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Erase mac

I want to erase my iMac 27 (2011) running High Sierra. Under disk utilities, the erase option is grayed out. Advice?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jan 7, 2022 11:20 AM

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Posted on Jan 7, 2022 1:22 PM

You cannot erase the same drive you are booted from. You can boot into Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) or from a bootable macOS USB installer. I highly recommend creating the macOS USB installer as it gives you more options if things go wrong with Internet Recovery Mode.


Make sure to backup your data first if you those files since erasing the drive will destroy all data on the drive.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 7, 2022 1:22 PM in response to CRinCA

You cannot erase the same drive you are booted from. You can boot into Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) or from a bootable macOS USB installer. I highly recommend creating the macOS USB installer as it gives you more options if things go wrong with Internet Recovery Mode.


Make sure to backup your data first if you those files since erasing the drive will destroy all data on the drive.


Erase mac

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