Installing High Sierra on new MacBook Air

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Installing High Sierra on new MacBook Air

I've legacy software (Filemaker Pro) which doesn't work on Mojave, but does work on High Sierra.

I booted the MacBook Air [MBA] in Target Mode (I see the thunderbolt and USB icon) but when I use the Thunderbolt 3 cable to connect the new MBA to my MacBook Pro (running Sierra) it doesn't appear.

I've also tried booting from an external drive running Sierra and get a message saying MBA (or perhaps Mojave on MBA) doesn't support booting from external drive.

I'm comfortable reformatting drive and installing the High Sierra OS but want to make sure I can access the new MBA before doing so.

Perhaps it's a different between the HFS and APFS file structure.

Likely something obvious for me to do ... but I'm baffled.

Thanks for your help!

Posted on Jun 6, 2019 2:52 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dwb

Level 7

33,082 points

Jun 6, 2019 3:37 PM in response to krairzur159

Apple computers are built to run the current shipping operating system which, for the new MB Air is Mojave. Even if by some trickery you managed to get High Sierra on the computer and it booted, that operating system would likely lack drivers required by the new hardware. You have two options: 1) you could install virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop and install High Sierra as a virtual machine or 2) upgrade to the newest version of Filemaker.

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Answer 2

Jun 8, 2019 10:50 PM in response to krairzur159

Hi berkeleyhomes-dot-com,

As mentioned by dwb, your Mac can't run a version of macOS or OS X that's older than the version which shipped with your Mac. If this is the case (your Mac shipped with macOS Mojave), follow the suggestions posted by them.

If your Mac shipped with an older OS, you could install macOS High Sierra but restoring your data wouldn't be as easy. (You'll need to manually copy it over from either a Time Machine backup or a clone of your startup disk before it was erased.) Let me know if this is the case.

In regards to why your Mac refused to start up from an external drive, it's likely because your Mac has the T2 Security Chip and therefore supports External Boot blocking. To change this:

Hold down Command-R as you turn on or restart your Mac. Release the keys when the Apple logo appears. This will boot Recovery Mode.
When the macOS Utilities window appears, go to the top menu bar (where the Apple logo resides) and click on Utilities.
From the drop down menu, select Startup Security Utility.
If prompted, enter your administrator password.

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Installing High Sierra on new MacBook Air

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