First of all, we should explain what does it mean when your Mac is saying that “could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS install”. This error means that the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) cannot be installed on the APFS volume. The main reason that you cannot install the preboot is caused by something (that Apple hasn’t figured it out yet) wrong with the APFS or Apple File System, the new file system that Apple is introducing in High Sierra to replace the 20-year-old file system or HFS+. The new system APFS has improved the security also it is faster and more compatible with SSD, but the problem occurs with the OS X that is not compatible to it and also with macOS that is older than High Sierra. And when you are trying to reinstall the High Sierra using Recovery Mode, it doesn’t work because of the Apple File System partition type. There are two possible solutions or methods in our case when you are not able to reinstall macOS High Sierra and you are getting the “could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS install” error message, and they are: delete the partition or volumes on your Mac or install Sierra on Internet Recovery Partition. We will walk through this methods step by step.
Method #1. Delete Your Partition (Volume).
Note: We must tell you that this method is the most effective in order to fix “could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS install” error.
Re-open Disk Utility and select the internal drive and format it as “Mac OS Extended”. And then you can reinstall macOS.Or you can turn off your Mac and the reboot it. Press and hold Option + Command + R keys to enter the Internet Recovery Mode. And Select Disk Utility. You will see a drive, and reformat it as “Mac OS Extended” and name it “Macintosh HD”. If you are not seeing the drive, create one and format it as “Mac OS Extended”. And then, you can exit the Disk Utility and click Reinstall macOS. Erase Disk
Deleting this drive will cause removing the APFS system which is the problem and causing the error and you can reinstall macOS.
Method #2. Enter Internet Recovery Mode.
If you want to install High Sierra you can install or update from the App Store when the process is finished.
How To Recover a Deleted APFS Partition?How to Read a Mac drive (HFS+ and APFS) on PCFix: Make Sure the File is an NTFS Volume and isn’t in a Compressed Folder or…Fix: VSS Error 0x8004231f - Failed to Create Volume Snapshot
