Level 1

60 points

High Sierra Killed My Hard Drive?

Yesterday I attempted to update my MacBook Pro (I believe it’s a late 2013 model) to High Sierra.

When I did, I receive and error message that said “Mac OS Could Not Be Installed On Your Computer. The operation could not be completed. (com.apple.Disk management error 0.) Quit installer to restart your computer and try again.”

When I restart my computer, I have to do so in recovery mode, go into Disk Utilities to remount my hard drive.

When I try to boot up from my HD, it does not show up. When I try to reinstall High Sierra, it puts me back into the same loop.

I can’t even get to my desktop to delete the install and try again. I’m stuck in a loop of trying to install High Sierra, not working, remounting my hard drive, trying to install High Sierra.....

Posted on Sep 26, 2017 2:58 AM

Top-ranking reply

dianeoforegon

Level 5

7,325 points

Posted on Dec 13, 2017 1:08 PM

I had a similar problem. Nothing would fix my drive. I was scheduled to go in for a genius appointment on Saturday, but was able to finally fix myself. Previous attempts via Recovery drive, Internet Install and using Disk Utility to reformat all failed.

Instead of booting into the Recovery Drive by restarting holding down Command R, this time you are going to hold down shift option command R

Keep holding until you see a globe.
When you get to the recovery window, select Disk Utility.
Erase your internal drive, Macintosh HD. Format as HFS+
Quit Disk Utility
Select to Reinstall macOS.

This will reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available. For me it reinstalled Yosemite. My drive is formatted as GUID HFS+.

I skipped the log into iCloud and did no further setup.

My next step was to upgrade to High Sierra. I have a SSD drive so the install process did the conversion for me to APFS.

Now I have a working drive with a clean blank High Sierra install. I did not use migration, but setup manually.

If you want to upgrade to Sierra instead of High Sierra you can use this link to download Sierra. Sierra is no longer available to download, and unlike earlier macOS versions it will not appear in "Purchased".

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202

Let me know if this works for you.

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170 replies

Feb 28, 2018 11:41 AM in response to dianeoforegon

Thanks for the advice. If I can get anew SSD drive of same capacity for £129 I'll probably just go for that.

Feb 28, 2018 11:59 AM in response to jamesfromdunipace

Be sure to watch the video to be sure you can do this yourself. Post back and let us know results. This will help others in your same situation.

Mar 12, 2018 2:17 PM in response to jamesfromdunipace

I would not use Time Machine to restore. Manually bring over your data.

Mar 21, 2018 3:26 PM in response to JeepRuby101

I'm having the same issue, can someone provide support on this

Lear70

Level 1

8 points

Apr 4, 2018 6:23 AM in response to jamesfromdunipace

I can't post external links due to the Apple Community rules. I can, however, suggest searching for High Sierra Hard Drive on FB and you might find something. 😉

Apr 4, 2018 6:25 AM in response to Lear70

😉

J6rry

Level 1

4 points

Apr 26, 2018 9:33 AM in response to JeepRuby101

My Macbook Pro 2015 mid was also broken, the 512 SSD cannot be mounted correctly, it will disconnected automatically. I cost about $1000 for a new SSD.

Apple should pay us!!!!

Sep 26, 2017 3:30 PM in response to JeepRuby101

Not if you have a fusion iMac. If you have a SSD drive it should automatically upgrade you to APFS.

I suggest you stop and make a clone backup of your drive. You'll need an external drive.

Attach drive.

Select Disk Utility while in Recovery Drive. Select Erase to format correctly.

Select Reinstall MacOS, select the new external drive as destination.

When install completes, you should be booted from your clone for High Sierra.

You can partition the drive in Disk Utility to add a volume to backup your internal drive.

Use CCC to make a backup of your Macintosh HD to the external drive.

Now you have options to either erase and do a clean install of High Sierra on your internal drive to try to reinstall over the current files.

https://bombich.com/blog/2017/09/26/resuming-your-bootable-backups-after-upgradi ng-high-sierra Resuming your bootable backups after upgrading to High Sierra | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

https://bombich.com/blog/2017/09/26/resuming-your-bootable-backups-after-upgradi ng-high-sierra https://bombich.com/blog/2017/09/26/resuming-your-bootable-backups-after-upgradi ng-high-sierra

JeepRuby101 Author

Level 1

60 points

Sep 26, 2017 4:39 PM in response to dianeoforegon

Technically, I have an update through Carbonite. But I’ve restored from there before, and that’s a last case scenario. It takes so long. Especially nearly 300gb of data.

Trying any of the recovery methods you posted was a no-go. It looks like I’m headed out to the Apple store this weekend. Ugh.

Sep 27, 2017 3:20 PM in response to JeepRuby101

The change in file formats was huge! Did you read about the update before installing?

You need to report your experience to Apple Feedback.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

Here are some helpful links:

Prepare for APFS in macOS High Sierra - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208018

macOS 10.13 High Sierra: The Ars Technica review | Ars Technica

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/macos-10-13-high-sierra-the-ars-technica -review/6/#h1

macOS High Sierra: Everything We Know | MacRumors

https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macos-10-13/

Best practices for updating your Mac's OS | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/best-practices-updating-your-macs-os

Shirt Pocket Watch - News on the March! Using SuperDuper! In High Sierra

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/comments/news_on_the_march

Oct 13, 2017 10:31 PM in response to JeepRuby101

Same problem, late 2013 (I think?) MacBook Pro. Wasn't even paying attention to what I was upgrading, I just triggered it with a batch update in the Mac App Store. I booted into recovery, try to repair the disk, and it fails. No problem, I have an external Time Machine HDD sitting on my desk right behind my laptop. I plug it in, boot from Time Machine (which took 5? 8? hours overnight), and try to boot.

And it fails. With some cajoling back and forth between recovery mode installs and time machine backups I got it to boot up. It took foreeeever. It sort of ran for a few hours while I tried to work on it. Then it crashed again. Now the machine won't even boot from recovery, and when I boot from the Time Machine it doesn't see the internal drive. So I can't reformat it in Disk Utility. Got dam.

Oct 14, 2017 11:30 AM in response to isaiahqualls

I suspect your problems restoring from Time Machine were a result of your drive being converted to APFS. Repeated attempts appear to have deleted the recovery drive. You need a High Sierra Disk Utility to reformat as HFS+ Mac OS Extended Journaled.

If there is an Apple store near you, take your Mac in and have them erase your internal drive and reformat as HFS+ Mac OS Extended Journaled. I don't suggest you have them install High Sierra. The OS will improve in future updates THEN you can consider upgrading. Have them install Sierra. Then you can easily use your Time Machine backups to restore you data.

Dec 13, 2017 2:49 PM in response to brycesteiner

Just an FYI to anyone following this discussion....

Only format SSD drives as APFS.
Do NOT format your Time Machine drive as APFS. Currently Time Machine only works with HFS+.
Do not encrypt an external drive. There is a bug that will convert an external drive formatted as HFS+ that is encrypted to convert it to APFS.

Can you install High Sierra and not convert to APFS?

[a] If you have a completely SSD-based Mac, you will be converted to APFS when installing High Sierra. If you have a hard drive or Fusion Drive, you stay on HFS+. There's no options not to convert an SSD Mac, or to convert a HDD/Fusion Mac.

Will High Sierra be able to read/write to hard drives formatted as HFS+

[a]You will be able to read and write to both APFS and HFS+ drives with no issues.

• Boot Camp cannot currently read from or write to APFS-formatted volumes, but it is compatible with macOS High Sierra.

• Apple deprecated AFP, so volumes formatted as APFS cannot offer share points over the network with that protocol. You have to use SMB or NFS.

More Info:

Prepare for APFS in macOS High Sierra - Apple Support

Using APFS On HDDs ... And Why You Might Not Want To | Other World Computing Blog

Can APFS be used with Time Machine, Boot Camp, and File Vault? | Other World Computing Blog

Time Machine and APFS: What You Need to Know - The Mac Observer

A recent AppleInsider report states that some games have problems running on APFS.

Dec 19, 2017 8:33 PM in response to Peasantmike

When you say it's saying recovery server is unavailable, this sounds like a connection error or it could be checking to see if your mac qualifies for the upgrade but info is missing so it never connects to download the installer and upgrade the firmware**. I can't remember the details, but when a drive is changed out, sometimes there is a reset needed that identifies your Mac.

**Part of the High Sierra install process is to upgrade your firmware.

Feb 26, 2018 2:04 PM in response to Lear70

I don't know who you are referring to as a paid apologist, but almost everyone here is a volunteer. Occassionally you'll see an Apple tech reply here but you will know they work for Apple.

In my experience, most drive problems are a result of the formatting changes to APFS. These can be fixed. The drive is not physically damaged. It is often difficult to revert the drive to HFS+.

Occassionally if a drive is failing, upgrading to a new macOS especially with the change to APFS, the upgrade process will be the thing that will cause the drive to fail.

In the future, always do a clone backup before upgrading to a new macOS. You can't boot from Time Machine, but can boot from a clone. If you experience drive formatting issues it's much easier to fix from a clone than from Recovery Drive.

Never upgrade to a new macOS without reading about the changes first. Always wait until it hits .3 or .4. Never go for the .0 install unless you have advanced experience with troubleshooting.

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High Sierra Killed My Hard Drive?