Question

For two days my Mac has been "dead"; the hard drive crashed, so I reformatted (twice). I wanted to reinstall Mavericks via Recovery, but at the end of the process it shows nearly 1 million minutes remaining and the process stops. I thought it was the hard drive that was dead but the Windows (BootCamp) part works very well.

I wanted to make a bootable USB of it (Using MacBook Air which is running OS X Mavericks GM), but when I tried to run the command for copying the files from .app to USB I got the following error:

Erasing Disk:
0%... 10%...
Error erasing disk error number (-69888, 0)
A error occurred erasing the disk.
Was it helpful?

Solution

The solution may be actually easier than you think!

If you get Error erasing disk error number (-69888, 0) A error occurred erasing the disk. message when trying to create a bootable USB, make sure the USB drive is not currently used by the system or your apps (think open Finder windows or current directory in Terminal).

OTHER TIPS

Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... Error erasing disk error number (-69888, 0) A error occurred erasing the disk

This error will occur if the usb stick and the main drive have the same name - typically: Untitled

The instructions for creating an OS X usb installation stick typically suggest that the usb stick should be called Untitled. But that would also be the default name of the main drive if it has been reformatted. The solution is to name the usb stick something else and change the command to reflect the new name.

You can check for a name clash in terminal:

cd /Volumes
ls

If there is a Volume called Untitled and another called Untitled 1 then the error is occurring because the command you have issued is trying to erase the main drive and not the usb stick.

Open terminal and use 

sudo killall Finder

Shuts down all the weird stuff in the background.

Good luck.

Change the volume Name. The worked for me!

For me, this worked, and got rid of the -69888 error :

  • click the eject icon for the USB drive in Finder
  • click Force Eject, if prompted
  • physically remove the USB drive from my Macbook Pro
  • plug the USB back in again
  • immediately run the createinstallmedia in Terminal

What I did was to name the thumb drive “123” then to the terminal window I just renamed “Untitled” to “123” then it resolves the issue.

I solved it renaming my USB cause it had the same name as the Hard Drive where the operating system was running. After that it worked perfect.

We are dealing with 2 different problems.

To create a bootable USB you will need a Mavericks Installer package from Apple Store the 5.5 Gig file saved to MBA- but not run.

I used this proces to make a bootable USB:

Bootable USB Format it, using Disk Utility, as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive, named Mavericks. This can be done from the Erase tab within the app; make sure the USB drive does not have multiple partitions (that can happen, so turn to the Partition tab to verify and correct this).

Open Terminal.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Mavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --no interaction.

Erasing Disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%...100%...

Copying installer files to disk…(this part can take 30 minutes)

Copy complete.

Making disk bootable...

Copying boot files...

Copy complete.

Done.

If problems reoccurs get another USB stick with minimum of 8 Gig capacity (not partitioned).

  • Second problem:

Repairing your Hard drive:

If the MBP boots in the Recovery mode using cmd-r then follow that process to restore your OS installation, or use the Disk Utility to check/repair the disk.

You can open the terminal and use the fsck -fy to check repair the disk.

If the problem is minor you can start in Safe mode that will correct some minor issues.

The problem in our case was a space after /Volumes/ in the command. That occurred when we copied the command from a website.

So check for spaces if you copied the command!

For me what worked is to go to disk utility and select "Show all devices". The default is to show logical volumes. Then clean the actual device, get it's name, and run createinstallmedia again.

My problem and solution: You can't create a bootable disk if your external drive is in APFS Volume format. Try right clicking your volume in Disk Utility, and Delete APFS Volume. Reformat as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

I kept getting the error message, so I changed my USB disk name to Untitled and followed Artie Leechs instructions. Worked like a charm!

For me, this worked, and got rid of the -69888 error :

click the eject icon for the USB drive in Finder click Force Eject, if prompted physically remove the USB drive from my Macbook Pro plug the USB back in again immediately run the createinstallmedia in Terminal

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