FIX- Could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS install

My Mac Pro was upgraded to High Sierra Awhile ago automatically. I encountered some problems that were difficult to resolve, not sure High Sierra was responsible, but I decided an erase and clean install of High Sierra was warranted, and so I backed up my data and started the procedure. The diskutil only gave me the option to reformat into an APFS format, so I reformatted it in APFS reasoning High Sierra works on it, so it must be the right format after all, right? Big Mistake!

High Sierra then would not install, it would freeze up while trying to install. Internet install also did not work, and it would often freeze and sometimes give sometimes strange and cryptic error codes trying to install. I even tried a USB Boot disk with High Sierra dmg file designed for new install, and it also froze up installing. Trying to go back and reinstall Sierra, as many recommend, well... that’s a problem when you don’t have a working Mac and cannot download it from Apple, and a non-Apple PC won‘t download it from their Mac-only download procedure. So, I made an appointment with the Mac store.

I then came across this post, and while I wasn’t interested so much in rolling it back to Sierra, it gives the critical procedure to reinstall a clean High Sierra with all your data and settings cleared out. Diskutil is unaware that High Sierra only wants to install on a partion with a previous old format (e.g. Macintosh HD), and it doesn’t quite know how to reformat a previously formatted APFS partition back to an older format (High Sierra install converts everything to APFS). The way to address is to DELETE the drive (see original post) in the diskutil. I found pressing Option-Command-P-R just after Power-on would get me to the menu with diskutil. By clicking the small minus sign “-“ next to the drive (+ or - shown) I was able to delete the drive (really it’s the working partition), So, I went ahead and deleted it.

Then, I rebooted again into a recovery mode, I tried Option-Command-P-R method, then diskutil again. Apple says that Diskutil will try to detect the type of storage your are formatting, then shows the appropriate format in the format menu:

How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended when formatting a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Hence, if it sees APFS, it will only give APFS format options. But here with the disk deleted, there is no format and thus it cannot detect, and the Apple link above indicates that it defaults to Mac OS Extended which “works with all versions of macOS“. So, after another reboot and Option-Command-P-R after start, diskutil then presents older formats for formatting the disk in the menu, and a major obstacle removed. I then chose “Macintosh HD”. It chose to call the partition “Preboot” by default. I rebooted again, pressed Option-Command-P-R after power on, and then I chose to installed High Sierra. It worked this time. Hurray!!!

Command-R may have worked just as well like the original post from Ethoic showed, but I’m not going through this again to test it. They key here is deletion of the drive in the Diskutil, and also key is the understanding that at least this version of High Sierra (10.13.5) - and possibly others - will install only onto legacy/older storage formats and ironically not on APFS format that it was designed to run on!

A clean install of an OS is a tried-and-true useful and popular option for users to clear out a corrupted OS or sell/give it to others. They should make the procedure less tricky or at least better documented, and it shouldn’t be so easy to tank the entire PC to where most will need the Apple store to recover it.

Thanks for the original poster, I thought I might add to it my specific experience in hopes it might help someone not repeat the 2 days of frustration I went through trying a simple and often useful task.

You don't need to create a "Mac OS Extended" drive. You just need to leave some reserve space on the APFS volume so the install process can create a "Preboot Volume".

Follow the current instructions to get to the Recovery mode and Disk Utility:

• Delete the current main volume (Macintosh HD) using disk minus button, accept whatever dialog pops up
• Create a new main volume using disk plus button, you may need to close and reopen Disk Utility for this to work, do not press create yet
• Click "Size Options", add a reserve, I made it 1gb but you could possibly go smaller
• Click ok, and create volume

Go back to recovery menu and follow the usual Reinstall Mac OS X steps,

I succesfully reinstalled High Sierra after 6 hours of trial and error. Here’s my method:

1. Launch internet recovery mode (cmd-opt-r on startup)

2. On disk utilities, delete the Macbook HD drive with the minus button (not erase). Don’t delete the ones that has an eject icon

3. Restart and launch internet recovery mode again

4. Go to disk utilities. The drive will have a different name,preboot or whatever. reformat (erase) the drive to MacOs Extended (journaled).

5. Restart and launch again internet recovery mode

6. Go to disk util and reformat the drive again, this time to APFS

7. I restarted again after this just to be sure, but i guess you could just go to the recovery options directly after this and choose install MacOS. High Sierra will install without any problems.

Basically i reverted the hard drive back to the old file system or whatever Macos extended means, then reformatted it back to APFS. Formatting the drive back to the old format then back again to the new Apple file system format seams to solve the volume problems.

What worked for me:

After entering into Disk Utility (not sure if Internet recovery is needed vs. normal recovery mode), selected top volume under “Internal” heading. Clicked “partition” button. Selected Partition again (not “Add Volume”). In the screen that followed, all I did was change the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), change the Name to “Macintosh HD”, and click Apply.

I was then able to exit Disk Utility and install macOS. The error did not appear this time during installation. Hope this helps someone! Good luck!

I followed your directions but the drive could not be added after internet recovery. I found help by clicking on Help in the recovery window, which took me to Apple's instructions for Erasing & Reinstalling. (as follows:)

First choose Help in the Recovery Menu; it will open Safari to a recovery instructions page.

1. Write down the instructions, then quit Safari.

2. Make sure you're connected to the internet.

3. Select Disk Utility, Continue.

4. Select your disk drive in the list on the left, then click erase.

5. Enter a name for your disk, then choose APFS from the format popup menu then click Erase.

One difference: In step 5 Apple says to choose APFS, but I didn't; I left it at the default Mac Extended Journaled, then clicked Erase.

6. Quit Disk Utility.

7. Select reinstall Mac OS, click Continue, then follow the on-screen instructions.

Godspeed and I hope this helps the 159 others with the same issue!

The key step in the process of erasing the existing volume is selecting the correct type that it will be reformatted as. The first couple of times I erased it and selected the APFS type to be the new volume type and ran into the original error about not being able to create the preboot volume. The type that should be selected is "MacOS Extended (Journaled)" - once I erased to this type the install worked seamlessly.

Thanks Ethoic your in put was helpful.

However, my pc deliberately refused to format my drive with the format Mac OS extended. So, I reinstalled Mac OS Sierra on my Mac using an external hard drive. This worked successfully so that I could set up my mac again as if it were new. I then went to the app store and downloaded mac OS sierra and reinstalled it again, this time on my Mac drive. This was successful too and that is how I fixed the problem. I hope this helps someone who may be having a similar problem as I. This frustrated me for 24 hours!

I will be honest, this has been doing my nut in for 2 days, but I have finally cracked it! When rebooting I held down ‘command and r’ which went into internet recovery and then it is now installing El Capitan back on my MacBook Pro.

My fingers and toes are crossed!

Hi Ethoic, thanks. I have followed your way and the format of my volume "Macintosh HD" is now in "Mac OS Extended". However as I clicked "install Mac OS" after internet recovery mode it still shows "Mac OS High Sierra", not "Sierra", which still requires APFS. Did I miss any steps here?

I originally formatted the disk to the Afps format and got the error everyone else did after trying to install. What I did was go back to the disk utility and partitioned the drive so that I could picked Journaled instead since after formatting apfs was the only option. I was then able to go through the install process. I didn’t split the drive size when partitioning just used all the space I had for the new partition

Hi, I went about this backwards, initially. I erased my hard drive and used the new formatting.

Apparently, this screwed up the 10.13 OSX installer which expects to do the formatting itself... so it stalled out on me.

Read a post that recommended reformatting the drive to the old HFS + format.

Booted up in "Internet Recovery Mode" and downloaded 10.13 and let it install.

All went well this time.

Of course, had to restore my files via Time Machine.

Good luck!
Dave

Hello Ethoic,

I believe that your statement:

"Then you will enter the same menu which is mac os utilities and then this time instead of Mac OS High Sierra you will just see Sierra"

Should read:

"Then you will enter the same menu which is mac os utilities and then this time instead of Mac OS High Sierra you will just see the OS that your Mac originally came with when you purchased it."

I tried your procedure, and when I got to this point, instead of macOS Sierra, the OS installed was El Capitan, which installed successfully :-)

Thank you for your post! I've now successfully upgraded to High Sierra.

- Paul N.

Hi all,

I was experiencing this same problem when I tried to upgrade my iMac 27" mid 2011 to High Sierra yesterday. I was resistant to follow the solution that suggests deleting the drive since I didn't have my data backed up. So, the way I ended up fixing the issue and successfully completed the installation was to create a bootable USB with High Sierra installer and boot from this USB to reinstall High Sierra.

Using this method I didn't get "Could not create a preboot volume for APFS install" and installation completed without having to delete any drives therefore keeping all my existing data.

So, I encourage you to first try this method if you don't have your data backed up.

Hope it helps!

I had this issue as well - only APFS options, and only High Sierra. Never went back to Sierra. I did hack out another work around. You'll need a USB HDD for this, but it has worked for me every time.

Boot to Recovery mode (command+option+R),

Plug in external HDD

IF not apple formatted, reformat using a non-apfs format (those should be available - I just used the recommended)

Start Re-install OSX, but select your external HDD to restore on.

When finished, start up your new install, go to Disk Utilities, and you should be able to reformat your internal drive to something other then APFS.

Now, reboot back to Recovery again (command+option+R), unplug external USB, Reinstall OSX again. This time it should go through even if it is High Sierra it wants to install.

Sorry for the dual installs, but I think the above solution didn't work for me because the drive is somehow locked. Booting to another drive frees it up so it can be reformatted back to something that works. At least a Mac OS reinstall is relatively fast!

Note, the MacBooks with Touch-bar don't seem to experience this issue. I saw it on the model just previous to the Touch Bar one.

Hi. I’m totally new to using Mac and I badly need guidance and support on this. Well, I’m trying to install MacOS in a newly bought 13.3” Macbook Pro with touchbar 2017. Upon installation, problem occured and it didn’t get through stating that it ”could not create a preboot volume for APFS install”. I followed the instructions on how to install by using COMMAND + R, then Disk Utility (including your instruction above), however, under Macintosh HD, the format option is just APFS and the one with APFS encryption. There’s no MacOS extended (Journaled) format. In this regard, what do I have to do to properly install this MacOS in this new Macbook Pro? Thank you very much in advance.