Big Sur installation problems

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Level 1

13 points

Big Sur installation problems

Hi everyone,

I have a late 2013 MBP that I tried to install Big Sur on yesterday. It, like for so many of you, failed miserably. I went through some of the support topics and while they did help to a certain extent, I'm still in a bit of a pickle and could use some help.

Here's what happened:

During the install, the installer said that the drive was invalid and wouldn't let me install Big Sur
I had over 50GB of space, so despite the initial installer having an issue, that shouldn't have been the problem
I tried the different boot options (Recovery Mode, holding down the Option key, etc), but I had no luck there.
Disk Utility (in Recovery Mode) made me mount/unlock my internal hard drive, and let me run First Aid with no problems, but Big Sur won't let me install to that drive.

So here's what I did:

Created a bootable Big Sur installer on a SanDisk USB drive (128GB capacity)
Formatted my 500GB Samsung T5 external SSD, and then booted up via the SanDisk and installed BigSur on my Samsung T5
I was given the option of transferring data from my internal drive to the new "default" drive (the T5) which I did - and it looks like all of my data came across.
I can now run BigSur from my T5 - and it looks to be ok (no deep dives - just a preliminary check)
I then tried running the BigSur installer from the SanDisk and then selected the internal drive as the target.
I get a message stating that the drive is either invalid or damaged and that I have to use Disk Utility to erase it
In Disk Utility the drive is accessible - I can also access it via Finder and access files on it

So here's my question - I am hesitant to wipe my internal drive without being sure that all my files were transferred to the T5 external SSD. Is there a way for me to do that, or is wiping my internal drive the only option?

Here are some screenshots for your reference. Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks in advance!!

[Image Edited for Personal Information]

Posted on Jul 15, 2021 8:54 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

68,050 points

Jul 16, 2021 9:10 AM in response to glzq

glzq wrote:

Hi Luis,

I didn't erase my internal drive because I was performing a standard upgrade to BigSur. I didn't know that the installer had a problem until after I started the install and then things started going wrong.

My question now is that is there any way for me to install BigSur on the internal drive without erasing it? Or is my only option to erase it and then run a fresh install of BigSur?

So you had a functional system running Catalina or earlier, and just ran the upgrade to Big Sur without doing anything else?

I've never heard of it borking a system like this. There should be two volumes, typically "Macinthosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data", but for some reasons you have only one.

Yes, at this point I think you need to erase the drive.

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Answer 2

Jul 15, 2021 9:20 AM in response to glzq

Did you notice that name with Data - Data - Data...?

The problem is that you erased the original "Macintosh HD" volume, when you should have erased the whole drive.

Start from the installer disk, run Disk Utility and choose View->Show All Devices.

Select the whole disk - it is probably called "Apple SSD (some stuff here)":

Click erase and make sure it is formatted as APFS with GUID Partition Map.

Then quit Disk Utility and install.

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Answer 3

glzq Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 15, 2021 4:24 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hi Luis,

I didn't erase my internal drive because I was performing a standard upgrade to BigSur. I didn't know that the installer had a problem until after I started the install and then things started going wrong.

My question now is that is there any way for me to install BigSur on the internal drive without erasing it? Or is my only option to erase it and then run a fresh install of BigSur?

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Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

61,532 points

Jul 15, 2021 4:39 PM in response to glzq

Erasing the whole physical drive will be the easiest and possibly even the fastest method. As others have pointed out the internal drive appears to be showing up as "Macintosh HD - Data - Data". While it may be possible to sort this out, it can be a bit hard to do so remotely. It seems macOS may have been installed/re-installed incorrectly two different times to get the boot drive to appear this way.

Plus you may have some other unknown file system issue causing the real problem. Just because First Aid shows everything is "Ok" does not mean everything is "Ok". I have personally seen First Aid outright lie about the condition of the APFS file system. After running First Aid on the hidden Container click "Show Details" even if First Aid shows everything is "Ok". Manually scroll back through the report to see if there are any unfixed errors listed. If you find any unfixed errors, then you definitely need to erase the whole physical drive and restore from a backup or clone.

In order to see the physical drive and hidden Container you need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives and hidden Containers appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.

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Answer 5

PRP_53

Level 10

92,545 points

Jul 15, 2021 10:14 AM in response to glzq

Totally agree with suggestion from @Luis S - an often over looked detail - Entire Drive to wipe and not the Indented Volumes listed below the Actual Drive.

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