Hi – I have been having some issues on my late 2013 Imac since upgrading to Catalina. A lot of library messages in the logs for example. Sometimes if I go to shutdown I get a black screen for a while then it reboots, other times it’s fine. Sometimes when emptying the bin it just sits there on the screen and other odd behaviours. Have run Malwarebytes and nothing untoward there.
The key to reinstall mac OS Big Sur, Catalina or Mojave without losing data is the backup, since no one can guarantee all data will be perfectly maintained after macOS reinstallation. However, if we unfortunately lost files after macOS reinstallation, Time Machine or Cisdem Data Recovery is helpful to recover them back. Luckily, Catalina's hardware requirements are the same as Mojave, so if your Mac is already running Mojave, then you can Catalina without any issues. Macs running macOS Mavericks (or newer) can successfully run Catalina so long as it meets the hardware requirements. Below is the list of Macs that meet Catalina's hardware requirements.
Step 3: Erase the desired volume. For Macs with any operating system older than Catalina, simply delete the volume titled Macintosh HD. For Macs that have Catalina or any operating system that came after Catalina, you’ll be required to delete the following two volumes: Macintosh HD; Macintosh HD-Data; First, delete Macintosh HD-Data. MacOS Catalina is a major update that introduces a range of new features and changes including cross-platform app support for third-party apps, no more iTunes, iPad as a second screen. The end result is that, in Catalina up to and including 10.15.2, clean re-installing macOS is a fragile process which can fail, and must be carried out to the letter. Any attempt to deviate will prevent the installation from occurring, and the user will be left floundering in Recovery mode with an unbootable system.
Reinstall Catalina From Big Sur
It’s got very frustrating so I thought I might try and download Catalina again and refresh it. Using the Recovery, Installed OS option, does this download a new copy of the OS to the Macintosh HD partition while keeping Macintosh HD-Data partition separate? I have a Time Machine backup and also other separate copies of the three users Photos library from the iMac but wanted to know if I can re-install the OS without specifically doing anything else to keep my data. Sorry if this is basic question but in Mac terms I am not that experienced.
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Gregory