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MacBook can’t erase internal drives in Recovery mode

I’d like to sell my 2016 MBP i7 15” machine, I followed the apple guidelines, logged out my iCloud, then restart, pressed CMD + R and in the disk utilities I erased the Macintosh HD. Then I tried to reinstall the system, and after it finished it did not boot. I tried to re-reinstall, but finished with error, so I thought I re-erase the drives but I can’t erase any of them. The mac doesn’t boot and I’m a little bit hopeless.

Posted on Jun 14, 2020 12:47 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 14, 2020 1:21 PM

You need to follow the procedure for resetting the computer to factory state.


What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac

Factory reset of your Mac - Apple Support


You need to perform an Internet Recovery:


Internet/Network Recovery of El Capitan or Later on a Clean Disk


  1. Restart the computer. Immediately, at or before the chime, hold down the (Command-Option-Shift-R) keys until a globe appears.
  2. The Utility Menu will appear in from 5-20 minutes. Be patient.
  3. Select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
  4. When Disk Utility loads select the target drive (out-dented entry w/type and size) from the side list.
  5. Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility's toolbar. A panel will drop down.
  6. Set the partition scheme to GUID.
  7. Set the Format type to APFS (SSDs, only if installing Mojave or Catalina ) or Mac OS Extended, (Journaled.)
  8. Provide a volume name, usually "Macintosh HD."
  9. Click on the Apply button, then click on the Done button when it activates.
  10. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
  11. Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button.


This should install the original version of macOS that came pre-installed from the factory. Upon completion of the installation you will see a gray screen with a list of countries. At this point shut down the computer. Do not go any further.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 14, 2020 1:21 PM in response to tkisely

You need to follow the procedure for resetting the computer to factory state.


What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac

Factory reset of your Mac - Apple Support


You need to perform an Internet Recovery:


Internet/Network Recovery of El Capitan or Later on a Clean Disk


  1. Restart the computer. Immediately, at or before the chime, hold down the (Command-Option-Shift-R) keys until a globe appears.
  2. The Utility Menu will appear in from 5-20 minutes. Be patient.
  3. Select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
  4. When Disk Utility loads select the target drive (out-dented entry w/type and size) from the side list.
  5. Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility's toolbar. A panel will drop down.
  6. Set the partition scheme to GUID.
  7. Set the Format type to APFS (SSDs, only if installing Mojave or Catalina ) or Mac OS Extended, (Journaled.)
  8. Provide a volume name, usually "Macintosh HD."
  9. Click on the Apply button, then click on the Done button when it activates.
  10. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
  11. Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button.


This should install the original version of macOS that came pre-installed from the factory. Upon completion of the installation you will see a gray screen with a list of countries. At this point shut down the computer. Do not go any further.


MacBook can’t erase internal drives in Recovery mode

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