Alright, I’ll do that. I used the installer file and Terminal to make the 
drive, so it should be fine. Thanks.
On Jun 6, 2014, at 12:25 PM, Tim Kilburn <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Alex,
> 
> Yes, I’m saying that you should totally wipe the HD.  That is, after starting 
> up from the thumb drive, go to Disk Utility and re-partition your drive to 
> one partition named Macintosh HD.  Any subsequent partitions should be done 
> later on the live drive.  This will ensure that the Recovery Partition is 
> created properly.  Not sure where the other individual got there info but 
> this is sound practice.  If you used DiskMaker X to create your bootable 
> Mavericks Installer, on the thumb drive or the built-in “Create Install 
> Media” utility of the Mavericks Installer, then a proper Recovery Partition 
> will be automatically created.  If you used the Disk Utility method, then the 
> Recovery Partition must have already existed in order to create a proper 
> installation.  The problem in your case is that you need to do a total 
> re-format, so, using the existing Recovery Partition is not of any benefit.  
> Refer to
> 
> http://www.macworld.com/article/2056561/how-to-make-a-bootable-mavericks-install-drive.html
> 
> for info on these limitations.  In addition, if you didn’t perform a complete 
> wipe during your last clean install, these errors may have carried over thus 
> any disk structure issues would have persisted.
> 
> Hope this makes sense.
> 
> Later…
> 
> Tim Kilburn
> Fort McMurray, AB Canada
> 
> On Jun 6, 2014, at 9:34 AM, Alex Hall <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks. I’m in the beta partition now, copying a few files over to my 
>> external hard drive. The problem is here too: Finder just hung for about 
>> thirty seconds, while my Mac’s HD made the sound I’ve come to dread. Still, 
>> it’s working, thankfully; my main partition won’t even boot.
>> 
>> As to wiping, I’m still not sure what to do. I mean, I know how to format 
>> the drive from the OS X on my thumb drive and then install, the question is, 
>> what do I do with my partitions? I have two, one Macintosh HD and one OS X 
>> Beta Partition. When I did a clean install back in March, I had only the 
>> Macintosh HD partition and so didn’t need to worry. I reformatted that 
>> partition, but didn’t actually erase it, as people I asked told me that 
>> completely erasing the Macintosh HD partition could turn out badly. Are you 
>> saying that I should format the entire drive, wiping out both partitions? If 
>> I do that, won’t it affect the installation of the OS, or will the installer 
>> partition as necessary?
>> On Jun 6, 2014, at 12:43 AM, Tim Kilburn <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> For expediency purposes, I wouldn’t worry about re-mapping partitions etc., 
>>> you’re just going to wipe the drive and re-partition anyway.  Regarding 
>>> grabbing those files, if you startup from your thumb drive, then go under 
>>> it’s Apple menu to Startup Disk, you should be able to select the 10.9.3 
>>> beta partition as your startup disk.  if things are OK in that area of the 
>>> HD.  Once you’ve started with that version of the OS, you could quickly get 
>>> the files you want and place them onto whatever media you want.  You could 
>>> then go ahead and do the total wipe/re-partition and re-install from your 
>>> 10.9.3 thumb drive.  It’s best to do it from there since it needs to be 
>>> done from a external source in order to completely reformat the drive.
>>> 
>>> If you’re unable to startup from your beta partition, then the drive is in 
>>> fairly rough shape and you’d either need to use Terminal commands to grab 
>>> those files or just give up on them.
>>> 
>>> HTH.
>>> 
>>> Later…
>>> 
>>> Tim Kilburn
>>> Fort McMurray, AB Canada
>>> 
>>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 9:51 PM, Alex Hall <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thanks guys. I have a thumb drive with Mavericsk that I’ve used before, 
>>>> and that I keep around now that we have a couple Macs in the house. I’ll 
>>>> use that. Before I do though, is there any way to copy off any other files 
>>>> I’d like to keep, ones I could recover but that it’d be easier just to 
>>>> have if I can get them? I could probably boot into that beta partition and 
>>>> copy, but I don’t know if I’ll have the permissions to do that. I’ll also 
>>>> need a way to erase the beta partition, if that is indeed the problem. I 
>>>> only tested one OS, the 10.9.3 beta a month ago, but I suppose it could 
>>>> have caused the problem. Anyway, can I erase that from Disk Utility on the 
>>>> recovery HD, and if so, how would I do that and merge its space back to 
>>>> Macintosh HD?
>>>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 11:11 PM, Tim Kilburn <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I agree with Chris that it could very likely be a software thing.  So, 
>>>>> since you have a Time Machine backup that is fairly up-to-date and you 
>>>>> say that you have your important files backed up, I’d go for the reformat 
>>>>> and reinstall option.  If you don’t have an external HD or the cables 
>>>>> that I mentioned earlier, there is a neat little utility within the 
>>>>> Mavericks Installer that allows you to build a bootable Mavericks 
>>>>> installer on a flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size.  If you wish to 
>>>>> go that way, I can share instructions with you.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Later…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Tim Kilburn
>>>>> Fort McMurray, AB Canada
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Jun 5, 2014, at 9:00 PM, 'Chris Blouch' via MacVisionaries 
>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> You mentioned a 50GB partition for OSX betas. So were you running beta 
>>>>>> OSes on this box? If so, it's at least plausible that the beta OSX had 
>>>>>> some kind of bug which mangled data structures on the drive and, since 
>>>>>> it had access to your non-beta partition, it could have mangled your 
>>>>>> regular OSX boot drive as well. In other words, this could still have 
>>>>>> been a software issue.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> CB
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 6/5/14, 9:17 PM, Alex Hall wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>> So, here's the status of my Mac Mini's hard drive.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> * Two repairs from the Recovery HD resulted in an error telling me to 
>>>>>>> format ad re-install.
>>>>>>> * I did just that at the end of March, and given that two repairs 
>>>>>>> couldn't fix whatever errors have accumulated after three months, it 
>>>>>>> seems like the drive itself is having problems.
>>>>>>> * The SMART status of the drive is "verified", not "failing", which 
>>>>>>> seems odd given the previous points.
>>>>>>> * The drive is partitioned into two: 450gb for OS X, and 50gb for OS X 
>>>>>>> betas. I don't yet know if the beta partition works, but both share a 
>>>>>>> drive so I'm not optimistic.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Any ideas? I looked at replacing the drive, but the iFixIt instructions 
>>>>>>> are scary and require special tools. The Mini is not under Apple Care 
>>>>>>> protection, and my nearest Genius bar is almost three hours away. Am I 
>>>>>>> just doomed, or is there a check/repair/miracle program I could run? 
>>>>>>> Any suggestions are appreciated.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>>>>>> 
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