Installing OS X 10.3 tonight and ran into this problem. I was installing to a 30Gb disk that used to have a copy of slackware on it so when I ran the installer I had to run the disk utility and erase the old disk. Once I resumed the install I received the error message:
“You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot start your computer from this volume.”
After scratching my head for several minutes and re-trying the disk utility a couple times I decided that maybe it simply needed a reboot. Sure enough a reboot using the 10.3 install CD’s cured the problem. I hate non-descript errors, if a peice of software is not going to perform a function due to a problem it should tell you WHY. Anyway, easy enough fix.
EDIT Oct 26 2008: I experienced this issue again tonight while configuring a software raid on a G4 Tiger machine. After the raid was initialized I simply rebooted the machine and entered setup again, the installer allowed me to install on the raid partition after that.
95 responses so far ↓
1 Neil // Mar 3, 2006 at 12:09 am
Thanks !! After buying and installing a new drive in my daughter’s 12″ powerbook, you saved the sinking feeling in my stomach.
2 Andrew // Mar 14, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Likewise, many thanks!! Installed new HD in iMac and, just like you said, rebooting fixed the problem. Great job! I’m sure I’d have been hunting around for ages for a more complex solution if I hadn’t seen your advice.
3 Cody // Mar 15, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Excellent, glad I could help!
4 Mac Victim // Mar 29, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Thank you!
I got this error after replacing the hard drive in a iBook G4. There are 56 screws of innumerable types and sizes between the user and the component most likely to fail. When I got this error I thought the drive must be incompatible and I was seriously not looking forward to another 3 hours dissasembling and reassembling the entire system. What a nightmare.
5 Othalian // Apr 7, 2006 at 1:22 pm
You are a very nice person. I have been scratching my head while surfing for an answer to this problem. As always the answer was so easy. Why did Apple not prompt users to restart the computer? Perhaps they will see this and impliment it into a future OS.
Thanks
Othalian
6 oPless // Jun 5, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Having a second failed hard disk, in as many years and being told that apple don’t warrenty their warrenty repairs (WTF?) I decided to bung a 30G drive I had space into my two year old 12″ iBook G4. As I’d lost a good couple of weeks work (I know, backup backup backup) I was not pleased this drive was showing up as “unbootable” when all it needed was a reboot – a quick google later found this page!
My iBook thanks you as it was destined for the wall
)
Many thanks!
.oP
7 gl03 // Jun 21, 2006 at 10:48 am
haha! cheers man!
8 michi // Jul 8, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for the info! You are the man!
9 Anon. // Jul 11, 2006 at 5:21 am
Thanks for the message. Replaced a HD tonight in my 2 year old ibook, only to get the unable to install message. A quick reboot, and everything is going forward smoothly!
10 bill // Aug 12, 2006 at 12:13 am
It /MAY/ be that the new drives partitioning information does not get written (or used properly) until REBOOT.
I ran into this same error while installing X10.3 on old G3/233 Rev B Bondi unit (hardly used pristine condition -for $50!). Threw in a old 80GB Hitachi Deskstar I had laying around and set up 8-partitions (for MAC and future Linux installs). BTW, this box only has the original 96MB RAM installed, the installer complained…but went ahead anyway with the install (will upgrade that later).
have fun.
11 rick // Oct 5, 2006 at 4:50 pm
THANK YOU!
12 slaske // Oct 29, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Hello!
I replaced the contents on my powerbook g4 15,2″ (alu) hard drive when trying out linux.
Now none of my OS install cds/dvds get past the initial installer bootup apple logo – sometimes it freezes , sometimes it gives me a corrupt folder logo (or kernel panic logo) which I read on apple support can be due to missing system folders (obviously) OR due to firmware update (which apple.com says aren’t needed for the current model/version of powerbook/OS).
Being new to mac I find it annoying not to be able to install OS X
Linux installed like a charm in about 12minutes sweet!
Assuming my cabling is allright as linux didnt complain , what can cause this ?
And more important how can I fix it myself ?
13 Cody // Oct 30, 2006 at 11:16 pm
I would suggest booting with the OS X CD by holding the C key down when you boot your power book. From the installer you should be able to run the disk utility from the tools menu if memory serves me right. In the disk utility select your disk and use the erase option to wipe the disk clean (caution! This will remove ALL the data on the disk!!!). After that’s complete restart your mac and boot from the CD again (C key). From there you should be able to reinstall OSX.
14 Mike Robinson // Jan 5, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Oh man, you saved so many of my precious hair follicles tonight!
My wife knows “that look” when it comes over my face (and let’s face it, I had to dismantle and reassemble this clamshell Mac already today, just to replace the freakin’ drive in the first place…), and both of us were equally happy when a smile returned and I could say, “okay, let’s go ahead and open the wine and start the pasta.”
Thanks!
15 Jan // Jan 11, 2007 at 2:34 am
Thanks man!
16 *Dee* // Jan 11, 2007 at 4:32 pm
You are a life saver! I was ready to throw my ibook across the room. I upgraded the hdd from 10 gig to a 60 gig drive and the ram from 64mb to 320mb. First issue, is that the 60 gig was formatted ntfs. We were trying to correct this through firewire on a powerbook. After a few hours getting through that problem, it wouldn’t unmount itself in order to create a partition. After many hours, gave up on it because I was finally able to obtain OSX Panther cds. Then those wouldn’t install because of the so called “You cannot install…” error. Thanks to you, instead of demolishing it out of frustration, everything is installing.
)
17 DrPepper // Jan 14, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Thankyou so much. I guess the drive is doing something that needs a restart, like Fdisk on a PC. What a pathetic error message though.
18 M Vance // Jan 24, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Thanks. Apple is such an idiotic company. Of course non of their literature says anything about this.
19 Martinoza // Jan 30, 2007 at 3:08 am
G’day mate;
I ran into a same message once I put a second-hand 40GB HDD to my iMac G3/500; and went through exactly the same ideas – erasing, reformatting, etc. And then while I was looking for an answer, I rebooted the computer – so I got your answer pretty much at the same time as I find it myself. However, great thanks for posting it, as there is nothing on this matter on Apple website.
Cheers, Martin
20 MaGiCKaTT // Jan 30, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Oh MAN, you totally saved me from the dreaded “oh man after tooling around again I screwed something up” feeling in my stomach…
First time I’d installed OS X on a PowerPC Mac, I think bill above was right, I just put in 250gb and 320gb drives into my G5, and after I’d hit restart it spent a good while doing something. My Mac knowledge is limited so this page was very handy, but still beats any experience I’ve had over the last decade with Windoze…!
21 Nick // Jan 31, 2007 at 2:00 pm
You just saved me a lot of grief. I had a drive go bad, so I bought a 500GB replacement, and after I formatted/partitioned it, I got the error message on both partitions. Sure enough, a quick restart fixed the problem. Very unlike Apple to code something this way.
22 fr3dly // Feb 2, 2007 at 12:32 am
installed a new 80GB maxtor(i know, yuk, but it was new on the shelf, so…) in my g3 b&w and ran into the same problem. googled my way to your site and tried a re-boot.
worked like a charm after that.
thanks.
peace.
23 Nik // Feb 5, 2007 at 7:45 pm
replaced a hard drive in iMac G4 (second hard drive, third time taken the machine apart!), reformatted the drive using Disk Utility and then got ‘the message’. Thanks for the tip, saved me another late night (it’s pretty late already!).
Cheers.
24 Cannot Install OS X on my ibook - Error // Feb 23, 2007 at 2:49 am
[...] Re: Cannot Install OS X on my ibook See if this helps: Sysop.ca » “You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot start your computer from this volume.” [...]
25 hammered24 // Mar 2, 2007 at 7:32 am
Thank you so much after installing a New HD in a Ibook i got the same error…Went to google for help stublmed across this
Much appricated
26 phoenix // Mar 2, 2007 at 10:54 pm
thank you.
27 Bolas // Mar 3, 2007 at 8:34 pm
This worked for me, too! My poor little heart sank, then I found this post, restarted, and life was oh so sweet =) Thanks!!!
28 Raajik Shah // Mar 9, 2007 at 12:29 am
I just bought a new Hitachi hard drive. I replaced the Toshiba drive and cannot seem to install mac os x on it. Under Disk Utility, the hard drive is recognized but when I get to the “Select Location” screen nothing shows up. What do I do?
29 Jonathan Simons // Mar 20, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I love you man!!! The OS X installer doesn’t even tell you that you need to partition the disk first. It just doesn’t show up. Thanks a million.
30 shahriladnan // Mar 23, 2007 at 3:58 am
Thanks for the tip! You really made my day.
31 Cannot Install OS X on my ibook - Error // Mar 28, 2007 at 6:43 am
[...] Re: Cannot Install OS X on my ibook See if this helps: Sysop.ca » “You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot start your computer from th… [...]
32 Tohmmm // Apr 2, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Thanks for the great tip…had just upgraded a second hand purchased iBook G3 from a 20gb (OS X 10.1.5) to a 100gb (OS X panther) when the dreaded exclamation mark come up.
Couldn’t fathom what it was until i logged on (via another machine) and saw your comments.
Apple should issue a warning in the Installer!!
Now…back to the installing…
33 Scottieo // Apr 19, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Sweet! thanks for posting! I was freaking because I got the Can’t install error- after several attempts at disk utility. This is my first attempt at installing a hard drive and I thought- i have blown $80. Thanks for your help!
34 john // Apr 25, 2007 at 10:26 pm
thanks so much
i was poring over my partitions for an hour before i decided to google it and came across this
35 richardsidler // May 5, 2007 at 12:40 pm
My apoligies for jacking in on this tread; though only to follow up, see this page at apple, it really helped me get a grip on the problem with my 80gig Segate.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303220
“You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume…” alert in Installer
Mine was also partitioned in a wintel box, this also appears to be a problem for those partitioning under intel-macs and sending the disc back to motarola land.
Re-partitioning and rebooting under OS X resolved the issure for me… Cheers all!
36 Laura & Mo // May 8, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Thanks so much for your advice!!
37 Jose // May 19, 2007 at 2:31 am
How funny… Worked for me too. Thanks!
38 Mahstah // May 25, 2007 at 11:17 pm
I spent half an hour reformatting with Journalized/Unix FSs, erasing disks, and repartitioning after adding a 120 GB disk to a PowerBook G3. Finally I performed a quick search and voila! Many thanks.
39 Mark // May 26, 2007 at 11:18 am
Thank you so much, I just picked up a 500 GB disk, and got that error and the sinking feeling in my stomach, but all is good now.
40 Felix // May 26, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I put a 80GB 2.5″ disk from a PC into a ibook g3, took me 2h of screwdriving… I tried to install os x 10.3. Got that error. Erased Partition. Got that error again. Rebooted. Got that error again. I Read the website mentioned in my comment. Partitioned the drive. And if i hadn’t read your article would have tried the installation again another day. After rebooting again installation is working now! Thanks.
41 alan // Jun 5, 2007 at 5:19 pm
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I WAS WORRIED/PISSED UNTIL I READ THIS AND IT WORKED!!!
42 Chris // Jul 23, 2007 at 2:04 am
FWIW, simply restarting didn’t work for me. I tried to format the disk in Disk Utility, but that also didn’t help, either. Same error as before, despite re-booting.
Instead, I looked a bit deeper and realized I needed to format this drive using GUID for my Mac Mini (1st-gen Intel). The default was to format with a dual-boot system in mind (i.e. for PPC and Intel machines).
The interesting thing is I was able to boot off the same drive (which had X.10.5 installed when it was inside an external USB), but once it was placed in my Mac Mini, it caused a kernel panic (hard freeze) on boot-up. I ended up reformatting in GUID, and did a clean install…..
Anyway, just thought I’d add this tid-bit for those for whom the reboot trick doesn’t work. God, I love the internet.
43 Kirk // Jul 29, 2007 at 4:01 am
Nice to see this tip, thanks. It’s the obvious step when something doesn’t work, but reading this whilst waiting for the system to reboot gives confidence rather than just hope that it will actually work.
44 Kell // Jul 30, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Good gosh this helped alot. A Simple restart? I completely overlooked it. It worked great. Thanks everyone
45 Pablo & George // Aug 28, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I love you!!!
46 Matt // Sep 4, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Thank goodness for this simple easy tip… Sometimes the most obvious solution *is* the correct one. I would have been banging my head over this for much longer had I not come across this site.
47 Leah // Sep 7, 2007 at 6:25 pm
It worked! At first there was no destination to install on, but then I went into Disk Utility and partitioned the disk (into 1). Then the disk showed up, but I got the error message you mentioned. Restarting apparently solved the problem. Who knew? I hope this helps other people with my problem.
48 Juan Carlos Ventura // Sep 15, 2007 at 6:53 pm
SI cuando estaba instalando un nuevo HDD de 120 gb me dijo que no se podia instalar me quiria morir pero ya quedo graciasssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
49 Gavin // Sep 18, 2007 at 11:56 am
Legend!!!!
50 MuVo // Sep 21, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Hi!
I have upgrade the cd-rw unit and the hard drive of my Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, but when I try to install Mac OS 10.4.6 in a 40 Gb Western Digital Hard drive (WD400), I get the so called message, I erase the hard drive with the Mac OS Journaled format, and then I reboot with the mac os x installer option for reboot, but, after the reboot the apple and the circle screen remain without starting the installation program, please help me. Excuse my poor english. Cheers
51 Benny // Sep 23, 2007 at 2:08 am
Thanks for your tip. I was in despair when I saw the error message. This is my second attempt at replacing the hard drive. The first hard drive was a Seagate 80 GB that Installer would not recognized. After two disassembly sessions. I took the Seagate out and installed it in a old Toshiba laptop, worked fine. I next tried a WDScorpio 120 GB. Installer recognized the drive and I went through the partition process until I came across this error message and my jaw dropped to the floor. Now I’m so happy to get my iBook up and running.
52 Jersey // Sep 24, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Top notch!!
53 Vespa Ros // Nov 4, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I ordered a used flat pannel G4 imac for a customer and I just about threw the thing across the room. I ran the disk utility a million friggin times with no results. After a reboot as you said, there it goes. A million thank yous, you are my savior.
54 Vasco Ramos // Nov 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I use PC for overclocking since long time ago, and Microsoft-base networks administrator. I have got a iMac G4 400MHz since yesterday (it belonged to my sister), put 512 MB of memory on it, an old WD 160GB hard drive (but obviously I use only 128, the limit). I got the same problem. I used the same solution. It worked.
I have no words.
I miss my old Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.
55 Dave Dolsky // Nov 26, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Sweet! Thank you!
56 KJC // Dec 30, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Thanks for the (simple) tip! I was starting to panic that I’d have the nightmare task of taking apart my iBook again…
57 Julie // Jan 9, 2008 at 3:20 am
Thank you soooooooooooo much!! After all those hours of taking this apart and putting them together, what a relief!!
58 Stuart // Jan 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Thank you.
59 lee // Jan 14, 2008 at 7:22 pm
you my friend are a life save. just put a 250gig hd in my powerbook 17 and it is installing right now thanks to your blog! i was freakin out thinking that i had installed incorrectly as it is my first attempt at cracking a case open!!! thanks
60 Kenny Hosey // Jan 18, 2008 at 2:48 am
Wow! That was a nice save. Thank you… You may have saved my marriage!
61 Carl // Jan 26, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Great job leaving this up, saved my night.
62 Russell // Feb 1, 2008 at 6:09 pm
+1 man…new to mac from linux, was like “What?” then you came along. TY!!
63 Sujith // Feb 6, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Man – thanks a tonne!!!..went thru the same stuff..went tot he mac site – they asked me to partition my disk and all that…decided to give ur solution a try – WHAM !! it showed up with out any problem, after a reboot !
Thanks again!
64 Ross // Feb 15, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Good job, thanks for posting this. Having changed the drive in my iBook G4 after the old one made like it was dying, I was scratching my head for a few minutes before I googled up the error message. Who’d have thought that the installer caches partition table info? Bit of an oversight by the Apple techies there…
65 Big fat hard drive in a 700 MHz G4 iMac at Blog My Wiki! // Feb 18, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[...] for an old Mac. But before I gave up I had a word with Mr Google (thank you Jamie Oliver) and found this page which told me to give it a reboot. And by jove, he’s right. It’s insane, but he’s [...]
66 Giles Booth // Feb 18, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Thank you! Thank you! Was about to take my G4 700 MHz iMac back to bits again, but thanks to you I discovered that I CAN put a 320GB drive in an old iMac – works a treat…
67 michael // Feb 22, 2008 at 6:48 am
Thanks sooooo much! I have never cr@pped my pants soo much in my life
68 Zach // Feb 23, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Again, Like every one here — a simple restart did the trick. Although this apple link provided some resourceful information regarding detecting a missing volume.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303220
69 pastajon // Sep 27, 2008 at 4:13 pm
THANKS!!!
70 Lui // Oct 13, 2008 at 10:24 am
i luv you man!! im glad i bumpoed into this page or else i’ll be havin nightmares with the screws again. so yea. Bless you!
71 Ray Dios Haque // Oct 18, 2008 at 5:49 am
Hah! I just dropped a 40GB drive into an old iMac and got this message after doing the low level format (write zeros to the drive) option. Thanks for dropping some common sense on us all. I can’t tell you how many times I tell my users at work “try rebooting first!” and I didn’t think to do it myself.
You were about the third result in my Google search. Blog on!!
72 Jean // Nov 27, 2008 at 12:53 pm
… and I had the same issue on a G4, read your entry, thought “that cannot be” since Apple talks about the “GUID_partition_scheme” thing which I cannot use since it’s not available on my setup for any reason…
.
.
.
And yes, a reboot did the job. Being new to the Mac world, I’m glad to see there also some weird things over here
Cheers, Jean
73 Andrew S // Dec 7, 2008 at 3:00 am
Thanks a lot for leaving this page up! I was installing a new disk in an old G4 powerbook and ran into this. I’m a bit embarrassed to not have figured this out on my own, since i probably tell someone to try a reboot at least once a day…
Instead of rebooting i tried dumb things like:
- trying to boot off a newer incompatible install disk
- playing with partitions
- considered booting into target mode and installing the system from my MBP (which would have been a large failure!)
- considered reformatting the disk to be lba32 (the 128GB limit)
Apple’s page on this error is not useful in this case, and all of the other pages on the web discuss the partition change for Intel vs PPC macs.
Instead, it’s just a bug with the 10.3 installer, which i needed to use since i only have the upgrade version of 10.4.
74 Jhonka // Dec 17, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Hey, thank you for the info. Rebooting did not work for me – but Ejecting the disk, unplugging from USB and plugging back in did though!
75 LaserWizard // Dec 24, 2008 at 4:56 pm
It’s workinggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!
76 Bryan L // Jan 15, 2009 at 9:39 pm
You are a mental life saver. I was truly about to quit. I thought I would give it another shot and found this post. Thank you again. I was struggling with the G4 for hours trying to figure out what could be wrong after swapping new hard drives. To believe all it took was a reboot. Geez.
77 Konstantinos // Feb 6, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Great tip, helped me with an iMac G3, fresh installation of Panther instead of the original 9.2.
Thanks!
78 William // Feb 11, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Dude! You’re awesome! This article prevented my premature baldness. Thank you!
My PowerBook G4 is up and running.
79 Evan // Feb 21, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Oh my..I just spent an hour beating my head against the wall until I found this.
Thanks!
80 Mike // Mar 26, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Thanks to you and to google for finding you! You have saved me an hour or so scratching my head…
81 Frank // Apr 7, 2009 at 9:49 am
Thank you so much, this just saved me a lot of tears!
82 Jim // Apr 8, 2009 at 10:04 am
You rock! I just put a 160 GB WD in my 800 mhz ibook, and your page was a lifesaver.
Thanks again.
83 Mike // Apr 17, 2009 at 3:31 pm
You are the man
i’ve got an original beast of an imac i use daily alongside my PC with a core 2 quad=P
i wanted wireless so i went to buy a wireless usb dongle and saw it was only compatible with 10.3 or above
i’ve had this imac apart 3,000 times so i thought one more time is fine to upgrade the hard drive right?
WRONG
i added a drive (which didnt work i realised after about 16 more times apart)
and i get a better drive and put it in and i bring up the panther install and am greeted by this lovely message…..
gladly apple made these things tough so the fall out of the 2nd story window ended with only some minor scratches.
if it werent for this artice i would have dumped this imac in a lake
KEEP THIS PAG ALIVE!!!!!
major kudos!!!!!
84 Mike9byte // Apr 21, 2009 at 1:05 pm
you are the man!! WTF do apple have to make finding this kind of information so difficult?
85 Tinsheep // May 12, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Friend,
thanks so much for taking the time to make this simple post. i was so discouraged and i said to myself.. can it be that easy??? and it was!
thank you!!!
Michael
86 Alex // May 19, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Oh my..I just spent an hour beating my head against the wall until I found this. It’s so easy
Thanks!
87 Mbcx // May 26, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Thanks a lot – my eMac had the same problem with 40GB, but not with 8GB – it looks like setup can’t get full drive’s info when advanced LBA is used.
88 Dave // Jun 1, 2009 at 2:36 pm
My god, thanks! I spent an hour on this, scratching my head, and about to punch the wall!!
89 Bill T // Jun 6, 2009 at 7:50 am
Your reboot trick didn’t work when using the original OSX Install cd that came with the G4iMac, but when I used a later OSX (Tiger) Install cd, it worked great. Thanks.
90 Rob Rushing // Aug 4, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Wow—I was about to get really worried, but this was exactly the problem. How annoying. Is there some reason that Apple’s help pages don’t suggest that a restart may be necessary?
91 R Rajesh // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:44 pm
A reboot worked for me as well! Thanks!
92 David Walker // Dec 28, 2009 at 12:09 am
Thanks for your post. I was worried that my iBook G4 could not use a new 160GB disk I just fitted. Worked fine after a reboot. The old IT helpdesk solution – “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”.
93 scott plamondon // Feb 19, 2010 at 8:34 pm
you made my night. I was two seconds away from over thinking this problem and quitting trying to fix this mac and all it needed was a reboot. YOU ARE THE MAN MY FRIEND
94 Michael Camp // Mar 10, 2010 at 9:18 am
You are a life-saver. Found the “solution” to this issue at Apple.com and after much frustration I was ready to give up. Your solution worked perfectly.
Thanks!!
95 oh happy day // Mar 26, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Bad enough to crash, then not having any “official” help from the smarty-pants people at apple, then having to read endless strings on glitch after hiccup.
Happily I found my final answer tucked into the grateful comments on this post. I too lack the “GUID_partition_scheme” on my G4 17″. In the end I went with Mac OS Journaled format erasing once for good measure and then rebooting.
Glad I am for the trick it did.
gratsi
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