Cannot mount OSX Partition to recover (APFS)

[hikarie]

Hi guys, I did something dumb on my 2015 MBP Retina and did not have a backup. I used Paragon's software to change my bootcamp partition size but something went wrong and now my OSX won't boot. I can access bootcamp Windows 10 just fine and with macdrive I can and have backed up all my mac data but if possible, i'd like to restore my OSX without having to reformat.

When I go into recovery mode, I can't reinstall OSX because Disk0s2 is not mounted and I can't figure out how to mount it. Here are some screenshots from my attempts. If there is software that can fix this, I would not mind paying a bit to get this solved. Any help would be greatly appreciate it and I've really learnt my lesson now about not keeping a backup. I actually had ran timemachine backups in the past but my NAS died on me recently so those saves are gone. (Is it possible I have a time machine backup on my current harddrive?)

 

[hikarie]

Would these steps here work for me? Installing OSX on an external drive.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ft-imac-unable-to-boot.2114451/#post-25971335

 

[Fishrrman]

1. Get an external hard drive or use an external USB flashdrive 16gb or larger
2. Boot to recovery mode
3. Don't run the installer yet. Quit it.
4. Open Disk Utility and "aim it" at the EXTERNAL DRIVE.
5. Erase the external drive to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled (GUID partition format)
6. Quit Disk Utility and open the OS installer
7. "Aim" the installer at the EXTERNAL DRIVE and install a copy of the OS onto it
8. When done, you should be presented with the setup screen (for the EXTERNAL drive).
9. Run through the setup sequence and create an account for yourself so that you can do a full boot and "get to the finder".
10. Now (booted from the EXTERNAL drive) in the finder, go to preferences, and make sure the options are checked to show hard disks and show external disks.
11. If you can't see the internal drive, try a restart.
12. After the restart, does it show up at all?

My guess that if it DOES NOT "show up", your only choice may be to "NUKE IT BACK TO ZERO" and start over.

I suggest you consider either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a bootable cloned backup in the future.
If you had had one of those, you probably wouldn't be in your current predicament at all.

 

[hikarie]

Thank you. It didn't work but I can still access the entire file structure in windows so I've made a backup and I'll start over. Is it possible to just nuke the mac section or do I need to redo the entire drive including my bootcamp?

 

[Fishrrman]

This is my opinion only.
Nuke the entire drive and start over.
I would suggest that you DO NOT install a BootCamp partition UNLESS you absolutely-positively have to have native Windows "bootability".
If possible, use an "emulated solution" for your Windows stuff instead, such as VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or the free "Virtual Box" software.

Again, my opinion only.