"View" option does not appear in disk utility in Recovery Mode

Question

Level 1

9 points

"View" option does not appear in disk utility in Recovery Mode

I am replacing the 512GB SSD in my late 2015 MacBook Pro [Retina], with a new 1TB SSD

I have a Time Machine backup of the existing disk to install on the new SSD, once it's installed and formatted correctly. The MacBook was running the latest version available of Monterey.

As far as I understand it, once I have physically installed the new SSD, I need to boot into recovery mode and then access disk utility to erase and reformat the new SSD. I will then be able to restore system & data from the Time Machine backup.

I have physically installed the new SSD.

I then booted into recovery mode, and chose Disk Utility from the options.

When I got to disk utility, the SSD was, and is, not visible. Which is what I expected.

My understanding was that I needed to reveal all disks via the ‘view’ option.

However, there is no view option visible in Disk Utility.

Am I doing something stupid?

Forgive me if this issue has been addressed elsewhere, but i could find no relevant information in my searches, both here and more widely online.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Jan 23, 2026 5:04 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

69,680 points

Jan 24, 2026 8:32 PM in response to tontoe

tontoe wrote:

As far as I understand it, once I have physically installed the new SSD, I need to boot into recovery mode and then access disk utility to erase and reformat the new SSD. I will then be able to restore system & data from the Time Machine backup.

I have physically installed the new SSD.

I then booted into recovery mode, and chose Disk Utility from the options.

When I got to disk utility, the SSD was, and is, not visible. Which is what I expected.

My understanding was that I needed to reveal all disks via the ‘view’ option.

However, there is no view option visible in Disk Utility.

Am I doing something stupid?

No, you are not doing anything stupid. You just ended up booting to a very old version of macOS installer where Disk Utility did not have the "View" option because the older versions showed the physical drives by default. The "View" option in Disk Utility first appeared with macOS 10.13 High Sierra.

Unfortunately some Macs may only boot into the older online installer for the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory regardless of the key combination used for booting.

Command + Option + R attempt to boot to the most recent compatible online installer (Monterey for your Mac)

FYI, when using a third party NVMe SSD internally within a Mac, you must boot from macOS 10.13+ in order for macOS to even be able to see the physical SSD. Plus, macOS 10.13+ must already have been installed on the system at some point in the past so that the computer's firmware has been updated to support an NVMe SSD. There is a firmware requirement & also a macOS NVMe SSD driver are required....only macOS 10.13+ meet these requirements. Older versions of macOS are unable to physically see or communicate with an internal NVMe SSD even if the computer's firmware has been updated.

Reply

Answer 2

tontoe Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 24, 2026 3:59 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thank you for your rapid response.

Clarifications

I was following the (very garbled) instructions that came with the SSD (via QR /web link), which said I would have to enter Recovery, find the device in Disk Utility, erase and reformat it.

“Instructions” further said it was possible that the device would not appear in DU, and would be revealed using the “view” menu.

So I booted into recovery.

And that is indeed what happened - only the Apple image was visible in Disk Utility.

This is why I “expected” this to happen; the “instructions”🤣🤣 said it might.

However, there was definitely no view option, and the SSD was definitely not there.

(I would have taken a screenshot, but don’t think you can in recovery mode.)

I tried this whole process several times with the same result - definitely no SSD visible and no “view” option in Disk Utility.

I suspected a faulty SSD.

Update

Before giving up, I decided to try another approach.

I used another Mac to download/create a bootable USB drive of Catalina (the Monterey download just wouldn’t work in creating the bootable installer)

I restarted the machine with the bootable USB stick in place and opened Disk Utility.

The new SSD was visible this time, and I was able to erase/reformat it, and install Catalina.

It’s now updating to Monterey.

What a palaver!

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 23, 2026 5:50 PM in response to tontoe

<< When I got to disk utility, the SSD was, and is, not visible. Which is what I expected. >>

That is Not accurate.

The physical device should show, regardless of formatting or no formatting.

In ANY version of Disk Utility, whether it has a view menu or lacks a View menu,

if the physical device does not show, then that drive is not working. Formatting will not fix it.

Reply

Answer 4

tontoe Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 25, 2026 1:23 AM in response to HWTech

Thank you!

That explains it :)

My knowledge increases every time I encounter a problem - which is a good thing!

Reply

Answer 5

HWTech

Level 9

69,680 points

Jan 25, 2026 11:03 AM in response to tontoe

You're welcome.

Reply