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After I've erased my MAC, what will appear on the screen when I turn the Mac on?

After I've erased my MAC, what will appear on the screen when I turn the Mac on?

Posted on Nov 12, 2021 6:50 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 12, 2021 7:04 PM

After you've erased the Mac, if you simply restart the computer you will be greeted with a flashing folder with a question mark inside. That indicates that the Mac cannot find a startup drive with a valid macOS on it. You'll need now to reinstall macOS on the freshly erased drive.

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way - Apple Support


Reboot your Mac into recovery mode and reinstall the OS.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support


TIP - After you've erased the startup drive, don't exit out of recovery mode or restart your Mac just yet. Simply quit the Disk Utility app and immediately launch the Reinstall macOS app from the macOS Utilities screen.


6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 12, 2021 7:04 PM in response to JohnS6065

After you've erased the Mac, if you simply restart the computer you will be greeted with a flashing folder with a question mark inside. That indicates that the Mac cannot find a startup drive with a valid macOS on it. You'll need now to reinstall macOS on the freshly erased drive.

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way - Apple Support


Reboot your Mac into recovery mode and reinstall the OS.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support


TIP - After you've erased the startup drive, don't exit out of recovery mode or restart your Mac just yet. Simply quit the Disk Utility app and immediately launch the Reinstall macOS app from the macOS Utilities screen.


After I've erased my MAC, what will appear on the screen when I turn the Mac on?

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