Rubin Shrestha
Rubin Shrestha
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Rearrange APFS Volumes inside APFS Container

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Similarly to this question I’d like to restore factory APFS partition container structure after reinstalling macOS Big Sur from bootable USB flash drive, exactly: make Macintosh HD volume disk1s1 (currently disk1s5) and Macintosh HD - Data volume disk1s2 (currently disk1s1).

This is what factory setup looks like:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         1.0 TB     disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.0 TB     disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.3 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     2.7 GB     disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 284.2 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                626.3 MB   disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk1s5

This is what it looks like right now:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         1.0 TB     disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.0 TB     disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD - Data⁩     2.5 GB     disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 284.2 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                626.3 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      20.5 KB    disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩            15.3 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.3 GB    disk1s5s1

diskutil apfs list
APFS Container (1 found)
|
+-- Container disk1 10FCC4F5-6143-41E5-9F74-AD9A76AC42EF
    ====================================================
    APFS Container Reference:     disk1
    Size (Capacity Ceiling):      1000240963584 B (1.0 TB)
    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   18980200448 B (19.0 GB) (1.9% used)
    Capacity Not Allocated:       981260763136 B (981.3 GB) (98.1% free)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk0s2 54848ECD-A4D2-4BDF-A539-6CAB47645CCF
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2
    |   Size:                       1000240963584 B (1.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s1 07781674-7D00-4803-8FB9-2109E944DDDD
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (Data)
    |   Name:                      Macintosh HD - Data (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data
    |   Capacity Consumed:         2529787904 B (2.5 GB)
    |   Sealed:                    No
    |   FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s2 AB82B314-D19E-4E84-837B-EB188E4B5B3F
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Preboot)
    |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Preboot
    |   Capacity Consumed:         284155904 B (284.2 MB)
    |   Sealed:                    No
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s3 F7584C45-59AD-4B37-8897-C21D40B0C7A9
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Recovery)
    |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         626294784 B (626.3 MB)
    |   Sealed:                    No
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s4 6DDAC30E-71D5-4C75-8F04-9F0B6F4296C5
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)
    |   Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/VM
    |   Capacity Consumed:         20480 B (20.5 KB)
    |   Sealed:                    No
    |   FileVault:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk1s5 C9027495-7A11-4921-A0D2-0668E7ABE28C
        ---------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s5 (System)
        Name:                      Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)
        Mount Point:               Not Mounted
        Capacity Consumed:         15331536896 B (15.3 GB)
        Sealed:                    Broken
        FileVault:                 No (Encrypted at rest)
        |
        Snapshot:                  3E13A161-7421-48DE-8CA1-47FB0C581DC5
        Snapshot Disk:             disk1s5s1
        Snapshot Mount Point:      /
        Snapshot Sealed:           Yes

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2          4         Pri GPT table
          6      76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      76806  244199454      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  244276260          4         Sec GPT table
  244276264          1         Sec GPT header

I have prepared a bootable macOS Big Sur running from external drive. However I’m not sure how do I achieve what I need. I’ve examined diskutil man on apfs and an article about creating APFS Fusion Drive by hand but could’t come up with the idea how to do what I need. I’m not afraid to edit internal drive, there’s no user data on it currently, just a fresh copy of macOS (if something goes wrong I can reinstall from USB flash drive again).

Please help!

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