How To Install A Fresh Copy Of Mojave?

[Randy B. Singer]

My iMac is having problems. Apple's tech notes suggest re-installing a fresh copy of the OS.

My question:

My Mac is running Mojave. How do I re-install a fresh copy of Mojave without also erasing the hard drive? (Apple's tech notes seem to indicate that if I try to do so from Recovery that it will erase the hard drive.) Can I simply use the Mojave installer to replace the existing copy of Mojave with a fresh copy?

TIA

My Mac:
iMac 27-inch late 2015 model: A1419
i5 3.2GHz
8GB RAM
1TB of which 720GB is free
Running Mojave 10.14.6

 

[IWT]

Randy, I can only repose in my own experience, but on the few occasions I have reinstalled a new version of an existing OS via Recovery, this has never erased the HD.

In each case, it installed the OS over the existing one.

In effect, it is no different from Upgrading to a new OS; it installs over the previous one.

That's my limited experience so far.

Ian

 

[Applescrumpy]

Randy, I can only repose in my own experience, but on the few occasions I have reinstalled a new version of an existing OS via Recovery, this has never erased the HD.

That's my experience too, admittedly with just Catalina and Big Sur, but I can't see why Mojave would be any different.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Interesting. Thanks guys! It's contrary to what the Apple tech notes seem to say, but it's kind of moot at this point, since any Recovery that I boot into (local, Internet) only offers Big Sur, and I *really* don't want to upgrade to Big Sur.

So that brings me back to my original question:

If I run the Mojave installer over Mojave, will it give me a fresh installation of Mojave without any other complications?

Someone here must have tried this at some point.