Problems installing High Sierra (verify and repair drive)

[ahostmadsen]

First the installer stated that it could not verify and repair the drive (but disk utility does not report any issues with the drive).

Then after restart it said it could not find the path to the installer.

It seemed to be stuck there after many restarts making me panic, but finally I was able to restart back into Sierra (the trick seemed to be that I had to manually select the startup disk).

At this point I don't know if I dare try to install High Sierra again.
[doublepost=1508474463][/doublepost]Adding: when Apple releases 10.13.1, will they put a new installer on the app store? Or will you first have to install 10.13, and then update to 10.13.1? If it's the former, I will perhaps wait until that and try to install again. Perhaps they fixed some installer bugs then.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"At this point I don't know if I dare try to install High Sierra again."

What follows is my recommendation as your best pathway to success:

1. Get a USB flashdrive 16gb or larger.

2. Get -one- of the following (all are free downloads):
- Boot Buddy
- DiskMaker X
- Install Disk Creator

3. Have ready a copy of the High Sierra installer. Have the USB flash drive formatted to HFS+ with journaling enabled.

4. Use one of the apps above to create a BOOTABLE USB flash drive copy of the installer.

5. Boot the Mac using this installer (reboot, hold down option key until startup manager appears, select the USB drive and hit return).

6. Try installing HS this way.

Additional notes:
If it was me, BEFORE I did the install, I'd do this:
a. Use CarbonCopyCloner to create a bootable cloned backup of your CURRENT internal drive (and your current version of the OS). CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days.
b. After booting from the USB flashdrive (as above), I'd go to Disk Utility and erase the internal drive, again initializing it to HFS+ with journaling enabled.
c. IF the High Sierra installer offers you the option to use "APFS" -- I'd say NO (I don't trust APFS yet)
d. Do the install (as above)
e. Boot from the new install, and begin setup
f. At the appropriate moment setup assistant will ask if you want to migrate data from an old Mac or drive -- connect the back and "aim" setup assistant at it.
g. Let setup assistant "do its thing" and bring over all the apps, accounts, data, etc.

That should do it.

 

[ahostmadsen]

I was now able to upgrade to High Sierra. I waited until 13.1 and re-downloaded the installer. Not sure if that was it, or just trying again did the trick, but in any case it succeeded.

In 10 years of using Macs and late iOS I never had a problem with software update, so this was quite shocking.