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Stuck in recovery startup?

I was trying to wipe my imac and now I'm stuck in recovery mode. Everytime I restart, it goes to the recovery window. I've tried holding the option key while it restarts and that brings me to only being able to click on the recovery HD. I can't seem to access my regular HD. I also do not know much about HD's so I'm quite lost.

iMac Pro

Posted on Aug 23, 2019 6:08 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 23, 2019 7:54 AM

To properly wipe the drive, follow the directions at > How to erase a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Then to reinstall macOS see > How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

If you are giving away or selling, see > What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support


Sadly, if you can not access the internal hard drive to format, then it has most likely failed and needs to be replaced.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 23, 2019 7:54 AM in response to danicks

To properly wipe the drive, follow the directions at > How to erase a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Then to reinstall macOS see > How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

If you are giving away or selling, see > What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support


Sadly, if you can not access the internal hard drive to format, then it has most likely failed and needs to be replaced.

Aug 23, 2019 9:20 AM in response to den.thed

Thank you for your reply!! So I had already previously tried your first suggestion, and it gives me the error "Disk Erase Failed: Couldn't unmount disk." It is since I tried that that I have not been able to restart it normally as per my issue above. So I then tried your second suggestion of re-installing OS X Yosemite (is what it offers) and when I get to the "Select the disk where you want to install OS X" I only have the option of the Recovery HD and "OS X cannot be installed on Recovery HD". Before all of this, it was functioning perfectly, I was trying to wipe/restore it to sell it.


I should mention I'm working on a iMac (2008).

Aug 23, 2019 9:33 AM in response to danicks

That machine originally came with Leopard.


If you have the original Leopard Install disc set, then you will need to use the Utilities on it to format and install Leopard.


If not, then you will need to get and use a Retail Snow Leopard DVD to format and install Snow Leopard, then let the new owner upgrade to a later macOS.

Stuck in recovery startup?

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