MacOS Mojave won’t install updates past 10.14.1 due to requirement for APFS formatting

apfsmacosmojave

I have a MBP 2012 I upgraded from High Sierra to Mojave after it came out as GA. I don't recall if I was asked about upgrading to APFS when Id id that, but at this time the main volume is Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

My current About This Mac…version is Mojave 10.14.1 (18B75). Now, when updates are advertised from the App Store, I'm unable to upgrade because 10.14.3 is required.

No OS updates show in the App Store, and when I searched for the updaters (10.14.2 Combo, etc), I can't install because the installer reports "macOS 10.14.2 Update can't be installed on this disk. This Mac can only install macOS on APFS-formatted drives."

I tried the search results recommending to boot in Recovery Mode and use Disk Utility, but APFS is not available as a type.

I have good backups and I can reformat the boot volume if I need to, but I have not done this before. Should I get a 10.14.3 installer to do this and boot from an external drive? The only guies and message boards I've found just keep saying to install 10.14.3 (I can't) or convert the disk in Recovery Mode (APFS is not available as an option.)

Any known-good ways to get my 10.14.1 upgraded so I can keep getting App Store updates?

Best Answer

I had the same problem. After multiple searches, the only way I found to get the drive updated to APFS was the following:

  1. Full clone of internal drive to external drive using SuperDuper! (Carbon Copy Cloner would also work from what I've read)
  2. Reboot from external drive
  3. Reformat internal drive as APFS
  4. Full clone of external drive to internal drive using SuperDuper!
  5. Reboot from internal drive

It feels like there should be an easier way to do this, but I couldn't find it.

Related Question