CCC fails to boot MBP after stalled install of Big Sur

[Rod]

This is only the second time I have had a complete crash on my 2015 13" MBP and the first time I have had a failed upgrade of macOS.
In this case it was an upgrade from macOS Catalina to Big Sur. Of course I was aware that Big Sur was a radical shift from Catalina and accepted that there was some risk in installing an early release of Big Sur over the top of Catalina but I had done all of the preparative work and had both a Time Machine and CCC clone done prior to the upgrade and had 128GB of empty storage.
I had invested in an SSD for CCC earlier this year so in the worst case scenario I assumed I would be able to reverse clone my Macintosh HD OS and data back onto my MBP.
The Big Sur installer had frozen at 29min to completion so after some online reading I decided to restart. The installer came straight back on and proceeded to progress to 27min to completion then stopped. After 12hrs it was still stopped. I rebooted again and it resumed at 29min progressed to 27min then shut down. Aware that Mac's do shut down and restart during an update/upgrade I gave it an hour then checked to see if it had power by plugging in a thumb drive with an indicator light. No, it was not on or at least there was no power at the USB outlet.

At that point I decided it was probably a lost cause, either the installer was corrupt or some other problem had occurred. I would restore from my CCC SSD backup and wait until the bugs got ironed out before downloading the installer again.
I plugged in my EHD, booted with the Option key down, selected my backup and pressed the start arrow. The Apple logo appeared, the progress bar ran to the end, my Desktop wallpaper came up then it shut down. I had tested the clone the day before and it had booted successfully so I was puzzled. I tried again. This time I did not even get to the Desktop before it shut down. I know this because the power light on the SSD went off. After 2 more tries I gave up and plugged in my HDD with Time Machine on board, booted with the option key, selected the TM backup and clicked the arrow. TM booted as expected and I ran Disk Utility First Aid on both "volumes" of the Macintosh HD then tried the clone again with the same sad result. I did also try allowing the Big Sur installer to run with the same result as before.
So I booted from TM again and started the Erase and Restore from TM backup selecting the backup I had made yesterday before downloading the Big Sur installer.
After initially informing me this would take 19hrs it quickly reduced to 3hrs and now has 26min to go.

The point here is that this is only the second time I have had to rely on CCC for a restore and on both occasions it has let me down. It has been very useful for re adding my data and apps after a clean install of a macOS or a new device but as a bootable recovery option it has failed. In the first instance some years ago probably due to some corruption both my HD, CCC and TM backups all failed to boot and I assumed that whatever had effected my HD had been passed on to my backups as well. In that instance I was able to boot my MBP from a bootable installer on a thumb drive of the previous macOS. I installed the OS and upgraded to current then re added my data and apps from the CCC backup which although not bootable was accessible as an EHD and all the data seemed fine. It has been working perfectly now for a couple of years and prior to this upgrade I ran Disk first Aid (no problems), DetectX and OnyX, emptied the trash and rebooted.

So I will get back as soon as TM has completed but I'm beginning to think that I may be wiser to devote my SSD to TM in the future and simply perform a data backup with CCC to my HFS+ HDD.

 

[Slydude]

Sorry, you had so many issues, Rod. I was running it from an external SSD and installed it over the Beta. I have not tried to install it over Catalina. I need to get back to work on a project that uses Catalina. In a week or two, I should take time and make sure I have a really clean backup of Catalina. My TM drive has failed, and I want to fix that that first

 

[chscag]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the Big Sur installation and then the subsequent restoration via CCC.

Apple was experiencing problems with the servers that were distributing Big Sur. I'm not sure about which servers would be used from Australia but problems seemed to be world wide yesterday. Today should be okay.

With regard to CCC failing you, I'm frankly surprised since it has never failed me. I've been using CCC since its early days as shareware and have always been able to rely on it to save me from disaster.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that you wisely also made a Time Machine backup. Let us know how everything went.

 

[Slydude]

That has been my experience with CCC as well. I've been using it since the early days and rarely had a failure. The Big Sur download was slower than usual for me, and an additional update followed IIRC.

 

[Rod]

Sad to report the Restore using TM has failed as well. Tried twice but froze after timer stopped on Completing/Finishing Restore.

 

[chscag]

Sad to report the Restore using TM has failed as well. Tried twice but froze after timer stopped on Completing/Finishing Restore.

That kind of points to a problem with your hard drive, doesn't it? When two forms of backup fail, that would lead me to suspect the drive. Anyway, let us know.

 

[Slydude]

Good thought, Charlie. That hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense as a possibility since both backups failed.

 

[lclev]

Thanks for the info - very sorry for your troubles. I will be waiting before I even attempt an update to Big Sur.

Lisa

 

[krs]

Good thought, Charlie. That hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense as a possibility since both backups failed.

Have you tried booting up on the CCC backup?
That would tell you if the clone hasa problem or your internal drive.

 

[chscag]

Have you tried booting up on the CCC backup?

It appears he tried that and it failed.

I plugged in my EHD, booted with the Option key down, selected my backup and pressed the start arrow. The Apple logo appeared, the progress bar ran to the end, my Desktop wallpaper came up then it shut down. I had tested the clone the day before and it had booted successfully so I was puzzled. I tried again. This time I did not even get to the Desktop before it shut down.

It does sound like his internal hard drive may have problems.

 

[Rod]

Well folks, I'm back up and running and yes it was a problem related to the hard drive but hopefully not the HD itself.
The problem was that I couldn't get anything to boot up to a stage where I could access Disk Utility. Neither the Recovery Partition or CCC and with Time Machine I just assumed it would erase the Target volume as part of the process but maybe not. It took a long time to find out that it too failed before completing restore and the MBP froze again.

In retrospect I realise I should have used Disk Utility on the Time Machine backup to erase, format and map the HD first.

Then I tried a Bootable Mojave Installer on a Thumb Drive. It booted successfully, so this time I opened DU and erased the HD, not the "Macintosh HD" volumes but the Apple Media Disk itself after first unmounting both Macintosh volumes (important). I was then able to instal Mojave. It seemed to be completely fine so I tried booting from the CCC backup and this time it booted without a hitch, restored my Catalina OS, all my data and the two volumes Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD_Data as APFS volumes.

For a little while I was anticipating an expensive repair/replacement to my HD or at worst a replacement device. Not something I wanted to be forced into, especially at this time as I am hoping this device will last me till the generation of ARM computers arrive. Although a 2015 model it is in fact only 3 years old having been replaced by Apple twice. Once for a keyboard issue only weeks after purchase and again for screen delamination two years later.

 

[krs]

Thanks for the explanation.

However, I don't understand why the CCC clone on the external drive would not boot.
Does one actually need a working internal drive to boot up on a clone on an external?

I'm currently running with Mojave booted up on an external SSD - the internal spinner of the Mini is still on ElCapitan.
If for some reason the internal drive fails, can I then expect not to be able to boot up on the external SSD running Mojave?

 

[IWT]

In retrospect I realise I should have used Disk Utility on the Time Machine backup to erase, format and map the HD first.

I would never have thought of that, Rod. Thanks so much for that tip.

Ian

 

[lclev]

Wow great information! Glad you finally got everything straightened out. I have read a lot of stories of people having issues with installing Big Sur. I can safely say I will be waiting. The only device I would be potentially upgrading is my 2020 13" MBP. I have no trouble waiting until after at least the first update.

Lisa

 

[chscag]

However, I don't understand why the CCC clone on the external drive would not boot.
Does one actually need a working internal drive to boot up on a clone on an external?

Unless things have changed with the latest firmware, I would say no. You should be able to boot from an external hard drive even if the internal drive is defective. Otherwise, what good is it then to make a CCC or SuperDuper clone and use it as a backup?

 

[Rod]

Thanks for the explanation.

However, I don't understand why the CCC clone on the external drive would not boot.
Does one actually need a working internal drive to boot up on a clone on an external?

I'm currently running with Mojave booted up on an external SSD - the internal spinner of the Mini is still on ElCapitan.
If for some reason the internal drive fails, can I then expect not to be able to boot up on the external SSD running Mojave?

It's a good question, I don't have a good answer.
CCC was able to boot successfully the day before.
What I needed to do was boot into a Recovery Partition to access Disk Utility in order to erase the HD. Initially I did not know that. I was still thinking the HD might be retrievable.
TM boots directly into the Recovery mode. I did try to boot CCC into Recovery mode with no success.
The bootable thumb drive with the macOS installer was unnecessary really, TM would have worked too but it's a good alternative if you don't have TM.
In your case you are talking about your Mac Mini HD "failing", I think that may be different to my case in which my HD was "damaged."

I have learned the hard way but I did learn.
The process should have been;
Boot the MBP with either TM or the bootable installer.
Open Disk Utility, click Show All in the sidebar.
Unmount the volumes (Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD_Data) in the container (mine was container 1)
Erase, Name, Format and Map (GUID) the media disk (the one with the proprietary name) .
Shut down and boot from the CCC clone and restore all files back to the HD.

That would have taken a lot less than the 6hrs I spent on it.

The bootable thumb drive with the macOS installer is a very handy tool even if you only use it to boot and access Disk Utility, that way I think, it would not even matter if the certificate had expired on the installer, it becomes just a portable boot an repair device.

So if you want to just have CCC as your only backup my advice would be to also make yourself a bootable thumb drive with a macOS installer on board.

 

[MacInWin]

Rod, had you read this on Bombich's website?
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/cloning-apples-recovery-hd-partition

 

[Rod]

Yes?

 

[Rod]

A few odd things have happened since the system restore.
Twice I have been asked repeatedly to update my Apple ID settings by entering my Apple ID password and today it was followed by a request for the Login code for my iPad. All this was generated by System Preferences so I have to assume it was legit. The entry pane for the iPad PIN was the same as the familiar Apple login boxes we see when approving a new device login or an existing device from a new location. I was not too surprised the first time but I'm puzzled that it has happened agai and in particular the iPad PIN. One clue might be that I used the iPad yesterday to approve the first login on the MBP as part of 2FA.

 

[Rod]

I have been interested at how many people have been using Internet Recovery to update. It never occurred to me to upgrade in that way, after all its a recovery option. Apparently erasing the HD from the recovery partition then using option-command-R installs the "latest available macOS version for your device" which has now become the updated version of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1
I did know that last bit but updating that way seems less than intuitive.