I had a couple of MacBook Pro laptops grace my desk and I have been upgrading them to Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). The first one (maybe eighteen months old) went through without a hitch but the second one (which is a few years old) had all manner of problems including reading my original DVD-RW that I had burnt using the DMG file from the Mac App Store. Another significant problem I encountered was after the initial installation, I kept encountering the error…
“There was a problem installing Mac OS X”.
Quite non-descript and quite unhelpful and even a format and subsequent reinstall didn’t fix the problem.
What I discovered was that the setup for Lion seems to store data in the PRAM (Parameter Random Access Memory) and if this data is corrupted or becomes stale it becomes necessary to reset it in order to undertake a successful installation.
So how is it done?
- Turn off the computer,
- Hold down “Command”, “Option”, “P” and “R” on the keyboard,
- Turn on the computer,
- Keep holding down the keys until the computer restarts itself again (maybe ten or fifteen seconds at most),
- Release the keys after the computer has restarted again.
From here you should be able to proceed with the installation of Lion with no further problems.
38 comments
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Pino
September 2, 2011 at 02:00 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thank you – this helped me
fotomate
September 4, 2011 at 16:31 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
finally it works. i couldn’t get through this error, bit now it works fine on my old MacBook Pro. thanks
Boydo
September 4, 2011 at 17:40 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Glad to hear! It’s certainly one of the more obscure and frustrating problems encountered with an OS installation.
changyoung
September 7, 2011 at 01:34 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Oh my god! thank you!
Charly
September 11, 2011 at 13:01 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thx for the tip !
Jo
September 20, 2011 at 13:13 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
OMG! You are a life saver. Thank you.
Boydo
September 20, 2011 at 13:48 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
No worries
Elliot F
September 21, 2011 at 04:17 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
The user had re-formatted his HD and couldn’t recover. Nothing else worked. 2 days. The recovery partition, Firewire target disk mode, DVD installer. After clearing the PRAM, installation is going now from a clean install DVD image.
Michael H
December 7, 2011 at 00:14 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
You ROCK! Didn’t know we had a “P” ram still. Thank you Soooooooo much
Boydo
December 7, 2011 at 00:38 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
My pleasure!
Martin
December 20, 2011 at 07:24 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thank you so much.
Genius!
Boydo
December 20, 2011 at 10:02 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Glad to help
Chao
January 3, 2012 at 00:18 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Great tip, thanks.
gandalf
February 12, 2012 at 02:28 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
saved me, thank you very much!!!!
Dave Kemsley
February 18, 2012 at 18:29 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
There’s one more step to do this for those who have the firmware password turned on: turn it off.
You can’t reset PRAM/NVRAM if the firmware is password protected.
Peter
February 28, 2012 at 21:12 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Actually PRAM resets the Firmware password, you just have to either change a ram stick or temporarily remove it then reset the PRAM.
Isra V
February 22, 2012 at 13:04 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thanks for your help…Regards.
Boris
May 1, 2012 at 08:36 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thanx a lot!!!! Respect!)))
FOX
May 27, 2012 at 08:55 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thanks man!
Marc
June 4, 2012 at 05:20 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Mines not working
have been having problems for a while so decided to erase the disk and do a reinstall. Only problem is I didn’t back up lion to an external drive. When I try and reset the PRAM it he machine is not restarting itself and I just end up back at the same screen with the same message 
any ideas more than welcome
Boyd Chan
June 6, 2012 at 07:57 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
That is odd. Let me think about this and get back to you.
Michael
September 7, 2012 at 01:54 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Awsome! You have helped me out (after 3 hours of reinstalling boot drives etc) – Big up man Go buy yourself a beer from me.
Boyd Chan
September 7, 2012 at 09:22 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
No worries at all
James
September 23, 2012 at 06:18 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Dude THANK YOU! I’ve seriously been trying for a day to figure it out. Used two different hard drives and STILL was getting an error until resetting the PRAM. You’re awesome
Boyd Chan
September 23, 2012 at 07:23 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
It is such an annoying issue when you don’t know what is going on! Glad to hear you’re back up and running
Magid
December 11, 2012 at 06:30 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Tried to up grade my mac book pro by installing osx mountain Lion ,keep receiving massage telling me the hard drive is damaged and cant be repaired, tried disc utilities trying to repair it doesn’t allow me tried to reboot using safe mood doesn’t work I don’t have extrnal device to reboot from can u help please
Many thanks
Boyd Chan
December 11, 2012 at 07:37 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
It sounds like the drive itself might be on the way out but I note @ http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=15349677&postcount=11 that someone used Alsoft DiskWarrior which did the trick for them to at least roll back to their prior version of Mac OS X. Seems as if Mountain Lion can damage the partition information but DiskWarrior can correct that bungle.
Your mileage may vary and I’ve not used this myself but worth a shot before seeing an Apple Genius (if your Mac is under warranty) or buying a replacement drive.
Toshlad
January 22, 2013 at 05:44 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
My daughters MacBook HDD failed. I put an old drive in and it nearly installed but then the install hung. I thought the replacement drive might be suspect so went and bought a new HDD. Then I got the error above. I was nearly at my wits end and my daughter had given up hope of having her mac back. You saved the day. YOU ROCK!!!!! Thank you for your help.
Boyd Chan
January 22, 2013 at 08:49 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
My pleasure – happy computing!
mustafa
February 14, 2013 at 21:23 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
thnx vere much bro
Boyd Chan
February 14, 2013 at 21:40 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
No worries
Kyle
February 19, 2013 at 20:00 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Hey man, you really rocks. I mean i have been beating my self up about this problem. A friend of mine trusts me so much that he brought this problem and i could not fix it in 4 days. I read your article and within few seconds, T’adaaaaa….I’m good. Thanks so much and i hope i could follow you on twitter or so..BTW…big ups.
Boyd Chan
February 19, 2013 at 20:03 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
It is a tricky problem but easy once you know how! If you want to follow me on Twitter my handle is @therealboydchan
Donny
February 20, 2013 at 09:47 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Thanks, that’s very helpful
Boyd Chan
February 20, 2013 at 10:23 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
No worries
Reza Arian
March 4, 2013 at 20:05 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-Tanx-
Steve Job
March 7, 2013 at 20:30 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
Oh boy, for 3 days and now it’s that simple. Thanks!
Boyd Chan
March 7, 2013 at 20:32 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
No worries
Lion in the Living Room « Glog
November 18, 2011 at 05:11 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
[...] Oh well, nothing the Googletron couldn’t take care of. [...]
Slow or Infinitely Long Shutdowns on Mac OS X » Boydo's Tech Talk
April 25, 2012 at 20:50 (UTC 11) Link to this comment
[...] Anyway, if the above hasn’t worked you can also try resetting the PRAM on your Mac by following these instructions. [...]