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ALEAF33 Author

Level 1

4 points

Erase Hard drive factory reset

Hi there, I have a MacBook Pro 2012 which I’ve already attempted to back up and do a factory reset. However, I don’t think I’ve done it correctly as some old information is still on the machine and when looking at erasing the hard drive and starting all over again, there are several hard drives and I don’t know which to erase? Please, please help. I have an Audio Maschine I’d like to use on OS Mojave and simply would like an empty MacBook to do this. Thanks in advance for any help.

Mac Pro

Posted on Mar 1, 2021 5:07 AM

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

60,584 points

Posted on Mar 1, 2021 12:57 PM

With later versions of macOS (10.13+) the physical drive is hidden by default in Disk Utility. Within Disk Utility click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. You need to erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option) if you are installing macOS 10.13+ or erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) if you are installing macOS 10.8 to 10.12.

You can create a bootable macOS USB installer by using the instructions in this Apple article:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

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Erase Hard drive factory reset

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