Erase SSD & reinstall MacOS Catalina

mikedesim wrote:

I am prepping my 2015 MacBook to return for trade on new M1 Air. I have erased the drive using Disk Utility and then used the MacOS Utilities to reinstall MacOS Catalina. I have followed the support instructions precisely and run the reinstall MacOS utility twice. Each time I get the error message “Could not create a preboot volume for APFS install”.

Disk Utility shows Macintosh HD as an APFS Volume with 2 Disk Image Volumes: macOS Base System (Mac OS Extended) and InstallESD (Mac OS Extended) The Macintosh HD volume is 250.69 GB, with 15.99 GB used and 232.95 GB free. The disk image volume macOS Base System shows 2 GB total with 1.35 GB used and 658.4 MB free. The disk image volume InstallESD shows 7.89 GB total with 7.77 GB used and 120.6 MB free.

I've already got the new MB Air and the return mailer for the trade. How do I fix this?

See if this gets you going:

https://appuals.com/how-to-fix-could-not-create-a-preboot-volume-for-apfs-install-error/

Have read others saying send it back as is. I will defer to more expert Users if they say differently. Having eased your personal info should be safe.