I want to delete everything and restore my MacBook Pro to factory settings. I followed these steps https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-factory-reset-a-mac deleted disk, and after that tried to reinstall macOS, but I keep getting an error: "an error occurred while preparing the installation. try running this application again"
I tried to fix the issue by setting the correct date in the terminal, but that doesn't help. I tried to revert everything in disk utilities, but I also can't do that. This is how my Disk Utility looks like
Can someone help me how to reboot mac to factory setting or at least to revert everything back? Thanks.
Best Answer
The reason you are having issues with this is because the guide incorrectly tells you to press Command + R which is Recovery Mode but uses your local drive and means you can't erase the whole drive.
You need to run Command + Option + R which will run Internet Recovery Mode, and from there you'll be able to show all the partitions and erase the top level one as APFS then quit Disk Utility and install macOS to this new empty drive.