Dual boot macOS High Sierra

[Lunder89]

Hi there, hoping someone might know.

I have an iMac running macOS Sierra. I have tested it with the GM release of High Sierra, and found that most of my games got screwed up. I rolled the hole thing back with Time Machine.

I would like to do another attempt, but this time, without actually upgrading my system fully. Also so I can do tests, participate in support inquiries, and just reboot my Mac to Sierra, where things work.
Can I dual boot macOS High Sierra, and the once I have tested what I need, delete the partition it is installed on from macOS Sierra?

If any one has some knowledge or experience with this, I would like to hear from you. Otherwise I will update this thread once I have found out, I have next off, so plenty of time to work things out.

Glenn

 

[Partron22]

I run High Sierra from an external spinner HD now.
I can dual boot, but all drives are still HFS+
I don't think it'd like being on a partition with an earlier OS, as High Sierra likes to reformat drives to apfs.
The earlier systems of course, won't recognize apfs.
My usual startup is an external SSD, and I'd worry about letting High Sierra anywhere near it. The process sounds irreversible, without a total reinstall.
Whatever you do, make bootable backups.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Can I dual boot macOS High Sierra, and the once I have tested what I need, delete the partition it is installed on from macOS Sierra?
If any one has some knowledge or experience with this, I would like to hear from you."

I have extensive experience booting and running the Mac OS from external drives. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now. (I've been booting and running my Mac Mini for nearly 5 years this way)

There's no reason you couldn't set up a volume with High Sierra so that it would serve as your "alternate boot volume". I currently have about 6 of those sitting on the desk right now.

BUT...
I would advise you to do this using a SEPARATE EXTERNAL DISK DRIVE.
It could be either a platter-based hard drive, or an SSD.
It could be connected any way you wish -- USB3, USB2, firewire800 or 400, thunderbolt.
It could even be a USB flashdrive of sufficient capacity.

But again, if you set High Sierra up on a separate drive, things will just go better.
Particularly if you wish to try APFS.
Just too many things that could go wrong if you try to partition and install (especially if you want APFS).

I also recommend that for the purposes of installing High Sierra (or ANY other version of the Mac OS), that you create a BOOTABLE USB flash drive with the installer on it.

This can be EASILY done using a flash drive that's 16gb or greater and one of the following free utilities:
- Boot Buddy
- Install Disk Creator
- DiskMaker X

Personal experience with High Sierra:
I have it installed on an -old- LaCie firewire800 drive that someone gave me.
The boot time is slow, loading a large app is a little slow, but once running the OS is modestly "fast enough" for usage.
I -DID NOT- try to use APFS; I stuck with HFS+. I recommend that you do the same.

The installation went smoothly (though a little slowly) using a bootable USB flashdrive as I mentioned above.

I don't use HS "as my main OS". It's just for experimentation, and I may never move this 2012 Mini "up to it". But it does run ok for me at this point.

 

[Lunder89]

Thanks for the replys so far.
I don't have a spare external drive at the moment. At least not one that I can empty any where.

As I understand with the final release of macOS High Sierra, it installs as HFS+ on classic harddrives, and APFS on SSD's.
The purpose was to test my games (that failed to work under the GM), to see if they were working better on the final release, and now that the game developers have had some time to patch their games.

 

[Partron22]

I don't have a spare external drive at the moment.

Put one on your Solstice (or whatever) wish list.
I've got caddies and 10 or 12 TB worth of cheap TB inserts.
It lets you do things without having to worry that something irreversibly horrid might happen.
On the basis of what I've seen, I'm not going High Sierra for at least a couple 0.1 updates.
What we have now looks a lot like beta software.

 

[prisstratton]

Yes, you can dual boot High Sierra with your existing installation. I recently tested the High Sierra beta’s on my MBP (see my sig.) in their own APFS partition alongside my main Mavericks installation. I created the partition in Mavericks, then just pointed the High Sierra install at it.

Once High Sierra was officially released I upgraded my Mavericks installation. When that was up and running I used Disk Utility to erase the testing partition and then reclaim the used space.

The only issue I see you having with this, is that your Disk Utility in Sierra (HFS+) cannot manipulate the APFS partition, so you could do all the testing you wanted, but you would not be able to reclaim the space afterwards (at least not easily).

Whenever it comes to any type of testing make sure that you have multiple backups using multiple methods. I always have 2 x Time Machine destinations on my network, plus 2 x bootable Carbon Copy Clones.

 

[SigEp265]

Another option could be to use Parallels if you already have it.

 

[Partron22]

I recently tested the High Sierra beta’s on my MBP (see my sig.) in their own APFS partition alongside my main Mavericks installation.

So HS reformats its SSD partition as APFS. It does not format the SSD drive as APFS.
I'd have like to have heard that bit of info from Apple a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Lunder89]

Ended up just installing macOS High Sierra on top of Sierra (Or upgrading if you will). And turns out all my games work flawlessly...?

As I understand, the GM is the version released to the public?
So either I wasn't running the GM, or they changed something.

But thanks to all of you, who took time to write a suggestion, and attempt to answer my questions.

 

[Fastrip66]

I run High Sierra from an external spinner HD now.
I can dual boot, but all drives are still HFS+
I don't think it'd like being on a partition with an earlier OS, as High Sierra likes to reformat drives to apfs.
The earlier systems of course, won't recognize apfs.
My usual startup is an external SSD, and I'd worry about letting High Sierra anywhere near it. The process sounds irreversible, without a total reinstall.
Whatever you do, make bootable backups.

Hey there, just curious why you run so much fro external, especially spinners? You can create partitions etc. I run High Sierra, ElCapitan and Ubuntu all from 2 internals. both 500GB SSD. one is partitioned and one is not but I removed the dvd for a second HD kit, who used db=vd drives anymore anyways lol....just curious because there's much faster ways that'll take a LOT of waiting on your part out of the equation when working and playing/tinkering etc.

Fas

 

[Partron22]

Hey there, just curious why you run so much fro external, especially spinners?

1) I've got a dozen or so 1TB+ spinners. Many are used for backup, but that leaves several free for experimenting. If just testing, I don't mind a slow boot.
2) I don't think it's worthwhile buying 20TB worth of SSD's to fix what is really a minor issue.
3) 500GB is about the minimum I'd consider using for a boot disk, and I do not like the things partitioned three ways from Friday.

 

[Fastrip66]

1) I've got a dozen or so 1TB+ spinners. Many are used for backup, but that leaves several free for experimenting. If just testing, I don't mind a slow boot.
2) I don't think it's worthwhile buying 20TB worth of SSD's to fix what is really a minor issue.
3) 500GB is about the minimum I'd consider using for a boot disk, and I do not like the things partitioned three ways from Friday.

well I would hope you don't have 20 terabytes worth of crap to begin with LOL but there is actually no harm in partitioning a hard drive for dual boot purposes whatsoever and the speed increase as well worth it over running an OS off of USB connection and a spinner hard drive God that must suck

 

[Partron22]

Don't want APFS anywhere near my SSD boot drive.
Don't care to buy another SSD just for test purposes.
Doesn't suck at all really. All the Systems I routinely boot off are SSD.
Spinners are for backups and seldom used data. They give Far more bang for the buck.

 

[Fastrip66]

Don't want APFS anywhere near my SSD boot drive.
Don't care to buy another SSD just for test purposes.
Doesn't suck at all really. All the Systems I routinely boot off are SSD.
Spinners are for backups and seldom used data. They give Far more bang for the buck.

Oh, I thought you were saying that most of your os's are running off of spinners connected via USB not SSD so maybe I misunderstood you but yes if an operating system is on SSD and connected with a satta to USB connector or in an external case or something then yes that would work pretty fast and in fact would be faster than booting from a normal spinner even if it was internal but yes I do agree Spinners are used for backup pretty much only anymore I would never put an operating system on one because the speed is horrendous once you've used and SSD for the same thing