After failed Big Sur upgrade and manual High Sierra installation, I have two disks : "Update" and "iMac_SSD - Data". How do I fix this?

[jaxx67367346]

Hi guys,

I am coming to you to ask for your help.

I own an iMac (Retina 4k, 21.5-inch, late 2015
Processor 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 1536 MB)

It must be said that 4 years ago, I brought my iMac in a specialised store, where they changed the main drive (which was slow and sometimes unresponsive), to an SSD drive.

Because I am stupid, I’m unable to remember exactly which OS I was running before the problem happened.

Anyhow, basically, at some point, in a rush leaving for work and trying to turn off my computer, I accepted some update: upgrade to Big Sur.

After that, I was unable to restart my computer: it gets stuck at the loading screen (I tried leaving my iMac on for 48 hours, just to make sure it wasn’t the installation that was taking some time). I tried recovery mode (first aid on both the drive, which I think were iMac_SSD and iMac_SSD - Data ; reinstalling big sur) but to no avail.

I created a bootable installer with macOS Catalina. Unfortunately, I was unable to install Catalina (the iMac_SSD wouldn’t appear in the disk I could install Catalina on). I read somewhere that it was because I needed an APFS-compatible OS.

I created a new bootable installer with macOS High Sierra. Which - sort of - worked. I got asked if I wanted to install High Sierra on the disk “Update” or the disk “iMac_SSD - data”.

I chose the "Update"-disk and it installed High Sierra. Now, I see in the finder “iMac - SSD - Data”. I managed to save most of my data from “the iMac_SSD - Data” drive, on an external drive.

Now I am wondering what to do. How do I reset everything and do a fresh install? I feel like the Big Sur upgrade split my disk in two, with this weird “Update” disk, and the other “iMac_SSD - Data”.

If I go in the Disk Utiliy, I see two internal disks:

"Update" (1.05 TB ; "shared by 5 volumes"), which has 11.85 GB used, 703.36 GB other volumes, 337.45 GB Free. Screenshot 1 ; Screenshot 2

"iMac_SSD - Data" (1.05 TB ; "shared by 5 volumes"), which has 681.57 GB used, 33.63 GB other volumes, 337.45 GB Free. Screenshot 1 ; Screenshot 2

Is there anyway to fix everything while keeping my data? If yes, how?

If not, how do I reset everything ?

Many thanks if you can help me, this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum!

You said:

I managed to save most of my data from “the iMac_SSD - Data” drive, on an external drive.

and then said:

Is there anyway to fix everything while keeping my data? If yes, how?

So, is the data on this external drive all of your data you want saved? If so, the easiest fix for the mess is to do an Recovery reinstallation, format the entire SSD and start from scratch, then restore your data from this external drive.

What you have done has messed up the basic structure of the SSD. APFS format requires what Apple calls a Container with two Volumes in it. One contains the operating system components and is normally named "Macintosh HD" but can have any name, the other is "Macintosh HD - Data" where the first part normally matches the name given to the operating system Volume and then has the "Data" added. That Volume has user data on it.

As I said, the best way to fix it is to reformat the entire SSD from Recovery and then reinstall the OS on it, but that action will erase everything on the SSD. Hence the question about the external drive.

 

[jaxx67367346]

Hi there,

Many thanks for your answer. I am currently manually saving (copy/pasting) the data from the "iMac_SSD - Data" to an external drive. It should take a few hours.

However, i often have to type my password to "allow" the copying. I am also unable to navigate the files on the "iMac_SSD - Data". I see that the files are "blocked" (?) on the SSD disk [Screenshot].

Thus, I am wondering how easy/convenient it will be to actually restore the data afterwards. Am I at risk of not being able to recover the data duplicated on the external drive?

That is why I'm wondering if there's a way to avoid such restoration, by keeping the data and reinstalling the OS correctly.

Again, many thanks for your help!

 

[MacInWin]

The challenge is mostly due to macOS security. macOS is based on a derivative of an operating system called linux, in which security is handled by the concept of "User" who has "permissions" on some files and not on others. Technically, no user can open any other user's files. So, a single computer can have multiple users, each with their own login account and each of whom can see their own files, but not the files of any other user of the system. What the "blocked" icon shows is that the account you were logged in was NOT the account that "owned" those folders. Ownership can be changed by an administrator, and access to another user's files/folders can be changed by an administrator of the system. macOS requires at least one account to be an administrator account, which is how I suspect you set up your default account when you first created/reinstalled the system.

However, the username you use to log in is NOT what the system actually uses, so even if you kept the same name for your new account as you had in the old system, the OS knows they are different, hence the "barred" icons on the folders.

OK, that bit was necessary to address your questions:

Thus, I am wondering how easy/convenient it will be to actually restore the data afterwards. Am I at risk of not being able to recover the data duplicated on the external drive?

That is why I'm wondering if there's a way to avoid such restoration, by keeping the data and reinstalling the OS correctly.

From where you are right now, restoring is going to be a pain in the ***. By the mucking about you have already done, you have destroyed the user account that created and owned those folders, which is why you are having to provide a password to copy them. That password is an admin password, which has authority to copy other user's files, but the copy process does not change the owner, so the files/folders on the external are still in that old user name.

In addition, I noted in your screenshot that you have an Applications folder and another folder for "Creative Cloud," which is Adobe. I can't see much more because you are in icon mode in Finder, but just those folders are going to add pain to the process. Some of the applications in the Applications folder may run well if you just copy the folder back into your system after doing a reinstall, but some, probably most, won't the same way, if at all, because of various configuration files and properly lists (plist files), that they may have distributed over the system area of the drive that you have already erased in the various installations. Plus, Adobe is notoriously fickle about changing sytem/owners of their products, to the extent that even with a valid installation DVD, they have refused to register older products and insisted that the user obtain a new license, which now is only based on subscription, not purchase. If you have Microsoft software, Microsoft is similar, although not as draconian as Adobe.

One thing that might make this slightly less painful is if you have a TM backup of the system from BEFORE all the adventure started, i.e., from before the upgrade to Big Sur. If you have that, you can use TM to restore your account to a newly installed system and it will "fix" the ownership problems for you.

Manual copying will work for YOUR files--documents, spreadsheets, etc.--that you kept in Documents, or on your Desktop, but you will have to go through a process to change your access once the new system is installed, you have created a new account and copied the files back manually. Before we talk about how to do that, get back to us with your reaction to this post.

I stick with my suggestion that the best approach is a clean install, where the SSD is totally erased and rebuilt, but tell us about your TM status and thoughts before we talk about how to proceed.

Bottom line: It's not pretty. Can be done, but a real PITA.

 

[jaxx67367346]

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me such a thorough answer. Thank you very much!

Unfortunately, I do not have a time machine back-up.

I'm all ears about what you think my options are, at this point.

Once again, many thanks for your help!

 

[MacInWin]

OK, with no TM backup what you are doing is probably the best you can do. Copy the "Data" Volume as much as you can. Continue to provide the password as it requires it. Once the copy is done, verify that the files are actually there, intact. You can do that by Right Clicking on one of the folders, say the Documents folder with the barred icon, then click on Get Info in the resulting window. At the bottom of the long skinny panel that will open is a lock icon. Click on that and provide an administrator password.

At this point, just above the lock area is a panel called "Sharing and Permissions:" in which you will see a list of names and privileges those accounts have. One will be the owner, with Read & Write privileges. What you want to do now is to add your new account to this list, so click on the "+" below the window and select your new account from the list, then change the privilege for that account to "Read & Write" and then apply that change to all items in the folder by clicking on the circle with three dots and selecting, "Apply to Enclosed items." Now wait for the system to finish changing the permissions for all of those items. Depending on how many there are, it might take a bit. Once it is finished, the barred icon should be gone from the folder, and when you open it, should not appear on any of the enclosed folders or files. If it is there again, repeat the process. What you will have done is to add your new account to the folder with authority to see and change the document, although your new account is still not the "owner" of the file.

OK, that is how you can verify the copy process worked. Once you have everything copied, you can use Apple's Recovery process to reinstall an OS. Here is the article from Apple:

How to start up from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

macOS Recovery is your computer’s built-in recovery system, with utilities to reinstall macOS, repair or erase your startup disk, restore from a Time Machine backup, and more.

support.apple.com

Read the entire article before starting, maybe even have it open on a separate machine, or print it off before you start.

You said you have a bootable USB drive with HS on it. If that is the system you want, you can just boot from that and open the Recovery panel. (The panel with four items--Restore from Time Machine, Reinstall macOS, Safari and Disk Utility.) If HS is not what you want, and if you follow the article from Apple, it should offer the newest version of macOS your hardware supports. How you proceed is up to you at that point.

Once the Recovery panel opens use Disk Utility to format the SSD. Start at the hardware level, choose the SSD in Disk Utlity and Erase it. (If the hardware doesn't show in Disk Utility, click on the "View" button on the top bar of DU and select "Show all devices." The hardware should then appear in the sidebar. What format you choose depends on what you can reinstall. As I said, the default from Apple online will be Monterey, or the latest your system can accept, but it may also offer to install the system that came with the machine. If you boot from the bootable HS installer, it will offer HS. If you want HS, I would start with formatting the SSD APFS and GUID partitioning to start. Name the drive Macintosh HD, or Macintosh SSD, doesn't really matter. You can name it anything, frankly, so do what suits you.

Now install the OS from the Recovery Panel. Follow the directions onscreen. It should offer to install on the drive name you gave the SSD. What follows then depends on what version you install. Just follow the on screen directions. Once it is done, the system will boot and you will get the "new machine" dialog with the "Welcome" messages, language setting, region settings, etc. Set it up as you want. Be careful for a couple of things during the installation--the system will offer to "optimize" storage, or store things in iCloud or iCloud drive, or some such thing. Turn that off. It will also offer to turn on File Vault encryption. Turn that off as well. When it comes time to create a user, I would suggest using what you last had working on the old system before the Big Sur blowup. After the final stages of setup the system will reboot and you can log into the new account. At this point you can now copy from the external drive into your new user area your various folders. As I said, some applications may need to be reinstalled or re-registered, and some may have lost your preferences from before the blowup. If any of your documents give you access issues, use the "Get Info" process to add your new account to the file properties. After a while, all of them should eventually get converted and if they don't, you might consider if you really need to keep them if you don't actually USE them.

At that point, if you open Disk Utility you should see the SSD at the top level, the Container at the next indent level and then "name" and "name - Data" indented from that. What else may show depends on which version of macOS you installed.

As I said, ugly and PITA. Good luck with it.

Maybe someone will come along and suggest something I forgot, but I think what I've suggested will get to the end quickest and leave you with the best system.

 

[jaxx67367346]

Wow, what an amazingly helpful write-up, thank you!

After many hours today, I managed to copy everything from the "iMac_SSD - Data" to my external hard drive today. I often had to input my master password.

Now that I am able to "unlock" the data on the SSD, I can see that everything has been correctly copied with new correct permissions.

What is curious is that the "identity" of the original owner of the files seems to have been "lost". Here's what I see (download folder) when I click "get info" on a "locked" folder : name of the owner is "Fetching..." and even after waiting it doesn't change. Finder is also unable to calculate size.

I think that, when I copied the files and gave my admin password, it automatically gave me all permissions. For exemple, here's the download folder that I copied this morning onto my external drive. "Fetching..." has disappeared and I am the only owner.

From what I gather, the essential data has been backed-up and permissions have been corrected (?).

I will do the second part asap : clean install of Big Sur from recovery mode and repossessing of my data!

 

[MacInWin]

From what I gather, the essential data has been backed-up and permissions have been corrected (?).

Or deleted. Either way, you have access to the files, which was the key goal in all of that. Good luck, report back with results and if you have any issues.

 

[jaxx67367346]

Hi! I just wanted to let you know that, following your instructions, I've managed to erase and reinstall macOS on the drive. I've manually (through a bootable) installed Big Sur so that the upgrade won't fail again next time!

Many, many thanks for your help, it's greatly appreciated!