Unable to delete Macintosh Data

Scenario: Preparing machine used for testing for sale. Start in Recovery Mode, open Disk Utility from Recovery menu, select the Macintosh Data partition. Click on the Minus button to remove partition. Delete Macintosh Data box opens, get half-way through partition delete and stops. I left it for over 12 hours to see if it was exceedingly slow, shut the machine down because it hadn't changed and am now typing this message on that machine. Cannot delete the Data partition.

Replies

Hello, I also had difficulties with Disk Utility, the visibility of drives and the newer concept of containers. I usually go to the top-most drive/container entry and chose delete from the menu. I do not entirely trust their plus/minus buttons. You would have some security deleting options too, — unless for a SSD :-(which I learnt from this document)

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac

I suppose, this is the one you have been following already, just in case…

Good luck ;-)