Clean Installation macOS High Sierra shows "Prohibitory Symbol"

[deeprathod]

Hello AWESOME PEOPLE !!

I have recently purchased a SSD (Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E250BW) ) I followed following steps in order to do the clean installation:

Step 1:
Terminal > "diskutil erasedisk hfs+ External GPT /dev/disk2"

Step 2: (Plugged a 16GB USB and

Tried creating bootable with - Terminal using command and also tried with "Disk Creator".

Step 3:

Restart the mac > Hold the Option Button > Selected the 16GB Drive and Selected the option of installation on the new SSD.

As soon as the installation completes, it shows me a "Prohibitory Symbol" tried for almost 4 times, each time i have to wait for 8 hours 40 minutes. I am using 16GB Drive which is 3.0.

Don't want to try Carbon Copy Cloner as it has got lot of bad sectors in the old drive.

Thank
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00OAJ412U/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

 

[organicCPU]

Is your Mac supported to run High Sierra?

If yes, is step 1 formatting the empty Samsung 850 EVO?
Won't you see the drive if you select "Disk Utility" in step 3 before you proceed with installation?
If the drive shows up, format it again with "Disk Utility" before installation.

If the drive doesn't show up, then try using a journaled HFS+ filesystem.
Make sure that it is disk2 you want to erase and give it the name 'External'.

diskutil list

(!!!All data on disk2 will be lost!!!-> use with caution):

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ External GPT /dev/disk2

To make an installer USB thumb drive you could also try DiskMaker X.

 

[deeprathod]

Is your Mac supported to run High Sierra?

If yes, is step 1 formatting the empty Samsung 850 EVO?
Won't you see the drive if you select "Disk Utility" in step 3 before you proceed with installation?
If the drive shows up, format it again with "Disk Utility" before installation.

If the drive doesn't show up, then try using a journaled HFS+ filesystem.
Make sure that it is disk2 you want to erase and give it the name 'External'.

diskutil list

(!!!All data on disk2 will be lost!!!-> use with caution):

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ External GPT /dev/disk2

To make an installer USB thumb drive you could also try DiskMaker X.

Thank you for the reply. Yes. My Mac is supporting high Sierra, (Model: 2012, MD101)

Yes, a brand new, which was not having GUID Partition, initially for which i used step 1.

Yes i can see the drive in the 3rd steps, and the entire installation takes upto 8 hours 40 minutes however at the end when it completes and restarts the macbook, it shows me "Prohibitory Symbol"

I created installer USB thumb drive using DiskMakerX and also tried with Terminal.

 

[organicCPU]

If the drive shows up, format it again with "Disk Utility" (should be in the menu, when mounting the USB installer) before installation. That way it will be JHFS+, not just HFS+.

 

[deeprathod]

If the drive shows up, format it again with "Disk Utility" (should be in the menu, when mounting the USB installer) before installation. That way it will be JHFS+, not just HFS+.

Even tried with that. still no luck. I have tried installing for 4 times in multiple ways.

 

[organicCPU]

There are two possibilities:
1.) the installer drive is causing the problems
2.) the SSD is causing the problems

To track the issue down:
1.) I assume, you downloaded the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" from the Mac App Store.
If you click the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" in your Applications folder and press Command + I, how large is the size of the installer?

Edit: My question is targeting the case where the full installer can not be downloaded.

PS, if you follow the Apple advice from this page, then making an install via macOS recovery (Command+Option+R for internet recovery) is the best way to get your system up and running again and say the prohibitory symbol good-bye. I know that this won't be a solution for the clean install with an USB installer.

 

[deeprathod]

There are two possibilities:
1.) the installer drive is causing the problems
2.) the SSD is causing the problems

To track the issue down:
1.) I assume, you downloaded the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" from the Mac App Store.
If you click the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" in your Applications folder and press Command + I, how large is the size of the installer?

Edit: My question is targeting the case where the full installer can not be downloaded.

PS, if you follow the Apple advice from this page, then making an install via macOS recovery (Command+Option+R for internet recovery) is the best way to get your system up and running again and say the prohibitory symbol good-bye. I know that this won't be a solution for the clean install with an USB installer.

Yes absolutely Correct, i downloaded "Install macOS High Sierra.app from the app store, it is of the size "5.18 GB on disk"

 

[organicCPU]

1.) Although I guess that the installer drive itself is valid, because it's booting and starting correctly with the installation process, we can continue to check if the downloaded installer app itself isn't broken by verifying its checksum:

shasum /Applications/Install*OS*.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

If the installer app is o.k., the output should be: d815748c242fbbe35754a8f37aea1cfbc7e919f6
You can read more on this here

If you do have another external USB HDD at hand, you could try to install from the USB flash drive on that external HDD.
If it works, at least the installer thumb drive is verified, if it doesn't, try preparing a different installer flash drive.
By successfully installing on a different HDD, we can concentrate on the SSD. I would not wonder, if it's broken, even if it's a brand new one. That it takes 8+ hours to install on a SSD is more than suspicious.

EDIT: Regardless of the checksum, there are users complaining, that there were broken installer app downloads out there.

 

[deeprathod]

1.) Although I guess that the installer drive itself is valid, because it's booting and starting correctly with the installation process, we can continue to check if the downloaded installer app itself isn't broken by verifying its checksum:

shasum /Applications/Install*OS*.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

If the installer app is o.k., the output should be: d815748c242fbbe35754a8f37aea1cfbc7e919f6
You can read more on this here

If you do have another external USB HDD at hand, you could try to install from the USB flash drive on that external HDD.
If it works, at least the installer thumb drive is verified, if it doesn't, try preparing a different installer flash drive.
By successfully installing on a different HDD, we can concentrate on the SSD. I would not wonder, if it's broken, even if it's a brand new one. That it takes 8+ hours to install on a SSD is more than suspicious.

EDIT: Regardless of the checksum, there are users complaining, that there were broken installer app downloads out there.

Thanks for the inputs, i am really very grateful for your help. I checked with the checksum: its :
e78e5f58fa3eeecf8638067902772ce814d1a89d, its not matching up with the values which you have shared.

 

[deeprathod]

@organicCPU I now tried again by the method you suggested. I downloaded the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" and now its of 5.2 GB and used "Disk MakerX" to make the pendrive bootable, this time it took around 1 hour for the complete installation. (During Installing, the mail drive with the previous OS was already plugged INN and the SSD was connected via USB.) Everything worked perfectly.

I tried with restarting the macbook. It was working FAST and FLAWLESS.

Once everything was done, so i thought to now change the Internal Hard Drive with the SSD, so as soon as i changed. I again showed me "Prohibitory Symbol" and it look lot of time to even get into the login screen.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I can't remember the exact details now, but I had something similar when I installed High Sierra on a Samsung SSD with my Mac Pro. The same symbol popped up and there was a long delay before it progressed to the recovery drive, allowing me to install it properly as a clean install.

EDIT: I now recall that I had to run disk utility inside the recovery drive at this stage and that had been impossible previously, so something was clearly wrong.

 

[organicCPU]

Do you mean that the Samsung 850 EVO SSD can boot High Sierra while connected externally via USB, but shows the "Prohibitory Symbol" when attached internally?

If that's the case, you can first try to boot in Safe Mode (press and hold Shift while restarting until boot screen appears). If Safe Mode is booting, just restart and see if the Mac is booting regularly.

If Safe Mode doesn't work, try to reset NVRAM (press Option + Command + P + R for about 20 seconds during restart)
If that still fails, try resetting the SMC: 1. Shut down Mac, 2. press Shift + Control + Option on the left side of the internal keyboard, then press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, 3. release all keys and start up normally (press power)

 

[deeprathod]

Do you mean that the Samsung 850 EVO SSD can boot High Sierra while connected externally via USB, but shows the "Prohibitory Symbol" when attached internally?

If that's the case, you can first try to boot in Safe Mode (press and hold Shift while restarting until boot screen appears). If Safe Mode is booting, just restart and see if the Mac is booting regularly.

If Safe Mode doesn't work, try to reset NVRAM (press Option + Command + P + R for about 20 seconds during restart)
If that still fails, try resetting the SMC: 1. Shut down Mac, 2. press Shift + Control + Option on the left side of the internal keyboard, then press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, 3. release all keys and start up normally (press power)

Yes. Absolutely Correct.

- Boot in safe mode: Same Results. No change.
- Reset NVRAM - Same Results. No Change.
- resetting the SMC - Same Results. No Change.

Attached Image for the reference.
[doublepost=1509717309][/doublepost]I just found something here (Click here). It says, that in order to work high sierra properly, the SSD needs to be AFPS.

I am confused currently, should i go ahead and format my SSD with AFPS and then again make it bootable to install High Sierra ? ( I feel i have no option left, apart from trying this)

What do you suggest @organicCPU ?

 

[organicCPU]

Can you boot to recovery partition of the EVO (Command + R)?

If yes, you can start Disk Utility and run First Aid. From Disk Utility you can also follow the advice of the article you linked to and convert the drive to APFS.

If no, boot from your installer thumb drive, run disk utility from there and run First Aid and the convert procedure on the internal SSD (just the boot partition, not the parent).

EDIT: I thought that every internal SSD would get converted automatically during installation, but that would explain that it didn't convert automatically while attached externally during installation.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Can you boot to recovery partition of the EVO (Command + R)?

I didn't note what sort of computer the OP was using, but in my case I was only able to access the recovery drive using a wired keyboard and mouse for some strange reason when this happened.

 

[organicCPU]

what sort of computer the OP was using

A mid 2012 13" MacBookPro9,2, so internal keyboard is there.

EDIT: For startup keys a wired and also compatible keyboard has always been necessary. I remember that even wired keyboards from some preceding or successive models didn't always work.

 

[deeprathod]

Can you boot to recovery partition of the EVO (Command + R)?

If yes, you can start Disk Utility and run First Aid. From Disk Utility you can also follow the advice of the article you linked to and convert the drive to APFS.

If no, boot from your installer thumb drive, run disk utility from there and run First Aid and the convert procedure on the internal SSD (just the boot partition, not the parent).

EDIT: I thought that every internal SSD would get converted automatically during installation, but that would explain that it didn't convert automatically while attached externally during installation.

I tried with thumb drive and was able to reach till Disk Utility. There was no boot partition in it, it was just a parent. Is it something wrong ?

Edit: There was no boot drive. I checked with the normal hard disk too, it doesn't have any boot partition.

 

[organicCPU]

With boot drive I just mean the internal EVO SSD. In disk utility it should be like a folder inside a folder, just with drives. "Parent folder" Samsung 850 EVO and inside the "folder" Macintosh HD or whatever the drive's name is. Do the First Aid on the parent folder and the Edit > Convert to APFS on the Macintosh HD.

 

[deeprathod]

With boot drive I just mean the internal EVO SSD. In disk utility it should be like a folder inside a folder, just with drives. "Parent folder" Samsung 850 EVO and inside the "folder" Macintosh HD or whatever the drive's name is. Do the First Aid on the parent folder and the Edit > Convert to APFS on the Macintosh HD.

Exactly i am trying, no option. Please find attached image.
[doublepost=1509723809][/doublepost]@organicCPU A more better screenshot.

 

[organicCPU]

Can't you select in the Menu Bar on top of the screen the menu 'Edit' and in there 'Convert to APFS' ?

 

[deeprathod]

Can't you select in the Menu Bar on top of the screen the menu 'Edit' and in there 'Convert to APFS' ?

No. The option is disable. Attached file for reference.

 

[organicCPU]

All right, I see. The drive is HFS+ (Journaled), but should be APFS. I don't know why it's greyed out there.

Maybe it's best to do a clean install just over your current install in the hope that it will handle the conversion to APFS automatically, because the drive is now internally attached.

If you want to try this, quit Disk Utility and choose Reinstall macOS. I think it's not necessary to reformat the SSD, but if this try should fail, then that's another option.

 

[ashleykaryl]

EDIT: For startup keys a wired and also compatible keyboard has always been necessary. I remember that even wired keyboards from some preceding or successive models didn't always work.

I didn't have a problem booting into recovery using Sierra with the new magic wireless keyboard. With the old original keyboard it didn't work.

 

[organicCPU]

I didn't have a problem booting into recovery using Sierra with the new magic wireless keyboard.

Interesting! Do you know, if more complex shortcuts like PRAM reset can be done wireless with it, too?

 

[deeprathod]

Wooh !! Still no luck.

I tried reinstalling, no luck. Again tried to do the clean install. Now when i am doing the clean install it say's 8 hours. The same clean install via USB in the morning hardly took 45 Minutes.

I don't know what is happening.