Help with Disk, won’t boot I was trying to factory reset my 12” MacBook A1534.
Went as instructed into recovery mode and clicked “erase” for the internal disk.
While I erased I went with the default set, “APFS format.”
The computer restarted and I was left with a black screen and the flashing logo of a folder and a question mark.
I booted back into internet recovery mode (command+R) into disk utility and I see that I am left with a drive named, “APPLE SSD AP0256J Media.”
I then learned that I might need to reinstall El Capitan but it wouldn’t let me because it’s saying that the drive needs to be journaled.
My main issue here is,
Every time I try to journal whether it’s by partitioning, erasing, or using the command prompt, disk utility freezes and the bar doesn’t load at all. It then brings me back to the black screen with the folder and question mark. It lets me choose any other format like ExFat except journal which is the one I need.
I also ran diskutil list and I see that I don’t have an synthesized drive anymore,
I do not have the Macintosh HD, Preboot, Recovery, VM.
I’m not very experienced with this stuff.
Can someone please help.
Id hate to toss this computer and “get a new hard drive” as others have told me, on this Mac the SSD is soldiered on the board.




EDIT: I am able to formate using exFat successfully but I get this message.
I’ve tried enabling journaling via Terminal and it just freezes up when I do anything involving journaling.

EDIT #2: I just tried using the (Command - Option - R) and Catalina came up, I reformatted into APFS, while loading it said it was journaling. Then the screen went black showing me a folder with a question mark. I went back into the Catalina recovery and it’s saying it is in Mac OS Extended now, but it’s not journaled and it won’t mount so I cant install catalina. I don’t believe SSD is bad because smart status says verified.
It's normal to not have a Macintosh HD volume and other volumes after you've erased the disk since the disk is now empty without an operating system installed.
It's normal to have many little ‘disk image’ disks show up in diskutil list since that's how the Recovery environment works (diskutil list shows 20 disk partitions, I only know 3, what are the rest?).
It's not normal to be unable to erase a disk to enable journaling. However, journaling is only an option on HFS formatted disks, and you should be using APFS.
In Disk Utility, with the top-level disk selected, Erase, then enter a name like Macintosh HD, choose APFS as the format and choose GUID Partition Map for scheme. Once the disk is erased, exit Disk Utility (don't reboot, just close the app) and choose Install macOS from the recovery dialog.