At the end of last year, Apple launched a Mac product equipped with a self-developed M1 chip version. In addition to the significant changes that M1 brings to the new Mac and support for running iOS applications, many people may not have noticed the recovery mode of the new Mac There have also been changes: the ***recovery mode has changed from the original combination of shortcut keys to long pressing the power button when shutting down, and the recovery mode interface of all Mac devices equipped with macOS Big Sur has also been redesigned.
Recovery mode interface
Soon after purchasing the M1 chip version of the MacBook Pro, I used the new version of the recovery mode to reinstall the macOS system. Unexpectedly, after reinstalling macOS through the recovery mode, MacBook Pro encountered the problem of not being able to upgrade the system.
After searching and studying the official documents to solve the problem, this article will introduce many problems that occurred during the reinstallation of the M1 chip version of the Mac. I hope it will be helpful to you.
problem
After erasing the disk through the recovery mode and reinstalling macOS Big Sur online, my Mac was stuck in the user creation step during the system initialization process. After a long period of unresponsiveness, the system popped up to inform the user that the user creation failed; after restarting the Mac, you can* **User login interface, but cannot log in with the password set during initialization.
After the problem occurred, I guessed that this may just happen accidentally because the system failed to create the user correctly and the system could not be normal. So I performed another operation of wiping the disk and reinstalling macOS, and I encountered the same problem.
Obviously, it is not an accidental discovery that the system cannot be *** after reinstalling macOS on the M1 chip Mac. So I started to find a solution through the search engine, and found that posts with this problem were found on some websites.
During the search process, I also found that users of M1 devices encountered the prompt "An error occurred while preparing to update" during the network installation of macOS Big Sur, and even the installation process could not be completed; the cause of the problem is also that the user is in the process of installing macOS Big Sur. Before reinstalling macOS Big Sur on the Internet, the disk was erased.
Next, I will introduce feasible solutions to these problems; also here is a reminder, if you are using an M1 chip version of the Mac device, if there is no other Mac or no backup, try not to wipe the disk. The operation of reinstalling macOS. Otherwise, your problem may not be solved by yourself, you can only go to the Apple Store to handle it.
solution
If there is a Time Machine backup, directly restoring the backup through the recovery mode should be able to solve the above problems. If you are not backing up for your Mac, the following methods should help you.
After searching through the search engine, I found this document released by Apple on resolving the error message during the installation process. Taking into account the full macOS Big Sur re-download and install the system takes a lot of time, combined with discussion of other communities, I first tried to enter commands in recovery mode through the terminal resetpasswordto reset a user's password has been operating, and found equipment The operation could not be completed.
The next step is to consider how to reinstall macOS Big Sur again. Since the method described in the document is for the case where the user fails to complete the installation process, and I cannot determine whether the user cannot be created after reinstalling macOS directly on the machine through the method in the document, so I did not try the provided in the document Reinstall the macOS system directly on this machine again.
From official documents and feedback from users in other communities, the M1 chip Mac supports the DFU mode similar to that on the iPhone. Installing macOS through DFU mode will reinstall the system recovery partition together. Most of the posts I searched have problems. Users have solved the problem through this method.
Therefore, I finally decided to use Apple Configurator on another Mac at home to reinstall macOS through the DFU mode of the M1 device.
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How to enter DFU mode
To put your Mac into recovery mode, you need to go through the following steps:
Install Apple Configurator on any supported Mac (system requires macOS 10.15.6 or higher), and connect the M1 chip version Mac through a cable, which needs to be inserted into the designated interface as shown in the example below:
After connecting two Macs, the M1 chip version of the Mac mini needs to be disconnected from the power source for at least 10 seconds, then press and hold the power button and connect the power at the same time, and then release the power button. At this time, the Mac mini's status indicator will turn amber.
If it is an M1 chip version of the laptop, you need to press the power button when shutting down, and hold down the right Shift key + the left Option key + the left Control key at the same time for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, release these 3 keys and continue to hold down Power button until the M1 device appears in the Apple Configurator connected to the Mac.
It should be noted that, like the iPhone, nothing will be displayed on the screen after the Mac *** DFU mode. After the device placeholder icon showing "DFU" appears in the Apple Configurator, it means success.
How to reinstall macOS
You can right-click on the device in Apple Configurator and select the "Restore" option to let Apple Configurator start downloading the complete macOS firmware and then restore it. After using Apple Configurator to download macOS, the firmware will remain on the device. After that, you can reinstall macOS directly on the same device at any time without downloading the macOS firmware again.
However, when using Apple Configurator to download macOS firmware, only the approximate progress of the download will be displayed through the progress bar. There is no clear internet speed or accurate progress prompt, and the stability of the download speed is difficult to guarantee. I don’t recommend you to use the official document directly. Provide a method to download the firmware through Apple Configurator to reinstall macOS.
In fact, the M1 chip version Mac not only supports the DFU mode, we can also download the macOS IPSW firmware package in advance just like on the iPhone, and then directly install the system locally. The old Apple firmware download site IPSW Downloads has provided 3 complete macOS Big Sur firmware packages for new Macs. The device model "ADP3, 2" is the Mac mini Developer Transition Kit (DTK) device previously provided to developers.
After downloading the macOS firmware package, you only need to put the Mac into DFU mode through the steps described above, and then directly drag the firmware package into the Apple Configurator window, and the software will automatically start the operation of reinstalling macOS Big Sur.
Reminder: Keep the habit of backing up your Mac regularly to avoid the loss of important data. Currently, there are bugs in the Mac with M1 chip when reinstalling macOS using recovery mode, so be careful before reinstalling the Mac.