Problems reinstalling High Sierra GM on APFS converted Fusion Drive

[Simonmiller]

Hi, hoping someone can help! Thank in advance for any help.

So I'd installed the High Sierra public beta on my Fusion Drive hard drive, and converted the drive to APFS.

On the release of the GM, I tried to follow Apple's support instructions here: https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/apfsfusion , but on booting up from the installer disk I'd created, my Mac refused to recognise any peripherals (bluetooth mouse, USB mouse), so I was unable to get past the screen with the image showing me to turn a bluetooth mouse on.

Using Option+Command+Shift+R I booted into recovery mode, reformatted both parts of the Fusion Drive back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then again using Option+Command+Shift+R reinstalled Sierra.

So my Mac was then back on Sierra, and seemed to be running ok.

I reregistered the machine for the High Sierra beta, downloaded the High Sierra Beta GM Candidate, and tried running it to get my machine back on High Sierra so I could restore from a Time Machine backup (unfortunately I only have High Sierra backups).

On restarting, I got the Prohibitory symbol icon as shown here

before the Mac booted up in Recovery mode.

I powered the Mac down, restarted it, and Sierra booted up. I then created a clean Install MacOSHigh Sierra Beta bootable install drive, set that as my startup disc, and restarted the machine holding down the option key.

Selected the Install Mac OS High Sierra Beta drive as my startup disk, and again got the prohibitory symbol before Sierra booted up again.

Can anyone help please? Feel I'm stuck going round in a loop and not quite sure what the problem is. I'm keen just to restore all my files from my Time Machine backup. Thanks!

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Restore your system from Timemachine to your latest 100% working OS version. Hold for installing the lastest GM - beta - again!

Wait for the final release to roll out and follow closely all pros-and-cons that superusers will discover, so you can later decide as when is the best moment to upgrade your own system.

I always sit tight and wait for the .3/4/5 to be released of any new macOS so all flaws will be ironed out!

Before installing High Sierra again make sure to make a BOOTABLE! clone back-up - CCC or SuperDuper - before touching your Mac again, be prepared for things to go wrong, always! Thus lower your downtime of your - working - Mac to a minimum.

Good luck reverting!

Cheers

 

[Simonmiller]

Thanks for the reply - I think I'll stick with Sierra for the meantime! I really don't know what's gone wrong.

The problem was my Time Capsule had become full, so all my backups are from High Sierra. I'm just restoring individual folders now, and will hopefully get Photos working through iCloud Photo Library, as I'm presuming restoring that won't work.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Thanks for the reply - I think I'll stick with Sierra for the meantime! I really don't know what's gone wrong.

The problem was my Time Capsule had become full, so all my backups are from High Sierra. I'm just restoring individual folders now, and will hopefully get Photos working through iCloud Photo Library, as I'm presuming restoring that won't work.

Very wise decision to stick - for now - to your working Sierra OS!

NOTE: Of course there will be members disagreeing with me and try to convince you to go ahead with the re-install. Please keep in mind that it's not their machine and it IS your knowledge/skills that count here.

Keep computing with confidence! based on your own knowledge and skills.

Cheers again for your wise choice, until we meet again!

 

[HvLee]

I too converted to APFS during the first Beta, but in reverted back to Sierra. Working fine, though now with the GM and final coming, I wanted to go 'back' to High Sierra. I see the same problem, I formatted to HFS+ again as by following Apple's guide "Preparing your Fusion Drive", but I can't unmount and it still says it is APFS.

I've been recovering from TimeMachine like 8 times already, and according to diskutil I got about 19 drives, could this be bootcamp related?

Anyway; is there any way to wipe my Fusion Drive to a fresh start so I'm prepared to the final release? I'll make a clone as suggested to be sure.

 

[Simonmiller]

Hmmm... after erasing my drives, both the SSD and spinning drive do seem to show as HFS, so I'm hoping it'll go smoothly downloading the final version tonight. I didn't look in Terminal, but Disk Utility is showing me as only having two drives.

My only Photo Library backup is from High Sierra, which Sierra couldn't open, so I'm really hoping the High Sierra install works.

 

[Simonmiller]

Well my install of High Sierra didn't work - every time I restart my Mac I'm getting the same image as in my first post above, then booting into Sierra recovery mode. Not sure what the problem is....

 

[HvLee]

I spent a few good hours on this as like I said my drive was converted to APFS, but I succeeded.

The steps I took;

• Boot into recovery mode; Hold Option + Command + R keys after powering on the Mac
• Open the Terminal app
• diskutil list internal
• diskutil unmount force disk2s1 (the disk that contains the volume)
• diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ SSD disk0
• diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ HDD disk1
• diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0 disk1
• diskutil cs createVolume "Macintosh HD" JHFS+ "Macintosh HD" 100%
• Quit terminal and choose reinstall MacOS
• Let it install and on first setup create a fake user
• Login with that user and start the migration assistant and recover from your TimeMachine
• Once done delete the fake user again.

That where the steps that helped me after one week of going back and forth with USB drives, timemachines and 6 litres of coffee.

 

[Simonmiller]

Hey HVLee, thanks for the response.

Did you reinstall to Mac OS X Sierra then? And then manage to upgrade to High Sierra?

 

[HvLee]

Before I did the above steps I tried installing the official release which failed, it did start but froze on '40 min remaining'. So I did the recovery without anything attached, and to my surprise it did install High Sierra. But in case it will install normal Sierra it will still be in the right format and the upgrade should be no problem.

In short; my recovery boot installed High Sierra.

-Humphrey

 

[Simonmiller]

Will give that all a go tonight - thanks for your help!

 

[Simonmiller]

Hmmm... I tried this tonight - thanks for your help HvLee.

I couldn't unmount a drive in one of your first steps in terminal, as I didn't have a disk listed with OX Base System, so just followed the rest of the steps as per your list. Started installing High Sierra, but then the machine just restarted and wouldn't budge from the image shown in my original post.

Here's the list of drives Terminal shows (the Eyefi drive is just a SD card):

Does anyone have any thoughts / or help please? Thanks in advance!

 

[HvLee]

Looks the same as mine, I also did not have the disk2 ... unmount disk3 ... once you formatted disk 0 and disk 1 as in the steps above you can start the install. You need to get rid of that disk3 partition first.

Edit: If it cannot unmount it can not install. I learned that the hard way. You really need to erase the disks first.

 

[Simonmiller]

Looks the same as mine, I also did not have the disk2 ... unmount disk3 ... once you formatted disk 0 and disk 1 as in the steps above you can start the install. You need to get rid of that disk3 partition first.

Edit: If it cannot unmount it can not install. I learned that the hard way. You really need to erase the disks first.

Thanks - will try unmounting Disk 3 first. Although that wasn’t showing when I performed the erasing initially. I’ll then erase the others as per your instructions and try again. If I don’t have any joy it’ll be a call to Apple. Thanks again for your help!

 

[HvLee]

Did it work?

 

[Simonmiller]

Did it work?

Thanks for checking back! But no . Basically the machine reboots now and just stays stuck on the screen in my first post - with the circle with the line through it. I've no idea what's gone wrong - everything looks fine and formatted HFS.

I have a call scheduled with Apple Support tomorrow evening - hopefully they'll be able to fix it somehow!

 

[Simonmiller]

Update: Spoke to Apple Support today who got me to launch in Internet Recovery Mode again, try using Disk utility again to erase the drive and then try installing High Sierra again.

Same problem - prohibitory icon showing on reboot.

The support person said they've received a number of calls with the same issue, gave me a case ID and told me to call back in a week to see if there was a fix

I'll probably give it two weeks and then see if they can't just replace my hard drive.

 

[HvLee]

That sounds pretty serious, you don't have a 2nd Mac you can use? So you can put your iMac as target? Or attach a USB drive and install and boot from the external drive? Slower, but at least you will have your stuff back

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
Sounds to me like you need to boot from a FULLY BOOTABLE external source, then re-initialize your internal drive back to HFS+, then install from there.

By "fully bootable external source", I mean either an external drive that is "bootable to the finder", or perhaps a bootable USB flash drive installer.

IF you had a fully-bootable cloned backup (created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), this would be "easy-peasy".

You could also go to eBay -- there are folks there who can sell you a USB flashdrive with a copy of the Mac OS installer of your choice "ready-to-go". Then boot from that, erase the drive, and start over.

Any of these ways will probably do you much better than trying to boot from "internet recovery" or from the recovery partition (if that works at all).

 

[labyrinth153]

Apfs worked fine on my 27" iMac 2015 until I enabled File Vault. It appears it does not support fv at this time. When I got the prohibitory system booting in verbose mode complained of being unable to find the key. Manually mounting the filesystem works fine in recovery mode though.

Is anyone having problems and NOT using file vault?

edit: I am using hfs+ for now FV is essential for me.

 

[roverma]

I spent a few good hours on this as like I said my drive was converted to APFS, but I succeeded.

The steps I took;

• Boot into recovery mode; Hold Option + Command + R keys after powering on the Mac
• Open the Terminal app
• diskutil list internal
• diskutil unmount force disk2s1 (the disk that contains the volume)
• diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ SSD disk0
• diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ HDD disk1
• diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0 disk1
• diskutil cs createVolume "Macintosh HD" JHFS+ "Macintosh HD" 100%
• Quit terminal and choose reinstall MacOS
• Let it install and on first setup create a fake user
• Login with that user and start the migration assistant and recover from your TimeMachine
• Once done delete the fake user again.

That where the steps that helped me after one week of going back and forth with USB drives, timemachines and 6 litres of coffee.

Yes, this is the way to do it.went flawless on my iMac.

It is by the way exact the procedure Apple describes in the support document,
The second option.

 

[Simonmiller]

That sounds pretty serious, you don't have a 2nd Mac you can use? So you can put your iMac as target? Or attach a USB drive and install and boot from the external drive? Slower, but at least you will have your stuff back

Hmmm! I do have another Mac, but no firewire cable to connect it to my iMac, and wasn't quite sure what to do with it in target mode? Reluctant to try booting up from another external disk given the problems I had trying that the last time.

I'll give Apple another call this week and see what they say....