You can’t reformat a drive in macOS Disk Utility when the Erase button is grayed out. This might happen for a variety of reasons, all of which keep you from erasing or reformatting the drives connected to your Mac.
Jan 29, 2020 Then in the Format menu, go for Mac operating system extended and then type a name as of your wish on drive. Next click on Erase option. After erasing disk, select the option Disk utility and exit it; If you are connected with internet, then just select the network from Wi-Fi menu in the right corner of screen; The last and final step select. Jun 16, 2020 Accidentally Erased Hard Drive on Mac. You may use Disk Utility application to perform hard drive partition-related tasks on Mac Operating System, such as to format, repair, erase or create hard drive partitions and end up with an erased hard drive. Moreover, by doing so, crucial data may be deleted by mistake from your Mac.
Jul 02, 2020 Use Disk Utility to erase (format) a hard disk, SSD, flash drive, or other storage device. Erasing your disk: For most reasons to erase, including when reformatting a disk or selling, giving away, or trading in your Mac, you should erase your entire disk. Dec 08, 2019 First Aid will run, checking the health of your Mac's drive. This process could take a little while. Click Disk Utility in the Menu bar. Click Quit Disk Utility. How to erase your startup disk in macOS Recovery mode. If you need to start completely fresh, then you'll want to erase your startup disk using Disk Utility.
If your MacBook’s Disk Utility won’t let you erase drives, follow the steps below to fix it.
Contents
2 What if the Erase Button in Disk Utility is grayed Out?
3 Learn how to reinstall macOS after erasing your Drive
Related:
How to erase or reformat a Drive using Disk Utility
Let’s start with a brief explanation of the correct way to reformat or erase drives using your Mac. Feel free to skip this section if you already know how to do it.
You may want to erase your drive as a quick way to create space for new files. Or you might need to reformat it so it works with different operating systems, like Windows, Linux, or even iPadOS.
When you reformat a drive, it also erases all the data on it. So make sure to back up any important files before erasing or reformatting your drives.
When you’re ready, here’s how to erase or reformat drives:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder in your Applications.
In the sidebar, select the drive you want to erase or reformat.
Click the Erase button at the top of the window.
Choose a new name and format for your drive, then click Erase.
Wait for Disk Utility to erase or reformat your drive, then click Done.
What if the Erase Button in Disk Utility is grayed Out?
You’re probably reading this article because the Erase button was grayed out when you tried to erase or reformat a drive using Disk Utility. Use the steps below to fix it and let us know in the comments which one worked for you.
Step 1. Show All Devices and Erase the Parent Drive
By default, Disk Utility only shows the Volumes on your connected drives, rather than the drives themselves. A Volume is the partition or section of a drive you store data in.
Open Disk Utility and select View > Show All Devices from the menu bar. You should see the device names for each of your drives appear in the sidebar.
Select the parent folder for the drive you want to reformat or erase, then click the Erase button again. Take note that when you erase a device, it erases all the Volumes contained within it as well.
Step 2. Run First Aid to Repair Your Drive Before Erasing It
Disk Utility has a First Aid feature that fixes all kinds of issues related to your drives: slow performance, corrupt files, or unexpected behavior. When you run First Aid, it scans the entire disk for errors and lets you know if there are any it can’t repair.
Open Disk Utility and select the drive you want to erase from the sidebar. At the top of the window, click the First Aid button, then agree to Run First Aid.
The length of time First Aid takes to run depends on the size of your drive, how much data is on it, and how many errors need fixing.
Combine this step with the previous one to run First Aid on the parent device for your drive, as well as the individual Volumes.
Step 3. Boot Into Recovery Mode to Erase Your Startup Disk
If you’re trying to reformat or erase the startup disk on your Mac, you need to boot into Recovery Mode first. The startup disk is the main hard drive on your computer: the one that stores macOS and all your data. It’s not usually possible to erase the startup disk because your Mac is using it to run macOS.
Recovery Mode is a special partition on your Mac you can use to restore from a backup, reinstall macOS, get online support, or erase your startup disk.
You should back up your Mac before trying to erase or reformat it.
When you’re ready to boot into Recovery Mode, restart your Mac and hold Cmd + R while it boots up. Keep holding both keys until you see an Apple logo or hear a startup sound.
You should see a macOS Utilities window appear. Select Disk Utility from this window and try erasing or reformatting your drive again.
Learn how to reinstall macOS after erasing your Drive
After erasing or reformatting the startup disk—if that was your goal—you need to reinstall macOS before you can use your Mac again. This is because the original macOS installation was on the startup disk you just erased.
Boot into Recovery Mode once more to reinstall macOS or follow our guide to factory reset any Mac. When you reinstall macOS, your Mac behaves as though it’s a brand new machine, with no data on it waiting for you to set it up.
Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.
He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.
Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.
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Summary
It is not uncommon that users accidentally erase a hard drive using Disk Utility on Mac. If you have run into the same situation, you can use the powerful Mac data recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover your files erased by Disk Utility with simple steps and get back your important files quickly and safely.
Erase Hard Drive In Mac Utility Can Reinstall Os Windows 10
Will Disk Utility Erase Files
'Will Disk Utility erase files' is one of the most frequently asked questions of Mac users. Briefly speaking, Disk Utility is one of the built-in utilities used to perform hard drive or hard drive partition-related tasks on macOS. It enables Mac users to:
Erase, format, partition, and clone disks
Mount, unmount, and eject hard drives, removable storage media, and disk volume images
Verify and repair a disk (Learn what to do when Disk Utility can't repair a disk here)
Delete free space or disk
Restore volumes from Apple Software Restore images
Create new hard drive partitions
...
As you can see from the list above, Disk Utility allows you to erase hard drives. Thus, the answer to the question 'Will Disk Utility erase files' is definitely 'Yes'.
Accidentally Erased Hard Drive Using Disk Utility
'Just now I was installing Mojave in order to save my Mac that stuck on the loading screen due to a software problem. But at the last step before Mojave started to install, I got a message saying there was not enough disk space. I didn't think too much but opened 'Disk Utility' and erased all the data on one partition. As soon as I did this behavior, I felt extremely desperate since my pictures and documents were all saved there. Would you tell me how to recover Disk Utility erased files on Mac?'
Generally, the operation 'Erase' will completely wipe out the data and it is unrecoverable. However, the 'Erase' function on Mac is different. It functions similar to 'Format' and the files erased can be recovered with Mac files recovery software tools as long as the lost data is not overwritten by new content. If you have accidentally erased a hard drive using Disk Utility on your Mac and the files lost are of great importance to you, follow the next part to recover your files erased by Disk Utility right now.
How to Recover Files Erased by Disk Utility on Mac
As mentioned above, you can retrieve your erased files with the help of data recovery software. Among the numerous choices, we recommend you try the best one of them - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. With this software installed on your Mac, you can recover your erased files on your hard drive with simple clicks. It's a popular choice for users who want to recover deleted files after emptying Trash or recover formatted files from internal/external hard drives. Before writing this article, we have tried EaseUS data recovery software to recover files from a USB flash drive that is erased using Disk Utility and the files are found and retrieved successfully. Apply the steps below to recover your files from the erased hard drive immediately.
Three steps to recover Disk Utility erased files on Mac:
Will Reinstalling Mac Os Erase My Stuff
Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Click the Scan button.
Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) and click Recover Now button to have them back.
Wipe Mac Os And Reinstall
According to tons of qualified reviews, EaseUS Mac file recovery software performs best in the market due to its excellent scanning speed, success rate, and simplicity in recovering data. Download this accomplished software and use it to get back your lost data with ease.