Apple Intelligence is now available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac!

MBP 2016 is Monterey Factory reset ERASE Disk problem

Give out my old MBP 2016 so I was trying to do factory reset.

I erased disk and container3 on Disk utility from recovery mode. I think I tried too much to erase the container3. Now top “Apple SSD Media” is messed up. How can I make this clean ? Thank you.

Posted on Oct 28, 2024 6:45 AM

Reply
10 replies

Oct 28, 2024 2:02 PM in response to 1emjsmakm

I have seen the items on the left pane of Disk Utility show up incorrectly & out of order before, but I've never seen quite like you have shown with the partition tab (not sure I looked though). When it happened to me I had to delete/erase items (which ever ones that Disk Utility would allow me to delete) until I could select the physical SSD to erase.


You may need to first click "Unmount" for every item listed for the internal SSD before it may allow you to do anything as well. If you still cannot erase the SSD, then we can try using the command line to write zeroes to the beginning of the SSD to destroy the partition table since Disk Utility just cannot handle a drive where something is not quite what it expects.


Just out of curiosity, is this the USB-C model? And if so, is it the Touchbar or non-Touchbar model?


Oct 28, 2024 6:31 PM in response to 1emjsmakm

I ve never had any problem to do factory reset with every MBP we owned….. what did I do???


Thank you D.I Johnson.

I could not subtract the left side.

I could deleted the Apple SSD …Media under The container3.

FYI

top AppleSSD ..Media is still same.


Second “APPLE SSD ..Media” is still same. Disabled.


Container disk3,


partition right


partition left


“you can’t remove this container, because the preceding container has one or more volumes that are not mounted.”


Thank you HW Tech. This is A1708 2016 13” non-touchbar and Two usb-c.

I would try what you suggested but may need a little bit more guide.



Oct 28, 2024 8:03 AM in response to 1emjsmakm

In Disk Utility, select that top entry - Apple SSD...Media – then select Partition in the tool bar.

Click the Format selector and choose Mac OS Extended - this should enable the 'Apply' button.

Now select APFS and click 'Apply' and let Disk Utility do its thing.


Note that the above can only be done if booted from an external drive or booted in Recovery mode.


Oct 30, 2024 9:00 AM in response to 1emjsmakm

If you cannot get Disk Utility to Erase or Partition that first top item listed under Internal, then it appears that drive will not be usable.


You can try to install Monterey, but I doubt it will be successful. The drive must be in working order.


As @HWTech posted above, there may be something to try from Terminal.


Also, you might try installing the OS on an external ssd if you have one available to work with. If you can do that you may startup the Mac from that and maybe run some other diagnostics and/or utilities against the internal drive to see if this can be corrected

Oct 30, 2024 1:59 PM in response to 1emjsmakm

Launch the Terminal app from the Utility menu on the menubar. Issue the following command to get the device identifier for the physical internal SSD:

diskutil  list  internal  physical


Usually the device identifier will be "disk0", but if the internal SSD is faulty, then it could be some other identifier.


Once you have the correct device identifier for the internal physical Apple SSD, you will use the following command to write zeroes to the beginning of the SSD to destroy the partition table. I'm using the device identifier "disk0" here, but if your SSD is using a different identifier, then replace "disk0" in the commands with the correct device identifier for your SSD. It is best if you disconnect all other external devices from the computer so that you do not accidentally erase the wrong drive. There are no safety nets when using the command line.


Make sure all volumes are unmounted on the drive you wish to erase by using the following command (example here is for the drive associated with device identifier "disk0"):

diskutil  unmountDisk  disk0


Write zeroes to the beginning of the drive associated with device identifier "disk0":

dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/disk0  bs=100m  count=10



If these command complete successfully, then you can quit the Terminal app and relaunch the Disk Utility app. Select the physical SSD and erase it as GUID partition and APFS (top option). You may need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" before the physical drives appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.

MBP 2016 is Monterey Factory reset ERASE Disk problem

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.