Resolved MacOS installer skipping the "Destination Select" step

[Valdaquendë]

I am trying to help an iMac user create a bootable MacOS Sierra or High Sierra USB drive. He has an app that won't run in Catalina and wants to occasionally boot into Sierra/HighSierra to use this app. Ordinarily, this would be simple; format a USB drive as a GUID/HFS+ (Journaled) volume, launch the installer, install to the USB volume using the "Destination Select"/"Show All Drives" option in the installer, install MacOS to it and then boot from it. However, we ran into a problem.

We followed the procedure meticulously (and repeatedly) but when we rn the installer, we found that there was no "Show all disks" button or other disk selection option the Sierra installer; the installer skips from "License" to "Installation Type", neatly avoiding the "Destination Select" step. It offers, instead, to install on the existing boot drive ... which, of course, defeats the purpose of the procedure. We tried this on his iMac (2017, running Catalina) and I duplicated the phenomenon on my work system (2010 Mac Pro, Sierra) with the same result. The obvious solution would seem to be removing the system drive, connecting the USB drive and running the installer at boot so that the USB drive is literally the only drive to which the OS CAN be installed. But this person is no tech and taking apart an iMac is no job for the inexperienced.

I have found almost no mention of this phenomenon anywhere but am hoping that someone can suggest a cause, fix or workaround (other than shutting down my work system, pulling it from its cabinet, pulling the OS drive, plugging in the USB drive, running the installer, pulling the USB drive, reinstalling the OS drive, replacing the system in cabinet, etc., and then shipping him the resultant USB drive ... which is the only route forward I can currently see).

Thanks in advance for the time and energy you spent reading and considering this; resolution or no, it is much appreciated.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Apologies if I misunderstood but a few things to consider:

- iMac 2017 will only allow 10.12.4 or higher, so I'd install High Sierra to avoid headaches
- it's not clear where you installed the Sierra installer, if:
* on the internal drive: obviously if you remove the internal drive there's no installer either
* on a USB drive: you can not run a bootable installer USB and install on the same USB device > connect 2 USB devices: 1 installer and 1 USB as target for the installer.

 

[Valdaquendë]

Thanks, KeesMacPro, for that reply. Point-by-point:

• iMac 2017/MacOS - Point well taken.
• To create the installer USB, the InstallOS.dmg was on a working system (cMP or iMac) and was run from
there; its intended destination drive is a formatted, blank USB flash drive.
• The essential issue is the failure of the installer to present the "Show all disks" button so that the intended
destination drive (USB, in this case) can be selected for installation.
• With regard to doing it the hard way, my thought has been to:
- Remove the system drive, insert an installer USB drive and a formatted, blank USB drive and boot
- Use the installer USB to install MacOS on the blank USB
- Shut down and remove the installer USB and boot up
- Running, now, from the MacOS USB, install all available updates
- Shut down, replace the system drive and boot up

This could not be done on the iMac, as its owner hasn't the expertise to perform the disassembly/reassembly (twice) and that would be doing it the hardest possible way. Figured I'd do it on my cMP, if necessary. But I'd far rather figure out why this is happening and fix or work around it.

Thanks again; any suggestions appreciated.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Thx for the detailed info, much appreciated!

It must have something to do with the blank USB.
Have you tested with other USB drives?
Anyway I wouldnt install an OS by booting on another Mac device and after the install swap the drive.

Since the issue is the same on both Macs , it must be the USB itself and/or the format .
Cant think of another possible suspect....

 

[chown33]

I suggest using the diskutil list command in a Terminal window, then copy and paste the complete output into a post here. Do this with the USB drive connected and mounted, and the installer disk-image mounted.

 

[Valdaquendë]

Thanks, chown33, for the reply. I could find nothing amiss in the output of the "diskutil list' command when I checkd it; hopefully you will see something that has eluded me. Here it is and thanks, again, for taking the time to help me with this puzzle:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac Pro HD              999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Oromë 4                 4.0 TB     disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Oromë 3                 4.0 TB     disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Oromë 2                 4.0 TB     disk3s2

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *124.1 GB   disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                123.8 GB   disk4s2

/dev/disk5 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +5.6 GB     disk5
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk5s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Install macOS           5.3 GB     disk5s2

 

[chown33]

First, I think you need to focus on one computer at a time, starting with your Mac Pro. After we figure out what's going on with that, we can decide what to do next. It's confusing to see you write about an iMac, but then looking at the 'diskutil' output there's apparently 3 additional internal disks. Curiously, they seem to have identical sizes and structures, and very similar names. If this is actually true, then please confirm it. If you don't really have 3 additional internal disks with the same sizes, etc. then please confirm that. Any time I see something unexplained regarding disks, it makes me question what's really going on.

Second, what's the exact OS version on the 2010 Mac Pro? And what's the exact OS version of the installer? In general, MacOS installers will prevent downgrading. So if the OS version on the installer is 10.12.5 and the OS running on the Mac Pro is 10.12.6, then the installer will typically refuse to install.

Third, exactly where did you get the OS installer dmg from?

Fourth, please post the output of these commands:
mount df -h

Finally, if you reboot the Mac Pro and hold down the OPTION key to get the Startup Manager, please list all the disks it presents as bootable. I'd like to see its view of what's bootable. Also, do you have a firmware password enabled or not on the Mac Pro?

Mac startup key combinations - Apple Support

Learn about the Mac features and tools that you can access by holding down one or more keys during startup.

support.apple.com

I see nothing in the output of 'diskutil list' that looks obviously wrong regarding the external disk. It has the correct partitioning scheme, and an Apple_HFS volume named "Untitled". I can't tell its free space, hence the 'df -h' above.

The only thing that might be slightly questionable is the capacity: 124 GB. I'm pretty sure Sierra will fit on a disk of that capacity. In any case, the other internal disks (assuming they're real) are easily big enough for Sierra (unless they're full).

If nothing else works, one possibie avenue to explore is cloning your current boot drive to an external drive of sufficient capacity, then booting from it. Once booted from that, insert the empty USB drive and mount the Installer dmg. Does it present a Destination Select option? If so, exactly what disks are listed?

 

[Valdaquendë]

chown33 - Thanks for the reply. To answer your questions point by point:

First - We are talking about the 2010 Mac Pro for the current purposes of this discussion. I referenced the iMac only: a) because it is the system we ultimately want to use the MacOS boot drive on, and b) to point out that this phenomenon occurred on more than one system. I completely understand the desire to reduce the number of variables, in a problem, to a minimum and will be referencing only the Mac Pro from here on.

Second - The OS version of the Mac Pro is MacOS 10.12.6 (Sierra). Although I realize that OS downgrading is discouraged or prevented in the installer software, I am not downgrading the system; I'm installing an older OS on a blank USB flash drive. This process is described in a number of articles such as this one and this one and should be perfectly doable. I may be wrong but one would think that any inhibition against downgrading ought not to be invoked, in such an operation, as the installation is to blank media so no destination OS is there to be detected or evaluated.

Third - I got the installer from this Apple link, which I found on this Apple Support page. It is an 'InstallOS.dmg' file, not the 'Install MacOS Sierra' installer which used to download through the App Store.

Fourth - The output of: mount <rtn> df -h <rtn> is:

Fifth - I cannot, at this point, boot to the Startup Disk selection screen; I have a Radeon Rx580 PULSE GPU installed which does not support the startup screen. I would love to do it but, as this is my principal work system and I am all but buried in work at this point, I cannot bench the system, swap the GPU, reboot and report. I am working on another Mac Pro and expect to have it up and running in the next few days; at that point, I'll be able to bench this one, swap cards and will get back to you with this information.

- No firmware password has been set.

- The USB drive size is 128GB; if I recall correctly, the installed size of Sierra's first release was about 5GB and even with all of its updates I don't think it ever exceeded 12GB, which is less than 10% of the drive's capacity.

- I will try the experiment you suggest. You did not mention removal of the original system disk and I presume that is deliberate. I will report the results later tonight or tomorrow morning or as soon as I can.

Thanks again, chown33; I appreciate your help.

 

[chown33]

The chriswrites.com article has no date, as far as I can see. It also doesn't mention downloading old OS versions from the Apple Support page, which makes me think it's pretty old.

The Macworld article is dated Oct 2021, so I don't know how applicable it is to Sierra.

The Apple Support page is what I have in my collection of notes, so it looks like your installer dmg is ok.


Going through my notes, I see there's a manual procedure for making a bootable installer. I realize that's not exactly what you want, but it may be a step to getting there.

Here's an Apple article on creating bootable installers:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Sierra is conspicuous by its absence from their list (except for its appearance in a couple footnotes). Since your first post mentions High Sierra as a possible option, you could follow the instructions for High Sierra and see what results. If that meets the requirements, then Mission Accomplished. Otherwise you may have to improvise to see what happens with Sierra.


Here's an MR post I have in my notes:

Can't boot my CCC disk image !

Update: I finally solve the problem. - First I downloaded the version of macOS I had on my mac with the pretty nice command line on terminal softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.15.7 Mr. Macintosh have a very usuful list on how to downlad any version of macOS...

forums.macrumors.com

It refers to Catalina so you may need to get the builtin help from the command-line tools, typically by running with no args (see Apple article on bootable installer).

 

[Fishrrman]

I have the solution to your problems.

You will need an external hard drive (either platter-based HDD or SSD).
DO NOT use a USB flash drive.

PRINT OUT these instructions and follow them step by step.

What to do:
1. Connect the external drive if it's not already connected.

2. Boot to A SPECIAL VERSION of internet recovery:
Command-SHIFT-OPTION-R

If you connect via wifi, you'll need your wifi password.
The internet utilities take a while to load, so be patient.

WHY you want to boot to this special version of internet recovery:
Doing so will attempt to install the first version of the OS that the 2017 iMac shipped with -- which was 10.12 "low" Sierra.

3. When you get to the internet utilities, open disk utility.
Check to see if disk utility has a "view" menu.
If it DOES NOT, don't worry about it.
BUT... if it DOES have a view menu -- you must choose "show all devices".

4. Click on the item (in the list on the left) that represents the external drive.
ERASE IT to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format".

5. When the erase is done, quit disk utility and open the OS installer. Again, it should be Sierra.

6. Start "clicking through". You should now see the screen to choose WHERE to install (it may say "show all drives").
Select the external drive and continue.

7. The Mac may reboot one or more times, and the screen may go dark for a minute or two with no other indications of progress. BE PATIENT.

8. When done, you should see the initial setup screen (choose your language).
At this point, I would set up a new account, and then install the app(s) that require the older OS.

Final thought:
Check the "startup disk" preference pane. You probably want it set so that the INTERNAL drive remains the startup drive.
To boot from the Sierra external, hold down the option key at boot to invoke the startup manager. This lets you "switch boot" to the external drive, without changing the "normal" boot drive (internal).

 

[Valdaquendë]

Thanks! Like you, I find the lack of dates in articles, blogs, etc., frustrating, for all the obvious reasons. I presumed that the chriswrites article was fairly current as it featured a Mojave-like header image but you never know.

I have a lot going on, this weekend (trying to finally get a 2012 12-core Mac Pro, that I've been pecking away at for months, together) but will make time to check the article you linked. And I am entirely OK with trying High Sierra, as the application we are trying to run will run just fine in that OS.

I'm also itching to read the thread you posted; thanks. I'll report back as soon as possible.

 

[Valdaquendë]

Thanks, Fishrrman! I had no idea that there was an option that would reinstall the original version that came with the device. As it happens, the 2017 iMac came with Sierra installed (though the desired app will run well on High Sierra as well). Awesome!

One question: We used a USB flash drive. I'm unaware of any real difference between such a drive and an SSD but obviously there is one. We'll go where we need to go, of course; I just want to know what that difference is.

When we do this, we'll do it on my cousin's 2017 iMac, as it is the actual destination system and, having a built-in, OS-supported GPU (unlike my cMP) and can boot to the startup manager.

I probably won't get to this for a bit; I've got other projects in the works. I also want to review the resources that chown33 posted, which look useful as well. But this looks perfect and I will report back asap with results. Again, many thanks!!

 

[Valdaquendë]

OK; I have an embarrassing confession to make. Though the procedures outlined by chown33 and Fishrrman are both useful and suggestive, the problem was ... well ... me.

I didn't realize that Apple had changed the behaviour of older, archived installers. It was late at night and I was in a hurry when reading Apple's 'download older installers' page and, though I noted that they had changed the naming scheme from "Install <MacOS version>" to "Install MacOS", I did NOT notice that these older installers do not install the OS; they install the appropriate MacOS installer in the Applications folder.

Running the resultant installer does, indeed, display all bootable drives, as well as the "Show all disks" button.

Just manfully admitting my error, here. I don't often miss details but I sure did this time. My thanks and sincere apologies to all of you who tried to help me with this self-caused "problem". I regret having misused your time. I am tucking away the suggestions made in my technical notes in the event that they should ever prove useful.

Again, apologies and best wishes to all.

 

[KeesMacPro]

OK; I have an embarrassing confession to make. Though the procedures outlined by chown33 and Fishrrman are both useful and suggestive, the problem was ... well ... me.

I didn't realize that Apple had changed the behaviour of older, archived installers. It was late at night and I was in a hurry when reading Apple's 'download older installers' page and, though I noted that they had changed the naming scheme from "Install <MacOS version>" to "Install MacOS", I did NOT notice that these older installers do not install the OS; they install the appropriate MacOS installer in the Applications folder.

Running the resultant installer does, indeed, display all bootable drives, as well as the "Show all disks" button.

Just manfully admitting my error, here. I don't often miss details but I sure did this time. My thanks and sincere apologies to all of you who tried to help me with this self-caused "problem". I regret having misused your time. I am tucking away the suggestions made in my technical notes in the event that they should ever prove useful.

Again, apologies and best wishes to all.

Kudo's to you!

No need at all to be embarrassed or so, on the contrary: you found the solution yourself !