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Erasing an M1 before return

Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
So you've booted into recovery and you have a window in the centre of a screen that allows choices of Safari, Re-install macOS etc etc.
Click outside that window - not in the menu bar.
That should change the display in the menu bar so that Recovery Assistant appears.
 
H

hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
So you've booted into recovery and you have a window in the centre of a screen that allows choices of Safari, Re-install macOS etc etc.
Click outside that window - not in the menu bar.
That should change the display in the menu bar so that Recovery Assistant appears.
Click to expand...
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Click on Options then click Continue
The window I mention above will then appear.
Click outside that window and recovery assistant will appear in the menu bar.
Click on that and you'll see erase mac.
 
H

hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
Click on Options then click Continue
The window I mention above will then appear.
Click outside that window and recovery assistant will appear in the menu bar.
Click on that and you'll see erase mac.
Click to expand...
the recovery assistant showed up second and clicked and there were option to erase but not highlighted
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Why would it be highlighted?
Just click on it and your mac will be erased.
Then you can re-install a fresh OS.
Did you sign out of AppleID? If not you may have problems.
 
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

Contributor
Sep 21, 2012
35,666
52,478
In a van down by the river
If you have FileVault enabled, you will need to enter Terminal and enter resetpassword and erase the HD twice before you can proceed with reinstalling the OS from the utilities menu. I had to do that. If you don't have FV enabled, what @Quackers said will definitely get the job done.
 
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hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
Why would it be highlighted?
Just click on it and your mac will be erased.
Then you can re-install a fresh OS.
Did you sign out of AppleID? If not you may have problems.
Click to expand...
No option to erase
Quackers said:
Why would it be highlighted?
Just click on it and your mac will be erased.
Then you can re-install a fresh OS.
Did you sign out of AppleID? If not you may have problems.
Click to expand...
Not highlighted so could not click

 
Last edited:
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
As @Apple_Robert said in the post above yours, do you have FileVault running?
If not I'm afraid I have no explanation for erase mac being unclickable.
Maybe try contacting Apple Support for help.
 
H

hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
As @Apple_Robert said in the post above yours, do you have FileVault running?
If not I'm afraid I have no explanation for erase mac being unclickable.
Maybe try contacting Apple Support for help.
Click to expand...
no file vault everything is signed out also. thanks for trying. i thought i was going crazy
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
Apple_Robert said:
It looks to me like you didn't click behind the window. Once you do, the erase disk option is no longer grayed out. Good luck with the reinstall.

If I may, why are you having to reinstall Big Sur? Are you returning the Mac?
Click to expand...
Robert I just tried to get the recovery assistant up in recovery on mine and I can't get it :-(
It just won't appear.
I just re-read the instructions to re-install and after the resetpassword stage in the terminal the recovery assistant will then appear, but not until that stage.

Also, just for the information of all, if you select the Safari option from the options/re-install OS window and read the section on erasing the mac and re-installing macOS they're completely wrong!!!
They tell you to use Disk Utility to erase the drive!
I suspect they've just put the same instructions on the M1 as they always put on the Intel macs. Crazy.
 
H

hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
Robert I just tried to get the recovery assistant up in recovery on mine and I can't get it :-(
It just won't appear.
I just re-read the instructions to re-install and after the resetpassword stage in the terminal the recovery assistant will then appear, but not until that stage.

Also, just for the information of all, if you select the Safari option from the options/re-install OS window and read the section on erasing the mac and re-installing macOS they're completely wrong!!!
They tell you to use Disk Utility to erase the drive!
I suspect they've just put the same instructions on the M1 as they always put on the Intel macs. Crazy.
Click to expand...
i have very old MacBook Pro and it was top of line(lol) at that time but not operating well anylonger but i tried to put all the pictures in External but kept giving me m11 or r11 code so i waited to get the new computer to transfer the pic library to external. it actually worked although missing 180 pics out of 70k pics. so i guess i have to go with it. now i wanted start as clean slate on my new computer since so much old information is in it.
 
Quackers

Quackers

macrumors 68000
Sep 18, 2013
1,938
708
Manchester, UK
hndxx said:
now i am having computer account issue. keep telling me i am not able to use the name and account name
Click to expand...
I suspected you might.
I would suggest following the second method in the thread I posted (or the third if you're comfortable with terminal).
Go from "Or follow these steps".
It sounds a bit silly and it doesn't seem to do much when you do it but it seems you must repeat steps 3 to 9, as step 10 says.
These steps worked for me.
 
H

hndxx

macrumors newbie
Jan 3, 2021
14
4
Quackers said:
I suspected you might.
I would suggest following the second method in the thread I posted (or the third if you're comfortable with terminal).
Go from "Or follow these steps".
It sounds a bit silly and it doesn't seem to do much when you do it but it seems you must repeat steps 3 to 9, as step 10 says.
These steps worked for me.
Click to expand...
little bit more involved but it sorted. now i have macbook pro with clean slate! very happy!
 
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guitarguy316

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2010
375
67
rhymeswithfelony said:
Just used this fix, thank you!! I have two questions:

1. Could you further explain the partitioning? Does this reformatting the hard drive to single-partition, then creating new partitions etc---is this how it is normally, or does this change the OS's traditional factory settings/operations? Is the only difference bloatware, or is there actually a different way in which the hard drive will function going forward?

2. When using this fix, my hard drive on the install page was now listed with the name Untitled (rather than Macintosh HD, etc). There was also only one disk image instead of two. What does that mean, and do I need to rename this for any future function?
Click to expand...

Did you figure out #2? For some reason mine seemed to wipe the drive maybe and it was called “Untitled” and it was not mounted.

I kept trying to click the install macOS option but it would never show a drive to install to. So I went back and “mounted” the drive and renamed it “Macintosh HD”. Now I could reinstall macOS.

Am I okay now or is there anything I should check? What should my disk utility look like now? I’m a new MacBook owner.
 
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