4

I started the day by receiving the following message, spontaneously:

your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few minutes to continue starting up.

So I upgraded High Sierra. But the problem continued, I kept getting the message above.

So I uninstalled all my apps which came from outside the Apple store. Throughout this process, the problem continued.

Finally, I thought I might as well just reinstall everything. After all, everything I have is in one cloud or another anyway. I started the computer in recovery mode and just wiped the main drive. Easy! And very possibly stupid.

When I went to install High Sierra again, I got the error, though I tried twice in a row.

could not create reboot volume ...

Yikes. So I started her up again, CMD R, and a little globe starts spinning. Eventually, I am given the option to install OS X Yosemite. Ok, fine, better than nothing.... but then when it says select the disk you want, there are no options... just the external USB drive...

When I go to disk utility, I see “500.28 GB APPLE SSD...” with a little grey “disk0s2” beneath it.

enter image description here

What should I do now? I feel WAAAY over my head here...

enter image description here

enter image description here

Allan
  • 101,432
Teusz
  • 329
  • 1
  • 3
  • 12
  • 3
    This is the equivalent of feeling a pain in your chest and immediately going straight for the heart transplant. I am hoping that somewhere in this you backed up you data. Now, the first question is, what type (model) of Mac do you have? Secondly, when you boot from Install/Recovery, go into Terminal and type the following diskutil list and post the output. – Allan Feb 05 '18 at 14:42
  • 1
    Yes, it’s a hell of a Monday already! I have a MacBook Pro. But, I can’t easily post the output. One sec while I find a solution, maybe take a pho – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 14:45
  • Ok I pasted a photo... already relieved that you seem so cool-headed – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 14:52
  • Ok, uploading it now... – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:02
  • Yes, I think around 2012, I’m not exactly sure. Excuses! – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:03
  • I think a total wipe is the best option, but when I do as you suggest, I see “there does appear to be enough arguments for the number of partitions you specified” – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:19
  • I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate your advice... – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:20
  • No worries! Understandable that you have other priorities than a complete stranger’s computer failure ... – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:29
  • Hey looks like it worked ... hallelujah !!! I now see “MacOS extended (journaled). Use disk utility to enable journaling or reformat the disk” – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:36
  • Oh not so fast... after enable journaling “the additional components needed to install OS X can’t be found” – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:39
  • Oh just tried it again and something is happening ... let’s see what the situation is in squints 4 hours and 24 minutes !! Anyway, you’re the best Thanks again – Teusz Feb 05 '18 at 15:43

2 Answers2

1

Having a bunch of kernel panics is not normal. While it can be a software problem, it often is a hardware problem.

First, run Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test. If no errors are reported, start from Internet Recovery, create a new partition on your SSD, and reinstall the OS.

John Keates
  • 2,700
  • 11
  • 15
1

Your solution is to destroy and recreate a clean partition then perform a full re-installation

  1. Issue the command

    diskutil partitionDisk disk0 1 GPT HFS+ MacHD 100%

    This command will create a single GPT partition formatted for HFS+ with a name of MacHD. You can change the name if you like, but use quotes if you use a name with spaces like "Macintosh HD".


  2. Install your macOS as normal. You can enable Journaling and/or FileValut at this point.

Allan
  • 101,432