Trying to get to Big Sur from Mojave

TuckerdogAVL said:
I’m sure the entire problem was the install was accidentally stopped in the beginning. and then started again. I reread the info on bootable using USB and terminal, and it seems that if I can get Big Sur to download to the uSB, I can then use it without having to do the terminal steps. Yes r no?
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That would be "no". What you are describing is just copying the installer app to a USB device. You can certainly do that, but the USB drive will just have a copy of the installer app, and it won't be bootable. The terminal commands use the "createinstallmedia" file, which is inside the installer app, to create the bootable USB.

Command-r boots to your recovery partition, which is local, a separate (often hidden) partition on your hard drive.
Option-command-r opens the Internet recovery system, which, as the name suggests, is on a server on the internet. It is a way to install a macOS system, and use some limited utilities, such as Disk Utility, even if your internal drive is brand new (completely blank) and you don't have any kind of external drive that you could use. Of course, the Opt-command-r requires that you have a working internet connection.
There's also a choice to boot with Shift-Opt-Command-r, which may give you different choices for the version of macOS that you might be offered. More info here:

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
Curious. Decided to attempt the T.M. restore. Been going for about an hour and now up to 16 hrs remaining. So, I assume it’s not good should the computer go to sleep?

i also read the info re the bootable . I have another computer I can attempt that on for future. But it’s a little technical for me. I thought I’d made. one years ago for El Capitan and ann old laptop, but when i put te flash in i see install and .dmg file but nothing happens. If i attempt command r i have to sign into the internet, and of course it’s not avail.

sigh.

excuse the typos, but i’m on the ipad and it’s acting funny for some reason…Maybe too many devices online.
 
thanks. i’m in restore from t.m. hell now. 20 hrs to go… every ten minutes of restore adds another hour of time remaining. Should be up to two days by 3pm

And, of course, I don’t even know if it’s going to restore mojave at this point.
 
Just gets better. 3hrs into the restore, about 70g of 600, i get an error message tThe restore can’t continue, and that I now need to reinstall macOS and then do a migrate assistant. So I assume that when I do this if I can do this, then the migrate assistant will also take at least two days correct,? If I’m lucky. I am just so glad I finally decided to upgrade to Big Sur. Absolutely gob smacking. I also chose a back up that was at least four hours prior to any of the Big Sur attempts just to be sure. Only about 6 8 years worth of stuff on the computer
 
Sounds like you are putting a lot of time into this project. You have a large part of your files that live on the hard drive part of the fusion drive, and I suspect that the hard drive itself is failing.
I bet you can do yourself a favor by swapping out the hard drive for an SSD. You already have an SSD, part of the fusion drive, but it is very small compared to the total space that you need. Replace the hard drive with a 1TB SSD, then ignore the SSD card, or use that for a small storage space. Restore TM to the 1TB SSD, which should work (and save you a lot of wait time for the restore to complete on your present drive setup (if it ever does finish.) :cool:
 
DeltaMac said:
Sounds like you are putting a lot of time into this project. You have a large part of your files that live on the hard drive part of the fusion drive, and I suspect that the hard drive itself is failing.
I bet you can do yourself a favor by swapping out the hard drive for an SSD. You already have an SSD, part of the fusion drive, but it is very small compared to the total space that you need. Replace the hard drive with a 1TB SSD, then ignore the SSD card, or use that for a small storage space. Restore TM to the 1TB SSD, which should work (and save you a lot of wait time for the restore to complete on your present drive setup (if it ever does finish.) :cool:
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the restore failed I guess we’ll see when the computer techs get back to me. I am hoping to avoid having to purchase a new 1200 ssd Mac mini which is how much the 1TB is. Yes I’m putting in a lot of time and now a backlog of work because I thought I’d have a simple upgrade. If all goes well I’ll get the computer back in four days. Interesting you feel it’s now suddenly a HD failure when theres never been an issue at all. And a YT video I watched showed that what I’ve experienced many people have experienced so it couldn’t possibly be a BigSur issue. I certainly won’t be installing the Monterey anytime soon because I don’t even have to architectire to make it work. Too many asterisks and footnotes and possibly this or that or this. A little lame for Apple
 
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