Factory Reset in Catalina

Hi! I recently upgraded to Catalina (everything is running fine, no issues with the OS), but decided to do a clean wipe of the drive to start fresh. Normally, I'd just boot into recovery mode, erase "Macintosh HD", then reinstall the OS. But with the upgrade to Catalina, I now have "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh HD - Data". I know the gist of the split drives - one is OS, one is my files/data. The question is, if I want to do a "factory reset" of the Mac (without having to create a bootable USB drive or do internet recovery or anything like that), which one do I delete (or do I delete both at the "container" level)? Do I even need to "reinstall the OS" like before, or will simply erasing the "Macintosh HD - Data" volume basically do the same thing as a factory reset?

Any help here is appreciated. Thanks!

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 21, 2019 6:03 PM

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Oct 28, 2019 8:46 AM in response to videoaaron

Hi there, videoaaron.


I see that, after upgrading your Mac to macOS Catalina, you're seeing a second partition named "Macintosh HD - Data". You're wanting to erase your hard drive in order to start fresh. You're wondering how to handle this new partition, and I'm glad to help.


How to erase a disk for Mac -- This article was recently updated to include information regarding the new partition.


Take care.

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Factory Reset in Catalina

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