Member Avatar for Derek3191

I was trying to install windows on my MacBook and things weren't working during the windows side of the install. After restarting and going to the utility screen by pressing cmd + R, I tried to do a time machine restore, it isn't finding my Mac HD when it asks where I want to restore to. Also in disk utility it says "virtual whole disk" where Macintosh HD usually is. Lastly, when I restart holding option to get the boot menu, the Mac boot option comes up but nothing happens. I stay on a gray screen with a "no solution" logo in the middle. Any advice would be very helpful.
Thanks

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— the symptoms reported (Disk Utility showing a single "virtual whole disk" entry and the grey screen with the prohibitory symbol) point at a partition/filesystem or CoreStorage issue rather than a simple Finder visibility problem. 's visibility check is useful when an HFS+ volume is present but hidden, and is on the right track about the filesystem — however, AFP is a network protocol (not a disk format) and the important things to verify are the partition map (GUID vs MBR) and whether the disk is wrapped in an Apple CoreStorage container.

Useful diagnostics (from Recovery → Utilities → Terminal):

diskutil list
diskutil coreStorage list        # (or: diskutil cs list)
gpt -r show /dev/disk0
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0sX
fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0sX

What to look for:

  • GUID_partition_scheme vs FDisk_partition_scheme (MBR). An MBR/FDisk map often results after a Windows installer rewrites the table and makes the Mac volume invisible to Recovery.
  • An Apple_CoreStorage entry indicates the drive is a CoreStorage logical volume (FileVault or conversion). CoreStorage can make Disk Utility show a "virtual" container instead of a plain "Macintosh HD".

Safe next steps and cautions:

  • If CoreStorage is present and not encrypted, diskutil coreStorage revert <LVG-UUID> will convert it back without erasing data; encrypted volumes require unlocking first.
  • If the partition map is wrong (MBR), recovering the GPT typically requires re-partitioning and will destroy data — create a full block image first (boot an external installer or use Target Disk Mode to copy the disk to another Mac) before doing destructive fixes.
  • If data is important, stop before erasing and prefer imaging/Target Disk Mode or professional recovery.

Once the physical partition map and logical volume are restored/mounted, the Time Machine restore option in Recovery should again list the Mac volume as a target; otherwise reinstall to an external drive and restore from the Time Machine backup.

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Member Avatar for tompatrick

Go to Finder -> Preferences and see if HD icons is unchecked. Then in those preferences go to the sidebar tab and see if it's unchecked there as well. Else use the link to the page that provides a simple applescript that solves the issue, in case anyone else needs help.

http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html

Member Avatar for macmad 
Please go to disk Utility and select your HD. On the bottom left corner describes the drive. Is it formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? I think that from the sounds of it , you may of formatted the drive as FAT. This is why you are not seeing a valid boot drive as a mac volume must be AFP (Apple Filing Protocal).
    You got yourself in quite a mess, not a disaster, just a mess and it will take quite a bit of time to fix. You will have to erase your HD and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You do not identify what OS you are running and this is important.You say that there are no boot partitions showing up. This tells me that you are not running Lion and that you have the OS on a DVD. Format the drive from the DVD and there is an option th restore. Select the option to restore from Timemachine and your system will reload to the last backup.....you do use timemachine, don't you?
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