[Guide] Avoid APFS conversion on High Sierra update or fresh install

[Gigamaxx]

Thanks for the information, to be honest i would prefer to stay on APFS but i have very bad experience with APFS on my Kingston V300 Now 120GB SSD.
The partitions have been corrupted 3x times so far that caused me some data loss and waste of 3 day progress on trying to fix some issues on my device (which caused me a clean install and doing the work and all the fixes & new SSDTs & new config.plist) for it.

So that's why im afraid to stay on with APFS on this SSD, it seems they don't go well with each other.

Piker Alpha mentioned that apfs can cause problems with corruption due to hacks not having true Apple bios. I too have had corruption issues with apfs on some setups but others are fine.

Another method to avoid apfs is to do a direct install to an external USB drive or USB to Sata adapter. Doing this installs in HFS mode.

 

[Sniki]

Piker Alpha mentioned that apfs can cause problems with corruption due to hacks not having true Apple bios. I too have had corruption issues with apfs on some setups but others are fine.

Another method to avoid apfs is to do a direct install to an external USB drive or USB to Sata adapter. Doing this installs in HFS mode.

Yes, i have read his post about APFS.
However "vit9696" the guy who created (shiki.kext,lilu.kext,appleALC.kext) seems that he started on a modded apfs package for hackintosh.
https://github.com/acidanthera/ApfsSupportPkg
So i assume it won't be a problem to use apfs in a couple or months.

 

[vulgo]

Yes, i have read his post about APFS.
However "vit9696" the guy who created (shiki.kext,lilu.kext,appleALC.kext) seems that he started on a modded apfs package for hackintosh.
https://github.com/acidanthera/ApfsSupportPkg
So i assume it won't be a problem to use apfs in a couple or months.

When the bless command is used to make an APFS volume bootable, a copy of the APFS EFI driver (the version at /usr/standalone/i386) gets embedded in the APFS container. Apple's firmware is able to read the EFI driver from the container at boot using an ApfsJumpStartDriver that is part of the firmware.

ApfsSupportPkg is 2 EFI drivers and 2 ways to load the embedded APFS driver from the container partition. One loads Apple's own ApfsJumpStartDriver if you have a copy of it, and the other is a reverse engineered driver written from scratch.

 

[Sniki]

When the bless command is used to make an APFS volume bootable, a copy of the APFS EFI driver (the version at /usr/standalone/i386) gets embedded in the APFS container. Apple's firmware is able to read the EFI driver from the container at boot using an ApfsJumpStartDriver that is part of the firmware.

ApfsSupportPkg is 2 EFI drivers and 2 ways to load the embedded APFS driver from the container partition. One loads Apple's own ApfsJumpStartDriver if you have a copy of it, and the other is a reverse engineered driver written from scratch.

So the one from vit9696 should work both ways right ?

 

[vulgo]

So the one from vit9696 should work both ways right ?

• ApfsDriverLoader.efi loads apfs.efi directly
• AppleLoadImage.efi loads ApfsJumpStart.efi (can be extracted from Apple firmware image using e.g. UEFITool)

The Clover package includes ApfsDriverLoader-64.efi, AptioMemoryFix-64.efi, PartitionDxe-64.efi. Conflicts/remove: OsxAptioFixDrv*, apfs.efi

Your firmware may include a PartitionDxe, otherwise it is mandatory.

 

[Shou98]

How to Convert HFS to APFS without losing Data

 

[RehabMan]

How to Convert HFS to APFS without losing Data

Your question is really off-topic, but...

The conversion done by the macOS installer is lossless.

 

[RXSilva]

I know this thread was originally created on Sep 26, 2017...As of today, (almost a year later), is it still advised to avoid APFS on new Hackintosh builds with High Sierra and an NVMe SSD.

Secondly, are there still issues with Hackintosh setups using the Evo 970 series SSDs? If it's off topic, would appreciate if someones points me in the right direction. Thnx

 

[RehabMan]

I know this thread was originally created on Sep 26, 2017...As of today, (almost a year later), is it still advised to avoid APFS on new Hackintosh builds with High Sierra and an NVMe SSD.

Your decision. This guide just explains how to do it, it has no recommendation on whether to do it.

Secondly, are there still issues with Hackintosh setups using the Evo 970 series SSDs? If it's off topic, would appreciate if someones points me in the right direction. Thnx

I don't have any EVO 970 hardware. If it is NVMe, yes... NVMe issues still exist with non-Apple NVMe hardware.

 

[Mightee]

Yup.
TRIM causes issues with APFS and non-Apple SSD hardware more than it did with HFS+J.



Converting back to HFS+ requires a fresh install.

How does one do this on a fresh install? I have the same Crucial M4 drive as you. When I boot from my USB install stick and go to Disk Utility, the only format option I have for that SSD is now APFS. The drop-down menu doesn't list anything else.