Stuck in Recovery Mode After APFS Conversion

[Babz]

This is a tough one, folks. Worst situation I've ever been in. Need the best advice I can get, and it's a pretty specific and unusual situation.

I have a 2012 Mac Mini and I needed to update from El Capitan to High Sierra. Where things got messy is when I converted the startup drive (a HDD, not a SSD) from HFS+ format to APFS. I did this a few days ago on my friend's Mac without problems, but things went wacky this time.

Here's what I did:

I updated my OS from El Cap to High Sierra.
All went well. I tested a few apps. All seemed good.
Then (fatal step) I decided to convert the HDD startup drive from HFS+ to APFS. This can be done non-destructively on startup drives (both HDDs and SSDs), and I recently did the same thing on my friend's MBP's HDD startup drive without problems. It is done by booting into Recovery Mode and choosing "Convert to APFS" from the menu. (Note: SDD startup drives are automatically updated to APFS as part of the High Sierra upgrade. But for HDDs, you have to do it post-High Sierra update using the recovery mode method.)

The conversion completed and it reported it was successful. Last time I did this (on said friend's computer), I rebooted and all was fine. I had an HDD startup drive running APFS under High Sierra.

But, unfortunately, in my case, when I restarted, it rebooted into recovery mode! Now I am stuck in recovery mode every time I restart.

I have googled solutions for this situation. They recommended Zapping the PRAM and I did that, and that gets it to reboot out of recovery mode to a point, but about 3/4 thru, it blinks and boots into recovery mode again.

I have run disk utility Disk First Aid on the disk and it says OK.

Basically, I'm stuck in Recovery Mode each time I boot.

Any ideas?

[Babz]

I should add that before I did the High Sierra Update, I made a SuperDuper clone of my HD. So at least I have that as my only backup, last resort. I'm hoping I don't have to resort to that, and I'm not even sure the best way to use that to recover.

[mikehalloran]

Basically, I'm stuck in Recovery Mode each time I boot

Are you really?

Sometimes, the real problem isn't that you can't boot; it's that you can't shut down completely.

If you can shut down completely, try (1) then (2).

1) Option boot: Start up with the Option key held down and select your startup disk.

2) if that doesn't do it, see if you can access the Repair Partition. Shut down. Boot holding the Command r keys. This should take you to the Repair Partition. From there, you can reinstall the OS — it will go to the Apple servers, download and reinstall.

BTW, if you have another OS anywhere on the system, this will not work. Likewise, if you created this drive by cloning, you won't have a Repair Partition. In either case, you'll need to reinstall the OS from another drive on the system.

3) If the real problem isn't that you can't boot but that you can't shut down completely. In that case, you need to Reset Launch Services by doing the following:

1. Open Terminal and run these commands:
sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network <Enter>

Enter your Admin password when prompted. Next, run

killall Dock <Enter>

sudo mdutil -E / <Enter>

Restart your Mac

If you can shut down normally, this isn't the problem but if you have to force-quit to shut down, it probably is.

[Babz]

Basically, I'm stuck in Recovery Mode each time I boot

Are you really?

Sometimes, the real problem isn't that you can't boot; it's that you can't shut down completely.

If you can shut down completely, try (1) then (2).

1) Option boot: Start up with the Option key held down and select your startup disk.

Yes, I can shutdown completely.

When I boot while holding option, a circle with a line comes up. Eventually it turns into an Apple, then it boots into Recovery Mode.

OK, onto studying the rest of your reply.

[Babz]

<<3) If the real problem isn't that you can't boot but that you can't shut down completely.?>>

Before I do anything, I want to be sure you understand the situation:

I CAN boot. And I CAN shutdown.

The problem is that when it boots, it's as if I'm holding down Command R. It will ONLY boot into recovery mode.

From there I have the standard 4 options, including Disk Utility. And as I said, running Disk First Aid says the disk is APFS and OK.

[Babz]

<<From there, you can reinstall the OS — it will go to the Apple servers, download and reinstall. >>

Yes, I have the macOS Utilities screen that you get when you boot into Recovery Mode.

The problem with the "Reinstall macOS" option is that it will only install the version that came with the computer (probably something really old like Mountain Lion). Or so I'm told. I was also told that you can boot holding Command Option-R and if you choose "Reinstall macOS" under that recovery screen, it will install the latest macOS, which would be Catalina -- which I definitely don't want.

I need High Sierra.

[Babz]

As far as I can tell, the Mac is only seeing the Recovery partition of the drive at start up. It doesn't see the main volume (Macintosh HD) as bootable. And when I start up whilst holding Option, with my FW clone drive plugged in, it shows up, and the Recovery partition of the internal drive shows up, but not the main Macintosh HD partition. Then when I chose the FW drive as start up, and it booted, the Macintosh HD didn't appear on the desktop and was not visible in Disk Utility (only the parent drive of it). But when I quit out of it and restart and it boots into Recovery again, it IS visible to Disk Utility , and when I run Disk First Aid, it checks out as OK.

Is there a way to reinstall High Sierra on this drive, while leaving the rest of the contents untouched?

[Babz]

The problem with the "Reinstall macOS" option is that it will only install the version that came with the computer (probably something really old like Mountain Lion). Or so I'm told.

It seems what I was told was incorrect. I just tried Reinstall macOS from the Mac Utilities recovery screen, and it offered up macOS High Sierra (YES, thank gawd!) as the OS to reinstall, NOT the version that came w/ the Mac. So I'm reinstalling it now. I am not optimistic it will solve my problem, though, because I think my problem is something with the "preBoot" or some such that is preventing the disk from being able to be "blessed" as a startup volume. But, fingers crossed..

[Babz]

It installed High Sierra, but then at the end it gave the error message,
Could not create a preboot volume for APFS install".

Arrrrghhh!!!

[Babz]

So, just in case anybody cares... Upon further research... It seems that it is when you are booted into Internet Recovery mode (Command-Option-R) and you do "Reinstall macOS" that it will install the original version that came with your Mac.

[Babz]

This drive is toast. I've given up on trying to repair it or get it to boot correctly.

However, the main thing to know is:
This was all done as part of a two-fold goal for this 2012 Mac Mini, which is the ultimate aim:

1. Upgrade from El Cap to High Sierra
2. Swap internal HDD for new SSD.

Here is the current situation:

- Internal drive is dead, but before any of this happened, I made a clone of it to a FW800 drive of it using SuperDuper.

Here is what I have to work with:

- F800 drive w/ clone of my system. It contains El Cap OS + about 500 GB of apps and data.

- Two brand new SSDs

- Two USB 3 enclosures

- A separate computer, a 2014-ish MBP with High Sierra on it.

My goal is to install one of the SSDs in the Mac Mini, get High Sierra on it, and get all my 500GB of apps and data on it.

There are a number of different ways to do this. I need to figure out which is the best.
Best means, fastest, most reliable/secure, least amount of re-authorizing DP and dozens of apps and plugins -- the best balance of all these considerations.



OPTION 1:

1. Put one of the SSDs in USB enclosure and connect it + the cloned El Cap FW800 drive to the MBP.
2. Use SuperDuper to clone the FW800 drive (a clone of my old El Cap system) to the SSD.
This would mean cloning from FW800 to USB (the MBP's buses are the host for the transfer).
3. Take the SSD out of the enclosure, put it in the Mac Mini, then upgrade it to High Sierra.


OPTION 2:

1. Somehow get High Sierra installed on one of the SSDs in a USB enclosure. Not quite sure how to do this.
2. Use Migration Assistant to migrate the 500 GB of data from the clone FW800 drive to the SSD. (Never used Migration Assistant before. Not sure how to use it or how reliable it is, esp w/ copy-protected music apps).
3. Install the SSD in the Mac Mini.

OPTION 3:

1. Take the clone drive out of the FW800 case and install it in the Mac Mini.
2. Clone the clone to an SSD connected via a USB3 enclosure.
3. Open up the Mac Mini again and swap the HDD for the SSD.
4. With the SSD now the internal drive containing a clone of my working El Cap + apps/data system, upgrade it to High Sierra.

What's my best course of action?

Any advice? Any other ideas? What would you do?

[HCMarkus]

Hi Babs. Just perusing your post (and figuring Mike will chime in with The One True Best Way) I'm wondering if you might not want to move all the way to Mojave while you are at it. I found this thread at MacRumors discussing Mojave on Late 2012 Mini...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mo ... 12.2144448

I have found Mojave to work really well with DP.

Although you can go all the way to Catalina with your machine, the 64-bit-only limitation of this still relatively new version of macOS suggests now may not be the best time to move to the island.

[Babz]

Hi Babs. Just perusing your post (and figuring Mike will chime in with The One True Best Way) I'm wondering if you might not want to move all the way to Mojave while you are at it. .

Thanks, HC. Trying to sort out HS vs Mojave or ANY extra consideration is too much to try to get up to speed on, on top of all the other technical issues I’m dealing with, and have spent the last several days trying to cram-learn into my brain.

At this point, I’m leaning towards OPTION 1, simply because I’ve used SuperDuper before and have the most knowledge and experience in the exact steps involved.

It may not end up being the best option, and I may end up having to do it all over again using an OPTION 2 type of approach.

[Babz]

UPDATE:

Just as I was about to start down the path of OPTION 1, I decided to give recovering the internal drive one more try. I tried things that I had already tried before, including a "diskutil apfs updatePreboot" terminal command that had failed in the past, but this time it took!

So it was a combination of things, all of which had been tried already, but doing them in the right order (I think the magic sequence was: Reinstall OS, run Disk First Aid, updatePreboot terminal command)... After this I was able to select Macintosh HD as the Startup disk. (Previously it would not allow.)

ANYWAY, I'm now back! I've recovered my internal rotational drive with APFS, running High Sierra and all my 500GB of data!

Now I still need to figure out the best way to transfer everything to my SSD and install that in the Mini, but at least I can catch my breath for a moment!


Moral of the this chapter of the story, for those super nerds that might care enough to have followed this saga this far..

You CAN update a rotational startup drive to APFS non-destructively, but apparently sometimes it can fail to update the preboot correctly. So I would advise against it.

[Babz]

UPDATE 2:

It seems I popped the champagne corks too soon..

I did get out of recovery mode and was able to boot normally and everything seemed fixed. But then when I went to restart, it now takes 15 minutes for the progress bar and then just hangs at the end.



All I can say is, avoid APFS on rotational drives.

“Oh mother tell your children
Not to do-ooo what I have done..’