Erasing via Disk Utility (Recovery)

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Level 1

78 points

Erasing via Disk Utility (Recovery)

When trying to Erase the entire drive via Disc Utility i get :

Then i tried just erasing the container (which would remove all volumes), but then i got this

Finally, i figured out just hitting "-" on the volume itself and adding it back is all that was needed..

However, is this a chance to Monterey ? as prior in Big Sur you could just remove the container or entire drive it you wanted from DU (Recovery)

FYI. i am not booted into local recovery, but via USB installer on my M1 Mac. so technically, thee should be no reason i could not partition entire SSD if i wanted to, since i'm booting from USB directly anyway. I thought it was strange i couldn't touch drive, not container itself, but of Big Sur I could..

Posted on Jan 15, 2023 2:38 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 6

16,649 points

Jan 17, 2023 12:32 AM in response to Tech198

> i am not booted into local recovery, but via USB installer on my M1 Mac

Maybe Apple now prevents the user to completely erase the internal drive in silicon Macs?

An M1 Mac Can’t Boot from an External Drive If Its Internal Drive Is Dead:

https://tidbits.com/2021/05/27/an-m1-mac-cant-boot-from-an-external-drive-if-its-internal-drive-is-dead/

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Answer 2

lexOS1

Community Specialist

Jan 16, 2023 5:59 PM in response to Tech198

Hi Tech198,

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. If you would like to leave feedback for Apple on this, here is where you can do so: Product Feedback - Apple

Have a great day.

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Answer 3

Tech198 Author

Level 1

78 points

Jan 16, 2023 10:17 PM in response to steve626

Intresting, because i can erase Recreate container and therefote, Volume just fine.

Did Apple lock recovery partition?, still it wouldn't explain why i can't erase drive when NOT booted from internal.

or perhaps a Monterery change? Big sur i could erase drive no problem, but that Was on my older Intel mac i replaced.

in any case this helps, this is what i get from Terminal, booted via USB

/dev/disk0 i can not delete even when booting from USB (Container and volume only)

i created usb following Apple's own article, howver i did not create it on my M1 mac.

surly, that can't be the cause??

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Answer 4

steve626

Level 6

11,363 points

Jan 16, 2023 8:44 PM in response to Tech198

My suggestion is to boot into local Recovery, the way Apple recommends for this.

It seems that something about the way your USB external boot drive was created links it to a process of some sort that connects to your internal physical drive. So apparently it won't allow you to erase it. Obviously this is different from behaviors with earlier MacOS, as you have explained.

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Answer 5

Tech198 Author

Level 1

78 points

Jan 17, 2023 6:46 PM in response to Matti Haveri

Your right..

I was all ready to do on-site tech repair, and i explained the situation to the tech when they called me up..

Their response was "its due to the M1"

Probably, realising their is no Internet Recovery, they had to fall back to 'something' to prevent situations where users has no USB access and needed convenient way to restore to a bank internal drive. Also explains why i could do it on Intel Mac because the options were there anyway.

Makes sense.

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Erasing via Disk Utility (Recovery)

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