Help in erasing Hard

Question

Level 1

36 points

Help in erasing Hard

Hi,

I am about to erase my hard drive and reinstall from my Time Capsule and I have some questions before I manage to dig a deeper hole for myself!

As way of background my problem first started when I downloaded the most recent update of Catalina (10.15.2). I lost my internet connection (my laptops were still working fine), and some apps and games had a "cross" going through them indicating they would not work. I therefore decided to use my TC to install everything before I had updated. Problem was still there?? I then decided to reinstall 10.15.2 from scratch and I still had problems. In both these recoveries I did of course start up in Recovery mode. Kept on trying to sort things but no joy and I eventually found myself with the continuous flashing question mark. I have been through the procedures to sort this problem but again no joy so I am now going to erase the drive and start again.

For the erasure procedure I am following https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208496#nodisk.

So a couple of questions.

(Incidentally I have noted that my HD is totally full which has occurred since I have been trying to correct things.)

In my Disk Utility Side Bar I have,

Macintosh HD

Macintosh HD - Data

Qu. 1 Where has the second Mac HD - Data come from? Both appear identical.

Qu. 2 Which of the three above should I "Erase"

Many thanks

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 17, 2019 2:20 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Jandert

Level 1

20 points

Dec 17, 2019 11:47 AM in response to asheemstha

When you reinstall Catalina, from a bootable external drive or by booting the macOS internet recovery routine, the install procedure will ask on which disk the system should be installed. In your case the answer would be "Macintosh HD". The install routine will then erase your internal disk and re-create two volumes on the erased disk: Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD-Data. Macintosh HD is a read-only system volume and Macintosh HD-Data holds third-party applications and personal files from spreadsheets, documents, photos, etc.

Bear in mind if you do this, all personal data in the existing Macintosh HD-Data volume will be erased so you must have an external backup if you wish to recover your personal files to the new install of Catalina. You will also have to reinstall third-party applications.

Reply

Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

113,422 points

Dec 17, 2019 7:32 AM in response to crutchy

I have no idea why you have two data drives.

You should erase the entire drive, unless you have more partitions beyond the Mac ones.

Each one of those entries are Volumes on the drive.

While booted to Internet Recovery, in Disk Utility, select Show All Devices from the View popup menu button.

Select the device and erase that.

When you Restore from Time Machine, it will erase the drive and format it to match what you are restoring.

Reply

Answer 3

crutchy Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 17, 2019 8:18 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks for input. I was rather impatient and started the whole process, I erased the two data volumes and then the drive and installed 10.15.2. That went well and all seemed good. I am now using Migration Assistant to transfer data from the TC. I guess I am about 90% through. I purposely chose the last entry on the TC well aware that this was after the "problem" occurred butknowing full well that I could start the whole process again if that goes t**s up.

I will let you know the outcome!

Thanks again

Reply

Answer 4

Dec 17, 2019 8:51 AM in response to crutchy

I was also going to reinstall Mac Os Catallina because i had to get rid of something on previously installed one.

And i got stuck wheather which disk to erase

Macinstoh HD or,

Macintosh HD - Disk ?

Thanks

Reply

Help in erasing Hard

Similar questions