Monterey Installer app fails preparing installation

At least you got messages. My one year Mac Book died and doesn’t switch on and the same happened to another aquaintance. It’s incredible they release an update that downgrades and kills laptops. If I bought Mac is because I trusted in quality. I am quite deceived

I have the same problem, with a Mac Pro 2013 and a third party internal SSD that I installed a few years ago. Frustrating as all previous OS upgrades have worked fine. Anyone know if there is a fix coming, or if this is Apple sending a message about using third party upgrades?

Hi! What do you mean by "waiting for a 12.0.1 release of the installer"? The currently available update is 12.0.1 and the issue is still present. Is there an other installer that you can get from somewhere? I have the same issue (Mid 2015 Macbook Pro, with a Samsung SSD installed and I bought it this way, I don't have access to an original Apple drive) and I have no idea what to do now. You think it it will be patched in later versions or I must get an original drive?

I did everything you did on my 2019 iMac and keep getting the same error with less than one minute remaining on the install. All my parts are original from Apple and I have tried safe mode as well. Tried every solution out there short of doing a clean install. Anyone have any luck with this issue. The nearest Apple store is 2 hours from me so I am at a loss at this point. Very frustrated and disappointed. I could see if this iMac was really old but 2 years and can't upgrade? Not the customer experience I am used to with Apple.

My own experience was a bit different. In fact, the external SSD that I successfully installed Monterey on (a clean install, not an upgrade), was an OWC 128G SSD. My iMac runs fine off that drive, but it's of course inconvenient to boot off a small external SSD all the time, when I have an Apple original equipment 2T Fusion drive sitting essentially unused, inside the iMac. I've attempted to install from Recovery mode (my iMac still boots from the Big Sur 11.6.1 Recovery partition), but the install still fails with the "unable to install required firmware" popup. I'm not a computer "hobbyist" and so don't claim to have any idea what is going on, but my own experience certainly suggests the problem is at least not limited to after-market drives. Further, I'm successfully running Monterey from an external OWC drive, and it installed fine. I contacted Apple Support, and they seemed unaware that there was a systemic problem, and utterly baffled by the details of my own experience (they couldn't seem to understand how I was able to boot Monterey from an external SSD at all...). I plan on doing nothing (I'm still working, if only in casualty mode), until Apple figures out that there is a problem with the installer, and releases at least .2 installer.

@moguySTL

Hello! I am a little slow on the draw with your explanation, please tell me if what I am thinking is correct.

HARDWARE: Mac Pro 2013 w/ OWC Aura X2 2TB internal, 36 GB RAM

• I have my original Apple SSD drive already in an enclosure, I kept after the upgrade in case of disaster.
• Are you saying that I can connect my Apple SSD via USB and boot from it, install Monterey on the Apple, then reboot from the Aura X2 internal and it will be ready for Monterey?

I appreciate the help! Thank you!

Lisa Atlanta

Well from what I read we should be able to install Monterey on this drive. I have the same drive as you., but when I tried this last night, something didn't go right and it didn't install on the drive like I've seen in videos I've searched on. I am going to try it again and I will put the steps to do it on here if it works. If it doesn't work, I need to take apart the machine and install the old drive back into it and try that. I don't have the pentalobe screwdriver to remove the back off of it with me right now.

To be clear, macOS Monterey will not install if you have upgraded your SSD? What does it matter what SSD I'm using - is this a macOS upgrade or just a way for Apple to ensure I'm using their overpriced hardware?

I believe Apple owes us a better answer than - find your old SSD, reinstall it, upgrade that OS, and then port the newly upgraded OS and your data back over to the new SSD you installed because the old SSD was running out of space.

Come on Apple, you have to do a lot better than that.

This seems like an awful lot of trouble to upgrade. I agree. Am I going to have to tear my machine apart, bypass the flaw and reinstall every time there is an upgrade now? What changed? You're going to have to come up with a better explanation other than I'm not using an OEM SSD drive. Apple folks are fairly savvy. I'm sure we could understand your explanation. This doesn't seem hardware related and it certainly not right.

You don’t have to port your data over to the new SSD. Once the firmware is updated to the version it needs to install Monterey you just run the installer on your new SSD that has whatever previous version of OSX you are running. No need to do a fresh install unless you want to.

Yep. Big Sur 11.6.1. I was a bit surprised also. The Monterey installer actually worked fine on my 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro, a much older machine that I figured might run into some issues. It also worked fine on my wife's 2019 iMac. I was even more surprised I was able to install Monterey on an external OWC SSD, and get it to run with no problems. I've read only a few other posters on the Apple Support Forum who have run into this problem on a factory-standard machine. So far, it seems none have actually solved the problem.

I just wanted to update my eventual solution. I could not get the new drive unscrewed from the machine so had to take it to be installed. Luckily, the Onyx Consulting people are really nice people, it only took and hour to do.

Thank you you for all the help!

What do you do if you don't have the original Apple drive anymore? I have a 2013(late) MP which is getting the same error.

Any suggestions?

Sounds like my only option is to force to load on unsupported. I also have an oWC upgrade and don't have access to the original SSD. How do you force it?

Thank you, this is what I was misunderstanding.