Upgraded to Monterey but its showing a split drive

[Shirasaki]

iirc Catalina already introduces the split between macOS system Partition and data partition. What that mess is:
Honovi, the catalina system drive,
macintosh hd, the Monterey system drive.
Macintosh hd - data, the combined data drive between Catalina and Monterey.

To OP, your Mac has NO FUSION DRIVE. any attempt at following instructions related to Fusion Drive will have the potential to cause fatal damage. The reason it has no free space left because of the existing data, plus Catalina, plus Monterey. Your Mac is essentially dual booting.

also, Because of this whole mess, your Time Machine backup might no Longer Be able to be used for system recovery. Based on what I see inside Time Machine backup, it is virtually impossible to extract files from it outside of Time Machine utility. If the backup breaks, all of your data is gone. I hope not.

 

[Honovi]

I'm having another issue now, when I closed my mac down and restarted it I got the following image flashing on and off 😪 could someone please help I really don't know what to do now.

I ran disk utility and first aid on the drives as per instructions here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210898

But when I restarted i got the same error message with the flashing folder...

 

[Honovi]

Its asking which destination disk to restore onto is it the HD called update? Please advise thank you 🙏

UPDATE: I'm reinstalling macOS as per instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

 

[mongobongo]

I think you should have listened to hwojtek who was trying to help you solve your problem and also letting you know what caused it in the first place. Nothing patronizing about it whatsoever.

As others have mentioned, the problems were caused by you selecting the wrong volume during the upgrade process.

Your Macs hard drive, which is a solid state ssd by the way, has two volumes. One volume, Macintosh HD, contains all the macOS system files. The other volume, Macintosh HD Data contains all your personal files and documents.

If it was me I would also do a clean reinstall that will wipe everything and then transfer all the personal files from the backup you did before everything went south.

 

[Wokis]

By the way, for future reference: the intended way to upgrade to the newest version of the OS is to go to system preferences (from Ventura onwards called system settings), click or search for "software update" and follow a small and short setup wizard from there.

It's an Apple notebook. Necessary things like keeping the OS up to date is supposed to be super user-friendly and not require guides or headaches

 

[escargot3]

Update is a hidden volume in Monterey, the filesystem changed from HFS to APFS when you did the upgrade.

Actually, the conversion of boot SSDs to APFS started with High Sierra. So if the user was running Catalina before, their internal SSD would already be APFS.

 

[winxmac]

From the screenshot, the 121GB drive has 2 volumes... This started with Catalina... Free space is only 13GB while newer macOS versions require 30GB or more for the upgrade...

I don't know about Honovi, maybe it was the Data partition but renamed...

I would go to recovery and run disk utility and clean/reformat the drive and install the new version instead of attempting the upgrade as is... Maybe you have done that already... I have not read the rest of the messages here...

 

[escargot3]

also, Because of this whole mess, your Time Machine backup might no Longer Be able to be used for system recovery. Based on what I see inside Time Machine backup, it is virtually impossible to extract files from it outside of Time Machine utility. If the backup breaks, all of your data is gone. I hope not.

Not at all. First of all, one can simply drag and drop any file they want to restore from a Time Machine backup drive, completely independent of the Time Machine interface. Second of all, you can also restore data from a Time Machine backup at any time, by launching Migration Assistant from the utilities folder. It doesn't have to only be done from the recovery portion or system recovery.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Hi there,

I recently upgraded my MacBook air to Monterey from Catalina but I have two disks showing on my desktop.

I tried to make them one disk by following some online instructions I found which I typed into the terminal... I received the following message [see screenshot] what does it mean that one of the computer disk devices must be solid state? How do I make it one Hard drive from here?

I'm kind of regretting upgrading because I didn't realise all my data would be wiped [I made a back up to my external hard drive so I have all the data saved] but I noticed I now have less space on my HD before I had 30+GB and now its showing only 13.16GB remains on my upgraded system...?

If someone could please advise I would be so grateful. Is there a way for me to revert back to my older system with all the files intact? [As I said I made a back up its on my hard drive]

Thanks so much,
Honovi
View attachment 2137399

So, here's some context that might help you.

macOS Catalina (10.15.x) introduced a volume split wherein what was called "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you named your internal boot drive) got split into "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data". This split is supposed to be transparent to you, the Mac user. The reason it existed is that Apple wanted to isolate macOS and everything that comes standard on macOS (e.g. Music, TV, Messages, Contacts, Calendar, Disk Utility, etc.) from user data and make it read-only with everything on "Macintosh HD - Data" being where your data and applications would live. Using special trickery in the form of something Apple calls "Firm Links", your "Applications" folder actually is two different "Applications" folders on both "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data" appearing to you as though they are one.

The idea is that they wanted to make it less likely for a third party program or piece of malware to corrupt your Mac's installation of macOS.

With the advent of macOS Big Sur (11.x.y), Apple went even further with this and made it so that "Macintosh HD" doesn't even present itself and, instead, you get a snapshot of what's on there. That way if something goes wrong with the snapshot, the contents of the partition containing macOS won't be affected. It's cryptographically signed and only Apple's software updates can change anything. In fact, that "Update" volume is where Apple stores and applies macOS updates (on a good day, you should never be able to interact with this via the Finder and it should only be there at all when macOS is running an update). This is exactly how iOS and iPadOS have done it since their inception. Towards this end, Time Machine only backs up "Macintosh HD - Data" on Big Sur and newer and FileVault only encrypts "Macintosh HD - Data" on Big Sur and newer as well.

Okay, history lesson done and over with, what sometimes happens on upgrade installations going from macOS Catalina to either macOS Big Sur or macOS Monterey (and presumably macOS Ventura) is that the conversion process that changes how "Macintosh HD" works (in taking it from merely being read-only [how it was in Catalina] to making it so that it doesn't even mount at all and that only a snapshot mounts [how it is in Big Sur and later]) is that you're left with both "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data" in Finder. This is not supposed to happen. You're supposed to just be presented one single "Macintosh HD" and the nuts and bolts of all of this should be something you never encounter in Finder (though you will see it in Disk Utility). My guess is that when you upgraded from Catalina to Monterey, that all didn't go very well. It's unfortunate, but I've seen it happen enough times to not be surprised by it here.

If your intention here was to merely upgrade from Catalina to Monterey (I'm assuming you're dealing with a Mac that can't just go straight to Ventura), then here's what I'd do:

If you have a Time Machine backup of your Catalina environment, boot to either Internet Recovery or a bootable macOS Monterey install drive (whichever you prefer), wipe the entire internal drive using Disk Utility, run the macOS installer and then, when given the option, migrate your data from the back-up. (Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Time Machine restores unless it's same machine and same macOS version to the same machine and same macOS version, but it DOES work and will still get you to where you originally wanted to go with no headaches).

If you do not have that back-up, I'd make it NOW and then do the wipe.

When you have that many volumes presenting themselves to you in the Finder, your volume is messed up and it's usually a safer and more stable course of action to just nuke it and start over (albeit with a Time Machine that you can just restore everything from). What you're left with here won't be good to work with long-term and will probably entail other issues down the road.

Certainly, I get the notion that you just want to hit the "undo" button on the upgrade and stay in Catalina. I get that and empathize accordingly. However, Apple only releases security updates for the latest version of macOS and the two next oldest versions. Given that, macOS Catalina stopped getting security updates three months ago. It's now a prime target for Mac malware. App updates will very soon stop supporting it. You'll want to move to something newer anyway.

The only element to this that I'm sort of lost on is that you had two boot drives (clearly running either Catalina or newer) and they both ended up suffering from this problem of yours. Not sure how that happened or how you got there. Maybe I didn't follow the entire thread carefully enough. In any case, I'd back up the volume that has data you care about via Time Machine, and do a clean wipe to Monterey, restoring from the Time Machine when you get to that point in the Setup Assistant.

Wow, not sure how you got that many volumes out of an upgrade.

I've seen this sort of thing before. Typically when going from Catalina to either Big Sur or Monterey (haven't performed a Catalina to Ventura upgrade, so I'm not sure if that's still a thing to contend with). Even though the split first happened in Catalina, the change to what it is in Big Sur through current is as significant if not more so. But, like most things entailing macOS Catalina, it's often kludgy and prone to issues like this.

If you have backups of your data, you might consider just an erase and reinstall like hwojtek mentioned. It's not too difficult, boot to recovery (hold ⌘ & R when you power it on), erase the entire drive in the disk utility (pressing ⌘ + 2 will show everything), then run the installer. Most Macs will do a Monterey install in less than an hour. You can run a Time Machine restore after it's done.

I wholeheartedly second this.

 

[Shirasaki]

Not at all. First of all, one can simply drag and drop any file they want to restore from a Time Machine backup drive, completely independent of the Time Machine interface. Second of all, you can also restore data from a Time Machine backup at any time, by launching Migration Assistant from the utilities folder. It doesn't have to only be done from the recovery portion or system recovery.

Ok.
the last time I check Time Machine backup drive from windows machine, all I see are files with random names and no extension. It’s unusable for file restore outside of macOS. Worst of all, it is not transferrable. I wasted 5 days trying to migrate a Time Machine drive content into a new hard drive so I had more spaces for the backup and whatnot for my newer MacBook. Didn’t work. Eventually I gave up and bought CCC instead.
Idk how newer one works but inability to migrate existing backups to a new backup drive is too much of a dealbreaker to continue using it.

 

[Honovi]

Update: everything seems to be ok now I did the reinstall of catalina.

 

[Honovi]

Not at all. First of all, one can simply drag and drop any file they want to restore from a Time Machine backup drive, completely independent of the Time Machine interface. Second of all, you can also restore data from a Time Machine backup at any time, by launching Migration Assistant from the utilities folder. It doesn't have to only be done from the recovery portion or system recovery.

I think you should have listened to hwojtek who was trying to help you solve your problem and also letting you know what caused it in the first place. Nothing patronizing about it whatsoever.

As others have mentioned, the problems were caused by you selecting the wrong volume during the upgrade process.

Your Macs hard drive, which is a solid state ssd by the way, has two volumes. One volume, Macintosh HD, contains all the macOS system files. The other volume, Macintosh HD Data contains all your personal files and documents.

If it was me I would also do a clean reinstall that will wipe everything and then transfer all the personal files from the backup you did before everything went south.

I don't think so. He was talking down to me aggressively in his posts and calling me childish names. I reported him to the admin here and he was suspended 😂

Hopefully that will teach him that he can't speak to others like an a**hole. Doesnt cost anything to have courtesy and speak to others with respect and kindness.. You can't actually see what he said originally because the moderator actually edited his posts.

Anyway I seemed to have fixed the problem so thank you for everyone's help i appreciate it.

 

[Honovi]

Everything seemed to be ok I was doing some work online then suddenly the screen went to a loading page icon and began reinstalling Catalina even though I installed it already... see image.

It looks like I may need to visit a Mac place to get it fixed because it seems to complex to me - never done any of this before.

 

[JMStearnsX2]

Actually, the conversion of boot SSDs to APFS started with High Sierra. So if the user was running Catalina before, their internal SSD would already be APFS.

OP claimed that they were on Sierra when the upgrade was made.

 

[JMStearnsX2]

Everything seemed to be ok I was doing some work online then suddenly the screen went to a loading page icon and began reinstalling Catalina even though I installed it already... see image. View attachment 2137881

It looks like I may need to visit a Mac place to get it fixed because it seems to complex to me - never done any of this before.

If you reinstalled Catalina, this is probably just a Catalina security update auto installing.

 

[escargot3]

Ok.
the last time I check Time Machine backup drive from windows machine, all I see are files with random names and no extension. It’s unusable for file restore outside of macOS. Worst of all, it is not transferrable. I wasted 5 days trying to migrate a Time Machine drive content into a new hard drive so I had more spaces for the backup and whatnot for my newer MacBook. Didn’t work. Eventually I gave up and bought CCC instead.
Idk how newer one works but inability to migrate existing backups to a new backup drive is too much of a dealbreaker to continue using it.

All drives used with macOS, whether HFS+ or APFS are not even readable by Windows. That has nothing to do with Time Machine. I’m not sure where on earth you got the idea that Time Machine was for making a backup of a Mac to restore to a windows PC. It’s for backing up Macs, it’s not PC software.

To migrate a Time Machine backup it’s a simple matter of cloning the drive. But one could even simply drag and drop the files, if you just wanted a copy of the files and not the whole the whole filesystem, permissions etc. But it any case of copying files between drives, understanding what filesystems they are using and what that entails is critical.

I like CCC a lot. It’s a powerful tool but infinitely more complex than Time Machine. For most users Time Machine is a better choice. But it’s only for macs (just like CCC).

 

[escargot3]

OP claimed that they were on Sierra when the upgrade was made.

Well in the post immediately before yours, OP clarified that they were actually on Catalina, and you even referenced this in your reply where you claimed that their SSD was converted from HFS+ format. So from that it definitely appeared that you were under the impression that Catalina to Monterey upgrade would cause the HFS to APFS conversion for boot SSDs. Glad it’s cleared up now though.

Update is a hidden volume in Monterey, the filesystem changed from HFS to APFS when you did the upgrade. Monterey now uses a fully read-only volume for the OS, which is separate from the data volume. It's all in the background, when you are using Monterey, it all looks like one drive. If you are booted in Catalina, that is why you see both volumes.

 

[redpandadev]

1) It appears as if you computer has a single 128GB drive, not a Fusion Drive.

2) Whatever you have done has created multiple Volumes on the same drive (which can be thought of like partitioning or "splitting" a single drive into what appears as and functions as multiple drives).

3) Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data are BOTH required. Macintosh HD hold the OS, Macintosh HD - Data holds your data. In Finder, etc, they appear simply as "Macintosh HD". You don't need to be concerned with the underlying structures.

4) Hold down Option at startup and startup to Macintosh HD. Use disk utility to remove all of the volumes except Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data. This will put you back to Catalina with all of your data and no additional volumes.

5) If desired, run the Monterey installer (while booted to Catalina) and let it upgrade you. It should not create any additional volumes or delete any data.

 

[Fishrrman]

No word from the OP as to whether it got fixed or not.

OP:
Could you tell us exactly WHICH MacBook you have, and
What year it was made...?