M1 MBA clean re-install 11.2.1 through recovery environment - success

[Quackers]

A few posts recently have raised certain questions about re-installing 11.2.1 through the inbuilt recovery environment on M1's.
In an attempt to clarify these things I attempted to recover a perfectly good 11.2.1 installation using the inbuilt tools in the knowledge that if everything went south I have another mac I can DFU my M1 with

This may or may not be of interest to member @Mike Boreham and one or two others.

A couple of details:- I do not use FileVault on my system (though in light of what happened I may do in the future)
I have just one admin account on my system and one non-admin guest user account.
I had previously updated from 11.2 to 11.2.1

My expectations:- I expected to eventually end up with a new clean installation of 11.2 as I believe that's what has happened to others
who have tried to re-install macOS from 11.2.1
I expected to do this whole thing twice at least as in the first effort I only intended to do the "erase mac" once, so
expected the re-install to fail immediately or with the "personalization failure" error

What happened:-

I first signed out of Apple ID and Find My then shutdown
Pressed and held the Power button until the "options" screen showed
Selected options then continue and arrived at the normal recovery environment.
Interestingly no login screen showed, which I thought was now part of the recovery environment since 11.2 for security reasons. Nope!

I chose Utilities menu and selected Terminal (at this point the menu bar went Apple logo then "Recovery")

entered "resetpassword" in the terminal and hit return

the terminal starts to run through the reset password procedure and a new window appears - again, not a login window but the same type of window but with the Finder icon (not a user icon)

Underneath the Finder logo is the explanation of what you're doing and then the word "reset password" - I did not use that option because now the menu bar has changed to Apple - Recovery Assistant (not just Recovery)

I clicked on Recovery Assistant and chose "erase mac" from the drop-down and confirmed that

I can't remember at what stage it happened but at some stage you get a window telling you that the mac needs deactivating but I ignored that option too.

Erase mac then runs and the normal recovery window then reappears (DU, re-install macOS etc)

I chose Re-install macOS then clicked on install
(the first time this failed stating that important files needed to be downloaded and it wasn't possible at this time) I left it a minute and then tried again. This ran fine and the system installed.
As stated earlier I expected this to fail either immediately or at the end, due to an account personaliozation error that others have seen.
This was not the case. It completed to the language selection page.

At the Migration Assistant stage I chose to transfer all my files and data from a TM backup I made before I started down this road.
Interestingly the TM backup only showed one backup to restore from whereas I know there were 2 on there (unless it was showing me the drive rather than the individual backups - I didn't notice).

It took a while but everything ran ok and the system booted to a normal desktop and all my settings were as before. Even my 2 VM's (Windows 10 ARM and Ubuntu ARM) have returned in full working order

All in all it probably took around 2 hours to re-install and migrate.
I've called it a clean install in the heading because it was not an in-place re-install but an erase of macOS and re-install.
Also note that 11.2.1 was re-installed not 11.2 which has happened to others recently.
As previously, this re-installation process left the system drive named as "Untitled" but that's easily changeable in Finder.

As stated earlier I thought it would fail first time because I didn't repeat the erase mac instruction as was previously needed in this guide
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983

A long-winded post I know but what the hell, you people have got plenty of time for clarification ?

 

[Maconplasma]

A long-winded post

Agreed wholeheartedly!

I know but what the hell, you people have got plenty of time for clarification ?

Disagreed wholeheartedly!

 

[Quackers]

Agreed wholeheartedly!

Disagreed wholeheartedly!

Well move on then

 

[Mike Boreham]

A few posts recently have raised certain questions about re-installing 11.2.1 through the inbuilt recovery environment on M1's.
In an attempt to clarify these things I attempted to recover a perfectly good 11.2.1 installation using the inbuilt tools in the knowledge that if everything went south I have another mac I can DFU my M1 with

This may or may not be of interest to member @Mike Boreham and one or two others.

A couple of details:- I do not use FileVault on my system (though in light of what happened I may do in the future)
I have just one admin account on my system and one non-admin guest user account.
I had previously updated from 11.2 to 11.2.1

My expectations:- I expected to eventually end up with a new clean installation of 11.2 as I believe that's what has happened to others
who have tried to re-install macOS from 11.2.1
I expected to do this whole thing twice at least as in the first effort I only intended to do the "erase mac" once, so
expected the re-install to fail immediately or with the "personalization failure" error

What happened:-

I first signed out of Apple ID and Find My then shutdown
Pressed and held the Power button until the "options" screen showed
Selected options then continue and arrived at the normal recovery environment.
Interestingly no login screen showed, which I thought was now part of the recovery environment since 11.2 for security reasons. Nope!

I chose Utilities menu and selected Terminal (at this point the menu bar went Apple logo then "Recovery")

entered "resetpassword" in the terminal and hit return

the terminal starts to run through the reset password procedure and a new window appears - again, not a login window but the same type of window but with the Finder icon (not a user icon)

Underneath the Finder logo is the explanation of what you're doing and then the word "reset password" - I did not use that option because now the menu bar has changed to Apple - Recovery Assistant (not just Recovery)

I clicked on Recovery Assistant and chose "erase mac" from the drop-down and confirmed that

I can't remember at what stage it happened but at some stage you get a window telling you that the mac needs deactivating but I ignored that option too.

Erase mac then runs and the normal recovery window then reappears (DU, re-install macOS etc)

I chose Re-install macOS then clicked on install
(the first time this failed stating that important files needed to be downloaded and it wasn't possible at this time) I left it a minute and then tried again. This ran fine and the system installed.
As stated earlier I expected this to fail either immediately or at the end, due to an account personaliozation error that others have seen.
This was not the case. It completed to the language selection page.

At the Migration Assistant stage I chose to transfer all my files and data from a TM backup I made before I started down this road.
Interestingly the TM backup only showed one backup to restore from whereas I know there were 2 on there (unless it was showing me the drive rather than the individual backups - I didn't notice).

It took a while but everything ran ok and the system booted to a normal desktop and all my settings were as before. Even my 2 VM's (Windows 10 ARM and Ubuntu ARM) have returned in full working order

All in all it probably took around 2 hours to re-install and migrate.
I've called it a clean install in the heading because it was not an in-place re-install but an erase of macOS and re-install.
Also note that 11.2.1 was re-installed not 11.2 which has happened to others recently.

As stated earlier I thought it would fail first time because I didn't repeat the erase mac instruction as was previously needed in this guide
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983

A long-winded post I know but what the hell, you people have got plenty of time for clarification ?

Wow, thanks for doing all that! You are braver than I am!

Can I ask why did you sign out of AppleID and Find my Mac? That wasn't mentioned in the personalisation error KB. My guess that is why you didn't get asked for an admin password to reach Recovery, which as you say is normal on M1 Macs even without FB.

-it is good to have it confirmed that the resetpassword method of erasing works, even if you only do it once not twice as the KB.

- how do you feel about repeating the exercise but using the Recovery Assistant > Erase Mac that you get without doing the resetpassword step?

-then try doing it with the "standard" Recovery > Disk Utility method

Thanks again.

 

[Quackers]

Wow, thanks for doing all that! You are braver than I am!

Can I ask why did you sign out of AppleID and Find my Mac? That wasn't mentioned in the personalisation error KB. My guess that is why you didn't get asked for an admin password to reach Recovery, which as you say is normal on M1 Macs even without FB.

-it is good to have it confirmed that the resetpassword method of erasing works, even if you only do it once not twice as the KB.

- how do you feel about repeating the exercise but using the Recovery Assistant > Erase Mac that you get without doing the resetpassword step?

-then try doing it with the "standard" Recovery > Disk Utility method

Thanks again.

Signing out of Apple ID is just good practice in my view and might alleviate the odd problem as well.
Similarly the lack of FileVault. If I turn on FV I'll find out whether it's the reason for the password to get into recovery or not.

That's also an interesting question (re: resetpassword).
I couldn't get Recovery Assistant to show at all, whatever I did, until I ran resetpassword in the terminal.
I forgot to mention that

As for doing it again using DU I'm not so sure.
Maybe if I have a valid reason for re-installing I'll give it a try though I suspect it's doomed to failure.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Similarly the lack of FileVault. If I turn on FV I'll find out whether it's the reason for the password to get into recovery or not.

This post and the thread it is part of, are why I am pretty sure that turning off FMM is why you didn't get asked for the Admin password on going to Recovery.

M1 and T2 Macs (which both have the Secure Enclave) will ask for admin password unless FMM is off....with or without FV.

 

[Quackers]

This post and the thread it is part of, are why I am pretty sure that turning off FMM is why you didn't get asked for the Admin password on going to Recovery.

M1 and T2 Macs (which both have the Secure Enclave) will ask for admin password unless FMM is off....with or without FV.

Ah right, thanks
I suppose that makes sense.
Something to consider for the future then.

As I said, the original post is what worked for me and my M1, with my particular set up.
It may be different for others.
It may also change again with 11.3 or 11.4 - who knows?

 

[Quackers]

This post and the thread it is part of, are why I am pretty sure that turning off FMM is why you didn't get asked for the Admin password on going to Recovery.

M1 and T2 Macs (which both have the Secure Enclave) will ask for admin password unless FMM is off....with or without FV.

I just tested this.
When signed in to Apple ID but not into Find My I get no password request to enter the recovery environment.
When I signed in to Find My as well I do get the password screen before I'm allowed in to recovery.
So you're absolutely right