Trying to wipe Macbook Pro - Macintosh hd does not appear in Recovery Mode

[CookieCat]

Hello,

I have a refurbished mid-2015 Macbook Pro, it's currently running Big Sur version 11.7.10.

The last six months the laptop will run hard and crash multiple times a day. It doesn't matter if I was working on it or not. I wanted to wipe the computer and start fresh. The Macintosh HD does not appear in Recovery mode. Nor will it let me update to a newer operating system. It often struggles loading into Recovery mode and will restart. I don't know what to try next. I'm at the limit of my own abilities. I probably did something myself to mess it up.

Edit- I forgot to say the erase option is grayed out when I try to erase in Recovery mode.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Bigwaff]

Just for you .. Big Sur specific -

Erase and reinstall macOS

To restore your Mac to factory settings, erase your Mac, then reinstall macOS.

support.apple.com

 

[CookieCat]

I can’t do that. The erase option is grayed out.

 

[Bigwaff]

In Disk Utility, select menu View > Show All Devices

 

[Fishrrman]

Are you willing to erase the entire drive and start over?
Do you have a backup?

If the answer to these questions is "yes", then try this:

Boot to INTERNET recovery (this IS NOT the same as "the recovery partition"):
Command-OPTION-R
at boot.

KEEP HOLDING THAT KEY COMBINATION DOWN, until you get asked for your wifi password.
Then... enter it.

The internet utilities will take a while to load, so be patient "as the globe spins".

When you get to the utilities, open disk utility.

VERY IMPORTANT STEP:
Go to the "view" menu and choose "show all devices".
You can't see the internal drive unless you do this!

Look at the list on the left.
The topmost item is the internal, physical drive.
We need to ERASE it.

Click on it ONE time, then click "erase".
Erase to APFS, GUID partition format.

The erase shouldn't take very long.
Then quit disk utility and open the OS installer.

Start clicking through. The Mac will reboot one or more times, and the screen will go dark for a minute or more with no other indication of activity -- be patient.

When done, you should see the initial setup screen "choose your language".
Start clicking through.
If you have a backup, CONNECT IT NOW.

Setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive. YES, you do.
"Point the way" for SA and give it time to digest things (takes a while).
SA will present you with a list of stuff to be migrated. I'd migrate everything.

Let SA do its thing.
When done, you should see you login screen (as before).

Good luck.