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MacBook Pro HD formatting issue

H

HayceMystic

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 4, 2022
6
1
Hey guys, I've just formatted my HD from APFS to Mac OS Extended during a boot install of Mojave. After OS installed I've checked the HD and the format is back to APFS. In disk utility I did format the device successfully (incase someone suggests that maybe I only formatted the volume). I'm using a MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012.

Appreciate any help
 
From Wikipedia for APFS:

"When Mojave is installed, it will convert solid-state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), and Fusion Drives, from HFS Plus to APFS."
 
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chabig said:
Mojave didn't separate the system and data volumes. That began after Mojave, with Catalina.
Click to expand...
Yeh that's right, I was using Catalina which converted it to APFS now going back to Mojave. So there's no way to run Mojave with Mac OS Extended?
 
chabig said:
From Wikipedia for APFS:

"When Mojave is installed, it will convert solid-state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), and Fusion Drives, from HFS Plus to APFS."
Click to expand...
MarineBand5524 said:
Hi, did it set it up as a volume with HD under and HD data under that?
Click to expand...
While I was installing Mojave was going to maintain those 2 volumes by default so I went into disk utility and cleared them. So now I have 1 volume called Macintosh HD running on APFS.
 
chabig said:
To be clear, your Mojave installation is correct.
Click to expand...
The reason I don't want to run APFS is because I have an older Mac with 5400 rpm HD. APFS requires a faster rpm to really reap the benefits. This combination actually runs slower than Mac OS Extended on 5400 rpm HD.
 
You said in your OP that you have a 2012 Retina MBPro. The retina models are all flash storage (SSDs), and there is no physical space for a normal size 2.5-inch hard drive.
Yours would not be a retina (the retina models also removed the internal CD/DVD drive, which you would have).
So, I am guessing that you have the older, mid-2012 (not a retina model). Those are quite easy to replace the hard drive with an SATA SSD, which would solve your problem about the APFS format, AND you would get the much-faster boot and response that the SSD would give you.
 
You might be able to clone a Mojave installation onto an HFS+ disk and have it run. But you can't install Mojave onto an HFS+ disk without it being converted to APFS.
 
DeltaMac said:
You said in your OP that you have a 2012 Retina MBPro. The retina models are all flash storage (SSDs), and there is no physical space for a normal size 2.5-inch hard drive.
Yours would not be a retina (the retina models also removed the internal CD/DVD drive, which you would have).
So, I am guessing that you have the older, mid-2012 (not a retina model). Those are quite easy to replace the hard drive with an SATA SSD, which would solve your problem about the APFS format, AND you would get the much-faster boot and response that the SSD would give you.
Click to expand...

DeltaMac said:
I definitely have a MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012). It contains this HD: APPLE SSD SM256E. I don't have a CD/DVD drive. I've done some searching and unable to find the rpm of this drive. I'm starting to think it's a 7200rpm drive which would be good so I can stick with APFS without it slowing things down.
Click to expand...
 
That is because there's nothing spinning in your drive. It's not a mechanical drive, with a platter
SSD means Solid State Drive. No moving parts, it's just another type of storage, made of non-moving chips.
That's the ideal use for your drive.
The default install for Mojave, even going back a version to High Sierra, will automatically convert the drive to APFS.
That's how it works, and the SSD is better for it.
(If you actually did have a spinning hard drive, there are some steps to follow (somewhere) that will keep the format as Mac OS Extended, even with an install of Mojave. But, you have an SSD, there's no advantage to trying to keep the old format (perhaps it is not possible with an SSD, I don't know), but you have an SSD anyway, so all is good. The SSD with Mojave will be APFS. And, there's nothing to fix. Your SSD will be APFS now.
 
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DeltaMac said:
That is because there's nothing spinning in your drive. It's not a mechanical drive, with a platter
SSD means Solid State Drive. No moving parts, it's just another type of storage, made of non-moving chips.
That's the ideal use for your drive.
The default install for Mojave, even going back a version to High Sierra, will automatically convert the drive to APFS.
That's how it works, and the SSD is better for it.
(If you actually did have a spinning hard drive, there are some steps to follow (somewhere) that will keep the format as Mac OS Extended, even with an install of Mojave. But, you have an SSD, there's no advantage to trying to keep the old format (perhaps it is not possible with an SSD, I don't know), but you have an SSD anyway, so all is good. The SSD with Mojave will be APFS. And, there's nothing to fix. Your SSD will be APFS now.
Click to expand...
Appreciate you and everyone else's help. Better outcome than I anticipated. Thanks for clearing that up!
 
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Mojave will use APFS when installed.

However, you CAN "get the drive back to HFS+" by doing this:
1. Get Mojave installed and running on your internal drive.
2. Use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to clone the contents of the internal drive to an external drive. You now have a bootable cloned backup.
3. BOOT FROM the cloned backup (hold down the option key continuously at startup, select backup in startup manager).
4. When you get to the finder, open disk utility
5. Go to the "view" menu and choose "show all devices". You can now see the physical internal drive
6. ERASE IT to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format.
7. When done, open CCC and "RE-clone" the contents of the external backup BACK TO the internal drive.

You'll now have Mojave running in HFS+.
There can be a problem, however.
With HFS+, software update may no longer work properly.

I tried the above when I first got my 2018 Mini, as I prefer HFS+ for most drives.
However, I eventually "reverted back" to APFS for my boot drive, because of the software update issue.
 
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