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Only OS X Base System in Recovery Mode, no Macintosh HD?

I followed Apple's guide to factory reset my MacBook. Now, Macintosh HD no longer shows up in Disk Utility when I enter macOS Recovery. All I can see is an outdented disk 0 and the OS X Base System. I'm unable to erase either of them because the button is grayed out. I can't reinstall macOS as well because Macintosh HD is missing and the only available drive is OS X Base System. If I restart my Mac, it shows a folder with a question mark. How do I fix it?

Best Answered by

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Tuesday, August 27, 2024

To resolve this issue, you'll need to boot into Internet Recovery Mode, reformat your Mac's internal hard drive, and then reinstall macOS.

The issue likely arose from an incorrect formatting of the internal hard drive, causing the "Macintosh HD" partition to disappear. Since your Mac no longer has a functional macOS installation, you're encountering the folder with a question mark during the boot process.

Take the following steps to fix the problem:

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Press the power button, then immediately press and hold the Option + Command + R keys.
  3. Release the keys when you see the spinning globe.
  4. In the macOS Utilities window, select "Disk Utility" and click Continue.
  5. Click View > Show All Devices, if available.
  6. Select the top-level disk and click Erase.
  7. Name your internal drive Macintosh HD.
  8. Select APFS as the format if running macOS High Sierra or later; otherwise, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  9. Keep the scheme GUID Partition Map.
  10. Click Erase.
  11. After the erase process is finished, close Disk Utility.
  12. Select "Reinstall macOS" and follow the instructions on the screen to install the operating system.

If Internet Recovery Mode doesn't allow you to erase the drive as well, you can do it by booting from an external bootable drive.