Yosemite install endless reboot problem

[gavspen]

Hi All,

Finally plucked up the courage to install Yosemite (yeah, I know, stone age to all you bleeding edge types...haha).

After the bit that says “Your Computer Will Now Restart”, it did…..20 times! It got stuck in an endless reboot loop. Not even turning the computer off and on would make it stop….scary moment….but I was able to get out of it by holding down “option” during the reboot and choosing a different startup disc. (It considers the Installer a startup disc, evidently).

Any thoughts? Googling (or searching here) hasn’t turned up anything so far.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Boot from the startup, RUN DISK UTILITY FROM THERE!!!! Then reinstall it. Which version of Yosemite and where did you get it from, if one may be so bold as to ask.

[gavspen]

Boot from the startup, RUN DISK UTILITY FROM THERE!!!! Then reinstall it. Which version of Yosemite and where did you get it from, if one may be so bold as to ask.

Thanks for the reply Mike, but I dont quite understand. How does one boot, if not from a startup? Do what with Disk Utility? To which disk? Reinstall what?

Here's the set up; I have two internal drives, let's call them A and B. A is the main drive and B is the one I use for experiments with new systems, versions of software etc. The both have Mavericks on them. So, I'm booting up from A, which is where the Yosemite installer is. Then I launch the installer and tell it to put Yosemite on drive B. That's when we enter the endless reboot loop.

I copied the installer to drive B and tried it from there, but same result.

Since you so bold as to ask I have two Yosemite installers and they both do the endless reboot thing. They are versions 1.6.30 and 1.6.43. I think I got one from Apple a loooooong time ago, the other one a friend sent me.

By the way, I had to change the date on my computer to something earlier (in 2015) or I would get some "installer cannot be verified" message. I think Apple just dont want you installing older systems.

P.S. I did use Disk Utility to verify both disks. It says they are fine.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Sorry. It was past 3 am and I just played two gigs and was working on some orchestrations.

What I I meant to say was: boot into the installer to reapply the OS, but if you did that several times without success, and disk utility reports good disks, then I'm at a loss for additional suggestions.

The only other thing I don't think you mentioned was starting up in SAFE mode (holding the shift key) to clean out the cache, etc, then, if that succeeds, restart.

[mikehalloran]

Shut down.

Start while holding the Option key. You should see both drives and two repair partitions. Pick one of the repair partitions and start.

Once in, you will have a number of options. You want to reinstall the OS onto one of the drives. This will download and install but will not overwrite your data. Once done, it will reboot and this time it should work. You can now download Yosemite from th App Store to install on the other drive or do the same thing again for the other.

[gavspen]

Shut down.

Start while holding the Option key. You should see both drives and two repair partitions. Pick one of the repair partitions and start.

Once in, you will have a number of options. You want to reinstall the OS onto one of the drives. This will download and install but will not overwrite your data. Once done, it will reboot and this time it should work. You can now download Yosemite from th App Store to install on the other drive or do the same thing again for the other.

Hi Mike,

Since you suggest reinstalling the OS, are you suggesting that you think the current OS (on one or both drives) is corrupt, and that is what is causing the problem?

You say, "Once done, it will reboot and this time it should work." What should work? If you're saying that the install of Yosemite should work, then why would I need to go back to Apple and download it again? By the way, Yosemite is no longer available at the Apple site. At least not when I log in. Is it there for you?

(P.S. Rereading your post, it sounds like you may be thinking I'm stuck in the reboot loop at regular start up. Than's not the case. It's when trying to install Yosemite that it happens.)

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Ok, ow it’s clear that the INSTALLER is what won’t load. I thought the installer seemed to work but the the machine wouldn’t boot. I’m guessing that there is some conflict in your firmware that might be causing this. I don’t know a lot about the innards of such stuff except that if it is a firmware/ hardware issue the installer doesn’t like, running that os on that machine may not be possible at this point. Also, if it’s giving you that much of a problem now, what kind of issues might it present once installed?

[gavspen]

Ok, ow it’s clear that the INSTALLER is what won’t load. I thought the installer seemed to work but the the machine wouldn’t boot. I’m guessing that there is some conflict in your firmware that might be causing this. I don’t know a lot about the innards of such stuff except that if it is a firmware/ hardware issue the installer doesn’t like, running that os on that machine may not be possible at this point. Also, if it’s giving you that much of a problem now, what kind of issues might it present once installed?

Yes the installer is what gets stuck. There seems to be nothing wrong with either of the Mavericks discs. I just know that when trying to install Yosemite, I get that "You computer will now restart" message, and it does.....50 frickin' times!

According to Apple's website this box should be good till El Capitan. After that, kaput. I'm getting a vague deja vu with all this....it may have happened this way with Mavericks too, but I'm not sure. If so, I dont remember how it got fixed. If I can summon the energy I'll take out the PCI cards and see if that cures it.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm not sure this has been proposed, but could you put the installer on a thumb drive or CD and install from there? I was also thinking starting up in target mode and installing from a second machine that will run the installer. But again, I'd be concerned that if there is an initial issue with the install, it may be more of a headache later one when the conflict causes real issues when the installer actually installs.

[gavspen]

Well, deja vu it is.

Looking back at my posts I see I had this exact problem 3 years ago, trying to upgrade from snow leopard. I tried all kinds of things with advice from you guys and apple, and nothing worked. Then I tried Mavericks, I guess, and that worked.

Unless, in the meantime, someone has had the same problem and solved it, I see no point in flogging this dead horse any further. It’s a problem that just will not be solved. Very frustrating.

In case you care.....viewtopic.php?f=4&t=60242

Thanks for trying.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

...which begs the question: what aspects of Yosemite do you find necessary or more appealing than a more recent OS? Sierra seems to be working just fine here. I haven't move to High Sierra (although the name alone is just too inviting... lol) because I've heard it breaks a few things I need. Are there specific issues related to current OS versions you are trying to avoid?

[gavspen]

...which begs the question: what aspects of Yosemite do you find necessary or more appealing than a more recent OS? Sierra seems to be working just fine here. I haven't move to High Sierra (although the name alone is just too inviting... lol) because I've heard it breaks a few things I need. Are there specific issues related to current OS versions you are trying to avoid?

I go slowly. I fear change.

Your penultimate sentence is the reason. There are two pieces of software (one music, one not) which I use all the time, which may or may not break in a later OS. They may also break in Yosemite, but going forward two generations I think increases the likelihood that breakage will occur. The music one was supposed to break with Mavericks but some bright spark found a fix (involving replacing .kext files. Already I dont know what I'm talking about!) so I was able to install Mavericks.

Just generally though, as you are aware, if your system gets too old, then things like Chrome, or Adobe can no longer be updated. You know, simple as that. Otherwise Mavericks is perfectly fine. Since you suggest leapfrogging over Yosemite, El Capitan is as far as this machine will go, and I do have that installer, so I may give it a go.

And on a completely unrelated matter.....

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educa ... ion-update

Once a pedant, always a pedant.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Not sure what music app you are referring to, but in Sierra, all my Adobe stuff (CS 5 and 6) as well as Finale 2014.5 - my last usable version since they dropped the movie scoring ability) are working fine. But i feel your pain. I have an 8 core cheese grater (3,1) in storage for just such a contingency. It's loaded with El Cap (I think that's the OS) in case my trash can gets trashed or an OS update kills a critical app.

I was fortunate enough to be able to drop $5k on the current system a few years ago in an emergency (on New Year's Eve no less!) and have kept up all the OS updates until High Sierra, which scares me for the same reasons you resist updating. El Cap was a fine release, IMO. Then again, I know a number of pros in LA who won't go past Yosemite or El Cap. I also know a few who have jumped ship to PC and love it. DP 9 doesn't seem to be playing well on a PC (based the posts I see here) and I personally dislike Windoze, but all my critical apps are now Mac/PC so if I have to go there in the future, I will. Hopefully, I'll die before that happens.

[gavspen]

Not sure what music app you are referring to, but in Sierra, all my Adobe stuff (CS 5 and 6) as well as Finale 2014.5 - my last usable version since they dropped the movie scoring ability) are working fine. But i feel your pain. I have an 8 core cheese grater (3,1) in storage for just such a contingency. It's loaded with El Cap (I think that's the OS) in case my trash can gets trashed or an OS update kills a critical app.

I was fortunate enough to be able to drop $5k on the current system a few years ago in an emergency (on New Year's Eve no less!) and have kept up all the OS updates until High Sierra, which scares me for the same reasons you resist updating. El Cap was a fine release, IMO. Then again, I know a number of pros in LA who won't go past Yosemite or El Cap. I also know a few who have jumped ship to PC and love it. DP 9 doesn't seem to be playing well on a PC (based the posts I see here) and I personally dislike Windoze, but all my critical apps are now Mac/PC so if I have to go there in the future, I will. Hopefully, I'll die before that happens.

The music soft/hardware is the TC Powercore Express PCI card. Supposed to die in Mavericks but there's a reliable workaround. I figure it might also work in Yosemite, but every time you go further there's less chance it works, seems to me, so I was going to try Yosemite before El Cap, but I dont know if there's a way. May have to go to El Cap....if that one works, that is.

I may try taking my "experimental" drive out, putting it into an external case and try to update from another computer. Oy! I just think there must be some obscure piece of hardware inside my box that the installer hates. Video card, ram stick, who knows, but I really cant take the thing apart to find out.

To add insult to injury I recently tried to upgrade to DP9, but for some inexplicable reason it causes latency with the TC PCI card which isnt there in DP8. I know DP9 includes some new and groovier audio engine, but isnt that supposed to make things better? Jeez.

Nice timing on the 5K update. Happy New Year!

Windoze? Not a chance. At my age, any learning curve is too steep.

[gavspen]

And others have said, "If everything's working ok, why upgrade at all?"

Good question. Well, I just went to upgrade my Garmin GPS (yes I know, Google Maps. I just like to have both) and I cant do it without their software, which requires....you guessed it....a newer system than mine. El Cap, in fact. Yosemite wont even do it. Sigh......