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Is it safe to install a second macOS on a second APFS volume on Apple Silicon yet?

ebelinski

ebelinski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 17, 2018
25
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I've seen the reports about users who try to reinstall macOS on their M1 devices, and end up with a bricked Mac with the message “An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again.” and requiring a second Mac to unbrick. Does anyone know if this issue applies to attempts to create a new APFS volume and installing a second copy of macOS?

My intuition based on how APFS volumes work says no, it shouldn't be a problem, because if I encounter the error I can just reboot into my original volume, delete the new volume, and start from scratch (or just try later when the problem is fixed). But I just want to make sure.
 
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I was also wondering this, too. I was hoping to setup a secondary Big Sur partition to use for work.
 
I have a MacOS Big Sur MBP coming in December with 2TB of space I’ll see what happens when I try it when it gets here with the Big Sur beta I got a second Mac so I can unbrick it
 
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How about external boot to an SSD? Don’t mess with the internal. It’s been great for my old iMac. You can format it and install Sur in recovery.
 
ebelinski said:
Does anyone know if this issue applies to attempts to create a new APFS volume and installing a second copy of macOS?
Click to expand...

Yes.

See here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11_1-beta-release-notes

  • A known issue prevents booting back into macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 after installing macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta onto a separate volume on Macs with Apple silicon. (71353899)
  • Using either macOS Recovery or a bootable installer to reinstall macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta on Macs with Apple silicon isn’t currently supported. (71353899)
Click to expand...

There is no remedy for this yet even in 11.1 beta. You can only run one partition with current M1 Macs.
 
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4sallypat said:
So does this mean no external bootable OS either ?
Click to expand...

Yes. Note the wording: "separate volume". Meaning... anything that's not the current main volume won't work.

So even with the upcoming 11.1, we still need another Mac in case this one croaks.
 
bill-p said:
Yes.

See here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11_1-beta-release-notes



There is no remedy for this yet even in 11.1 beta. You can only run one partition with current M1 Macs.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I would read those release notes as implying that a non-beta macOS volume side-by-side with a beta macOS volume would be a problem, while it may not necessarily be a problem if they were both non-beta. (My goal is to run two release versions of macOS side-by-side.) But of course I will still wait until Apple provides clarity and fixes.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't risk it. You really will need another Mac for the whole restoration process, and if this is your only Mac, then you have to go through Apple, which may take quite a while due to the pandemic.
 
bill-p said:
Yeah, I wouldn't risk it. You really will need another Mac for the whole restoration process, and if this is your only Mac, then you have to go through Apple, which may take quite a while due to the pandemic.
Click to expand...
I would assume this will all be addressed via software update at some point in the future. Maybe macOS 11.2 or something. Expect more fixed to bugs as more people get the new equipment.
 
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Yeah, I don't doubt 11.1 will come out soon. At least it should address quite a few Rosetta 2 problems for those who are still heavily dependent on their x86 apps. Safari still crashes for me with some extensions, but it's rock solid by itself, and the OS is much more resilient against weird x86 code.

And then I'd bet 11.2 will follow with a fix to this recovery/restore problem.
 
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Hope these new machines are equipped with a working boot loader. This is a "conditio sine qua non".
I think we need to learn to use the on a mac new "iboot".
 
I am on 11.1b2 and tried to add 11.0.1. You cannot go back even via a USB install.
However, moving forward I was able to add a Volume and create another 11.1b2 installation. The idea is that once 11.1 is final the main volume will run the release version while I can test app development on the follow on betas.
 
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ebelinski said:
I've seen the reports about users who try to reinstall macOS on their M1 devices, and end up with a bricked Mac with the message “An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again.” and requiring a second Mac to unbrick. Does anyone know if this issue applies to attempts to create a new APFS volume and installing a second copy of macOS?

My intuition based on how APFS volumes work says no, it shouldn't be a problem, because if I encounter the error I can just reboot into my original volume, delete the new volume, and start from scratch (or just try later when the problem is fixed). But I just want to make sure.
Click to expand...

As @bill-p links, it looks like you're going to have issues if you're dual-booting 11.0.1 and the 11.1 beta for the time being. However, theoretically, dual-booting two 11.0.1 environments should be perfectly doable.

The "An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again." error stemmed from people with M1 Macs that shipped to them with 11.0, who then immediately tried to restore using recovery back to 11.0. 11.0 had an issue with this that is remedied once your Mac gets updated to 11.0.1. So, if you're happily running macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 right now, you ought to not have that error message should you try to use recovery to install the OS on another partition (or, more accurately, APFS container).

bill-p said:
Yes.

See here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-big-sur-11_1-beta-release-notes



There is no remedy for this yet even in 11.1 beta. You can only run one partition with current M1 Macs.
Click to expand...
Right, but those are known issues. Apple DOES eventually want to support the ability to have multiple macOS installations (hence Startup Security on Apple Silicon Macs being per installation rather than system wide like on Intel Macs). They've all but stated as such. So, "You can only run one partition CURRENTLY on M1 Macs." is a more accurate statement, especially seeing as 11.0 is bad, 11.0.1 is still the current release, 11.1 is the current beta release, and those are the only known Apple Silicon native versions of macOS that are in public existence. Furthermore, what you've linked, as worded, seems exclusive to dual-booting with the 11.1 beta and not between two different 11.0.1 partitions.
 
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Well, so Apple was listening after all. 11.1 beta 2 just added the ability to dual boot.

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I can confirm I can now boot back into 11.0.1. Also, beta 2 seems even more rock-solid than beta 1. Rosetta 2 apps that were previously crashing/freezing are now much less prone to that (I haven't seen anything freezes or crashes).

So in any case, what the OP has asked for is now possible.
 
ebelinski said:
Interesting, I would read those release notes as implying that a non-beta macOS volume side-by-side with a beta macOS volume would be a problem, while it may not necessarily be a problem if they were both non-beta. (My goal is to run two release versions of macOS side-by-side.) But of course I will still wait until Apple provides clarity and fixes.
Click to expand...
I got the M1 haven't tried this yet! I've just figured out how to get home brew running with a x86_64 backup. When none of your favorite open sourced tools run natively on M1 everything's a Beta and I've decided I want the most stable platform when my applications are more stable on M1 I'll be making one though
 
Now that macOS 11.1 is out, is it possible to have two volumes of macOS 11.1 side-by-side on an M1 Mac?

That is, have all of the problems been resolved?
 
snakes- said:
Why not simply create a second user instead of second partition?
Click to expand...
There are myriad reasons for creating multiple boot volumes. My personal use case is development-related. If no one needed this feature Apple would not have bothered creating it in the first place.
 
Is this fixed in 11.1? I have a Mac mini M1 coming and with 1TB hope to split it into 3 volumes:

1. Main 11.1 volume
2. Beta volume (for 11.2, etc)
3. Beta volume for when 12.0 is in beta next June.

I am a developer.
 
ebelinski said:
Now that macOS 11.1 is out, is it possible to have two volumes of macOS 11.1 side-by-side on an M1 Mac?

That is, have all of the problems been resolved?
Click to expand...

I was able to add a 2nd APFS volume to my M1 Mini's internal SSD and install 11.1 to it in recovery. I can switch between the volumes in SysPref > Startup Disk without issue. Now downloading 11.2 to update my primary volume from 11.1.
 
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Roy G Biv said:
I was able to add a 2nd APFS volume to my M1 Mini's internal SSD and install 11.1 to it in recovery. I can switch between the volumes in SysPref > Startup Disk without issue. Now downloading 11.2 to update my primary volume from 11.1.
Click to expand...
This should be possible right? like it's something Apple indicated was supported and not some hack?
 
Roy G Biv said:
I was able to add a 2nd APFS volume to my M1 Mini's internal SSD and install 11.1 to it in recovery. I can switch between the volumes in SysPref > Startup Disk without issue. Now downloading 11.2 to update my primary volume from 11.1.
Click to expand...
I made a 2nd partition and formatted that as APFS, lthe M1 bricked and had to "Restore" it with Configurator2 ...

How did you add the apfs ... "add a volume" or "partition"

There can be some bug in diskutility if one partition the ssd

/Alexis
 
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