MBA M1 too many partitions

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MBA M1 too many partitions

Hello, this laptop is working fine except for the fact that I seem to have an overlayed partition on of the active partition. I attach some screenshots that I hope explains the issue. Not sure what went wrong during the install, I used the 'Erase Mac' button in the recovery process and then it looks like I accidentally created this DATA partition.

Is there a way of deleting that extra partition - Data - without erasing the whole active MACOS partition that seems to be overlayed?

Thanks!

Posted on Mar 25, 2021 7:45 AM

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Answer 1

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DanielMedina

Level 1

52 points

Mar 25, 2021 8:30 AM in response to IanDeGama

Hi, this is how a normal installation of Big Sur seems:

(Ignore the mounted volume that I have at SD Card Reader)

What you called Data "partition", in fact, is not a partition but a Volume. Here is how APFS works:

The base elements are the Containers, that are similar to what we know as Partitions before APFS. They have fixed size, and all operations must be done with care (in special delete and decrease size operations).
Below containers there are Volumes, that don't have fixed size (you can set limit and quota for them) and they share free space inside the container. They are easy peasy to add, delete, and change sizes.

Taking a look at your config, apparently the Data volume is the one that must go out and has 555,9MB. At first you must mount this volume and take a look in its contents. Be sure that you will not delete anything important and backup your data if needed.

After this, select the volume and them click on minus ("-") icon on Volume menu.

Confirm the removal and that's all.

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Answer 2

IanDeGama Author

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7 points

Mar 25, 2021 10:02 AM in response to DanielMedina

Hi, many thanks! It worked perfectly deleting as you said.

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MBA M1 too many partitions

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