Erase hard drive
When I try to erase my hard drive in disk utility the erase icon is grayed out. How do I erase?
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Jack
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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
4 replies
You have to restart in the Recovery Partition (hold down Command + R on startup), open Disk Utility and then format. You cannot format the drive you started Mac OS from!
Thank you, that worked.
Your welcome.
Erase hard drive