You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I was trying to wipe my imac and now I'm stuck in recovery mode. Everytime I restart, it goes to the recovery window. I've tried holding the option key while it restarts and that brings me to only being able to click on the recovery HD. I can't seem to access my regular HD. I also do not know much about HD's so I'm quite lost.
iMac Pro
To properly wipe the drive, follow the directions at > How to erase a disk for Mac - Apple Support
Then to reinstall macOS see > How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support
If you are giving away or selling, see > What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
Sadly, if you can not access the internal hard drive to format, then it has most likely failed and needs to be replaced.
To properly wipe the drive, follow the directions at > How to erase a disk for Mac - Apple Support
Then to reinstall macOS see > How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support
If you are giving away or selling, see > What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
Sadly, if you can not access the internal hard drive to format, then it has most likely failed and needs to be replaced.
Thank you for your reply!! So I had already previously tried your first suggestion, and it gives me the error "Disk Erase Failed: Couldn't unmount disk." It is since I tried that that I have not been able to restart it normally as per my issue above. So I then tried your second suggestion of re-installing OS X Yosemite (is what it offers) and when I get to the "Select the disk where you want to install OS X" I only have the option of the Recovery HD and "OS X cannot be installed on Recovery HD". Before all of this, it was functioning perfectly, I was trying to wipe/restore it to sell it.
I should mention I'm working on a iMac (2008).
That machine originally came with Leopard.
If you have the original Leopard Install disc set, then you will need to use the Utilities on it to format and install Leopard.
If not, then you will need to get and use a Retail Snow Leopard DVD to format and install Snow Leopard, then let the new owner upgrade to a later macOS.
Yea' then pass the retail DVD on the new owner.
Ok I will try that. I'll have to get a retail DVD. Thanks for your help.
Stuck in recovery startup?
