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When I updated my mid-2011 MacBook Air from Sierra to High Sierra last year I had some installation issues... which resulted in creating at least 2, maybe 3 disk images in my recovery drive.

I have disk image files where they don't belong (like keychain)and my system compensated by putting them in other locations.

The repercussions are greater than I can list here... The two that are most troublesome are:

/dev/disk4 in /Volumes and /dev/disk12 on /Volumes/untitled.

-bash-3.2# mount

/dev/disk1s1 on / (hfs, local, read-only)  
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)  
/dev/disk3 on /private/var/log (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk4 on /Volumes (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk5 on /private/var/tmp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk6 on /private/var/run (hfs, local, union, nobrowse) 
/dev/disk7 on /private/tmp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk8 on /System/Installation (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk9 on /private/var/db (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk10 on /private/var/folders (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk11 on /private/var/root/Library (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk13 on /private/var/root/Library/Containers (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk14 on /Library/Preferences (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk15 on /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk16 on /Library/Keychains (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk17 on /private/var/tmp/RecoveryTemp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk18 on /private/var/tmp/InstallerCookies (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2 on /Volumes/Macintosh HD (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk12 on /Volumes/untitled (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, no owners)
user3439894
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Lisa D.
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    /dev/disk4 in /Volumes is normal but /dev/disk12 on /Volumes/untitled may not be. I can't boot a High Sierra system till tomorrow to see if I have one as well. Looking on a macOS Catalina system it's not there. What are the issues you're having? – user3439894 Dec 06 '19 at 05:15
  • In short, many disk images mounted in recovery is completely normal, see the linked question. Perhaps you could [edit] the question to focus on the problem you’re having and any other symptoms, since it appears this ‘symptom’ is expected behaviour. – grg Dec 06 '19 at 07:33
  • /dev/disk12 is definitely the biggest problem (could be my only issue) it's sitting in /Volumes/, where Macintosh HD should be. When installing/ re-installing macOS I have 2 Macintosh HD's (one online). I know it sounds crazy, I sound crazy,... I wish I was! I was going to reply with pictures so you could see, but it looks like I can only do that in my original post/question? Btw, I am running Sierra. Thank you very much. – Lisa D. Dec 06 '19 at 07:56

1 Answers1

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None of those are a real problem in that they interfere with recovery functions.

Why wouldn’t you make a bootable installer and then boot from that (or internet recovery) and just delete your recovery and re-run the os installer?

bmike
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  • Unfortunately, the disk images don't get deleted when I boot from a thumb drive and do a reinstallation. – Lisa D. Dec 06 '19 at 06:29