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Upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave corrupted my partition table, unusable MBP.

It's a long post, but I am listing everything I have done so far.

I performed an upgrade to Mojave (day one release from App store), the app installed and I ran through the setup steps, I left it running unattended as it was ‘52 minutes remaining’ I came back to a ‘Disk management error’ (I did not catch the error number at the time), I restarted the machine, and since that point it boots to the Apple logo and the progress bar reaches about ~75% complete before turning into the prohibited symbol.


I have scoured the Apple Support forums and seen some really helpful suggestions from the community, which have led me to the point I am at now, and I’m hoping someone with some greater experience can help, calling out community member LonerT as some posts he has helped others with seem to be part of my issue.


Stupid mistake on my part is not having any backup whatsoever, and the HDD contains family images which is why I’m reluctant to give up and reformat the drive.

I am not too bothered about recovering the whole drive, a satisfactory outcome for me would be the drive is mountable and I can extract the data I want, and from there I don't mind a fresh install.


So here is where I am at, and what I have done:

  • I can load into recovery mode (cmd + r).
  • In disk utility I am only able to see the hardware name of my internal drive (APPLE HDD HT…), in the view menu I ensured ‘Show all devices’ is enabled, still no volume name for which I would expect to see ‘Macintosh HD’.
  • I can see the OS X Base system.
  • At this point I contacted official Apple support (online), once I explained I could see no drive names listed under my internal HDD, they stopped helping and said I would need to reinstall the OS.
  • Tried Target disk mode on another Mac with OSX High Sierra, it could only see the hardware name of my internal drive (APPLE HDD HT…), no volumes.
  • Tried Internet recovery mode, the globe 'spins' then the machine reboots back to into the prohibited symbol.

Output from Recovery mode Disk Utility on the Internal HDD

First Aid found corruption that needs to be repaired.

Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions

Problems were found with the partition map, which might prevent booting.

Output from diskutil list


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
GUID_partition_scheme
*500.1 GB
disk0

1:
EFI EFI


209.7 MB
disk0s1

2:
Apple_CoreStorage
499.2 GB

disk0s2

3:
Apple_Boot Recovery HD
650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
GUID_partition_scheme
+2.1 GB

disk1

1:
Apple_HFS OS X Base System 2.0 GB

disk1s1

/dev/disk2 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+5.2 MB
disk2

/dev/disk3 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB
disk3

/dev/disk4 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB disk4

/dev/disk5 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled +524.3 KB
disk5

/dev/disk6 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+2.1 MB

disk6

/dev/disk7 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB
disk7

/dev/disk8 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB
disk8

/dev/disk9 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+12.6 MB disk9

/dev/disk10 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+4.2 MB disk10

/dev/disk11 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+1.0 MB disk11

/dev/disk12 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+2.1 MB

disk12

/dev/disk13 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB disk13

/dev/disk14 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB
disk14

/dev/disk15 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+1.0 MB

disk15

/dev/disk16 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+6.3 MB

disk16

/dev/disk17 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+6.3 MB disk17

/dev/disk18 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled


+524.3 KB disk18

/dev/disk19 (disk image):

#:
TYPE NAME

SIZE

IDENTIFIER

0:
untitled +2.1 MB
disk19

Output from diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Output from gpt show disk0

-bash-3.2# gpt show disk0

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 975093952 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

975503592 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

976773128 7

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

I booted into Gparted, and what I'm hoping is a positive sign is it can see 'Macintosh HD', but on the flip side a file system of 'unknown' does not fill me with hope. This is where I stopped and thought it's best for someone with better experience to help guide me through any potential data recovery.


User uploaded file

Thank you in advance.

Tools at my disposal:

  • A secondary MBP (same-ish year)
  • Firewire 800 cable
  • External USB with GParted ready to boot
  • External USB blank 150gb HDD

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Sep 30, 2018 9:28 AM

Reply

Similar questions

61 replies

Oct 5, 2018 4:53 PM in response to Loner T

Loner T wrote:


Run


sudo fsck_hfs -n -l /dev/rdisk0s2

** /dev/rdisk0s2 (NO WRITE)

Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-407.200.4).

0000: dd78 9dc1 4bea 96e7 0100 0000 0000 0000 |.x..K...........|

0010: 1f00 0000 0000 0000 0100 0080 0000 0000 |................|

0020: 4e58 5342 0010 0000 18d8 4307 0000 0000 |NXSB......C.....|

0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

0040: 0200 0000 0000 0000 b449 0b89 2b37 4eee |.........I...7N.|

0050: 89b9 693e 227e 46d7 d9fa 0300 0000 0000 |..i...F.........|

0060: 2000 0000 0000 0000 1801 0000 346c 0000 |............4l..|

0070: 1100 0000 0000 0000 c1a4 0900 0000 0000 |................|

0080: 4400 0000 e207 0000 4200 0000 0200 0000 |D.......B.......|

0090: a707 0000 3b00 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00a0: 2fa7 1100 0000 0000 0104 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00b0: 0000 0000 6400 0000 0304 0000 0000 0000 |....d...........|

00c0: 0604 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

. . .

01f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

Oct 5, 2018 5:14 PM in response to shannon.young

shannon.young wrote:


Loner T wrote:


Run


sudo fsck_hfs -n -l /dev/rdisk0s2

** /dev/rdisk0s2 (NO WRITE)

Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-407.200.4).

0000: dd78 9dc1 4bea 96e7 0100 0000 0000 0000 |.x..K...........|

0010: 1f00 0000 0000 0000 0100 0080 0000 0000 |................|

0020: 4e58 5342 0010 0000 18d8 4307 0000 0000 |NXSB......C.....|

0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

0040: 0200 0000 0000 0000 b449 0b89 2b37 4eee |.........I...7N.|

0050: 89b9 693e 227e 46d7 d9fa 0300 0000 0000 |..i...F.........|

0060: 2000 0000 0000 0000 1801 0000 346c 0000 |............4l..|

0070: 1100 0000 0000 0000 c1a4 0900 0000 0000 |................|

0080: 4400 0000 e207 0000 4200 0000 0200 0000 |D.......B.......|

0090: a707 0000 3b00 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00a0: 2fa7 1100 0000 0000 0104 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00b0: 0000 0000 6400 0000 0304 0000 0000 0000 |....d...........|

00c0: 0604 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

00d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

. . .

01f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 |................|

The HFS fsck does not like the first block.

Oct 5, 2018 6:07 PM in response to Loner T

We are going to try and run a non-intrusive fsck first.


sudo fsck_apfs -n -l /dev/rdisk0s2


and post the output.

** Checking the container superblock.

** Checking the EFI jumpstart record.

** Checking the space manager.

** Checking the space manager free queue trees.

** Checking the object map.

** Checking volume.

** Checking the APFS volume superblock.

** The volume MacHD was formatted by hfs_convert (945.200.129) and last modified by .

** Checking the object map.

** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.

** Checking the snapshot metadata.

** Checking the extent ref tree.

** Checking the fsroot tree.

** Checking volume.

** Checking the APFS volume superblock.

** The volume Preboot was formatted by hfs_convert (945.200.129) and last modified by .

** Checking the object map.

** Checking the snapshot metadata tree.

** Checking the snapshot metadata.

** Checking the extent ref tree.

** Checking the fsroot tree.

** Verifying allocated space.

** Performing deferred repairs.

** The volume /dev/rdisk0s2 appears to be OK.

Oct 5, 2018 6:18 PM in response to Loner T

Loner T wrote:


Beautiful. It is indeed APFS. Did the Mojave upgrade complete on this Mac? From which macOS version?

Well, from High Sierra I downloaded and installed Mojave (day one release), it went through the setup steps, and I left it running as it said '52 minutes remaining', when I came back after an hour or so, I was greeted by a Disk Management Error, once I rebooted, ever since then it started going into the prohibited symbol.

Oct 5, 2018 7:46 PM in response to Loner T

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk3 499.2 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3


/dev/disk1 (external, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *160.0 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk2 159.8 GB disk1s2


/dev/disk2 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +159.8 GB disk2

Physical Store disk1s2

1: APFS Volume LIFESAVER 20.8 GB disk2s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 23.6 MB disk2s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 509.5 MB disk2s3

4: APFS Volume VM 8.6 GB disk2s4


/dev/disk3 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +499.2 GB disk3

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume MacHD 368.0 GB disk3s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 651.3 KB disk3s2

Oct 5, 2018 7:53 PM in response to shannon.young

shannon.young wrote:



/dev/disk3 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +499.2 GB disk3

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume MacHD 368.0 GB disk3s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 651.3 KB disk3s2

Notice that there is no Recovery or VM volume. This is most likely due to the error you saw.


Can you see your files in macOS Finder?

Oct 5, 2018 8:13 PM in response to shannon.young

shannon.young wrote:


No words can express how happy I am to see my old HDD mounted! A million thank you's is not enough.


Where Apple 'Support' left me high and dry, you saved the day and all the photographic memories of our first child.

I am very glad to see you have your files back.

shannon.young wrote:



I am copying off the most valuable thing to me which are the photos to the clean Mojave install.

We are not done yet. Please copy files to at least two different disks, if possible. Also, your mechanical HDD may be failing.


The 2012 13-in Mac I have has had HDD issues. I replaced my original HDD with an SSD (a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro). It makes the Mac work much better and provides a more reliable machine. You can buy any suitable brand/size SSD that works for you. Also, set up a Time Machine with at least two separate destinations, which alternate for backups. For every Mac that I have, I use two destinations for safety.

Oct 5, 2018 8:54 PM in response to Loner T

Sorry for no response, just making sure I have copies of what I want, thanks again LonerT.


Once I'm sorted, if you don't mind helping me with getting everything back in order (I'm happy to start over with Mojave) then I will copy everything back over, that would be splendid.


I have been thinking about replacing the internal HDD with a SSD. For now I have upped my Google Drive storage which will cover what I need for the backup, so that's destination one, I am also using TDM to the secondary Mac I have been using to copy the photos over, so that's destination two.


🙂

Upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave corrupted my partition table, unusable MBP.

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