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Why do I have 3 disks on my Mac ?

I recently erased my Macintosh Data disk and I also tried to delete the Macintosh HD disk but my computer wouldn't let me do so. I reinstalled macOS and I just checked disk utilities to see this. Which one should I delete ? And how can I delete the Macintosh HD disk ?

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 10, 2020 2:13 AM

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Posted on Apr 11, 2020 7:17 AM

So I tried that but as I mentioned earlier my Mac does not allow me to install macOS on Macintosh HD.

7 replies

Apr 11, 2020 5:56 AM in response to damlax

Boot into Internet Recovery.

Enter Disk Utility

Select each of the – Data volumes and remove all of them by clicking the – button.

Exit Disk Utility

Select Reinstall macOS.

Choose Macintosh HD as the destination for the reinstall.


After the installation, when the Startup Assistant starts asking you to set up the Mac, force shut down the Mac by holding the Power Button.

It is now ready to give away or sell.


Apr 10, 2020 2:28 AM in response to damlax

There is not three disks it is one but three partitions here is a quick explanation of what you are seeing I guess. When you install Mac OS Mojave and higher your Mac converts you internal disk to something called APFS (Apple File System) and when Mac OS is installed on a APFS drive it creates two partitions one for the system data and the other is just the hard drive where you save stuff. The other Macintosh HD Data maybe a second installation of Mac OS. I don’t really won’t to say to what the solution is because sometimes I’m wrong with solutions and it could be very destructive if you’re not careful so just ask friends and others but essentially that’s a brief explanation of why that happens.

Apr 10, 2020 4:30 AM in response to damlax

If you were booted to the drive, you can't delete Macintosh HD because that is the boot volume.


If you are trying to delete Catalina and revert to Mojave, you need to remove the Macintosh HD - Data Volume.

It appears you installed Catalina onto the Macintosh HD - Data Volume. That's how you ended up with Macintosh HD - Data and Macintosh HD - Data - Data.


Please explain what you were trying to accomplish when you went about erasing and reinstalling.

Apr 11, 2020 12:21 AM in response to Barney-15E

I no longer wanted to use this Mac and I was planning on giving it to someone else so I decided to just reset the Mac to its factory settings but it seems that I've done something wrong. And when I was installing macOS it gave me two options on where to install it; Macintosh HD and Macintosh Data and I had to download it on Macintosh Data because it didn't let me do other wise. Thank you for your answer!

Why do I have 3 disks on my Mac ?

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