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What OS is on the Recovery Drive? (and related questions)

After a failed Boot Camp install, my 2017 iMac can't recover the space Boot Camp partitioned. The Boot Camp Assistant, when I tried to remove it, said that it failed, and when I opened Disk Utility in Recovery mode it doesn't see the partition, but the space hasn't be reallocated to my main hard drive. It shows my Fusion Drive as having 3.12 TB and the only disk visible within it is "Container disk2" which has my "Macintosh HD" which both say there's only 2.74 TB allocated.


So I'm thinking I need to reformat the Fusion Drive and reinstall the OS and restore from a Time Machine backup. My question is, the iMac came with Sierra or High Sierra (I can't remember which) and I'm currently running Mojave. I'd like to restore it with Mojave and not Catalina (because of software I run that doesn't work on Catalina yet). Is this going to be a problem? Are there steps I have to take, or does my Recovery Drive have still have the OS it came with or Mojave since it's the OS I'm currently running?


I've looked online for an answer, but it's not clear from what I've read what version I can expect to be able to install from the Recovery Drive. I can work with a Sierra or High Sierra and upgrade from there, but I'm not sure of what to do if Catalina is the version it wants to install.


Thanks for any help!

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.14

Posted on Feb 29, 2020 6:54 PM

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Posted on Feb 29, 2020 7:40 PM

Here are your options: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

I think the third option is the one you'll have to use. You can then upgrade to Mojave, How to upgrade to macOS Mojave - Apple Support

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3 replies

Feb 29, 2020 8:31 PM in response to Shortfatsteve

I thought you were running Catalina, but I see you are not. So, yes, cmd-R should install Mojave if you are able to erase and merge in the old bootcamp partition. I don't know if that will be possible in normal recovery.


You can download Mojave and create a bootable installer to use to erase the drive and reinstall.

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Feb 29, 2020 8:18 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you. I think I saw that page, but didn't read it closely enough, lol! I appreciate you pointing me to it again.


When you say third option you mean when booting to the Recovery drive, in order to reinstall the OS the iMac came with (Shift-Option-⌘-R)? It seems to me that the first option (⌘-R), where it would reinstall my current OS, is the option I'd prefer (I was just worried that that wouldn't be an option). In any case, I've now thoroughly read over that page and think I know what to do next. Thanks again!

What OS is on the Recovery Drive? (and related questions)

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