Not sure what the problem is, I’ve tried to install OS X high sierra on a clean drive but when the installer is about 2 minutes from completing, the laptop unexpectedly shuts down and restarts. I’ve had it running OS X and I’ve tried different harddrives too
My guess it is a bad internal hard drive SATA Cable if you have the non-Retina model. You may have no problems during the file copy phase of the installation (Phase 1) since the data is traveling in one direction. After rebooting into Phase 2, the system is now booting from the SSD where large amounts of data are traveling in both directions.....this is where the problem usually occurs with a faulty SATA Cable.
If you have a USB to SATA Adapter, drive dock, or enclosure for the SSD, then you can remove it & try using the SSD externally. It may even finish the installation of macOS. If this works, then most likely the internal SATA Cable is the problem. If you don't have any of these items to test the SSD externally, then you can just try replacing the SATA Cable.
My guess it is a bad internal hard drive SATA Cable if you have the non-Retina model. You may have no problems during the file copy phase of the installation (Phase 1) since the data is traveling in one direction. After rebooting into Phase 2, the system is now booting from the SSD where large amounts of data are traveling in both directions.....this is where the problem usually occurs with a faulty SATA Cable.
If you have a USB to SATA Adapter, drive dock, or enclosure for the SSD, then you can remove it & try using the SSD externally. It may even finish the installation of macOS. If this works, then most likely the internal SATA Cable is the problem. If you don't have any of these items to test the SSD externally, then you can just try replacing the SATA Cable.
Does this occur during Phase 1 or Phase 2 of the install process. Phase 1 is when the installer is copying files to the destination drive....Phase 2 begins after rebooting from the copy of Phase 1.
If you have the non-Retina model, then most likely the internal hard drive SATA Cable is bad which is extremely common on the 13" model especially when using an SSD. If you have a USB to SATA Adapter, drive dock, or enclosure, then use that SSD externally to see if you can install & boot macOS. If so, then the internal cable is most likely the problem.....or the SSD is bad or incompatible with this Mac.
What is the exact make & model of the SSD?
OWC sells the internal hard drive SATA Cable for some Apple laptops:
https://eshop.macsales.com/search/?q=drive%20cable&filter.catidpath=3406/3410
Hello, what Format are the drives?
Start up from macOS Recovery
Option-⌘-R
Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.
In Disk Utility>View, select Show all Devices, highlight the top left entry.
Run Disk First Aid on all items in the left panel, from top down.
APFS won't work for Sierra or earlier, Sierra or earlier needs MacOS Extended Journaled. High Sierra won't work for APFS on earlier Macs.
More details...
Like many others, I ran into the dreaded “The recovery server could not be contacted” message when trying to do a restore of Mac OS High Sierra for a 2010 13 inch MBP that I was selling (yes I know it’s worth almost nothing, but someone wanted to buy it from me)…
How to recover a Deleted Hard Drive durin… - Apple Community
If all else fails...
If you removed the internal SSD to try to boot it externally, then perhaps the installation was corrupted. You may need to erase the SSD & try reinstalling El Capitan again while the SSD is connected externally.
Or your error message can imply a problem with the USB stick containing the macOS installer.
You did not provide enough details on the current system configuration for us to really say, but these are my two best guesses.
Edit: If this is an error trying to create a bootable macOS El Capitan USB installer, then maybe you have some other issue with this laptop unless the cable issue was causing the problem. Perhaps try again now that you disconnected the internal cable....perhaps even downloading, extracting, & creating the USB installer again.
Why cant you boot from the extenal SSD?
Does it show as a boot choice if you hold Option nkey on startup?
What exactly have you tried since my previous post? And what exactly occurred or did not occur, including specific error messages. You need to be very clear & specific since any small detail can be significant.
Phase 1 of the install.
MacOS doesn’t have a recovery partition on the new drive (at least I think how that works I’m still new to macOS, not an ideal first experience ;-;)
I believe recovery partition is in Firmware. :)
I can’t install El Capitan because it says the installer is “corrupted or tampered with”
Neither worked
The external ssd is a fully clean add with no previous macOS installed to it, but I will give a different usb stick a try (pray for the best 😭)
No success
I have verified that by disconnecting the cable from the motherboard. The computer no longer randomly shuts off and is able to boot into the installer usb, however I cannot figure out how to run macOS El Capitan from an external ssd. Would be greatly appreciated if someone could guide me me thru that :D
Try setting the date to Sep. 30th 2015...
date -u {month}{day}{hour}{minute}{year}
0930120015
https://bensmann.no/changing-system-date-from-terminal-os-x-recovery/
Then try the install again, uless your clock is off now & needs to be set to current date & time...
MacBook Pro 2012 refusing to install High Sierra