I had restarted while the macOS catalina was installing and now my macintosh HD disk is gone and I cannot startup my computer to the login homescreen. When I go to disk utility there is only OS X Base system and 251 GB APPLE SSD. Did I completely break my macbook pro? What do I do to return it back to normal? I can't intsall any other macOS because there is no disk to download it on.
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Restarted while macOS catalina was installing
- Thread starter azriela
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Try booting into Internet Recovery
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Deleted Macintosh HD
Hello, I accidentally deleted the Macintosh HD as I was trying to erase the data on it because I just bought it from someone with their files still on it. Doing this I accidentally deleted the whole thing rather than just the files on it. I tried going into disk utility and creating a new file...
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One fix will mean that you must erase the drive "251 GB Apple SSD ... "
You would lose anything that you don't have backed up.
THAT's where you data is, and the restart in the middle of a system install corrupted your drive.
And, installing Catalina ALSO means that the volume would have been on a APFS format. Not too many tools will help you resurrect that format.
If you just want to move ahead, erase that 251 GB Apple SSD, which will then make the newly erased volume visible, and give the installer - whatever system you want to install - a location to install.
You would lose anything that you don't have backed up.
THAT's where you data is, and the restart in the middle of a system install corrupted your drive.
And, installing Catalina ALSO means that the volume would have been on a APFS format. Not too many tools will help you resurrect that format.
If you just want to move ahead, erase that 251 GB Apple SSD, which will then make the newly erased volume visible, and give the installer - whatever system you want to install - a location to install.
whoa... whoa.... whoa......
Hold the potatoes there on erasing, reformatting and reinstalling.....
It is possible that all your data is gone already, but if you don't have a back-up of your data, there are other things you should consider first before erasing your drive, if you want to try and salvage your data.... If you are not concerned with recovering all your data, sure then...... as said above just erase, reformat, rename, and reinstall...... Either via a usb-installer or recovery / internet recovery...... However, if you don't have a back-up and/or want to try and salvage your data, there are things to try.......
1) What year is your MacBook Pro?
2) Do you have another Mac?
3) Do you have an extra external HDD or SSD?
Hold the potatoes there on erasing, reformatting and reinstalling.....
It is possible that all your data is gone already, but if you don't have a back-up of your data, there are other things you should consider first before erasing your drive, if you want to try and salvage your data.... If you are not concerned with recovering all your data, sure then...... as said above just erase, reformat, rename, and reinstall...... Either via a usb-installer or recovery / internet recovery...... However, if you don't have a back-up and/or want to try and salvage your data, there are things to try.......
1) What year is your MacBook Pro?
2) Do you have another Mac?
3) Do you have an extra external HDD or SSD?
No backup?
Whatever data that was on it previous to the failed "upgrade" is probably gone forever.
Having said that...
I would first try to boot to INTERNET recovery (NOT "the recovery partition").
Then, I'd try an OS install onto the existing drive.
You get to INTERNET recovery with:
Command-OPTION-R
...at boot.
You'll need your wifi password.
The internet utilities will take a while to load.
Be patient.
When you get to the utilities, open the OS installer.
See if it will work.
If it DOESN'T WORK...
Then my guess is the only option you have is to COMPLETELY ERASE the drive and "start over".
But again -- without a backup -- whatever was on the drive will be gone.
In the future, I suggest you learn about the concept of "backing up" your data.
It would have helped in a situation like this.
Whatever data that was on it previous to the failed "upgrade" is probably gone forever.
Having said that...
I would first try to boot to INTERNET recovery (NOT "the recovery partition").
Then, I'd try an OS install onto the existing drive.
You get to INTERNET recovery with:
Command-OPTION-R
...at boot.
You'll need your wifi password.
The internet utilities will take a while to load.
Be patient.
When you get to the utilities, open the OS installer.
See if it will work.
If it DOESN'T WORK...
Then my guess is the only option you have is to COMPLETELY ERASE the drive and "start over".
But again -- without a backup -- whatever was on the drive will be gone.
In the future, I suggest you learn about the concept of "backing up" your data.
It would have helped in a situation like this.
Um, I just want to interject here......
im going to post these three questions again:
1) What year is your MacBook Pro?
2) Do you have another Mac?
3) Do you have an extra external HDD or SSD?
just because your OS is toast/corrupted, it doesn’t mean that all the data is gone.... depending on the year of your mbp , you may be able to pop out the ssd inside, hook it up to a sata to USB cable, then plug that Sata to USB cable into a different computer to salvage your data. If your ssd is removable, this is cheap and easy to do. Regarding question 2 above, if you have another Mac and a particular kind of cable(thunderbolt), you can boot The Mac with the corrupted OS to target disk mode, connect your corrupted OS Mac to a healthy Mac via thunderbolt cable, and extract your data this way.... also not so expensive. Regarding the 3rd question, if you own an external ssd or hdd and have a macOS install usb stick, you can install macOS on an external drive, boot to the external drive, and then extract your data once you are booted to the external drive. This is also really easy to do.
if you have lost important data with your OS crashing, please do not listen to the users here telling you to immediately wipe and reformat your drive. There are multiple, cheap and easy ways to try and salvage your data before erasing your drive and starting over. If you’ve lost valuable data, exhaust all of your salvage options before erasing the drive.
im going to post these three questions again:
1) What year is your MacBook Pro?
2) Do you have another Mac?
3) Do you have an extra external HDD or SSD?
just because your OS is toast/corrupted, it doesn’t mean that all the data is gone.... depending on the year of your mbp , you may be able to pop out the ssd inside, hook it up to a sata to USB cable, then plug that Sata to USB cable into a different computer to salvage your data. If your ssd is removable, this is cheap and easy to do. Regarding question 2 above, if you have another Mac and a particular kind of cable(thunderbolt), you can boot The Mac with the corrupted OS to target disk mode, connect your corrupted OS Mac to a healthy Mac via thunderbolt cable, and extract your data this way.... also not so expensive. Regarding the 3rd question, if you own an external ssd or hdd and have a macOS install usb stick, you can install macOS on an external drive, boot to the external drive, and then extract your data once you are booted to the external drive. This is also really easy to do.
if you have lost important data with your OS crashing, please do not listen to the users here telling you to immediately wipe and reformat your drive. There are multiple, cheap and easy ways to try and salvage your data before erasing your drive and starting over. If you’ve lost valuable data, exhaust all of your salvage options before erasing the drive.
In fact, if you have a external ssd, you can probably install macOS there via recovery / internet recovery.