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bernuli

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
713
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Just curious if anyone has done a clean install of Catalina yet on the 7,1.

As in, create bootable USB drive, boot from that, format internal storage, and clean install 10.15? Is this still possible?
 
Why? Isn;t it a clean installation when you get it?
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On my machine, it was a clean install of Catalina when I set it up for the first time, but to my chagrin, I've noticed an unfortunate issue in which the Mac takes 5-6 minutes to boot up with intermittent black screens and display power cycling. So much for clean installations...
 
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You don’t need to create a bootable usb. The OS install is saved on the second partition or is auto downloaded from the web. Did it when I got the MP, as messed up first install.
 
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Just curious if anyone has done a clean install of Catalina yet on the 7,1.

As in, create bootable USB drive, boot from that, format internal storage, and clean install 10.15? Is this still possible?
It works as long as the bootable drive has 10.15.2 (minimum OS for 2019 Mac Pro) and you've allowed external booting in the Startup Security Utility. I booted from a clone of my previous Mac and it worked fine.
 
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In my case I was installing a mint copy of Cataline into a 2015 MBP with years of accumulated baggage having simply been upgraded at each new macOS from Mavericks onwards.
I made a clone using CCC first, downloaded the Catalina installer, created a USB installer from that, booted from the USB, erased the MBP HD and installed Catalina. I then used drag an drop from the clone to restore documents, photos, apps etc. At the end of this process I had everything I wanted back on the MBP minus 160Gb of stuff I didn't need not to mention conflicting preference files, redundant fonts and so on.
 
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