Bootable USB only shows windows and not High Sierra drive

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Level 1

8 points

Bootable USB only shows windows and not High Sierra drive

I have swapped my daughter's mid 2012 Macbook pro's hard drive with a solid state drive to help with performance. After doing this I am trying to install High Sierra from a bootable USB 2.0 stick.

I have formatted the usb to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
I have installed the High Sierra installer onto the usb
I insert the usb and then boot from it by pressing the option key after powering up the laptop.
When the startup manager appears it just gives me the option of a drive named "Windows".
I have reformatted this usb and re-added the High Sierra installer several times with no success
I have tried to boot from the usb on other Macs but they all show the same

Below is a picture of the screen I get when I boot from the usb on another Macbook that is already running Catalina.

Is there something with High Sierra that I am not aware of? Am I missing a step? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

MacBook

Posted on Mar 5, 2020 3:53 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

HWTech

Level 9

56,138 points

Mar 5, 2020 8:55 PM in response to Mr limey

You didn't provide the correct path to your USB drive when you issued the command. You either need to enclose the path in double quotes or use a backslash to "escape" the spaces in the volume name. It is much simpler to erase the USB drive with a volume name that does not include any spaces. However, in your current situation you can use either one of these two commands to create your USB drive (assuming the USB volume is "Install macOS High Sierra":

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia   --volume  "/Volumes/Install macOS High Sierra"

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia   --volume /Volumes/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra

Another option to easily get the correct path is to just drag & drop the volume from the Finder onto the Terminal window which will auto-fill the path correctly for you.

You should carefully review the official Apple instructions for creating a bootable macOS USB drive. If you follow those instructions exactly, then you should not have any problems.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

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Answer 2

Mr limey Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2020 8:32 PM in response to BDAqua

No, I just dragged the install app from the Apps folder into the usb.

I tried to do it the correct way using the directions above but I got this in terminal;

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

MacBook-Pro:~ MacBook17$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Install macOS High Sierra

Password:

/Volumes/Install is not a valid volume mount point.

MacBook-Pro:~ MacBook17$

The Install app was put into my Applications folder when I downloaded High Sierra and stopped short of running it.

Not sure off it is having trouble find the Install app in my applications folder but here it is;

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Answer 3

Mr limey Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2020 6:20 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for your help, by the way.

I have the usb in my MacBook Pro and this is what I get;

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

MacBook-Pro:~ MacBook17$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 500.0 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +500.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data 287.4 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 78.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 526.6 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 5.4 GB disk1s4

5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 11.0 GB disk1s5

/dev/disk2 (disk image):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_partition_scheme +16.5 MB disk2

1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 16.4 MB disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *61.9 GB disk3

1: Apple_HFS Install macos High S... 61.9 GB disk3s1

MacBook-Pro:~ MacBook17$

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Answer 4

Mr limey Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2020 4:37 PM in response to BDAqua

When I try to boot from it the screen just goes black and shows the cursor. I named the drive "Install macOS High Sierra" and everything that I've read says that that is what should show up as an option.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

239,759 points

Mar 5, 2020 6:51 PM in response to Mr limey

Ah, FDisk_partition_scheme...

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/229908/how-to-fix-mac-hard-drive-partition-showing-as-fdsik-partition-scheme

But I'd reformat it GUID Partition scheme>HFS+ Journaled & put the Install macos High S... on it again.

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Answer 6

Mr limey Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2020 7:48 PM in response to BDAqua

So I have reformatted the usb exactly as you said. I can now see the usb and the "Install High Sierra" app on it but when I try to boot from it it doesn't show up in the Startup Manager, it's missing completely.

I did the terminal list again incase that helps and it now shows that is partioned correctly;

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 500.0 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +500.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data 287.7 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 78.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 526.6 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 11.0 GB disk1s5

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *61.9 GB disk2

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS Install macos High S... 61.5 GB disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (disk image):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Dell M900HD +41.0 MB disk3

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

239,759 points

Mar 5, 2020 8:44 PM in response to Mr limey

What is the name of the Drive? I'd Rename the USB Drive to Installer with no spaces to avoid confusion.

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Installer

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Answer 8

Mr limey Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 5, 2020 9:28 PM in response to BDAqua

It worked! I changed the name and completed the terminal code and it showed up in Startup Manager. Tomorrow I'll use it on the other 2012 MBP but I don't foresee any problems.

I'd really like to thank you so much for taking the time out and responding the whole way. Your knowledge is incredible and you really are a credit to this community. Thank you.

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