[Resolved] Upgrading existing Mac OS X 10.6.8-VM to macOS 10.11 fails

[socratis]

Hi everybody,

maybe this is a little outdated, but unfortunately, I didn't find any (old) posts about this topic.

I am trying to upgrade an existing existing Mac OS X 10.6.8-VM to macOS 10.11. I use the regular El Capitan installer from Apple which does its job (preparing installation packages) and does a restart of the VM. But the VM doesn't get through the whole booting process and stucks at a black screen with white text about the boot process. After forcing the VM to shut down and restart it boots into 10.6.8.

Am I missing something? Or is upgrading not an option and I have to build up a new VM? My environment: MacBook 15" Retina, host OS: macOS 10.13.6

Thanks for any hints.

[socratis]

I use the regular El Capitan installer from Apple

The .app or the ISO?

What's the recipe that you use for the VM? Have you updated the recipe?

[multifinder]

I tried with the Installer.app - not the ISO

The VM is set to be a 10.6-Mac. I tried to boot after changing the VM-Type to 10.11, also. When will be the correct time to switch?

[socratis]

I tried with the Installer.app - not the ISO

That's right, because you want to do an upgrade, not a fresh install... Wrong question from my part.

When will be the correct time to switch?

Now?

Switch the template and then boot. But I'm not sure if it's going to work, I've never tried it. The installation needs to change how things work. For example there needs to be a Restore partition created.

Have you seen any references that this is doable in the real world? If so, can you please post the references? Because from 10.6.8 to 10.11 is quite a jump, not sure if even real systems could handle it.

But I'll tell you what... I'm going to give it a try. It's a slow night and there are no Champions League games.

[socratis]

OK, I did it. Here's how...

Started from my 10.6.8 VM. Increased the RAM to 3072 from 1536 MB. Started the "Install OS X El Capitan.app" and installed the update. After a reboot, the actual installation took place; 30 min or so for the installation. The VM rebooted and got stuck at the boot phase. The last messages were:

** /dev/rdisk0s2 (NO WRITE)
** Root file system
   Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-305.1B.1).
hfs: VB-OSX-106: hfs_recording_init: creating the hotfile btree
hfs: created HFBT on VB-OSX-106
BootCacheControl: bad playlist magic
BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCaches/PreheatedUser/Merged.playlist: 2 No such file or directory
BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCaches/PreheatedUser/Login.playlist: 2 No such file or directory
BootCacheControl: Added 32-bit shared cache to the low priority batch

I powered off the VM, changed the template from 10.6 (64) to 10.11 and rebooted. Done.

NOTES

• If you change the template before you actually do the installation/upgrade, you get a Guru Meditation.
• After the updgrade the CPU was at 100%. The reason, in my case, was that I had modified the CPU profile to "Intel Core i7-6700K" for my 10.6.8, in order to work with my newer CPU. Resetting the CPU profile to that of the host dropped down the CPU usage to normal levels.

[multifinder]

Socratis,

thank you very much for your support. Unfortunately, this did not work for me. But though you did not help me this way, your "[HowTo] Create OSX ISO from the OSX Install app" https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=81443 did instead. I have a working VM now.

Thanks again from Hamburg

[socratis]

Glad I could help in one form or another!
Marking as [Resolved].