The disk Macintosh HD can't be unlocked
I am getting "the disk Macintosh HD can't be unlocked" popup error after reinstalling Catalina.
I checked Disk Utility, there are 3 partitions named, "Macintosh HD", "Macintosh HD - Data", "Macintosh HD - Data Data".
How can I fix this?
If you can still boot into the Recovery or Internet Recovery please open the Terminal app from the Utilities folder and copy the result of
du -f
and
diskutil apfs list
It is likely there was an issue with the install/migration and depending of free space you might have to erase and reinstall the OS (for that please follow the Apple guide at https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/reinstall-macos-mchlp1599/mac)
Editing the name of the drives so they are unique will help you know which is which.
This same thing happened to me. I had:
Macintosh HD
Macintosh HD - Data
Macintosh HD - Data - Data
One thing that has changed that I didn't know with Catalina is that when you look at Disk Utility it shows
Internal
Macintosh HD
That version (Macintosh HD) was greyed out for me. I couldn't First-Aid it, delete it, mount it, nothing.
I found that if you go to:
View > Show All Devices
It will show you
APPLE SSD <some serial number>
Container disk2
Macintosh HD
If you select that top node, (APPLE SSD), and then click erase and put in:
Name: Macintosh HD
Format: APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Scheme: GUID Partition Table
Then it should ask for your AppleID Password and then it will delete the volume
Then you can proceed with the reinstall like you normally would.