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Catalina install

My Catalina won’t install? I get a message saying that I need be running Mac OS Catalina 10.15 or later to install onto this volume

iMac 27", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 27, 2020 12:38 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 27, 2020 12:41 PM

You have downloaded an updater, not the full installer. See How to upgrade to macOS Catalina. To avoid possible problems with an installation, I recommend doing the following:


Repair the Drive for El Capitan or Later


  1. Restart the computer. Immediately, at or before the chime, hold down the Command and R keys until the Apple logo and progress bar appear. Wait until the Utility Menu appears.
  2. Select Disk Utility and press the Continue button.
  3. Then select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the side list. 
  4. Click on the First Aid button in the toolbar and wait for the Done button to activate. Click on it, then quit Disk Utility.
  5. Select Restart from the Apple menu.


Backup your files to an external drive. I suggest making a bootable clone in case a catastrophic problem occurs.

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 27, 2020 12:41 PM in response to atiba112

You have downloaded an updater, not the full installer. See How to upgrade to macOS Catalina. To avoid possible problems with an installation, I recommend doing the following:


Repair the Drive for El Capitan or Later


  1. Restart the computer. Immediately, at or before the chime, hold down the Command and R keys until the Apple logo and progress bar appear. Wait until the Utility Menu appears.
  2. Select Disk Utility and press the Continue button.
  3. Then select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the side list. 
  4. Click on the First Aid button in the toolbar and wait for the Done button to activate. Click on it, then quit Disk Utility.
  5. Select Restart from the Apple menu.


Backup your files to an external drive. I suggest making a bootable clone in case a catastrophic problem occurs.

Catalina install

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