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User profile for user: howtorepair
howtorepair Author
User level: Level 1
27 points

On the selected volume there's not enough space to update the OS. (Recovery)

So i solved all the previous questions i had in these past few hours by myself. Now i have a very big problem. I don't have a phone to take a photo of the old 2012 macbook pro so i will illustrate it with words. It's the normal catalina installation screen but the hard drive icon is not there and you can't install mac os on it because it needs additional 13,iForgotGB. Now this is extreme for me. I erased "Macbook" 2 times and it still doesn't have enough space. What should i MacBooking do?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Nov 13, 2022 12:38 PM

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User profile for user: John Galt
John Galt
User level: Level 10
147,576 points

Posted on Nov 13, 2022 1:40 PM

In an attempt to mentally complete the picture, when you erased the Mac I surmise you did not select the topmost device. In Disk Utility's View menu, select View > Show All Devices.


Refer to Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support.


In its Steps 3 and 4, the "Device" in its context refers to the entire storage device, meaning not a volume or partition subordinate to that device. Erase that.


Then... upon returning to the main screen you will need to reinstall whatever version of OS X that Reinstall option offers. Install it, complete its setup with all its questions, and then you will be able to upgrade to Catalina.


The reason this occurs is a consequence of a previous macOS upgrade which converted the Mac's file system to APFS. That version of Recovery does not recognize it.

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User profile for user: John Galt
John Galt
User level: Level 10
147,576 points

Nov 13, 2022 1:40 PM in response to howtorepair

In an attempt to mentally complete the picture, when you erased the Mac I surmise you did not select the topmost device. In Disk Utility's View menu, select View > Show All Devices.


Refer to Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support.


In its Steps 3 and 4, the "Device" in its context refers to the entire storage device, meaning not a volume or partition subordinate to that device. Erase that.


Then... upon returning to the main screen you will need to reinstall whatever version of OS X that Reinstall option offers. Install it, complete its setup with all its questions, and then you will be able to upgrade to Catalina.


The reason this occurs is a consequence of a previous macOS upgrade which converted the Mac's file system to APFS. That version of Recovery does not recognize it.

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On the selected volume there's not enough space to update the OS. (Recovery)

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