Deleted Macintosh file, stuck on windows bootcamp

I downloaded windows bootcamp to run games, but somehow deleted the mac os disk so I can’t switch back to mac and am stuck on windows. I’m using a really old imac, so what do I do?

Posted on Oct 17, 2025 6:08 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 17, 2025 8:00 AM

What you need to do, depends on exactly what you did with Bootcamp.


Try starting the Mac with the Option key held down on the keyboard. It should boot into the Startup Manager. If you see a macintoshHD disk there, select it to boot into macOS


OR from within Windows:

click here ➜ Start up your Mac in macOS or Windows with Boot Camp - Apple Support


If you completely erased the Mac boot drive, then you will need to re-install it.

This will require either erasing Windows windows or if possible making a new partition where you can install macOS onto using Recovery.


click here ➜ How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 17, 2025 8:00 AM in response to cxy1

What you need to do, depends on exactly what you did with Bootcamp.


Try starting the Mac with the Option key held down on the keyboard. It should boot into the Startup Manager. If you see a macintoshHD disk there, select it to boot into macOS


OR from within Windows:

click here ➜ Start up your Mac in macOS or Windows with Boot Camp - Apple Support


If you completely erased the Mac boot drive, then you will need to re-install it.

This will require either erasing Windows windows or if possible making a new partition where you can install macOS onto using Recovery.


click here ➜ How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support



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Deleted Macintosh file, stuck on windows bootcamp

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