“Macintosh HD - Data” can’t be unlocked

I don't know what you have done since you posted this screenshot, but you should only need to select the grayed out "Macintosh HD - Data" volume and click the "Remove Volume" button ( – ).

That volume is an orphan from when you tried to reinstall Catalina or Big Sur without removing the Data volume. It is also encrypted which is why it is posting the notification and why it is grayed out in Disk Utility.

NO NEED TO SHUT DOWN OR RE-INSTALL ANYTHING!!

There's likely no need to erase and all that. I just got off the phone with apple and they guided me through to the disk utility, Macintosh HD - Data had been duplicated and the second one was greyed out. they had me click on the greyed out Macintosh HD - Data and then click the "-" to remove the disk. It was removed and I restarted and it's perfectly fine. Hope this helps.

Try booting into Recovery and try to remove. I don’t know why you’re getting that error. You may have to erase the drive and reinstall or restore from backup.

You haver to erase this partition again.. Restart your Mac and hold on Command + R. On recovery, pick Disk Utility, and then select the "Macintosh HD - Data" partition. You can then choose to erase it without needing to unlock it. After this, you can re-install Mac OS BigSur

I tried to do this but I’m getting the message “the operation couldn’t be completed. Timed out”. Any ideas?

I highlighted the grayed out portion, clicked the minus button to delete it, but it won’t delete. A message pops up that says the operation couldn’t be completed. Timed out

this 100% works! i’m very grateful i came across this comment! It was super easy too!

thanks! i figured i would share what worked for me since it was so easy.

hmm- im not sure about that im sorry. i would just try a few more times to be sure

You have to run this in recovery mode and it should show only one of them

This video maybe helpful for you :

https://youtu.be/cdT7NhLyK5Y