How to Erase Your Macbook M1 Harddisk the Easiest Way

Starting with Macbook M1s, you cannot simply delete partitions in the hard disk. If you are one of those that installs linux and edits partitions, you might get into a stage where you cannot create/edit partitions anymore. Diskutil commands also will not help you. As a last resort, you might want to reset the hard-disk and its not easy as in the old models. To make matters worse, you’re probably in recovery mode.

Here are the steps to erase the hard disk (reset it) successfully.

Steps

• Start machine in recovery mode. For a Macbook M1, keep pressing the power button until the BIOS tells you its loading startup options.
• Open terminal.
• Type “resetpassword” and enter.
• This opens a new dialog box. Click on the top left of the menu bar to find “Erase Mac”. The hard disk is reset, all partitions are deleted (all data is lost!) and the machine is now ready for a fresh install of the operating system.
• Reboot the machine and your new install will go smoothly.

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