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you may not install to this volume because your home directory is in incompatible location, please log in to another user to change its location

I just bought a MacBook Air from a friend of mine and it still has OS Yosemite installed. I am trying to install OS Catalina but I keep getting the message "you may not install to this volume because your home directory is in incompatible location, please log in to another user to change its location." I don't know how to log into another user because I am now the only user on this computer. HELP!!!!!

MacBook Air

Posted on Jul 1, 2020 8:46 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 1, 2020 4:50 PM

Erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option). Within Disk Utility you will need to click on "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. You should always erase the whole drive when ever you acquire a used computer so that you have a clean OS.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496


You will need to either boot into Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) or from a bootable Catalina USB installer.


When you erase the drive you will lose all data on the drive so make sure to backup your data first.

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 1, 2020 4:50 PM in response to HRNSLP

Erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option). Within Disk Utility you will need to click on "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility. You should always erase the whole drive when ever you acquire a used computer so that you have a clean OS.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496


You will need to either boot into Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) or from a bootable Catalina USB installer.


When you erase the drive you will lose all data on the drive so make sure to backup your data first.

you may not install to this volume because your home directory is in incompatible location, please log in to another user to change its location

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