Resolved I somehow deleted the container/MacintoshHD, how do I get it back? Response

[DeltaMac]

Notice (Post #17) that OP's boot drive has only two partitions, one is only 524 MB, and probably just a firmware partition, somewhat equivalent to boot blocks in Windows.
The other partition is only about 5GB, and is the recovery partition, which could restore the current macOS, if the drive would have a formatted volume to hold it. There's another "free space" of 245 GB. Free space is, well, free space -- not a formatted partition - it's just - empty. So the boot drive has no space on the drive allocated to a volume providing enough space to install the system, let alone everything else the OP might want to add.
So, the drive needs to be formatted/initialized/whatever you want to call it. If Disk Utility won't do anything, then it is possible that there may be a terminal command (diskutil, etc) that will make the attempt to clear the SSD for actual use.
Is this something that the Configurator utility also can do? (I've very little time on an AS Mac, so far, so don't know about that tool yet --- but, I would believe that the OP needs to boot to an external drive, and erase the internal SSD completely. I think that right now, OP is booting to the recovery system, on the same drive where the boot system SHOULD be, and that needs to be reinstalled to a completely blank SSD (no firmware partition, and no recovery system), and build back to a, hopefully correct, full system install.
Again, isn't that something that Configurator 2 utility is supposed to do?

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^this, especially formatting.

DU should be able reformat the drive, as the recovery partition is mounted as its own volume at this point. At this point, can't make things any worse.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Notice (Post #17) that OP's boot drive has only two partitions, one is only 524 MB, and probably just a firmware partition, somewhat equivalent to boot blocks in Windows.
The other partition is only about 5GB, and is the recovery partition, which could restore the current macOS, if the drive would have a formatted volume to hold it. There's another "free space" of 245 GB. Free space is, well, free space -- not a formatted partition - it's just - empty. So the boot drive has no space on the drive allocated to a volume providing enough space to install the system, let alone everything else the OP might want to add.
So, the drive needs to be formatted/initialized/whatever you want to call it. If Disk Utility won't do anything, then it is possible that there may be a terminal command (diskutil, etc) that will make the attempt to clear the SSD for actual use.
Is this something that the Configurator utility also can do? (I've very little time on an AS Mac, so far, so don't know about that tool yet --- but, I would believe that the OP needs to boot to an external drive, and erase the internal SSD completely. I think that right now, OP is booting to the recovery system, on the same drive where the boot system SHOULD be, and that needs to be reinstalled to a completely blank SSD (no firmware partition, and no recovery system), and build back to a, hopefully correct, full system install.
Again, isn't that something that Configurator 2 utility is supposed to do?

Configurator 2 is able to wipe and reconfigure the drive like it is supposed to be. I have never had to manually do anything with the drive using said app.

 

[lJoSquaredl]

Went to the store, one of the workers said it would be an easy fix but attempted about 5 or 6 different things and kept getting errors or missing things like I was, got confused and said to leave it there so they could run diagnostics and try some more stuff. Come back 3 hours later and they just said it was an easy wipe/reinstall and diagnostics were clean, that's all they really told me. Least it's fixed tho not sure how they did it, maybe the Configurator thing people are mentioning. Regardless I won't be erasing my hard drive from the "Activate Mac" screen anymore, seems like a big no-no, but much appreciate the feedback today everyone

 

[circatee]

Am happy it was resolved. However, it would have been great to know what was done, to a degree. At least it would be informative for others, meaning ME

 

[NoBoMac]

Am happy it was resolved. However, it would have been great to know what was done, to a degree. At least it would be informative for others, meaning ME

Well...

Come back 3 hours later and they just said it was an easy wipe/reinstall

So, Recovery, Disk Utility, Add Partition. It AP does not work, Erase and select APFS for format.

Install.

 

[circatee]

Well...



So, Recovery, Disk Utility, Add Partition. It AP does not work, Erase and select APFS for format.

Install.

Thanks. I saw that, but, was sort of under the impression that more was done, because it did not work initially.

 

[lJoSquaredl]

Well...



So, Recovery, Disk Utility, Add Partition. It AP does not work, Erase and select APFS for format.

Install.

I've wiped and reinstalled MacOS dozens of times, and ran into numerous problems over the years, partitioned drives, etc. IMO this was slightly more than just what he said or what normal users would run into, they were probably just underplaying it since they were busy. Regardless all the normal steps i've used over the years didn't work, and the lady at the store was also hitting issues with everything they'd normally do. People can keep saying the same standard MacOS tutorial steps but that just wasn't working...they did something fishy voodoo magic back there lol

So, Recovery, Disk Utility, Add Partition. It AP does not work, Erase and select APFS for format.

Install.

That was one of the dozen things that gave me an error and wouldn't work, and one of the things that confused the Apple Store worker as well.