Macbook Air Reset

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Macbook Air Reset

I’m trying to factory reset my macbook air. It’s not the new model its the old silver one and its running on macOS 10.13 or 10.14 I can’t quite remember. Im completely stuck because ive wiped the whole thing and the only thing i have access to now is disk utility but it wont let me wipe it or perform first aid on the disk. It just comes up with erase process failed and the details say couldnt unmount disk. Does anyone have a solution?

MacBook Air

Posted on Nov 10, 2021 2:33 AM

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Answer 1

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Encryptor5000

Level 5

7,568 points

Nov 10, 2021 8:51 PM in response to kelseykjt

Hi kelseykjt,

The APFS container on your MacBook Air has 4 volumes; three of which are hidden:

Macintosh HD: This is your startup disk, and contains both macOS and your data.
Preboot (hidden): This volume contains boot materials.
Recovery (hidden): This volume contains a copy of macOS Recovery, and you appear to be booted from this volume.
VM (hidden): This holds the swapfile and a hibernation image.

The reason you cannot erase the APFS container is because you're running from the hidden Recovery volume, and erasing the container would delete that volume, which would cause your Mac to stop running.

To erase your Mac in this scenario, just erase Macintosh HD, then reinstall macOS.

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Macbook Air Reset

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