Unable to delete macOS installation from usb drive

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Level 1

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Unable to delete macOS installation from usb drive

Hey all, not sure how I did this exactly, but I was trying to reinstall macOS Monterey on my mid 2015 MacBook Pro. When I was asked what disk to install it in I chose the usb stick.

something went sideways during the install on the Apple logo loading screen and I had to restart my computer. The computer is fine and starts up normal. But when I try to delete and reformat the usb drive it says that a writable disk is required. Nothing I do with first aid or trying to format it through the boot menu works. Any suggestions on how to properly clear this usb? It doesn’t even show up on my window pc when I plug it in.

Posted on Nov 10, 2022 10:12 AM

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Answer 1

Dorain1

Community Specialist

Nov 12, 2022 3:12 PM in response to LoganKn

Hi LoganKn,

Thanks for sharing all the steps you have tried for erasing the USB drive. It sounds like at this point you may want to reach out to the USB manufacturer to see if they can recommend how to erase the drive. Or you can reach out to Apple Support to see if they have any guidance they can share with you. Just go to Get Support.

Good luck!

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,602 points

Nov 13, 2022 1:14 PM in response to LoganKn

Within Disk Utility click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Select the physical USB stick and erase it as GUID partition and the file system of your choice depending on how you want to use the USB stick. You may first need to delete the "Macintosh HD - Data" volume which should prompt you to erase the whole Volume Group or Container. Sometimes even this will not work because macOS & Disk Utility have issues with some special partition schemes.

I haven't used Windows much recently, but you may need to first delete all partitions from the USB stick before you can format it again. If you don't see the physical USB stick with Windows, then it likely means the USB stick is bad (assuming Windows on a non-Apple PC since I'm not sure how Windows Bootcamp will handle a drive which macOS has trouble).

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Unable to delete macOS installation from usb drive

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