Mac OS accidentally deleted; issues during recovery/re-installation

[MBP_Newbie]

Hello everyone,

I am more of a Windows person and trying to fix an issue at home on a Macbook Pro.

- My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP (in response to low disk space messages)
- Unfortunately, there is no time machine back-up or backup USB etc

Thus far, I have tried the following:
1) Restart using CMD-R and the re-installation of High Sierra runs on for 3-4 minutes before running into a black screen, followed by the flasing question mark
-- I searched through the forums and have tried the shift-option-cmd-power button combination to reset the system power management control, but that hasn't helped me move forward

2) Restart with Option-CMD-R and the internet recovery process reaches a dead-end, with MAC OS Catalina trying to find a disk, but isn't able to find one.
-- The disk utility in this case just shows the Apple disk image media and not the SSD

Do you have any suggestions, on what I could potentially do to get around the above two situations?

Thanks for your time!

 

[Consultant]

Go to https://support.apple.com
And search "format"

 

[MIKX]

Hello everyone,

I am more of a Windows person and trying to fix an issue at home on a Macbook Pro.

- My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP (in response to low disk space messages)
- Unfortunately, there is no time machine back-up or backup USB etc

Thanks for your time!

Him

This forum is for Mac Pros

You will get answers on the MacBook Pro forum.

MacBook Pro

Questions and answers about Apple's professional and prosumer laptops

forums.macrumors.com

Good Luck.

 

[MBP_Newbie]

Thanks! Appreciated!

 

[CoastalOR]

Hello everyone,

I am more of a Windows person and trying to fix an issue at home on a Macbook Pro.

- My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP (in response to low disk space messages)
- Unfortunately, there is no time machine back-up or backup USB etc

Thus far, I have tried the following:
1) Restart using CMD-R and the re-installation of High Sierra runs on for 3-4 minutes before running into a black screen, followed by the flasing question mark
-- I searched through the forums and have tried the shift-option-cmd-power button combination to reset the system power management control, but that hasn't helped me move forward

2) Restart with Option-CMD-R and the internet recovery process reaches a dead-end, with MAC OS Catalina trying to find a disk, but isn't able to find one.
-- The disk utility in this case just shows the Apple disk image media and not the SSD

Do you have any suggestions, on what I could potentially do to get around the above two situations?

What year is your MBP?
What do you want to do, install Catalina or High Sierra?

You are right to use Internet Recovery. Use Internet Recovery again and use Disk Utility to check the format of your internal drive. You may have to change View to "Show All Devices" to see your internal drive. Your drive needs to be formatted APFS for High Sierra (if you have a SSD), Mojave, and Catalina.

 

[MBP_Newbie]

Thanks for your time.

I have a 2017 MBP and at this stage, I am OK with either of the two operating systems.

Each time I tried internet recovery, the process runs until the "MAC OS recovery > installing..." screen and appears to abruptly halt, before switching to macOS Utilities.
Disk Utility unfortunately does not show the SSD anymore and only shows the Apple disk image media with 2.15 GB capacity.

 

[CoastalOR]

Do you have Disk Utility View set to "Show All Devices" to see your internal drive (top level that looks like APPLE SSD...)?

 

[Taz Mangus]

Hello everyone,

I am more of a Windows person and trying to fix an issue at home on a Macbook Pro.

- My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP (in response to low disk space messages)
- Unfortunately, there is no time machine back-up or backup USB etc

Thus far, I have tried the following:
1) Restart using CMD-R and the re-installation of High Sierra runs on for 3-4 minutes before running into a black screen, followed by the flasing question mark
-- I searched through the forums and have tried the shift-option-cmd-power button combination to reset the system power management control, but that hasn't helped me move forward

2) Restart with Option-CMD-R and the internet recovery process reaches a dead-end, with MAC OS Catalina trying to find a disk, but isn't able to find one.
-- The disk utility in this case just shows the Apple disk image media and not the SSD

Do you have any suggestions, on what I could potentially do to get around the above two situations?

Thanks for your time!

Can you clarify more by what you mean "My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP". How did your child do the delete? Did they boot into recovery mode and erase?

 

[SlowPokeProductions]

Hello everyone,

I am more of a Windows person and trying to fix an issue at home on a Macbook Pro.

- My kid accidentally deleted the Mac OS High Sierra on MBP (in response to low disk space messages)
- Unfortunately, there is no time machine back-up or backup USB etc

Thus far, I have tried the following:
1) Restart using CMD-R and the re-installation of High Sierra runs on for 3-4 minutes before running into a black screen, followed by the flasing question mark
-- I searched through the forums and have tried the shift-option-cmd-power button combination to reset the system power management control, but that hasn't helped me move forward

2) Restart with Option-CMD-R and the internet recovery process reaches a dead-end, with MAC OS Catalina trying to find a disk, but isn't able to find one.
-- The disk utility in this case just shows the Apple disk image media and not the SSD

Do you have any suggestions, on what I could potentially do to get around the above two situations?

Thanks for your time!

I had the same issue yesterday only it wasn't my kid, it was me, lol. I cycled through the restarts with no success until I realized when Internet Recovery got me to the disk utility screen, I had to rename the drive. Like magic, it was there for me to select. I just renamed it Mac HD instead of Macintosh HD. Saved my 2015 and Catalina loaded perfectly after that. Hope that helps.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Try this: (it may or may not work, but try it anyway)
PRINT THIS MSG OUT

Boot to a SPECIAL VERSION of internet recovery:
shift option command R

This will install the ORIGINAL OS that shipped with the Mac, but it doesn't work on older Macs.
(if you try this and it doesn't work, then boot to regular internet recovery, command-OPTION-R)

When the internet utilities load, open disk utility.

IMPORTANT STEP:
Go to the view menu and choose "Show ALL devices"
(if you do not see this option, don't worry, go to the next step)

Now look on the left. The topmost item listed is the internal PHYSICAL drive.
We want to ERASE it.

Click erase.
Choose Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format
(this is for High Sierra and earlier)

IF this won't work (because the installer wants to install Mojave or Catalina), then you will have to "go back" to disk utility, and this time erase to APFS with GUID partition format. (simple, ehh?)

When the erase is done, open the OS installer and begin clicking through.
Any better this way?