Big Sur fresh install from USB...but which source?

[antmit]

Apologies if this has already been discussed here or elsewhere (I did try to search but couldn’t find the issue), but after having upgraded existing installations on my 2018 MBP since the start, I experienced some strange issues and thought this would be as good a time as any to just wipe everything and start from scratch.

I created a bootable USB with the installer on it, and I am currently installing BS beta 4 on a clean HD. My only issue is that I don’t have super fast internet, and I thought that at least the 9gb installer would mean that it would install from the bootable drive. Instead, and although it’s going down periodically over the amount the gap in time would otherwise take up, I’m still looking at over 9hrs currently to install.

I did read an obscure site recently that said even if you have a local installer source, it’s still going to download a fresh copy from the net. Is this true, and if so, other than the obvious “no better source than Apple’s servers” argument, doesn’t this essentially make a bootable USB installer pointless? I realise you can start Internet Recovery and download it this way, but what about for machines that don’t have access to the internet at that time, or who have slow connections?

Failing all the above, is it just that something weird’s happening at Apple and there’s another factor affecting the speed of the reinstall action?

Thanks

 

[SketchyClown]

After you made your USB installer, did you reboot the MBP and hold down only the Option key & select the USB installer to boot from, or did you boot into the Recovery partition using one of the 3 reinstallation key combinations?

 

[LuisN]

Apologies if this has already been discussed here or elsewhere (I did try to search but couldn’t find the issue), but after having upgraded existing installations on my 2018 MBP since the start, I experienced some strange issues and thought this would be as good a time as any to just wipe everything and start from scratch.

I created a bootable USB with the installer on it, and I am currently installing BS beta 4 on a clean HD. My only issue is that I don’t have super fast internet, and I thought that at least the 9gb installer would mean that it would install from the bootable drive. Instead, and although it’s going down periodically over the amount the gap in time would otherwise take up, I’m still looking at over 9hrs currently to install.

I did read an obscure site recently that said even if you have a local installer source, it’s still going to download a fresh copy from the net. Is this true, and if so, other than the obvious “no better source than Apple’s servers” argument, doesn’t this essentially make a bootable USB installer pointless? I realise you can start Internet Recovery and download it this way, but what about for machines that don’t have access to the internet at that time, or who have slow connections?

Failing all the above, is it just that something weird’s happening at Apple and there’s another factor affecting the speed of the reinstall action?

Thanks

Using the usb installer does NOT require internet connection

 

[SketchyClown]

Using the usb installer does NOT require internet connection

I am not sold on this.

As did the OP, I attempted installation of Big Sur public beta yesterday, doing a clean, offline install from scratch with a USB installer. The installer failed 4 times in a row in the exact same place. I forget the exact error it gave, was kinda cryptic, but it was a real head scratcher as to what was causing it and it wasn't even very far into the installation process. I noticed it seemed very sluggish before the failure, often stalled, but I chalked that up to "beta".

So after attempt #4, I just thought I would try it with the WiFi connected. Once I rebooted into the installer, I connected to the net.

All of a sudden the installation sprang to life. Parts that were sluggish and stalling before just breezed by. I would say that it took no longer than a normal macOS installation to complete, and it did without any errors or hiccups.

So in my personal experience, the public beta I have, will not complete installation without an internet connection.

 

[antmit]

After you made your USB installer, did you reboot the MBP and hold down only the Option key & select the USB installer to boot from, or did you boot into the Recovery partition using one of the 3 reinstallation key combinations?

Yes, I pressed Option. I was still no further forward as it just kept going up and up and up. So I though sod it, I’ll try later and cancelled it. After that I rebooted, holding Option, I choose Install Mac OS Beta, I got the spinning globe asking for a wifi connection, waited apparently 10min (more like 15 cos it hangs on different numbers a lot), and then I got a -1008F error. Rinse and repeat.

In the end I realised that also, somehow, there was no longer an available drive to install anything on. Despite erasing the old installation data and seeing it re-mounted as fresh, unused space, something along the line had seemingly removed it again. Once I was able to get to the point of installing Catalina through Internet recovery (not sure how I got there when before it wouldn’t work), I was able to reformat the SSD, install Catalina and then re-upgrade using the USB I’d initially made. I did have to deactivate the activation lock though, and maybe I inadvertently erased it from iCloud? Anyway, and weirdly, despite being on beta 4 at the time, that USB only had beta 1 on it. This meant once I had installed it, I had to re-download Beta 4!

Kinda wish I’d just left everything as it was, but the important thing is that I’m now where I wanted to be: clean install of beta 4.

Thanks for the input, everyone. With regard to the above comment about not needing the internet, I too agree with @SketchyClown, because it absolutely wouldn’t let me do anything without the connection...