After following instructions on here to use an SSD as my boot drive, I cloned the Mac to it and all went well until High Sierra appeared. This OS will not install on the SSD sending the drive into recovery mode. I’ve tried all options to recover the drive with no luck. I now can’t boot to the drive but can access it through the Mac and it’s listed as just for Time Machine back ups. Pressing Options on start up shows 4 icons 3 for the SSD none of which allows me to boot into it. Is there a way out of this or am I now stuck with the drive just for back up?
High Sierra does not install on SSD
- Thread starter colinwebb
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If I am understanding you correctly - you bought a new SSD drive and cloned it using your old drive. What did you use to clone it?
I have done exactly what I think you wanted to do. I needed to get a larger SSD so I purchased a 1TB SSD and cloned it from my 500GB SSD main drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. I then made sure the clone worked by starting up with it which worked perfect. At that point I downloaded onto the new SSD High Sierra and installed it. Worked perfect.
If you used Time Machine to do the cloning that is your problem. TM does not make a bootable drive out of the new drive. You need to use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Neither are free but the cost is worth it. I use CCC to make regular backups of my main drives and love it, but either app work well. Your SSD should still be useable just go into Disk Utility and reformat it then clone it.
Lisa
I have done exactly what I think you wanted to do. I needed to get a larger SSD so I purchased a 1TB SSD and cloned it from my 500GB SSD main drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. I then made sure the clone worked by starting up with it which worked perfect. At that point I downloaded onto the new SSD High Sierra and installed it. Worked perfect.
If you used Time Machine to do the cloning that is your problem. TM does not make a bootable drive out of the new drive. You need to use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Neither are free but the cost is worth it. I use CCC to make regular backups of my main drives and love it, but either app work well. Your SSD should still be useable just go into Disk Utility and reformat it then clone it.
Lisa
The SSD as I stated booted and worked well until I tried to update to High Sierra I got a message saying the drive was incompatible with HS It then went into recovery mode
Using Command+r I tried to recover it this is when it turned into a Time Machine back up. I knew nothing about trying to clone with TM
Using Command+r I tried to recover it this is when it turned into a Time Machine back up. I knew nothing about trying to clone with TM
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Did you run a First Aid check on the SSD using Disk Utility? You may have a hardware problem with the SSD. SSDs can fail suddenly and without any warning. There is no reason why your iMac should not be able to run High Sierra. If there is a problem with the SSD, take the machine to Apple and have them check it out. Your iMac should still be under warranty.
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+1. And make note of any details if it shows.
Is there any sign of the new SSD being supported as a "Startup Drive"???
- Patrick
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Just curious - is this new SSD mounted internally or externally? Did your mac ever boot to the new SSD with any other version of OS X? Your first post seems to indicated the new SSD did boot to an older version of OS X. If so what version was it?
Lisa
Lisa
Mounted in an external enclosure and yes it did to whatever was the previous version before High Sierra, it was cloned from the IMac drive.
Just to make things clear I updated the IMac drive to HS afterwards and that works okay.
Just to make things clear I updated the IMac drive to HS afterwards and that works okay.
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You should format the drive using Disk Utility as APFS, then attempt to do a clean install of High Sierra, to test the drive.
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I'm not clear on this as to whether the volume NOW is and/or can be selected and shows as a bootable startup volume option. And if so, does it work as a bootable drive when selected?
- Patrick
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No longer shows as bootable drive it appears as a time machine back up and as a recoverable drive.
Obviously neither of which are bootable. Seems I’m going around in circles here, yes it was bootable but no it is now not. I intend to format the drive and try again.
Obviously neither of which are bootable. Seems I’m going around in circles here, yes it was bootable but no it is now not. I intend to format the drive and try again.
So the latest instalment of my dilemma is this:-
I formatted the said drive using APFS as suggested which is okay and now shows as containing no data and APFS file system. Then I try to install High Sierra but it doesn’t let me getting a message saying follow the instructions here https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/apfsfusion
As far as I can make out although didn’t read it all is a way of returning the drive to the previous file system and is a long convoluted method.
So once again I’m lost.
I formatted the said drive using APFS as suggested which is okay and now shows as containing no data and APFS file system. Then I try to install High Sierra but it doesn’t let me getting a message saying follow the instructions here https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/apfsfusion
As far as I can make out although didn’t read it all is a way of returning the drive to the previous file system and is a long convoluted method.
So once again I’m lost.
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Why are you even using and following the directions to use with a macOS BETA installation?????
Where and how did you get the copy of the High Sierra installer you're attempting to install??
- Patrick
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Because that’s the message that comes up when I try and install HS on the drive.
I downloaded it from the Apple App Store via the IMac HS drive.
I downloaded it from the Apple App Store via the IMac HS drive.
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I would seem that they haven't cleaned up some of their beta help pages or they figure the instructions are still good enough. Seems a bit sloppy to me however, but what's new…???
- Patrick
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