount it, and proceed with the installation.

[peto315]

arroba, no I always knew that is needed to make partition with diskpart and I did it as well. Last picture is my desperate try to make partition 6660MB large as in 10.4.1 guide .

But I am going to try it last time, lets pray for me

[peto315]

well, as I promised I've tried it, now after erasing I can see partition,but I can't add it, because it types, that Os X cannot be started up from this partition. Any suggestions?

[wmarsh]

I suspect your earlier problem may have been that you didn't do properly the sudo bless -mount /Volumes/macosx-10.4.4 -setBoot

This installs the Darwin bootloader from your working 10.4.3 to 10.4.4. Maybe you didn't have all the files needed on 10.4.3?

 

I found, like you, Installer will not install into parttions created by non-OSX tools, although I generally use Partition Magic for this purpose.

 

The only workaround I found was to backup partitions, wipe them, then put them back as I stated above.

 

One point, dd does not transfer OS X well between partitions of disks with dissimiliar architecture. (i.e. between a Maxtor and a Seagate). You get filesystem errors that fsck can't fix. These are not immediately fatal but will crash the filesystem eventually. I think using the OS X Disk Utility, Restore tab, is a better tool.

 

However, it too will wipe primary partitions following exetended partitions. The error can be fixed easily with PTEDIT if you wrote down your partition data first.

[Mycohl]

MAC OSX (which doesn't boot at all, taking me back to the boot loader screen).

 

I have the "chain0" file in c:, so I really don't know what's wrong.

 

I appreciate any input, and I hope others get through the "no destination" problem as I did, only with more success

 

In regards to the NT bootloader, the reason for this behavior has been detailed

in other threads. Basically, the NT bootloader is handing control to the Darwin

bootloader, which then hands it right back. The solution is to add "Timeout"="5"

or someother number to your boot.plist so that you have a few seconds to choose

your Darwin partition from the Darwin bootloader. Of course, to edit the file you

must be able to boot. Various users have found that if you JAM on the F8 key right

after you choose Mac OSX from the NT bootloader, it will show the Darwin menu.

You really have to hit it fast though, it always took me three or four tries to get it

until I added the timeout.

 

In regards to the "No destination" problem, yes, the OSX Disk Utility will fubar your

partitions if you use it to set them up. The solution (as you noted) is to create an

AF-type partition using some windows-based utility and then format only that

partition in the Disk Utility.

[Arroba]

Thanks Mycohl

 

I'll give it a try this afternoon. I guess it could also be worked around if I used this program that lets you access OSX partitions from windows (I can't remember the name though), do you think it'd work?

 

Another idea: installing a linux distribution with another bootloader.

 

I'll keep you updated on any progress

[Arroba]

YES! It worked!

 

I can comfortably press F8 (no need to hurry) and I'm presented with the darwin boot prompt.

 

However, I get a blueish screen after that. When installing, I worked around this specifying the option " -x " at the boot prompt, but now I always get this "blank" screen when booting.

 

So I'll keep trying

 

Thanks to everyone that's helped me so far.

[Arroba]

At last! I'm typing this from Mac OSX

 

I have to use an external screen (as many others) and wireless doesn't work yet, everything else works better than expected. Perfomance on a Pentium M laptop with 1 GB of RAM is really good, on par with windows.

 

Exposé effects rock!

 

Overall I'm very impressed with OSX, but I want the real deal: Imac, there I go

[tezmo]

my problem is similar, in that I have no destinations to choose from. When I crank up the disk utility however, the only device listed is my DVDROM drive, and my PATA hd is not listed (DVDROM is pata primary master - HDD is pata secondary master), so I cant partition and prep the disc using Disk Utility because it cannot see it - any great ideas? With a bit of luck I'm missing something obvious...

[tezmo]

anyone?

[jbjonas]

my problem is similar, in that I have no destinations to choose from. When I crank up the disk utility however, the only device listed is my DVDROM drive, and my PATA hd is not listed (DVDROM is pata primary master - HDD is pata secondary master), so I cant partition and prep the disc using Disk Utility because it cannot see it - any great ideas? With a bit of luck I'm missing something obvious...

try making your install drive the primary master,and the DVD the primary slave.

Also you can try prepping the partition you want to install on, in XP using diskpart (guides in the wiki) as type=AF, then loading install DVD, and see if it's visible in Disk Utility. Good Luck - this is a common problem, and not hard to get around...

[Thor]

anyone?

 

 

Put hdd on master.

[asfaltboy]

I’m having this problem since the first time i tried installing osx on my machine (was 10.4.6 at the time and now 10.4.8) and i’ve read through the forums but I didn’t really get the asnwer i was searching for.

 

The problem is this, I get to the installer just fine, then I haven’t got a disk available on the installation screen so i go into the disk util and there i see only my physical drive with my windows partition (for some reason it’s only 128gb and not 256gb as it’s seposed to be) and mounted osx dvd but not the other partition i’ve created via diskpart.

 

Now, I’m sorta scared to format the only partition i can format in OSX installer since my hd contains a lot of things i’d rather keep ..

 

Here is what my diskpart says:

 

DISKPART> list disk

 

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

——– ———- ——- ——- — —

* Disk 0 Online 233 GB 0 B

 

DISKPART> list partition

 

Partition ### Type Size Offset

————- —————- ——- ——-

Partition 1 Primary 223 GB 32 KB

* Partition 2 Unknown 10 GB 223 GB

 

DISKPART> select part 2

 

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

 

DISKPART> detail part

 

Partition 2

Type : AF

Hidden: Yes # notice this? should it be hidden? probably yes...

Active: No

 

There is no volume associated with this partition.

 

DISKPART>

 

that’s about all i can think of right now.. i hope this stays reletively fresh and some one has an idea what’s wrong… p.s: i can post more info if needed.

 

One more thing, I think maybe the fact that on the osx installation disk util i can only see the ntfs part is a bit strange! and the fact that it's showing the hd as 128GB only and not 256 might tell us something ..

 

maybe it can't read after the first 128GB when looking for available partitions? because the partition i'm creating is actually in the other half of the 256 a bit close to the end (at the end actually!) ... i've tried formatting the destination partition to loads of types and it doesn't recognize any!

 

i think that's most likely the problem.. now what could be the solution (besides installing on a new drive since i have no other ide slots available to use (i have only 1 ! the other ones are sata).. do you think i could get away wiv resizing in the beginning ? like put the osx partition first and then the xp pro one ?

[wondergod]

try formatting the partition as fat32...and see if you see it then.

[asfaltboy]

Sorry for not replying earlier, work and all and I didn't get a notification about your reply in e-mail (odd ) .. I tried formatting to fat32 and still don't see it ... i still see my first HD with only 128GB.. i might put a clean HD (old samsung 40GB that i don't use) just to try out installing on it .. trouble is i won't be able to do much after.. I'd have to keep reconnecting.. I'll do it on Friday if i don't find a solution until then.