Install OS X High Sierra without converting to APFS file system

install-osx-high-sierra-command-line.sh

# create a USB installer
# https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201372

Download the OS X High Sierra installer via the App Store, it will be installed into the /Applications directory
If it opens automatically, close it
Insert a USB stick (8GB+)
Run the following command where MyVolume is the name of the USB volume:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

# boot the USB installer

Boot the computer holding the Option key
Select the USB installer as the startup disk

# from the menu, select Utilities > Terminal
# install without APFS (optional)
# use the installpackage parameter to install an extra .pkg (optional)

/Volumes/Image\ Volume\Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall \
  --volume /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/ \
  --converttoapfs NO \
  --applicationpath /Volumes/Image\ Volume\Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app \
  --agreetolicense \
  --installpackage extra-package.pkg
  

I tend to mess up on the startosinstall part too. 🤫
Now that I have native Wi-Fi in the Hackintosh,
I can copy and paste the instructions to the Terminal.

Tried this exactly as written and nothing happened... then checked for processes running and it came back with

/Volumes/Image VolumeInstall macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/starttoinstall: No such file or directory

Any advice?

@emattbranch

Is your boot drive called "Macintosh HD" and did you download HS from the App Store? If you download from somewhere else, the path would be wrong (it's in downloads folder) so copy the app to Applications, verify the boot drive name and try again. You may need to use the release date workaround if you have a old copy of HS as the certs would be expired in 2020.

If updating from Sierra or one that supports a straight upgrade, do it manually in the Terminal.

Thanks for replying! I’m not much of a github user so I was worried this was an incorrect use of commenting on here.

I have an old MacBook Air that someone tried to install the latest os on. Now it will not go past the login screen at all. I’ve been trying to research this for months, it’s completely new territory for me to be using the terminal and whatnot, but otherwise the laptop will end up being thrown out which I think is a shame.

I downloaded the full High Sierra following a different tutorial, and created a USB installer. Then powered on with option key, chose the usb install, went to terminal and typed in everything exactly as written here (except for the extra package parameter). I’ll check out the release date workaround and look into the boot drive name. Thanks

Ah! Now I understand. You're basically in "Recovery" from the Pen Drive.

I would hope your MBA supports Internet Recovery. I think it was ALT during start up then Command+R to get it started. You will need to be connected to WiFi or USB-C to Ethernet. That should get you back then use Time Machine and restore.

I would personally not throw it away. Someone on eBay will bound to want it now that everyone is working partially from home. I got in a MBP6,2 that only supported to HS and have Catalina in it and MBP9,2 that supports Catalina running Big Sur for a good deal as people are selling to upgrade. The only this is, WiFi isn't natively supported in Big Sur so I have to use Ethernet for and switch to Catalina when I am in the go. After it out for 6 months, I can see who is selling USB Wi-Fi that's compatible or buy an internal card that was pulled from a support system that is selling as the MBP is out of AppleCare and too much to fix.

Good luck.

Tried this exactly as written and nothing happened... then checked for processes running and it came back with

/Volumes/Image VolumeInstall macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/starttoinstall: No such file or directory

Any advice?

Check if the path is correct. You can do this before you boot into the UBS installer, just have it plugged in during an OSX session. From the terminal use the ls command:

• ls /Volumes/Image\ Volume\Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall

You should see some details about the file, or an error if it isn't found. When you use ls you can press Tab to auto complete, perhaps your path is slightly different?

Whenever I run this I always get a list of arguments returned, but nothing seems to actually run. Could you help

This is what I get:
Usage: startosinstall Arguments --license, prints the user license agreement only. --agreetolicense, agree to the license you printed with --license. --rebootdelay, how long to delay the reboot at the end of preparing. This delay is in seconds and has a maximum of 300 (5 minutes). --pidtosignal, Specify a PID to which to send SIGUSR1 upon completion of the prepare phase. To bypass "rebootdelay" send SIGUSR1 back to startosinstall. --installpackage, the path of a package (built with productbuild(1)) to install after the OS installation is complete; this option can be specified multiple times. --eraseinstall, (Requires APFS) Erase all volumes and install to a new one. Optionally specify the name of the new volume with --newvolumename. --newvolumename, the name of the volume to be created with --eraseinstall. --preservecontainer, preserves other volumes in your APFS container when using --eraseinstall. --forcequitapps, on restart applications are forcefully quit. This is the default if no users are logged in. --usage, prints this message.

I haven't used this command in a long time, what's the exact command that you run? Are the paths OK on your machine?

I've been running this:

/Volumes/Install\ macOS\ Catalina/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall \
--volume /Volumes/Untitled \
--applicationpath /Volumes/Install\ macOS\ Catalina/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app \
--agreetolicense \

and the result it gives me is this:
WARNING: "--applicationpath" is deprecated in macOS 10.14 and greater. Please remove it from your invocation. startosinstall: An extraneous argument was specified with option 'agreetolicense' followed by all the code I copied in above.

I have been running the code on an Active MacOS version rather than on MacOS recovery.

Remove the trailing \ after --agreetolicense, the backslash just splits a command across another new line, i.e. the --installpackage line in my example. I'm not sure if that's enough to break it, and I'm not sure about the --applicationpath deprecation warning either sorry, it's been a long time.

I've tried removing both the \ and the --applicationpath but still the code doesn't seem to do anything! Any other tips that might get it working?

Ah I just notice you're installing Catalina, I missed that before. The command I ran was current for installing High Sierra. I don't see documentation about the --volume parameter in your usage message for example. I'm not sure if the --eraseinstall and --newvolumename parameters are equivalent, they might be.

I've just tried the same using High Sierra instead of Catalina and still got the same issue-- the list of arguments were displayed but nothing actually ran!

Does the command still work on your computer? Could you paste a screenshot of you running the command?

Update and thanks for all the support guys

I worked out that SIP is enabled on my Mac by default which disables the --volume option in the startosinstall command. After disabling SIP and now running the command then startosinstall looks like it's working.

The problem I've got now is that my Mac seems to permanently hang on Preparing to run macOS Installer..., but I am one step closer to the solution!

I recall seeing the install log. See this article:

https://scriptingosx.com/2018/02/show-the-installer-log-during-high-sierra-installation/

Thanks @peacefixation.

I've managed to get logs- in the end I used the cp /var/log/install.log ~/Desktop command since I couldn't get the keyboard command working.

I've gone through the logs and have copied the ones that seem to show error below:

2021-02-18 08:31:56+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Failed to load IAMiniSoftwareUpdate.framework. Error: (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Failed to load IABridgeOSInstall.framework: dlopen(/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Frameworks/OSInstallerSetup.framework/Versions/A/Versions/A/Frameworks/IABridgeOSInstall.framework/IABridgeOSInstall, 1): image not found
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Install was requested to a disk that was not evaluated. Blocking on evaluation.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Target is not convertible to APFS: You may not install to this volume because it can not be converted to Apple File System.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Target is not convertible to APFS: You may not install to this volume because it can not be converted to Apple File System.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Disk disk5s2 is not suitable because DMError: -69837
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Target is not convertible to APFS: You may not install to this volume because it can not be converted to Apple File System.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Target is not convertible to APFS: This volume is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Unable to get fs for (null)
2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Operation queue started

Whats slightly strange is the Target is not convertible to APFS: You may not install to this volume because it can not be converted to Apple File System. error message since I made sure that I converted the volume to APFS before running the install. This is then followed by Target is not convertible to APFS: This volume is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).???

I've tried adding —converttoapfs NO to the install command but this doesn't seem to change anything.

I will continue to troubleshoot. Any ideas?

APFS was introduced with High Sierra, maybe it expects Mac OS Extended?

Hmm I did try that, and got this error lol Error: This Mac can only install macOS on APFS-formatted drives.
I think maybe because my system is Big Sur?

The old vicious circle. I'm not sure mate, outside my experience at this point. Try the Ask Different Stack Exchange perhaps. Those guys are pretty smart sometimes.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/

Thanks for all your help @peacefixation, I'll give that a try!

hi, i have 2 SSD´s in my imac 27 2009, on one running High Sierra APFS, on the other one a HFS formated backup of it.

after 10 installations i could finally install HS in HFS, dont ask me how, i forgot :D

BUT when i try to rebuild my system from the timemachine backup (HFS SSD) wich was made under APFS, is AGAIN installs APFS

im getting crazy

"Target is not convertible to APFS: You may not install to this volume because it can not be converted to Apple File System. 2021-02-18 08:31:57+00 MacBook-Pro osinstallersetupd[4322]: Disk disk5s2 is not suitable because DMError: -69837`" ~dangerdave777
I am getting a similar message in my log like this one and I am wondering if you were able to resolve this, and if so, how you managed it?

#jiltedflower ... try to start under safemode and type under terminal

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app --agreetolicense --converttoapfs NO --nointeraction

(in my case)