It's a long post, but I am listing everything I have done so far.
I performed an upgrade to Mojave (day one release from App store), the app installed and I ran through the setup steps, I left it running unattended as it was ‘52 minutes remaining’ I came back to a ‘Disk management error’ (I did not catch the error number at the time), I restarted the machine, and since that point it boots to the Apple logo and the progress bar reaches about ~75% complete before turning into the prohibited symbol.
Stupid mistake on my part is not having any backup whatsoever, and the HDD contains family images which is why I’m reluctant to give up and reformat the drive.
I am not too bothered about recovering the whole drive, a satisfactory outcome for me would be the drive is mountable and I can extract the data I want, and from there I don't mind a fresh install.
So here is where I am at, and what I have done:
- I can load into recovery mode (cmd + r).
- In disk utility I am only able to see the hardware name of my internal drive (APPLE HDD HT…), in the view menu I ensured ‘Show all devices’ is enabled, still no volume name for which I would expect to see ‘Macintosh HD’.
- I can see the OS X Base system.
- At this point I contacted official Apple support (online), once I explained I could see no drive names listed under my internal HDD, they stopped helping and said I would need to reinstall the OS.
- Tried Target disk mode on another Mac with OSX High Sierra, it could only see the hardware name of my internal drive (APPLE HDD HT…), no volumes.
- Tried Internet recovery mode, the globe 'spins' then the machine reboots back to into the prohibited symbol.
Output from Recovery mode Disk Utility on the Internal HDD:
First Aid found corruption that needs to be repaired.
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Problems were found with the partition map, which might prevent booting.
Output from diskutil list:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
# TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 499.2 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme +2.1 GB disk1
1: Apple_HFS OS X Base System 2.0 GB disk1s1
/dev/disk2 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +5.2 MB disk2
/dev/disk3 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk3
/dev/disk4 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk4
/dev/disk5 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk5
/dev/disk6 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +2.1 MB disk6
/dev/disk7 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk7
/dev/disk8 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk8
/dev/disk9 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +12.6 MB disk9
/dev/disk10 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +4.2 MB disk10
/dev/disk11 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +1.0 MB disk11
/dev/disk12 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +2.1 MB disk12
/dev/disk13 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk13
/dev/disk14 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk14
/dev/disk15 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +1.0 MB disk15
/dev/disk16 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +6.3 MB disk16
/dev/disk17 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +6.3 MB disk17
/dev/disk18 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +524.3 KB disk18
/dev/disk19 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled +2.1 MB disk19
Output from diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
Output from gpt show disk0
-bash-3.2# gpt show disk0
start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
409640 975093952 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
975503592 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
976773128 7
976773135 32 Sec GPT table
976773167 1 Sec GPT header
I booted into Gparted, and what I'm hoping is a positive sign is it can see 'Macintosh HD', but on the flip side a file system of 'unknown' does not fill me with hope. This is where I stopped and thought it's best for someone with better experience to help guide me through any potential data recovery.
I also ran Testdisk, and it could see 'Macintosh HD' and a HFS volume and one that had + backup.
Thank you in advance.
Tools at my disposal:
- A secondary MBP (same-ish year)
- Firewire 800 cable
- External USB with GParted ready to boot
- External USB blank 150gb HDD
Best Answer
Looks like you need a better tool than the supplied Disk Utility. I'm not far from you (South Gloucestershire) and have at my disposal Disk Warrior and Tech Tool Pro (both the latest versions and available on bootable USB drives). I'm happy to meet you and give these a try FOC. I used to be an support engineer for local Apple Service Centres.