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macOS installer does nothing after restart

B

boredandlonely

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 28, 2008
128
19
having fun with a side project today...

I'm trying to install High Sierra onto an external APFS HDD. The full installer was downloaded from Apple directly. I have previously used it successfully. In fact, it just worked fine on an internal APFS SSD (same laptop).

I tried running it from a bootable installer thumb drive (made per Apple's instructions), and just as a file, from my existing High Sierra system (internal drive, my daily OS), both ways I picked the same destination drive. Both ways appear to function correctly, and ask for a restart after about 8 minutes. After restart, the installation never continues, and was not complete. If I was installing from bootable installer, the reboot sends me back to my daily OS drive. If I was installing from my daily OS drive, the reboot leaves me there. If I try to run the installer file again, it appears to start over from scratch. If I try booting from bootable installer amd running install again, its also from scratch. Startup Disk (System Prefs) won't let me select the destination drive to attempt booting there. The install attempts appear to have left a "macOS Install Data" folder on my destination drive, of about 5.27g. The full drive is 5tb.

Ideas please?

Thanks
 
Last edited:
Your external HDD… what does Disk Utility report the partition map format to be? Needs to be GUID type.
 
Bigwaff said:
What is the Mac model and year you are attempting this with?
Click to expand...

Am I crazy or didn't that used to show automatically on here?

Anyway.... MacBook Pro mid-2010 17".

It also works fine installing an OS onto a thumb drive. NOT making a bootable installer, but putting an actual full OS on the thumb. No idea why it hates my external drive suddenly, though.
 
Try formatting the external disk HFS+ rather than APFS. APFS was new with High Sierra and not recommended for spinning disks.
 
Bigwaff said:
Try formatting the external disk HFS+ rather than APFS. APFS was new with High Sierra and not recommended for spinning disks.
Click to expand...

It's getting hard to explain this without complicating it.

I already had High Sierra (and a Mojave) on that hardware (on APFS) running fine, from the exact same installer (and Mojave from its own same Mojave installer). I was reorganizing my data and drives so I deleted both for the moment with plans to put them back SOMEWHERE later. Neither is a personal system, just a basic install I use for testing other things.

I got fed up yesterday when nothing would help fix High Sierra installation, and moved on to the Mojave installation. Would you believe now I can't get Mojave running either? Mojave appears to install completely fine, but I just can't get the laptop to boot up off of that system. Like the HS install, it's the same installer I previously used to install onto the same hardware, with no issues.

Now I guess I'm troubleshooting both attempts at the same time, trying to get either (and eventually both) working.

I'm hesitant to put a macOS extended journaled partition on this hardware because I know it's 100% possible to do on APFS, as I had previously. The same hardware is also storing a multi-TB file library and sometimes it takes half a day for the partition/volume resizing when I create/delete one. I worry about the file library as well, even though I have a backup, because last time it took over 5 days to re-duplicate from the backup copy.
 
Last edited:
So you are attempting to install macOS on an external drive which is already partitioned? Boot normal with ext HDD attached and paste the output of “diskutil list” entered in Terminal.
 
Bigwaff said:
So you are attempting to install macOS on an external drive which is already partitioned? Boot normal with ext HDD attached and paste the output of “diskutil list” entered in
Click to expand...

Slight explanation needed. Output pasted at bottom.

Yesterday, I was trying to install High Sierra on "Macintosh HD i".
gave up
Next, I was trying to install Mojave on "Macintosh HD i".
almost gave up
then I ADDED volume "Macintosh HD i Mojave" on same container and tried installing there.
still no luck
I could NOT test High Sierra on the new volume "Macntosh HD i Mojave", because parts of Mojave WERE installed, and the High Sierra installer refused to install the older High Sierra, over a newer Mojave.
then I ADDED volume "Macintosh HD I High Sierra" on same container and tried installing High Sierra there.
still no luck. same rebooting and failing to continue.


output:

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *5.0 TB disk5
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk5s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk7 5.0 TB disk5s2

/dev/disk7 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +5.0 TB disk7
Physical Store disk4s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD i 2.2 TB disk7s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 41.3 MB disk7s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 1.0 GB disk7s3
4: APFS Volume VM 20.5 KB disk7s4
5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD i Mojave 11.8 GB disk7s5
 
Last edited:
Edited my previous post with a bit more testing. I know I had this working fine before, so I'm trying a few things I may have done to get it installed, but forgotten about.

Bigwaff said:
Downloaded when? Which version of High Sierra is the install?

Also, while the advice may frustrate, the recommendation to use HFS+ for external HDD w/ High Sierra is not an arbitrary one. This post is about bootable backup disks.
bombich.com

Preparing your destination disk for an installation of macOS - Bombich Software

bombich.com bombich.com
Click to expand...

High Sierra installer version is 13.6.02.
(created date (Apple) is 06/28/18)
It installed High Sierra is 10.13.6.
Looks like I downloaded on November 1.

I swear to you I had High Sierra installed and running just fine. If I had any idea a reinstall would be so impossible, I never would have deleted it.
Mojave was on the same hardware, running just fine.

Re: Bombich, it's a very good read, but I'm not planning anything more than an occasional boot and system function or app test. I found a nasty High Sierra problem and I've been trying various install setups to help narrow down the cause. One of my High Sierra installations even runs off a thumb drive and it's ridiculously slow to boot into and use, but I CAN do it, and it's been extremely useful for my testing.

Trying something else shortly. I'll post results later.
 
boredandlonely said:
One of my High Sierra installations even runs off a thumb drive and it's ridiculously slow to boot into and use, but I CAN do it, and it's been extremely useful for my testing.

Trying something else shortly. I'll post results later.
Click to expand...

I tried a recovery mode reinstall, and it can't ever reach the server, so that fails.

I tried a Disk Maker X bootable installer for High Sierra and that ended the same way as everything else, no continuation after restart.

I also tried a Super Duper clone of my working High Sierra on APFS internal SSD, to my new blank volume APFS external HDD, and that got REALLY far into the boot up before dumping me back into my daily use boot volume.

I pulled up my 100% bootable High Sierra thumb drive for you and ran “diskutil list”. I totally forgot I put it on APFS. When I said ridiculously slow, it takes roughly an hour to boot up, run a few apps for a few minutes, then full shut down. Hopefully you can at least see now I"m not crazy an it CAN be installed AND run.

/dev/disk9 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *31.0 GB disk9
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk9s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk10 30.8 GB disk9s2

/dev/disk10 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +30.8 GB disk10
Physical Store disk9s2
1: APFS Volume High Sierra 2.0 17.1 GB disk10s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 22.5 MB disk10s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 515.1 MB disk10s3
4: APFS Volume VM 4.3 GB disk10s4

I tried a Super Duper clone of the thumb drive again as well, since I forgot the details of the last attempt. Failed to boot, dumped into different system.

I even tried a reinstall in-place on top of the cloned system just for the he11 of it. Failed to boot, dumped into a different system.

I'm pretty much out of High Sierra ideas of my own now, unless somebody else comes up with one. I guess I'm going back to trying Mojave in the mean time.

A few more edits were made to this post today.
 
Last edited:
I tried a few more things yesterday that I added to my previous post above.

Today, I decided that after all those failures, I needed to test my installer,
-It still installs High Sierra without issue onto thumb drives. Today I used MacOS Extended Journaled format on the thumb drive, because I already have 2 APFS format HS thumb drives that I made the last 2 times.

I thought of a different way to try installing High Sierra on my APFS external drive volume, but I haven't done those tests yet, but will post when I finish them.
 
Last edited:
SOLVED, via helpful person on another forum.

I reset the SMC already, with no change.

Per suggestion, I reset the SMC again AND reset the PRAM and now it works!
 
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