After erasing MacHD & MacData: Cannot re-install OS X because there is no Drive to choose (selling laptop)

Hi,

Something must have gone wrong when trying to erase MacHD before selling it.


I followed the instructions from Apple (steps 1-7). After I did CMD-R and went to disk utility to erase the 2 drives (HD & Data), I tried to Recover Mac OS. This is when I got the problem: It asked me to choose the drive from the list below, but there was no disk to choose. So, I shut down the laptop.


I followed another instruction to reset the NVRAM, so I did that. Then I tried again to install OS X but again no disk was available to choose. I shut down again.


Then, I tried to do another CMD-R and got a blank white screen. I shut down.


So, I restarted with Option-Cmd-P-R. I got back into disk utility. This time, I clicked on my Crucial HD and clicked First Aid. It was okay.


THE PROBLEM: Just beneath the crucial hd, was "disk0s2" I clicked on First Aid and Verify Disk - the result was "Verify volume failed: unrecognized file system." The same response was give when I tried to Repair Disk.


Can someone help me install an OS X somehow? There is no browser, so I don't know what to do?


Thank you

MacBook Pro

Posted on Dec 15, 2020 9:59 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 15, 2020 8:23 PM

While booted to Internet Recovery Mode you will need to use Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). How you do this depends on what version of the macOS installer you are running. Here are two articles:


For macOS 10.11 to 10.15:

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac


For macOS 10.6 to 10.10:

https://www.owcdigital.com/assets/support/support-formatting-and-migration/Mac_Formatting_6-10.pdf


If your Mac has a hard drive as opposed to an SSD, then just "erasing" the drive as described in the Apple instructions is not enough to actually destroy your data on the drive. You either need to write zeroes to the entire hard drive (or third party SSD) or you need to enable Filevault and let the encryption process finish before you perform the simple erase as described in the Apple instructions.


If your Mac has an Apple SSD installed, then the simple erase described in the Apple instructions is sufficient to securely delete the data on the Apple SSD (due to how SSDs work internally).

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 15, 2020 8:23 PM in response to madrecluse

While booted to Internet Recovery Mode you will need to use Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). How you do this depends on what version of the macOS installer you are running. Here are two articles:


For macOS 10.11 to 10.15:

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac


For macOS 10.6 to 10.10:

https://www.owcdigital.com/assets/support/support-formatting-and-migration/Mac_Formatting_6-10.pdf


If your Mac has a hard drive as opposed to an SSD, then just "erasing" the drive as described in the Apple instructions is not enough to actually destroy your data on the drive. You either need to write zeroes to the entire hard drive (or third party SSD) or you need to enable Filevault and let the encryption process finish before you perform the simple erase as described in the Apple instructions.


If your Mac has an Apple SSD installed, then the simple erase described in the Apple instructions is sufficient to securely delete the data on the Apple SSD (due to how SSDs work internally).

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After erasing MacHD & MacData: Cannot re-install OS X because there is no Drive to choose (selling laptop)

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