Q: Trying to wipe my macbook pro after downloading El Capitan witch has made it suddenly restart and showing a grey background with a ... Trying to wipe my macbook pro after downloading El Capitan witch has made it suddenly restart and showing a grey background with a file in the middle of the screen. more
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Jan 29, 2016 10:01 AM in response to annefromtanangerby pedro d,Hello there, annefromtannanger.
It sounds like you're trying to erase your hard drive and then reinstall OS X on your MacBook Pro. The following Knowledge Base article provides the actual steps to accomplish that:
How to reinstall OS X on your Mac
Erase your drive and install OS X
Generally you don't need to erase your startup disk to reinstall OS X. The OS X Installer is designed to allow you to perform an install in place over the same version or earlier versions of OS X. If you're transferring your Mac to a new owner, you might want to erase your built-in startup disk before reinstalling OS X.
Important: Before you erase and reinstall, back up your important files. If you’re using a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro, make sure the power adapter is connected and plugged in while performing these steps.
You can use these steps to erase the files on your startup disk and install a new copy of OS X:
- Before you begin, make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet.
- Restart your Mac. Immediately hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys after you hear the startup sound to start up in OS X Recovery.
- When the Recovery window appears, select Disk Utility then click Continue.
- Select the indented volume name of your startup disk from the left side of the Disk Utility window, then click the Erase tab.
- If you want to securely erase the drive, click Security Options. Select an erase method, then click OK.
- From the Format pop-up menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Type a name for your disk, then click Erase.
- After the drive is erased, close the Disk Utility window.
- If you’re not connected to the Internet, choose a network from the Wi-Fi menu.
- Select the option to Reinstall OS X.
- Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall OS X.
Additional options
If you want to reinstall the version of OS X that came with your Mac, or if you need to reformat your entire startup disk, hold down Command-Option-R at startup instead. This starts your Mac from Internet Recovery.
If you have more than one partition (like Boot Camp) and you want to erase the entire startup disk, you can use Disk Utility to remove partitions or repartition your drive. Start your Mac from Internet Recovery, then use Disk Utility to repartition your startup disk before you erase it. Make sure you back up any important data from all partitions before repartitioning a drive.
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers.

