IMac – NetRestore image fails to install, no reason given

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I've got a Mac Mini running the latest version of OS X Server, and two iMacs. Both iMacs are the same model (Mid 2007 20-inch, 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo). On one of the Macs I have installed 10.9.4 and installed all of our software, and I used it to make the NetRestore image on the server. I've tried the image on other (newer) Macs around and it seems to work fine, but when I try to run it on this second iMac (which is identical to the original iMac that I made the image from), it fails. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be going on or how to go about fixing it?

Install Failed OS X could not be installed on your computer The restore operation failed. Select "Startup disk…" or restart to try again. Click Restart to return to your previous version of OS X. Restart

Best Answer

I ran into the same issue, and finally figured out the trouble is related to the CoreStorage partition type that is shipping with Yosemite.

To solve the NetRestore issue, first boot into a recovery mode (either the built-in recovery drive, an external USB drive, or net recovery).

Open up Terminal, and run these two commands:

diskutil cs list
diskutil cs revert A-Long-string-of-hex-values

The first command will print a tree view of the CoreStorage drive. Of note, you should see a few long UUID strings. Likely there would be one for "Physical Volume", "Logical Volume Family", and "Logical Volume". It is the string after the last one ("Logical Volume" which you should copy and paste as A-Long-string-of-hex-values in the second command.

See http://awesometoast.com/yosemite-core-storage-and-partition-woes/ and The OS X Man Page for diskutil for a bit more info. (Note that some sources may use "coreStorage" in place of "cs" in the above commands. According to the man page, the two are equivalent)

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