Lion will not install

[myminirocks]

Unibody Mac, 2.66Ghz, OSX 10.6.8

I downloaded lion on my iMac, installed it, everything went exactly as expected.

Did the same thing on my mini, 2 days later I still cannot get lion to install.

Note: I have a dual 500gig mini, both drives RAID to appear as 1 x 1TB drive, so yes, I get the error about not being able to use Recovery HD or FileVault etc, but should still be able to install Lion.

Let me point out what happens:
I Download lion from app store and follow prompts as per usual, either mid way through the initial "preparing to install" or when it tries to "Closing all applications and restarting" it will fail with the message:
"An error occurred while preparing this installation. Try running this application again"

I have tried:
1. Updated ALL software, firmware
2. I have ensured there are no running applications at the same time (including any daemon processes I know of)
3. I have verified and repaired my startup disk, twice.
4. Reset P/V RAM 4 times
5. I have Opened the package contents of the lion install application, and located the install .dmg, and tried to install from a direct mount of the .dmg
6. I have re downloaded Lion, twice, and re run all trouble shooting above.
7. To do this at least 30 times

If I wanted to spend my only weekend off in 4 weekends updating my operating system I would have stuck with Windows 95 20 yrs ago!

Pardon my frustration but WTF is going on apple?

(Note this is the same mini that I have had replaced twice, had 2 HDD failures, has given me no end of trouble with HDMI and Optical/Sound output woes (the list goes on), after 20yrs of very VERY happy apple computing, this one model is about to make me switch, I cannot wait to get rid of it and I will never be buying another one until the next totally new version)

I had one of the old white box Mini's for about 6yrs, ran 24/7 as my HTPC and although it couldn't play HD, I had not one issue with it.
_________________
Intel 2.4Ghz/4G Ram/1TB HDD/Server MacMini
WD MyBook Studio II 2 TB External
3.06GHz/4G Ram/500G HDD/SuperDrive iMac
Elgato EyeTV Diversity
16G iPhone 3G

[macmanmacman]

i can tell you why...

Question at any point and time did you have a bootcamp partition on your mac mini.

if you did you need to do a fresh install of mac os x lion not a upgrade in order to do this you need to right click the lion installer then go and find the lion dmg inside the lion installer open it and burn the image to a dvd r and boot from the dvd r then select disk utility from the options then format and repartition the drive then try reinstalling it from the options menu if it installs great if it doesn't my guess would be that your hard drives are damaged and i wouldn't use raid until lion is installed.

[myminirocks]

hmmm... never any bootcamp, can't install from dvd as no dvd drive (I believe it will not install from remote disc, as lion was never meant to install any other way then App store anyway)

I can't install lion and then raid, because when I raid the drive to 1 x 1tb that wipes the drive, and would require a reinstall, back to square 1.

This whole 2 x 500g set up is ridiculous, it seems to have been the source of most of my problems, but how else do people set up a mini with 2 x drives without raid'ing it to appear as 1 drive? My movies folder is over 500G, so am I supposed to point plex at 2 folders for movies (can that even be done). then what happens if I trash stack of my movies because my photo library need more room off the other drive, iPhoto can't store photos on 2 drives?

And I can tell you now if the "hard drives are damaged" I'll be disconnecting it, putting it in the tool shed, and using it to bang fence posts in be clearly that is all this fancy piece of shinny metal is good for!!

GGGRRRGGHHHH!!!! God this thing has just been too much trouble
_________________
Intel 2.4Ghz/4G Ram/1TB HDD/Server MacMini
WD MyBook Studio II 2 TB External
3.06GHz/4G Ram/500G HDD/SuperDrive iMac
Elgato EyeTV Diversity
16G iPhone 3G

[macmanmacman]

usually most people put a single one terabyte into there mini they don't raid two 500 gig's the reason is because it usually causes trouble for the user if your videos exceed 500 gig you might want to think about a external hard drive to back them up to.

[Smithcraft]

You can point Plex to as many folders as you want, or have to.

SC
_________________
Grumpy old man of computing.

[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

[Media System] Intel i5 mini - 2.33Ghz 8GB 500GB HDD - 4 x Hitachi 2TB HDD in a qBOX-SF - 10.7.5 (Thanks Phil!)

Make sure it has pins!

[myminirocks]

I'm more then happy to go back to the default set up of 2 x 500G with the OS installed on one but how exactly do I manage 700G of movies in plex?

It seem this RAID set up I have had going has been an issue.
_________________
Intel 2.4Ghz/4G Ram/1TB HDD/Server MacMini
WD MyBook Studio II 2 TB External
3.06GHz/4G Ram/500G HDD/SuperDrive iMac
Elgato EyeTV Diversity
16G iPhone 3G

[macmanmacman]

get a external 1 tb hard drive they run about 150.00 put all your movies on there and name the drive movies....

then create a alias in your movies folder so plea and other software can use it.

[myminirocks]

hmmm, so spend more money just to have basic operability.

Oh, well, looks like the mini is sticking with Snow Leopard, thanks Apple.
_________________
Intel 2.4Ghz/4G Ram/1TB HDD/Server MacMini
WD MyBook Studio II 2 TB External
3.06GHz/4G Ram/500G HDD/SuperDrive iMac
Elgato EyeTV Diversity
16G iPhone 3G

[ez061111]

Sorry for the bummer of the experience you're having with that particular Mini.

Over the years I've had a few problems with Apple's software raids leading to corruption etc and have quit using it entirely. Fortunately I haven't lost data as I am a stickler for back-ups, but I would have lost it all a few times had I not.

Perhaps Lion does not like to install in a RAID environment, I haven't paid much attention to RAID and Lion, so I haven't a clue. I haven't been overly happy with Lion, but neither disappointed enough to want take time to switch back to Snow Leopard. I haven't had any of the problems that people rant about on other forums, I just find it quirky.

The two disk system is really not an issue with Plex; as Smithcraft mentions you can have Plex point to multiple folders or disks with no issues. The movies in my set-up are made up of 2 folders but still show up in Plex as just "Movies". It's pretty slick and seamless in the presentation and all the work behind the scenes is nice if you want to organize movies in a different way.

My best suggestion would be to move your data externally, reformat drives to the original 2 disk set-up, install Lion and move data back. I think if you go the 2 disk route, you'll have to fiddle with your Plex database a bit (metadata, fan art, etc) to get it back to the state you like it in as you will have changed the set-up and the preferences, etc will not point correctly. I could be wrong about this.

If you have a thumb drive floating around I have found that creating a boot drive install beforehand easy and rather useful for quick installation of Lion. I recognize this is all another hassle, but hopefully it will be the last hurdle in what sounds to have been a headache.

Pay no heed to macmanmacman...be wary when he starts any replies with "i can tell you why'. These usually lead to diarrhea of the fingers as has been the case in this thread.

Good luck.
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2.0 GHz i7 Mini 8 GB RAM, OWC Merc Extreme SSD & Samsung Spinpoint
2.6 GHz i7 Mini 16 GB RAM, Samsung 830 & Hitachi
15" 2.3 GHz i7 MBP 16 GB RAM, OWC Extreme Pro 6G SSD & WD Black

[macmanmacman]

excuse me!!!

but i told him how to deal with his movies so take your own advice on human fecis