How to delete volumes, recreate them, and then install Catalina on boot drive?

[jagooch]

I'm trying to do a fresh installation of Catalina. I've
1. booted up in Recovery mode
2. opened disk utility and deleted from Catalina volumes ( OS and Data )

Now I have just my single boot drive and it has an empty "container"

I don't know what to do next. I was hoping that installing Catalina ( Reinstall OS option in menu ) would detect the boot drive and create the OS / Data volumes for me. Instead it asks me to select a drive to install too, but the list is empty.

Hardware: 2019 Macbook Pro 16" with single internal 2TB ssd drive.
-- No other drives. --

 

[chabig]

You don't need to manually delete and create volumes to install Catalina. Here are some very nice instructions on how to do what you want. Pay particular attention to the section, "How to erase your startup disk in macOS Recovery mode".

How to use macOS Recovery to restore the operating system on your Mac

If you’re having serious problems with your Mac, macOS Recovery can help get you back up and running.

www.imore.com

 

[jagooch]

I figured it out with trial and error. I had to add an APFS volume and then process with "reinstall OS".

I like to delete everything( all volumes and partitions ) because the one time that I didn't , it re-install the OS in place. Meaning, it didn't wipe data from the drive and just re-installed the OS.

In my case, I'm troubleshooting and issue that the SMC reset and safe boot didn't fix, so I want to eliminate anything I changed since I got my Mac as a possible issue. Basically I want it it back to "fresh out of the box" status.

Add Info: I noted that cmd + Shift + option +R option didn't let me reinstall Mojav, which is what the Macbook Pro shipped with. It installed Catalina 10.15.4.

 

[chabig]

I like to delete everything( all volumes and partitions ) because the one time that I didn't , it re-install the OS in place. Meaning, it didn't wipe data from the drive and just re-installed the OS.

Understood. But you don't have to manually mess with volumes. The instructions I linked to show to use Disk Utility to wipe the drive correctly.

 

[jagooch]

I'll use that for the next time!