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Reinstalling Catalina from scratch - onto a 2TB fusion drive

I am wanting to reinstall Catalina onto my iMac as a fresh copy (reformat and delete all data). Because my iMac is a fusion drive, do I just install onto the Macintosh HD drive? Or do I need to specify the location of the fusion drive. Or does the installer just 'know' where this is?


Sorry for the (maybe) confusing question. I just wanted to check before going ahead with wiping everything and reinstalling.



Posted on Apr 17, 2020 9:47 AM

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Posted on Apr 17, 2020 9:50 AM

You should use Recovery Mode to both completely erase, and then, install a "clean" copy of macOS Catalina.


Ref: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

6 replies

Apr 17, 2020 1:52 PM in response to ikeshima

Disk Utility should show an "Fusion Drive in the left pane. You should be erasing the "Fusion Drive". If you don't see the Fusion Drive, then click on "VIew" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appear in the left pane of Disk Utility. This setting may also allow you to see the Fusion Drive. This is a very annoying change in Disk Utility. You want to erase the "Fusion Drive" item.

Reinstalling Catalina from scratch - onto a 2TB fusion drive

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