Option key no longer works for Startup Manager?

[orbitalpunk]

I have a M1 Mini and wanted to reinstall Big Sur from a bootable USB drive i created in Terminal. But when i hold down the Option key, Im not getting the startup manager and it just goes straight to my desktop. Has this feature been removed? I searched around and read you can hold down the Power button while booting up and then select the drive, which I did. But after activating my Mac and clicking on Reinstall Big Sur, it says its gonna take 1 hour 10 min. That too me seems like its downloading Big Sur from the net and this is more of a Recovery Mode and that its not installing Big Sur from my USB drive. I used the same USB drive on my older Mac and took about 20min tops to install. So is installing from an actual USB drive no longer possible or am I missing something?

 

[tonyunreal]

Try turning it off, wait a few secs, then hold down the power button to start it, continue holding down the button until you see "loading power options..." on your monitor then release it. When the startup manager show up, is there a USB drive option?

 

[haralds]

I think you first need to use the Startup Manger Options to losen the security profile before you can see any attached disks.

 

[Gnattu]

it says its gonna take 1 hour 10 min

The time estimate is weird on these new machines, they always shows a more than 1 hour estimate at the beginning, and the time will shrink halfway.

By the way, on M1 Macs, if you are on full security settings, network connection is required no matter where you are installing your OS from.