Trying to erase and re-install Mac OS - I think I screwed up!

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Trying to erase and re-install Mac OS - I think I screwed up!

Trying to reinstall Mac OS and erase everything on my 500gb SSD. Computer is 2016 Intel Core i7 Macbook Pro with Touch Bar.

I thought I got through the OS install, but then it failed. Trying to erase things and start over and i'm stuck.

Currently - Recovery Mode Disk Utility shows Internal: AppleAPFSMedia, then below that Macintosh HD, then below that, but more to the left is Apple SSD SM0512L Media. Is this fixable? When it turns back on I get the blinking folder with a question mark. I think something might have messed up when installing the OS. Thank you in advance for any help!

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Mar 23, 2023 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

67,094 points

Mar 23, 2023 5:25 PM in response to wpiacenti

I have seen this happen a few times several years ago where the items get mixed up & out of order. I don't recall exactly what I did. I may have tried selecting the "AppleAPFSMedia" or perhaps even the "Apple SSD S..." item and trying to erase that item. I may have had to delete the items until I found the correct one which allowed me erase the physical SSD. I think I was able to resolve it using one or both of these options.

There is also a chance I ended up using the command line to unmount the volumes of the internal volume "Macintosh HD" and writing zeroes to the beginning of the SSD to destroy the partition table so that SSD appears completely blank so that Disk Utility is able to erase the whole physical SSD.

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Trying to erase and re-install Mac OS - I think I screwed up!

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