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Catalina Erase and Reinstall

When erasing and reinstalling Catalina, do you erase "Macintosh HD - Data" followed by "Macintosh HD"?

And then do you reinstall Catalina on the single Macintosh HD?


When you just erase the Data drive, you are then given 2 drives to choose for reinstallation. That is when it gets confusing.


I assume erasing both as mentioned above and reinstalling on to the single "Macintosh HD" is the correct way?


Truly appreciate any help on this.

MacBook Pro

Posted on May 5, 2020 8:28 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 5, 2020 9:01 PM

In Disk Utility, set View (Top-Left of window) to "Show All Devices". Select the drive all the way at the left in the left column, not one of the indented volumes or partitions. Click the Erase button at the top of he window. Set the drive name. set Scheme to "GUID Partition Map", and Format to APFS for a SSD, or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled" for a hard drive, then Click Erase at bottom-right.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 5, 2020 9:01 PM in response to LukeD

In Disk Utility, set View (Top-Left of window) to "Show All Devices". Select the drive all the way at the left in the left column, not one of the indented volumes or partitions. Click the Erase button at the top of he window. Set the drive name. set Scheme to "GUID Partition Map", and Format to APFS for a SSD, or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled" for a hard drive, then Click Erase at bottom-right.

Catalina Erase and Reinstall

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