Monterey install stuck

[brainwave89]

When upgrading to Monterey on my Mac Mini 2018 the install gets stuck for hours. I've done the following.

• A PRAM and SMC reset
• Re-installed it again via Recovery
• Safe mode

When I attempted to install Catalina the main drive is not recognized. When I tried to mount my internal drive while in Disk Utility in Recovery Mode it asks for an admin user name. It recognizes all three users that are admins on the computer. When I enter in the correct passwords for any of the three it fails to recognize it as the correct password.

Any suggestions on getting it to work properly is appreciated.

 

[Fishrrman]

In a nutshell:

- get an external USB drive
- get CarbonCopyCloner (free to use for 30 days
- clone the contents of the internal drive onto USB drive
- boot to internet recovery (command-OPTION-R)
- use disk utility to ERASE the internal drive (APFS with journaling enabled)
- install a clean copy of Mojave -- oops, Monterey!
- during the setup procedure, use setup assistant to migrate all your data back from the cloned backup to the internal drive...

 

[brainwave89]

In a nutshell:

- get an external USB drive
- get CarbonCopyCloner (free to use for 30 days
- clone the contents of the internal drive onto USB drive
- boot to internet recovery (command-OPTION-R)
- use disk utility to ERASE the internal drive (APFS with journaling enabled)
- install a clean copy of Mojave
- during the setup procedure, use setup assistant to migrate all your data back from the cloned backup to the internal drive...

Thank you, Fishrrman. If I could get to a place to install either CCC or SuperDuper I would be happy to format the drive and start over. Since I can't, I need to figure out something else.

I booted to a Catalina OS boot drive but I couldn't get the internal disk to mount. When it asked for an admin username and password it wouldn't accept any of my admin passwords. Yes, I know the passwords.

 

[brainwave89]

Fwiw, I ended up erasing the hard drive and re-installing Monterey. Apple Support was stumped also.

Cheers!