iM 4,1-14,4 Upgrading to Big Sur from Catalina

[Kashchei]

I have a 27" iMac from late 2012 with a 3.4 Ghz quad-core i7 with 32 GB of RAM on my desk in my office. It currently tops out at Catalina which runs great. However, software for my job has just been updated and requires MacOS 11 or later. How would I go about upgrading to Big Sur and is this even advisable? Any help you can give me will be invaluable--I have never done anything like this before and don't want to brick this machine.

 

[eyoungren]

OCLP contains everything you need to know. Walk through the steps, take your time and read through anything you don't understand (they explain it). For Ventura and above you'll need a USB 2.0 or better hub just for the process. Once you install root patches at the end, USB will be re-enabled. If you want to just use Monterey or less then you won't need that.

OpenCore Legacy Patcher

Experience macOS just like before

dortania.github.io

 

[Kashchei]

I read through the documentation of OpenCore and thought I had a handle on the process of upgrading my late 2013 MacBook Pro 15” Retina. I was wrong and when the process hung two attempts in a row, I tried to erase the internal drive on the laptop so I could reinstall the old OS and migrate over all my files. Unfortunately, openCore seems to have written an immense volume that fills most of the drive and isn’t erased when I use disk utility. Is there any way to truly erase this drive so I can go back to using Catalina on it?

 

[Grumpus]

Is there any way to truly erase this drive so I can go back to using Catalina on it?

In the Disk Utility menu, try selecting View -> Show All Devices. Select the top-level device, then Erase.

 

[Kashchei]

Thank you so much for your help! I hate to ask another stupid question, but what scheme do I use when I erase the disk? It defaults to GUID.

 

[Grumpus]

GUID for the partition scheme, APFS for the filesystem.