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Looking to reformat or erase your M1 Mac?
- Thread starter Lumpydog
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I just wanted what the default was, Macintosh HD. I don’t think it matters in the grand scheme of things. When I was younger I’d rename them to some random name I thought was cool.
1: Shut down your M1 Mac
2: Press and hold the power button down to enter recovery mode
3: Click the "Options" Gear-cog icon and then press the "Continue" button that appears below it
4: On the next screen, STOP. Look to the upper left corner - to the right the Apple Logo in the menu bar, select "Recovery Assistant" (it is the only menu item)
I can't STOP here - it shows the mentioned screen for a second and then takes me to the next screen where I can reinstall, erase, etc. Also the "Erase mac..." is grayed out when I manage to click "Recovery Assistant" within the second it shows.
Erasing through Apple Configurator 2 is working though.
2: Press and hold the power button down to enter recovery mode
3: Click the "Options" Gear-cog icon and then press the "Continue" button that appears below it
4: On the next screen, STOP. Look to the upper left corner - to the right the Apple Logo in the menu bar, select "Recovery Assistant" (it is the only menu item)
I can't STOP here - it shows the mentioned screen for a second and then takes me to the next screen where I can reinstall, erase, etc. Also the "Erase mac..." is grayed out when I manage to click "Recovery Assistant" within the second it shows.
Erasing through Apple Configurator 2 is working though.
I have the same problem. I tried so much. But I haven't got solved yet. Also, I have no container disk4 part and below, only APPLE SSD Media. I also called Apple support and they couldn't help me. Because he said you did all, bring Mac to the closest store to look.
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I had the same issue where I couldn’t STOP and access recovery assistant. I resolved it as follows:
1. Shut down and restart - not in recovery mode.
2. Open system preferences.
3. Select security settings.
4. Select FileVault and turn it on.
5. Shut down and restart in recovery mode.
6. Follow the original instructions posted earlier but now you should be able to STOP and select recovery assistant.
The disk will now be ‘untitled’, if you wish to rename it this can be done in the “Disk Utility” before reinstalling the OS.
Hope that helps and many, many thanks to Lumpydog for the original post.
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First of all, I wanna thank all of you guys for all your comments. I had gone store to fix it with Apple Configurator 2. It solved directly. I asked if I want to recovery, how may I do? They said; You will have to do;
1)Show all under of SSD ( Normally, you don't see.)
2) Create ex-FAT or another format type.
3)When your mac creates step 2. Then erase it after created. Now, You can create APFS one.
4)Create APFS and issue done.
5)If you want to, use Apple configurator 2 or after step 4 you can install macOS Big Sur again directly.
( if you don't do this, it probably doesn't show you SSD, like there is no SSD .)
That's it. I hope nobody will encounter such a problem.
Have a good day...
1)Show all under of SSD ( Normally, you don't see.)
2) Create ex-FAT or another format type.
3)When your mac creates step 2. Then erase it after created. Now, You can create APFS one.
4)Create APFS and issue done.
5)If you want to, use Apple configurator 2 or after step 4 you can install macOS Big Sur again directly.
( if you don't do this, it probably doesn't show you SSD, like there is no SSD .)
That's it. I hope nobody will encounter such a problem.
Have a good day...
Try to delete Macintosh HD. I mean under APPLE SSD. You can't delete APPLE SSD AP1024Q Media directly. i had the same problem a couple of days ago. I learned later how to do it.
I did something like this with Apple support today, thanks for posting.
I just registered on this site to say THANK YOU!!!!!
I’ve been going in circles for a few days, erasing and reloading Big Sur on my M1 MBA in unsuccessful attempts to resolve authentication issues. I just tried your procedure and it worked like a charm. Now I have a clean install of Big Sur 11.1, an Admin account I can actually sign into, and FileVault enabled. ????
This process erases your wireless connection. One observation as a minor tip to others... At the prompt to select a network, I waited for a while for a list of available networks to appear before realizing I had to click on the wireless symbol in the top right of the screen.
Perhaps Apple should promote this command to the main menu options list in the Recovery mode screen.
My current MacBook Air is on 11.1, so I am not sure how this process works now. When I get into the 'options' area, there is 'recovery' but no recovery assistant. Instead, I get 4 options. Disk Utility, Time Machine, Reinstall Big Sur, and another one I forgot. Have you any suggestion for this?
I was running into the same issue after attempting to force an erase and reinstall of Big Sur (11.1) from a store returned M1 MBA I purchased today. I went through first time setup at the retailer just to check status of battery, etc...but I lost data connection after appleID sign-in but before icloud and the rest of setup was complete.
When I got home, I started the manual erase process but was unable to create a new account after OS reinstall. Other's troubleshooting tips led me to recovery mode > terminal > "resetpassword". At this point a password reset would fail contacting authentication server. However after watching a youtube video on the reset process, I found the Erase Mac option described above in the Recovery Assistant app that started directly after issuing the resetpassword command. (It seems like I had to change focus to the Recovery Assistant window before option was available.)
After the Erase, the previous (2nd/3rd/4th) reinstall attempt's "Macintosh HD" and "Macintosh Data" partitions had been deleted and I ended up with an "untitled" partition. I kicked off the reinstall, was able to sign in w/ my apple ID, create local account and password, and normal setup completed as expected.
Post install ended up with "com.apple.os.update-55..." and "Untitled - Data" partition, which I expect will be replaced after a USB based recovery I'm going to walk through next. (Don't have a spare Mac available for DFU and don't want to spend time building a hackintosh just for this.)
Note: Out of the box, my (open/reset) MBA also had a 3rd partition labeled "Data" which I manually removed early on... This was another reason I wanted a complete wipe and refresh.
I would like to ask for some advice please. When I bought my second hand MBA M1 I had the usual issues as described above and used the Erase Mac button. The shots attached show that there is a overlay Data partition which I think should not be there. Is there a way of deleting this without starting from scratch? Thanks in advance.
Attachments
I'm in the same position as you ....
I erased my drive, then installed the OS from recovery, then used Migration from a backup.
I then noticed "Data" was mounted as I seen the icon on my desktop. I unmounted it.
I just want to know if everything is all good?
Actually this video helped me. Your original posted missed a step, at least for myself and probably others. I did not have "Recovery Assistant" under the Apple logo until I did the step of typing resetpassword under terminal. For some reason, you had the option, but I and most likely others didn't until this step was done.