Erasing Mac and re-installing mac OS

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Level 1

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Erasing Mac and re-installing mac OS

I am trying to give my MacBook Pro to a friend, and before I do so I want to erase the entire hard drive so she can start new.

I believe I got to the start up disk and erased the Macintosh HD with the format of APFS because that is what I saw was recommended. Another post claimed that formatting as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" is the recommended. I had already erased as the other format.

Now my issue is when I go to reinstall Mac OS after erasing the hard drive an error pops up reading "Could not create a reboot volume for APFS install."

Where do I go from here?

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Aug 8, 2019 9:41 AM

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Answer 1

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HWTech

Level 9

55,976 points

Aug 8, 2019 12:22 PM in response to klepleyy

Erase the physical drive so it uses GUID partition with MacOS Extended (Journaled) filesystem. The installer will automatically convert the volume to APFS if needed. To see the physical drive, click on "View" in Disk Utility and select "Show all devices". If you erase just the "Macintosh HD" volume with APFS, then you will have issues. As long as the system firmware is already up to date, formatting the physical drive with APFS should be fine (in theory).

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Answer 2

y_p_w

Level 6

17,648 points

Aug 8, 2019 12:44 PM in response to klepleyy

What model MacBook Pro is it? I would usually recommend using Internet Recovery because it's not reliant on anything on the drive and can completely obliterate anything on the drive to start from scratch. You need to press on several keys while it's powering on.

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Option-⌘-R - Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.

Shift-Option-⌘-R - Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

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Erasing Mac and re-installing mac OS

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