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In June 2017 Apple updated its 13" MacBook Air with a newer Broadwell Intel Core i5 processor, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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Aura Pro X2 not recognized Using Command +R

I am trying to format an Aura Pro X2 480Gb SSD on a MacBook Air running Catalina 10.15.7 using Command +R. The MacBook Air is from 2017. When I boot up using Command +R the drive does not show up in Disk Utility. When I boot up in Command Option +R it does show up. I formatted the drive using Command Option +R but it will not allow me to use Time machine to restore the original drive to the new drive. I also tried using Command +R to check the drive on an Early 2015 MacBook Pro. Again the Aura Pro X2 would not show up despite the fact that an identical drive was already installed on it previously without any issues. The MacBook Pro was running 10.15 at the time the other SSD was installed. Any ideas as to how I can get the SSD to show up using Command +R?

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Sorry that’s not possible! You need to first boot up under Sierra and install it on the OWC SSD then you can upgrade to Mojave, and then make the jump to Catalina.

There are a few reasons you need to follow this path as you first need to prep the drive Under HFS+ and with Mojave upgrade the systems firmware and also upgrade the SSD format from HFS+ to APFS.

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Then why was I able to format a different drive identical to this one on a MacBook Pro running Catalina 10.15 and not have any issues doing it? At the time, I didn't have enough room on the MacBook Pro to install Monterey so I bought the Aura Pro X2 SSD so I could. I used Command +R and it formatted the drive just as the instructions indicated. I cannot format this drive using Command +R on this MacBook Air running Catalina 10.15.7.

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@BCronin - Yes! It can be confusing. There are a few different things which make using 3rd party SSD’s a bit harder.

Apple made a few jumps which can mess you up. Not all systems support the fully spectrum of blade SSD’s. There are currently four different types.

To then add to this is Apple also upgraded the systems firmware when it changed its file system from the older HFS+ to APFS.

Then you have Apples internet recovery setup (Command +R) which is a bit messed up.

To make this work you need to follow the upgrade path I laid out. So you start with a OS which works, then jump to the the OS installer that upgrades the firmware, then make the jump to what you want..

Frankly, I don’t use Apples automatic OS recovery system as it’s quicker using a USB thumb drive setup with the given macOS version as a bootable installer. I have a sizable collection now.

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