Well, hello there!
I have not been posting much the last few days because I have been up to
THIS!
I am running an older, UNSUPPORTED mac , with regards to both Sierra and High Sierra,
and Apple say I CAN’T install it and run it on my old mac.
that is, it is from early 2009. Their planned obsolescence policy means I am supposed to now throw it away>
OH! but MID 2009 is ok -these machines CAN run High/Sierra! no logic, not based on Hardware requirements, no insurmountable DDR3 memory barrier separating the systems requirements etc as some internet posters ascertain.
Just Choice.
Dictated to us Apple users by Apple.
Er, well no thanks! I Don’t agree.
ER< sorry Apple, NO!
so you CAN install both Sierra and High Sierra, following this Excellent chaps tutorial and advice
http://dosdude1.com/
go here to see what I am on about.
For Sierra
http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html
for High Sierra.
http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/
and his Youtube channel
he is also very active and friendly on various support channels and actually replies to many help requests.
I honestly have no idea where he finds the time!
BUT AS WELL AS THAT>
…
having achieved the Apple Induced impossible via his patcher, I managed to install both Sierra and High Sierra to an external HDD.
Then after some time and a bit of partitioning , a few months ago I installed and set up Snow Leopard, AND El Capitan Dual boot on my MBP’s internal SSD.
Yay!
But NOW… High Sierra …which I got to install externally on a good ol, spinning Disk, external hard drive, will reformat any SSD (which I have installed in my MBP) to the new, apple proprietry, APFS file system!
GAH! NOOOOoooooo.
I understand it is more efficient and space saving for SSD etc BUT… it will render a chunk of my hard drive - unreadable to other Native, installed OS’s. -AKA Snow Leopard.
gah!
Enter, SUPER DUPER!. - a cloning and backup tool.
https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
which , to be honest about, I had never really heard of.
Carbon Copy Cleaner, Yep, and used in the past on PPC macs,
Apple Disk Utility imaging , Yep, done that several times,
but this?
no.
Yes, The website, looks pants/geeky/dated (a la DosDude1, very similar but NOT the same people)
and the App interface is …rather windows/90’s looking
but,
IT WORKS and its easy, and well documented and it allowed me to clone my external High SIerra to my Mac via HFS+ files system on an SSD, NOT APFS - which I dont know that much about yet.
A Pure install, via the DosDude patcher tool would do an automatic conversion of the selected install partition to APFS.
No thanks, not yet, when I fit a seperate internal HDD that will be fine, but, not just now thank you, Apple.
so in an nutshell.
-
MOVED hundreds of GB of data off my internal SSD to external HDD back ups (twitch twitch… Nervously)
-
Resized (shrunk) Snow leopard Partion using Disk Utility by 100 GB -but HAD TO DO THIS WITH EL Capitan Disk Utility as, it would appear, once you have used a newer Disk Utility app to do something (In my case, I used El capitan Disk utility to shrink Snow.L and create my previous Extra partition to install EL Cap to this new , internal partition on my MBP) You are screwed!
Snow leopard Version of Disk Utility can no longer Manage your partiitions. SCREAMS it can view but thats it.
3 Created a new partition with El Cap, Disk Utility, 100Gb and formatted it with HFS+
- CLONED (“back up all files”, is the Super Duper! name of this option) my EXTERNAL, Spinning Disk HFS+ file system, High Sierra install, to my Internal SSD’s NEW 100GB Partition (total internal SSD is 500GB)
it wipes this destination drive!
but then clones the external (installed on a HFS+ drive) to my internal HFS+ drive, thereby keeping my chosen Filesystem and allowing me to view its NON APFS files in older OS’.
- Panic a bit and check everything works.
NOTE! I find High SIerra Finder buggy as hell! if moving items around in the tab bar on the left, ie, Hard disks. It duplicates the names, fails to order them correctly ,then, if you force quit and relaunch finder,
well it …doesn’t! you will have no finder any more if you try to relaunch it! its documented all over the web.
Good bye finder, hello Command line! grrrrr.
So, if you have an older Mac, OR you just want to install High Sierra to an internal disk/dual boot on an unsupported Mac, or an unsupported FIle System, or in this case, BOTH!, then, this is a proof of concept that BOTH can be done 
And dosdude1’s patcher tool is free - donations excepted (considerably cheaper than a new more current Mac - just in order for Apple to ditch you and kick your machine into the dirt again as you play catch up )
And "Super Duper!* has a fully functioning uncrippled clone option, with more functionality for faster, incremental back ups , if you choose to go down that route.
It really does seem like a a good tool
Note!
Carbon Copy Cloner from
https://bombich.com/
can also be used, offers a free fully functional trial for 30days and also a a free version, that is
3.5.7
here
https://bombich.com/software/download_ccc_update.php?v=3.5.7
which will ONLY run up to OS X 10.6.8 - snow leopard. if you try running it on a later OS, it will direct you to thier website, in order to download a later one.
but you cant complain about a 30 day trial - which WILL allow you to create a clone AND restore it in the future, when your trial runs out. you will just loose advanced features - apparently.
And all this is brought about by … PineGrow… and Slack… no longer supporting Snow leopard and then
well, you know how it is… it kind of al becomes a bit of a challenge then doesn’t it
Right! since I’ve ALREADY crossed the bridge of “Your Not allowed to do this”… what else can I achieve?
Oh! and the recent release of all the information with regards, the security flaws in Intel Architecture, Speculative addressing, Meltdown and Spectre.
Which means my Snow Leopard, online days, could be over for some basic online tasks.
But tis still a great offline work horse for a load of other stuff and has drivers for obsolete hardware, and is capable of running software that newer OS’s can’t or have no replacements for…
And I am now running an Unsupported OS on a Non Standard File system, just so I CAN HAVE MY MAC… as I WANT IT. not as Apple think I should have it.
oh yeah, and I didn’t buy a new mac either.
Its not in the BIn or taken to a nice Apple Store recycling point -The cheek of it!
Sorry Apple… Honest!
any questions let me know