I have a 2012 Mini with an SSD and HD running Maverics.

I have time machine backups (SSD to HD) and I also have all photos and documents on a Synology NAS. I also have a USB SSD clone (which I am using at this very moment)

I download Catalina, go through the tricks to download the gull 6-7 GB thing not just the stump, then I make a bootabE USB installer.

I boot from USB Stick, start the install, erase the SSD and try to install, no go. Some message about not being able to copy resources and that I should quit and try again. I don't know why it would work a second time, but I tried it anyway. It still failed.

I booted from USB again and erased the SSD one more time and this time I realized that I should use APFS instead of HFS+. I forgot about the new file system. I use APFS and try again. Now the installed shows the drive like a ghost. No icon. When I try to install there, it finally shows me a message that my Mac needs a FIRMWARE update in order to use that drive.

Great, so how do I load this firmware udpate?

I pull out the SSD/USB clone and I am back in business.

I could clone back to internal SSD. or I could go in small steps, maybe jump to El Capitan first, install it, and then take it from there another 1-2 steps untile I land in Mojave or Catalina land.

I did buy all OS X/macOS version but for some reason when I am not booted from this Clone, it tells me Yosemite is installed (it is NOT!) but it would allow me to download Lion (which is even older than Mavericks and would not make any sense).

So I need to go baby steps one OS a a time until I stumble on required firmware updates.

This is the price to pay for falling behind so much.

.....but can you do jumping....jacks.....????

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

I did reformat the internal SSD back to HFS+, I put Mavericks back on it and not it seems to install Catalina, no errors so far.

Maybe when you download the stump and install from the stump, the small App see which firmware is missing and installs that.

maybe when you try to make a generic USB install, that is generic and does not load required firmware for each machine.

Who knows, it seems to install, it already restarted several times, about 9 min to the next restart and I will know if it works or not.

[forums.macresource.com]

See this thread

It finished and it works just fine.

Like I said, the stand-alone USB installer, like I used to do in Mavericks, did not work.

The "stump" from Apple probably figured out the missing bits and it installed just fine.

Compare your firmware with what is listed here.
eclecticlight.co/2019/10/08/which-efi-firmware-should-your-mac-be-using-version-4/

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Quote
Filliam H. Muffman
Compare your firmware with what is listed here.
eclecticlight.co/2019/10/08/which-efi-firmware-should-your-mac-be-using-version-4/

Great link, thanks. That's the first link I've saved to my browser's Apple folder in a very long time.

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It is what it is.

that's just an interesting site.

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!#$@@$#!

If there are spelling issues, please pardon, Owen the cat is sitting on my keyboard.

After having some trouble back when, I started doing this procedure for upgrades:

* make a clone via CCC to an external drive
* boot into Internet Recovery Mode (Cmd-Opt-R or Shift-Cmd-Opt-R at startup)
* open Disk Utility & reformat the Mac's drive
* switch to Reinstall MacOS

At this point, if you're actually booted into Internet Recovery Mode, you should have access to the latest version of the latest macOS installer. Proceed from there.

* at the proper point (after restart, IIRC), choose "transfer data from another Mac or backup" and select your CCC clone

Boomshanka; done (after the transfer). I used to try to fiddle with this or that flashdrive installer, but this wound up being the quickest, cleanest way (assuming a decent internet connection & the desire to update to the latest OS).

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(BTW, it's spelled < y'all >.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2020 12:58PM by Zoidberg.

This states Mavericks is required for Catalina install.

[support.apple.com]
[support.apple.com]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2020 10:27AM by decay.