Macbook keeps rebooting on installation USB after trying to reinstall - EFI partition empty I've got a 12-inch MacBook I would like to reinstall. Before doing so I've cleared the storage drive, reset the SMC and NVRAM. I've got a macOS High Sierra USB ready from which it successfully boots.

The issue is that after booting from the USB, partitioning the internal drive and going through the "Install macOS High Sierra", it reboots the machine (presumably to continue the installation) - the problem is the machine just starts from the same USB drive and brings me back to "macOS Utilities".

I've tried this multiple times already and no luck. Restarted the machine, cleared NVRAM once again, etc. 

The main storage drive is not in "Startup disks" after it restarts, which I'm not sure if it's the expected behaviour. If I shut down the machine and unplug the USB, it gives me the "question mark folder icon" which implies there's nothing bootable on the storage drive, as if the installer was failing at correctly putting the initial files in there.

Looking into the EFI partition of the internal drive I can see there is absolutely nothing, which would explain what's happening - why doesn't the installer put anything in there though?
Here I assume your internal drive is a single HDD or SSD. In other words, I assume you do not have a Fusion drive.

While booted to the USB installer, open a Terminal application window.

Enter the following commands to reinitialize your internal drive. Substitute the desired name for your installation volume for the name "Tommy".

diskutil  unmountdisk  disk0
gpt  destroy  /dev/disk0
gpt  create  /dev/disk0
diskutil  partitiondisk  disk0  apfs  "Tommy"  R


Exit the Terminal application and try installing macOS.