High Sierra Killed My Hard Drive?

Ok, I now have my Macbook back to the state it was in before I attempted the High Sierra install! To avoid having to wait for my partners account to be reset/reactivated, I tried using my Apple ID on her Macbook to download El Capitan and that worked. I then tried to use the command to create the bootable USB flash drive as detailed in

http://osxdaily.com/2015/09/30/create-os-x-el-capitan-boot-install-drive/

i.e.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/ElCapInstaller --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app —nointeraction

but that didn't work since my partners Macbook is running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and so the createinstallmedia command wasn't available!! So updated her OS to El Capitan (copying the downloaded image to another folder first since it gets deleted after install) and then I was able to create the bootable USB using that command.

Then inserted the new SDD as described in...

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Display+Late+2013+SSD+Re placement/23431

…which was was quite simple to do - the new SSD I obtained from Flex Memory (Transcend Jetdrive 820, 480GB SSD Upgrade Kit for MacBook Air Mid 2013 - 2017,MacBook Pro (Retina) Late 2013 - Mid 2015, Mac mini Late 2014 and Mac Pro Late 2013)

comes with the two screwdrivers required to remove the back case (P5 pentalobe screws) and the SSD itself (T5 Torx screw).

Booted up as advised using Option key and erased/reformatted the new SSD as Mac OS extended, journaled.

I just did a full restore from my Time Capsule - took about 5 hours but it was something that I could kick off and leave.

Only issue when I restarted Macbook eventually was that it had to do some repair to my iPhoto library.

I then wanted to update my OS to El Capitan, but it wouldn’t let me - looking online seems to indicate it will only let you do it from Snow Leopard or Lion?? I do have the Install OS El Capitan image - can I simply execute that to do it? The guy at the Genius bar did say that when I had installed the new SSD I could bring it back and he would put Sierra on it for me.

As for my old SSD - since I’m sure it’s not a lost cause, I’ll look into salvaging that as an external drive - I think I remember OWC advertising some enclosure you could buy to contain it and connect via USB (or whatever). I’ll report back if I have any luck.

Thanks again for eveyones help - obviously I’m not happy at having to shell out £315 after an attempted High Sierra ‘upgrade’ but that’s half the price Apple were quoting me. At least the new SSD has a 5 year warranty so if anything goes wrong hopefullybits within that timeframe!

I recently replaced a dead hard drive in my late 2009 iMac with a solid state drive and ran into the same problem. Thankfully, I still had the DVD THAT came with the computer.

The problem:

Apple recognized the new drive as a solid state drive and allowed High Sierra to reformat the new hard drive in APFS format. This new format evidently prevents the Disk Utility from going back to the "Journaled" format used by earlier operating systems, as it was not an option on the dropdown list.

The Solution:

1. Insert the OSx DVD that came with the computer.

2. Once it opens, go to Utilities in the gray toolbar

3. Open Disk Utility

4. Select the Hard Drive on the left.

5. Be sure the drop down list is set to "Journaled" which is the default choice.

6. Erase disk

7. Re-install the OS and restore from Time Machine

Hope this helps

Software can NOT destroy hardware, whatever you did it was not what you are stating here.

Erase, repartition, reformat your drive, it will work fine. Then develop a backup method that actually works.

I tired to install High Sierra on my Imac and experienced the same issues. Apple support by phone was no help. Took I Mac to Apple Genuis store and they took a look and said I needed a new hard drive...total cost $191 all because I tried to install High Sierra. I Mac was 4 years old.....

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.

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.

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.

Rather than convert a drive with data on it, select to install High Sierra on an empty drive. It will convert the drive to APFS. Now you can use migration or manually move over your data. Since the drive is already converted, there is no further conversion process.

I suggest you send the report to Apple using one of these options:

BugReporter
http://bugreporter.apple.com

Free ADC (Apple Developer Connection) account needed for BugReporter. Setup a free account

http://developer.apple.com/programs/register/

Mac OS X Feedback (no account needed)

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

Same thing happened to me on Sunday night. Went to the Apple Store at Old Orchard and the guy said my disk is dead and my options were to replace it or go to a repair shop and spend $500 to $1000 to retrieve my data. After reading these posts, don't know why they haven't put in place a standard fix/ procedure.

@Lear70

You won't be able to go very far with a class action suit when you took it to a non-authorized repair shop.

Things to think about:

Did you have a 3rd party SSD or drive in the machine? This is a common problem because apple updates their firmware devices such as SSD's automatically for the most part. 3rd party doesn't and if you don't do it yourself, it's not getting done and won't be compatible with the newer APFS.

If it's the original disk then you should do what I wrote above and it will work just fine. Software will not brick the drive and it can be recovered unless you had a firmware update go bad.

No, I did not have a 3rd party SSD in the machine. All original. No, what you wrote above did not work. I tried that here. The repair center tried that. Both failed. The hard drive was completely bricked by FileVault.

...although Diane's post on page 5 did say shift-option-command-R.

According to instructions here: About macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Newer Mac computers and some older Mac computers automatically try to start up from macOS Recovery over the Internet when unable to start up from the built-in recovery system. When that happens, you see a spinning globe instead of an Apple logo during startup. To manually start up from macOS Recovery over the Internet, hold down Option-Command-R or Shift-Option-Command-R at startup.

If you still can't start up from macOS Recovery, and you have a Mac that is able to start up completely, you might be able to create an external Mac startup disk to start up from instead.

To further add to Encryptor5000's instructions to use the Terminal...

While in Recovery drive select Utilities > Terminal in the Menu bar

I had upgraded to macOS High Sierra for my iMac late 2012. After a few months it startred having problems. Extremely slow, freezing, etc. and finally it just would not load. So I went through not one but multiple iterations of trying to erase the hard drive and reinstall. Same issues would start over again. Finally took it to a repair shop that was authorized by Apple though it was not an Apple genius. They immediately recognized that the hard drive was bad. Before installing a new hard drivem, they strongly recommended that I not install High Sierra. They said it was killing people's hard drive. They had repaired multiple computers with the same issue and they blamed it on High Sierra. So they loaded it with what it originally came with which was El Capitan. I have had no problems since. Now I wanto to know, why does Apple create an upgraded OS that kills their own computers. My computer was only 4 and a half years old.

Try using the right keystrokes, which are command/option/r and see if it helps.

If you can't select your Desktop to boot back into, then I'm afraid anything you try doing from the Recovery Drive could damage or erase your data.

You should NEVER install a new operating system without doing a backup first. In addition to this rule, it's even more important with the change from HFS+ to APFS.