i am having a major issue with my macOS. I cannot restore or reinstall macOS. I get errors inside disk utility/first aid. I get a (circle with a line through it) when i start up. and when I do get the (apple logo) upon start up, it just stays there until i eventually power off and start over. I have tried everything except throwing it out the window. agh!!!
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15
Boot into your Recovery HD, restart you mac while pressing and holding down the Command and R keys.
After you have booted to your Recovery HD you should see a Utilities panel.
Select Disk Utility and press Continue.
Click View in the menubar and select Show All Devices.
What do you see on the left hand panel.
You should see the Disk probably called Apple SSD..........
Underneath that and indented you should see a Container Disk with a number.
Underneath the Container Disk and indented are the two Volumes usually called
Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data, please see the screenshot below for reference.
Can you run Disk Utility First Aid on first of all the Disk,
then in turn the Container Disk and then the two Volumes.
What results do you get.
Have you been making regular backups of your mac to an external hard drive.
If Disk Utility First Aid does not give green ticks for the Disk and its Volumes then you
will have to erase and reformat the Disk. This will of course mean that you will lose
all of your data, that is why it is very important to make regular backups to an external HD.
After erasing and reformatting the Disk you would then quit Disk Utility and then select Reinstall OS
or Restore from Time Machine Backup if you had been making backups.
If you need to reinstall the OS from Apples Recovery Servers your mac should be connected to your router
directly via cable, WiFi is too unreliable. Do not use any other devices that share the same internet connection
whilst your mac is downloading.
To Erase and Reformat the Disk you highlight the Disk (AppleSSD.....) click on Erase.
From the following drop down give the Disk a name.
Format: APFS.
Scheme: GUID Partition Map.
Click Erase.
When Done quit Disk Utility.
not sure why it’s trying to reinstall a older operating system (Sierra). But even that didn’t work. I can’t even get into my computer. Cannot get passed the Apple logo. Or even attempt to log in.
And now all it does is just keeps restarting itself off and on. Then will show the (no symbol). (Circle with line thru it)
Is it supposed to take more than 24 hours so far to erase?
Are you doing a security erase? If so that could take a long time.
Yes, I’m just following instructions from the above post. It’s been erasing since yesterday around 1pm. (East coast time) so about 24 hours now.
I have been following instructions from a post above. So it’s been erasing for about 24hrs now.
Ok thank you all, for your help.
How much does something like this might cost?
Ok thank you
Ok thank you.
The SMART STATUS showing on your snapshot shows FAILING. That means that your internal disk has failed or is failing. Another indication of this was the failed Disk Utility First Aid runs:
"And I would get “failed” on (Macintosh hd, Macintosh hdd) volumes. I would then click done."
This is likely the reason you can't erase the disk, it is failed or failing. You will need to replace the internal drive with a new one.
Disk utility/first aid errors
