I recently tried to update my MacBook to the latest version of macOS, and it's been a bit of a mess. I don't update often, which might be part of the problem. The update started fine, but then the screen froze on the logo with the loading bar. I waited for a couple of hours, even tried putting some tape on the screen to check for movement in the loading bar, but nothing happened. I ended up force restarting the MacBook because I couldn't see any other option. After that, it booted in recovery mode and said something went wrong during the installation. I attempted to restore from a Time Machine backup, but it told me to use the setup assistant, and every backup option leads me to the same message or prompts me to reinstall macOS. So, I selected the option to reinstall macOS Sonoma, went through the install process, but it just booted back into recovery mode again. I'm stuck! What should I do? Sorry if my explanation is a bit unclear—I'm not a native English speaker, and my computer isn't in English either, so I might have used some incorrect terminology.
1 Answer
To really narrow things down, knowing your exact MacBook model would help a lot! Also, can you share what version you were using before the update attempt? It might be useful to run Disk Utility to check the filesystem first. If necessary, you may need to erase your internal storage and reinstall macOS before you can restore your backup, especially since Time Machine doesn't back up system files from macOS Catalina and newer.
Thanks for the info! I can't get the exact model at the moment since I'm trying to reinstall macOS, but it's a MacBook Air, and it was on version 12.6 before the update. I don’t update frequently, so that might explain some of the issues. I did run Disk Utility earlier and nothing popped up. If I need to erase the storage and start fresh, can I do that through Disk Utility?