Installing Catalina on a separate APFS Volume

Software
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{This post will be updated as I go through the process of installing the Catalina Public Beta.}

Step 1: Downloading the public beta

Curiously, when you install the profile for the Catalina Public Beta, it downloads a 6.45 GB file, but that does not result in you having an “Install Catalina Beta.app” in /Applications/.

I have created a separate APFS “Volume” called “Catalina” that I want to install the beta on, but apparently I have to reboot my MacBook before I can start the install process. I am hoping it will let me choose which volume I want it on, rather than blowing away my Mojave installation, but I have 2 bootable Mojave clones if I really need to revert later.

Back in a bit with more updates…

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Every time I tried to install Catalina on an external SSD I got this message. Even after I followed the instructions as stated, I was unable to install Catalina. I tried this multiple times. Looking forward to hearing about your experience. —

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I was unable… each time it came from restart no option to boot from new volume…

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It sounds as though the folks above have a Mac with a T2 chip which is preventing them from booting from an external drive.

My MacBook did not have that.

Creating a new “volume” in Disk Utility was much easier than making a “partition”.

I’m not sure what happened the first time, but I had no “Install macOS Catalina Beta.app” app. I had to re-download it, which was much slower for some reason (more people had heard about the beta?) but then when it finished it did have a “Install macOS Catalina Beta.app” and I was able to install it to the new “Volume” very easily.

The only downside I ran into was that my iPad and iPhone were also updating when I was trying to login, so I couldn’t do my 2FA for iCloud on Catalina because I didn’t have any devices to get the code from. Just something to think about if you’re doing this too.

If you have a T2, check out this article from Apple:

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Is the public beta available already?

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ordered an external SSD to cone my hd and upgrade the clone to Catalina during the beta :slight_smile:

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Apple has something to say about this:

Installing macOS on a separate APFS volume

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Yes, the public betas for iOS and macOS dropped yesterday.

http://beta.apple.com if you dare…

So far the biggest hiccup I’ve run into on Catalina is that Dropbox takes forever to start on a clean install. But that’s really nothing to do with Catalina itself.

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Coda: I deleted my Catalina APFS volume today. It’s super buggy and there’s nothing that I really felt that it benefitted me to have right now, so I’m back to Mojave until I hear the beta has vastly improved.

(Related: I’m replacing my 2015 MacBook with a MacBook Air in the next few days, and I decided I want to have as good of an experience as possible on that, so I’m going to enjoy the stableness.)

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