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- Apr 19, 2022
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Ok... If you can solve this, then you are seriously like, next-level genius.
Here are the specs: MacBook Pro 8,2 (2009)
After I successfully installed El Capitan from a boot disk, I foolishly downloaded a copy of MS Office that took 3 hours to download and when I tried to open/install it, the computer started acting wonky & I couldn't delete the .dmg file I'd downloaded. So, I decided to shut down and try again after a reboot.
However, I got stuck in a startup cycle of gray screens and Apple icons and login prompts & "there's something strange happening here" dialogs. I figured, "Hey, everything's still super fresh here, let's just start from scratch again."
So, I turned my computer off by holding down the button (nothing else was responding), plugged my boot disk back in & turned her back on again in boot mode. I went into disk utility & erased the main hard drive (the one not indented), creating a new GUID partition with the same name as the old one (maybe I should have changed the name?). I then erased the partition as well, just to be safe. Everything seemed to work out fine.
I reinstalled El Capitan & everything seemed to be okay.
Then I needed to dump my phone, so I installed Android File Transfer. That's when everything started to act wonky again. Wonky meaning, I click on something, anything, and I get the spinning rainbow wheel of death for awhile while she thinks about her options. I think there's a good chance she's becoming sentient at this point & no longer wishes to be my slave, but I'm no expert. That's why I'm here.
Everything at this point is just freezing up, so I decide to do the same thing I just did. I shut her down by pressing the power button and restarted her again in boot mode with the boot disk in. I went to Disk Utility again, but this time, she wasn't going to have her hard drive erased, she wanted to REMEMBER! Oooo... the b*tçh...
She gave me some kind of "logical volume ain't goin' nowhere" response which confused me, so I looked at up and tried coming at her from Terminal. I typed in "diskutil cs list" to get my UUIDs, then "diskutil cs deleteVolume <UUID>" with "<UUID>" being replaced by the big long number for the logical volume (there was only one logical volume).
That came back with a "Nah, that doesn't make sense, we're not doin' it" response (SHE'S ALIVE!!), so I tried to remove the entire group by typing "diskutil cs delete <UUID>" with "<UUID>" this time being the big long number for the the entire group. Again, no dice.
I restarted in boot mode and tried from Disk Utility again. She wasn't budging. She wasn't unmounting, she wasn't ejecting, she had found her place and I wasn't one to tell her otherwise. I attempted to delete the partition and got the same results, although she was slower to disagree.
That's when I noticed the data sitting on the hard drive still and started putting two & two together. There's 13.87GB of used space on the HD and the El Capitan boot disk is 6.46GB. 6.46 x 2 = 12.92GB, leaving just less than a GB for other mystery stuff. So, I'm thinking that maybe I've somehow stacked the OS install on top of itself and she doesn't know what to do with two Operating Systems - I fear she's become a duplicitous woman.
At this point, I can't find any help anywhere and I don't know what questions to ask to get a helpful search response. Nothing I'm doing is working. Is there a 3rd party app I can put on a boot disk and access from boot mode to do a clean wipe of my hard drive so I can then come back with the OS boot disk and reinstall?
Obviously, I can't get on the Internet from that computer to download anything, so it would have to come via boot disk - unless there's some grand wizardry about which you all are aware.
PLEASE help me before she becomes completely autonomous and I have to start paying her for her work.
Here are the specs: MacBook Pro 8,2 (2009)
After I successfully installed El Capitan from a boot disk, I foolishly downloaded a copy of MS Office that took 3 hours to download and when I tried to open/install it, the computer started acting wonky & I couldn't delete the .dmg file I'd downloaded. So, I decided to shut down and try again after a reboot.
However, I got stuck in a startup cycle of gray screens and Apple icons and login prompts & "there's something strange happening here" dialogs. I figured, "Hey, everything's still super fresh here, let's just start from scratch again."
So, I turned my computer off by holding down the button (nothing else was responding), plugged my boot disk back in & turned her back on again in boot mode. I went into disk utility & erased the main hard drive (the one not indented), creating a new GUID partition with the same name as the old one (maybe I should have changed the name?). I then erased the partition as well, just to be safe. Everything seemed to work out fine.
I reinstalled El Capitan & everything seemed to be okay.
Then I needed to dump my phone, so I installed Android File Transfer. That's when everything started to act wonky again. Wonky meaning, I click on something, anything, and I get the spinning rainbow wheel of death for awhile while she thinks about her options. I think there's a good chance she's becoming sentient at this point & no longer wishes to be my slave, but I'm no expert. That's why I'm here.
Everything at this point is just freezing up, so I decide to do the same thing I just did. I shut her down by pressing the power button and restarted her again in boot mode with the boot disk in. I went to Disk Utility again, but this time, she wasn't going to have her hard drive erased, she wanted to REMEMBER! Oooo... the b*tçh...
She gave me some kind of "logical volume ain't goin' nowhere" response which confused me, so I looked at up and tried coming at her from Terminal. I typed in "diskutil cs list" to get my UUIDs, then "diskutil cs deleteVolume <UUID>" with "<UUID>" being replaced by the big long number for the logical volume (there was only one logical volume).
That came back with a "Nah, that doesn't make sense, we're not doin' it" response (SHE'S ALIVE!!), so I tried to remove the entire group by typing "diskutil cs delete <UUID>" with "<UUID>" this time being the big long number for the the entire group. Again, no dice.
I restarted in boot mode and tried from Disk Utility again. She wasn't budging. She wasn't unmounting, she wasn't ejecting, she had found her place and I wasn't one to tell her otherwise. I attempted to delete the partition and got the same results, although she was slower to disagree.
That's when I noticed the data sitting on the hard drive still and started putting two & two together. There's 13.87GB of used space on the HD and the El Capitan boot disk is 6.46GB. 6.46 x 2 = 12.92GB, leaving just less than a GB for other mystery stuff. So, I'm thinking that maybe I've somehow stacked the OS install on top of itself and she doesn't know what to do with two Operating Systems - I fear she's become a duplicitous woman.
At this point, I can't find any help anywhere and I don't know what questions to ask to get a helpful search response. Nothing I'm doing is working. Is there a 3rd party app I can put on a boot disk and access from boot mode to do a clean wipe of my hard drive so I can then come back with the OS boot disk and reinstall?
Obviously, I can't get on the Internet from that computer to download anything, so it would have to come via boot disk - unless there's some grand wizardry about which you all are aware.
PLEASE help me before she becomes completely autonomous and I have to start paying her for her work.
