High Sierra install failed

[TurboPGT!]

Install failed on my 2014 iMac 5k. 1 TB Fusion Drive. Selected the option to upgrade to AFS.

Install failed with a cryptic error after an hour or so.

Mac HDD partition no longer bootable.

Gonna have to restore from time machine.

Be warned.

 

[cpenner]

I had the same exact same issue with my late 2012 iMac and 3TB Fusion Drive. Fortunately, I was able to boot into internet recovery mode and reinstall Sierra. I made a bootable High Sierra USB in case it happened again, and sure enough, it did. I unplugged my external drive and tried again, but it’s been stuck at 45% for a couple hours now.

I’m tempted to try installing without the APFS upgrade, but that doesn’t seem worth it to me, as APFS is the major draw at this point...

**Update** Literally just as I hit post on this, the bar jumped up to 55%. Maybe the 2TB of used space on the Fusion Drive is causing it to take forever.

Anywho, if this works, I think it’s due to me unplugging my external hard drive. If you have anything plugged in to your iMac, maybe try unplugging it and try installing High Sierra again?

 

[MichaelDT]

I had an install failure as well on my iMac with fusion drive and an external HD connected. I rebooted from the install key and am trying again with external HD disconnected.

 

[PsykX]

I had the same error without external HD. Pretty stoked, this is the only beta in 6 years that I've had such a major problem with... Wondering if I lost all my data ?

iMac is from 2013, with a 3.128 TB Fusion Drive.

 

[TurboPGT!]

This why you always use Time Machine.
This update literally killed my machine, but it will all be back by tomorrow morning after a full restore.

 

[cpenner]

I didn’t need to do a full restore, but removing the external hard drive worked. After waiting for hours for the installation process to upgrade my 3TB Fusion Drive to APFS, it installed and all is currently running fine.

I didn’t lose any of my data, and I didn’t restore from Time Machine. I just used Command-Option-R and reinstalled Sierra after the first failure. It reinstalled Sierra in less than half an hour. That’s when I tried without the external drive.

 

[PsykX]

My Time Machine backup is from last year, but all my critical stuff is on the cloud, so I might lose a bunch of files, but nothing critically important.

I've been able to boot the Recovery Partition by using Command+R after the Mac chime sound.
I had FileVault enabled, so couldn't see the hard drive when reinstalling, but I could open Disk Utility and mount it with my password. Then the installer would see my drive.
Now I'm doing a reinstall without converting to APFS. If it works, I'll just use the betas without the new file system. I'll wait until it gets officially released, and I'll update my Time Machine backup too

 

[TurboPGT!]

I'll happily try again without external USB drives after my restore completes.

 

[PsykX]

What I said up there worked. I haven't lost anything - I just haven't migrated and won't migrate to APFS yet.

 

[Peace]

Do you have bootcamp installed ?
I know your's is 1TB but ya never know with a Dev seed.

1. Some iMacs with 3TB Fusion drives and BootCamp may be unsupported for use with APFS.

 

[MichaelDT]

My second attempt was successful using a USB key to install. After the first install fail the machine went into a kernel panic loop. I did not restore, just tried to install again by booting off the USB key and it worked and converted the drive properly no lost files.

 

[prostetnic]

The install on my 2009 mbp with 1.2 TB fusion drive failed as well and went into kernel panic mode. On restart using Alt key I could select an install partition, when booting from there installation resumed. Let’s see if it works on the second try, otherwise I’ll have to go back to the backup.

– update :
Same on second try. Here a photo of the error:

-- 2nd update:
as suggested by @Lukeit I tried the restore via internet and installed from there, and this worked without an issue. I actually did not see this time an option to convert to APFS, and after the install finished I have an updated 10.13 system without apfs (maybe for the better for now ). It is working fine without issue. now the second beta is already showing up in the app store ...

 

[Lukeit]

Hi All, I wanted to share my experience, someone might find it helpful.
I'm on a late 2012 iMac 27 with fusion drive. Leap of faith on High Sierra... First installation attempt failed because, I think, I asked to upgrade to APFS. Installation process came to a halt and I was already worried about reinstalling from scratch with only backup on external drive (no Timemachine)
Switched my iMac off, restarted holding Command +R and restored via internet. Restore process was with 10.13 and not with what I was thinking it would have been 10.12
This time I obviously did not thick to upgrade the file system and after 40 minutes my machine was up and running with High Sierra and most importantly I did not have to reinstall anything apps and such as all was there untouched.

 

[ryxn]

The install on my 2009 mbp with 1.2 TB fusion drive failed as well and went into kernel panic mode. On restart using Alt key I could select an install partition, when booting from there installation resumed. Let’s see if it works on the second try, otherwise I’ll have to go back to the backup.

– update :
Same on second try. Here a photo of the error:
View attachment 702484

Same thing happened to me. 2TB fusion drive, left the option checked to covert to APFS. I was able to boot into recovery and restart the installation process with it left unchecked.

 

[MichaelDT]

Same thing happened to me. 2TB fusion drive, left the option checked to covert to APFS. I was able to boot into recovery and restart the installation process with it left unchecked.

I had success leaving it checked on the second try, so the system is now on APFS but it is slow. I’m not sure if it’s because the drive is reindexing or if it is because APFS is still half baked on fusion drives. I.e. it’s not intelligently moving files around as it should.

 

[ryxn]

I had success leaving it checked on the second try, so the system is now on APFS but it is slow. I’m not sure if it’s because the drive is reindexing or if it is because APFS is still half baked on fusion drives. I.e. it’s not intelligently moving files around as it should.

Interesting - I was thinking of converting to APFS tomorrow, but it sounds like I made the right move not doing it so far. My system is slower than it was off the beta for sure, and my memory usage had dramatically increased, but it's nothing too awful.

 

[bbfc]

Mine installed without issue but it takes ages to boot and then just becomes unusable. I've reinstalled it twice but no luck. This is a pretty bad developer beta compared to the past ones, where I've NO issues at all.

Back to Sierra for now.

 

[ErikGrim]

Just saw this thread after I posted mine. Looks like we are all running in to the same issues. I’m particularly stumped since my upgrade appeared to be smooth for the first few hours of use and then hit a brick wall.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bricked-my-imac.2048943/

 

[TurboPGT!]

Yea looks like I'm just going to forgo High Sierra for now. No point in updating unless upgrading to AFS. Looks like Fusion Drives have a bullseye on them for poor experience.

Shame on Apple for not providing better guidance.

 

[bbfc]

Yea looks like I'm just going to forgo High Sierra for now. No point in updating unless upgrading to AFS. Looks like Fusion Drives have a bullseye on them for poor experience.

Shame on Apple for not providing better guidance.

I don't even have an SSD and I'm having major issues with High Sierra.

 

[lucco78]

Same problem of @prostetnic in my late 2012 iMac with Fusion Drive... have you find a solution?

EDIT
Ok, i'm reinstalling it from the recovery!

 

[justperry]

Installed on a 2012 Macbook Pro just fine with an 512 GB SSD inside, went ahead and installed on a 2012 mini, borked.
I couldn't boot from the SSD anymore, now installing from an external Sierra system and installing from there, hope it will be APFS, the one on the MBP is APFS now, don't see speed improvements just yet, on the iPhone it sped up.
The Mini has an SSD and a HD inside, lets see what happens, have to restore form backup later on.

 

[bbfc]

The install on my 2009 mbp with 1.2 TB fusion drive failed as well and went into kernel panic mode. On restart using Alt key I could select an install partition, when booting from there installation resumed. Let’s see if it works on the second try, otherwise I’ll have to go back to the backup.

– update :
Same on second try. Here a photo of the error:
View attachment 702484

-- 2nd update:
as suggested by @Lukeit I tried the restore via internet and installed from there, and this worked without an issue. I actually did not see this time an option to convert to APFS, and after the install finished I have an updated 10.13 system without apfs (maybe for the better for now ). It is working fine without issue. now the second beta is already showing up in the app store ...

Second beta?

 

[TurboPGT!]

Update: After restoring from TimeMachine back to 10.12.5, I did the update again WITHOUT opting in to AFS and it worked fine.

I'll use the rest of High Sierra for now, and upgrade to AFS upon official release.

 

[prostetnic]

Second beta?

notice the "version 2". This is the second beta, was about a 1 Gb download and installed in 20 minutes.