High Sierra Killed My Hard Drive?

If it is an HDD, do not make any attempt to format it APFS. In any event, getting back from this APFS to HFS+ involves erasing the disk and losing your data. The High Sierra install will not convert HDD's or Fusion Drives from HFS+ to APFS.

It does not make sense that a software installation would do physical damage to your HDD. However, your files may or may not be still intact there. I agree with brycesteiner's post below that you need to boot from an external drive to see what the HDD's status is. That could allow you to copy your files out and proceed with the install. The external drive would have to have MacOS installed, so this is a complicated route if you don't already have that available. I've always kept a USB drive with this for such calamities. You might check with the Apple geniuses to see if they have a setup you can use.

Did you try to do First Aid checks while in the Recovery Partition Disk Utility? In the View menu select "Show all Devices" and run the checks on each item. If they pass, then try a normal restart and run the installer again.

I second putnik. DO NOT convert your HDD to APFS. This can cause you to loose data. While it does not physically damage your data, it can make it unreadable or make it near impossible to recover your data.

The change over from HFS+ to APFS is quite complicated and most users do not understand these changes.

I would not recommend anyone updating to a new version of macOS without first backing up and reading about the new changes first.

Well...On the same theme...I lost two external hard drives since High Sierra. Disk Utility now doesn't see them, can't mount. Had to turn back a WD 4TB drive to Amazon. Lost my 2TB WD Time Machine backup. I'm on pins and needles as I am scared to lose my data on my 1TB MacBook Pro data. First Aid even stalled checking that.

Did you erase your WD drive with Disk Utility before using or were you using WD formatted drive? We saw this issue a while back where the drive software was not updated for the new OS and users in a panic, deleted their data trying to fix. WD did issue an update and users that waited had their data available.

In the future always erase with Disk Utility and do not use the drive software.

It did not even connect..had to switch to another cable. Wiped it with Disk Utility and only one format supported the full 4TB. I gave up and sent it back. Also, my old 2TB from over 2 years just crashed and won't even mount. Buying another drive 4TB Seagate to see if it works...The heck is going on Apple?

I just dropped over $300 trying to find out what is going on with this OS with External HD's. Spent $120 on Drive Warrior (crashed) Spent $134 on a 4TB WD Drive (crash) lost my 2TB WD Drive with Time Machine (ghost and cannot even mount)

Apple!

Apple has rushed this High Sierra out too quick. I had crashes weeks before this release with Safari 11 and i-tunes crashing. Actually got the DMG files from Apple. They just need to do quality checks before releases. Steve Jobs would not put up with this,

I'm having the same exact problem (diskmanagement error 0 installation loop).

Spinning 1TB-HDD, iMac 2010 (i3).

This is maddening beyond words.

Third day in a row that I'm not able to work because of this _...._

Didn't create a backup beforehand (yes, my bad...), only now created a block-based clone of the drive that's stuck in the installation loop..

Prime-ordered a new SSD that will replace my SuperDrive,

gonna clean-install HighSierra on there and hopefully have MigrationAssistant restore my data and settings off of the backup drive.

High Sierra "improved stability and reliability" my _..._, Apple.

Thanks man, but I wasted more than enough time on this.. A tour to the GenuisBar would just add insult to injury.

Btw: APFS-conversion of the HDD didn't work for me, either. Converted, installed, but couldn't complete the boot up process into HighSierra, afterwards. So, no "risky-but-works" shortcut for me.

My "fix": Clean 10.13-installation on that newly installed/added SSD (..just because of this madness..) replacing the SuperDrive of my iMac. Gonna copy data as-needed from the backup that I created from the stuck-in-installation-drive.

Thanks for saving my week, AmazonPrime.

Thanks for nothing, Apple.

This upgrade experience was just horrible.

Admittedly, though, the swiftly-back-on-track-thanks-to-iCloud-and-MacAppStore experience on this newly SSD-steroid-pumped iMac has been pretty marvelous, so far.

Truly mad about how this went down, anyway.

Hi JeepRuby101,

I got the same issue with you when I upgrade to High Sierra. I use macbook air mid 2013.

I thought that my SSD die. But it's not die, SSD just change to APFS format and it cannot boot from this SSD.

Now, it's solve and I saved my data, here are my solution:

1. Prepare a blank USB or external hard disk have storage >16G (the MacOS High Sierra more than 14G).

2. Prepare a external hard disk to backup your data.

3. Step to fix:

- Install MacOS High Sierra on the blank USB from internet.

- Run MacOS High Sierra from your USB and copy data to external hard disk. ---- Saved your data

- Re format your Mac SSD by Disk Utility to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

- Re install MacOS Sierra to your Mac SSD and boot again. You can use your old TimeMachine backup to restore.

Now, I copying data back to my Macbook to continue working.