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This is because the author didn't delete the entire volume group. You have to delete the whole volume group, i.e. erase the entire drive and it's partitions to

This is because the author didn't delete the entire volume group. You have to delete the whole volume group, i.e. erase the entire drive and it's partitions to reinstall OSX. This isn't new with the M1 Macs. This has been a thing since they introduced APFS. When they went into disk utility after the cli - Then they could delete everything and kick off the OSX Install. If the APFS Volume Group still exists the installer will try to unencrypt and work with it. So.. In short, just make sure you delete the volume group. There's a specific button for it. I just did this yesterday on a T2 Mac.

garmaine 6y ago
I bricked my first TouchBar MacBook the day I received it, trying to do a factory reset as my company's security policies demanded. Not sure exactly how I triggered that state. Thankfully Apple took it back as a return. It should not be possible to brick a device by pushing the wrong button. I was shocked that this wasn't caught by anyone at Apple before release.
- hnarn 6y ago
  > It should not be possible to brick a device by pushing the wrong button So you think all Apple devices should be shipped without root? Or that anything disk-related should only be allowed through CLI as root?
  - garmaine 6y ago
    No that’s not what I mean. I bricked the device. I’m not saying I wiped the hard disk and just can’t boot. I’m saying I put the machine in a state where it would NEVER AGAIN boot. Completely unrecoverable.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    Adding another comment since the edit window on my sibling reply has elapsed. To be clear, I'm an IT professional who knows how to restore a device from boot media. I once managed a university computer lab, and wrote the linux-based image management software for 2000+ campus computers. I've written my own hobby operating, including the boot an initialization process. I thought any problem encountered reinstalling an OS is something I could handle. But that was not the case. Near as I could tell when I followed up with Apple after the incident, the boot process involved the security chip reading some data off the drive and validating it before handing off control. If that data (which is on the Apple reserved partition) was wiped, the firmware would not boot. And since the security chip was configured to not boot from media (the default state, IIRC), it was effectively bricked. So the very first generation of TouchBar MacBooks would not boot into recovery mode if you wipe the drive, nor would they boot any kind of recovery media. It's a state that required shipping to Apple for refurbishment to fix. It's my understanding that this was fixed in later models, perhaps even as a result of my incident.
wwweston 6y ago
Delete the entire drive including the recovery partition? > There's a specific button for it. Does the button say "hi, you should pick this unless you're an expert with a really good reason not to?"
giuliomagnifico 6y ago
I deleted the entire volume if I remember correctly. But even I made a mistake, there should be a warning. I used to HFS FS were there aren’t the volumes so it could have been my error but Apple should put a warning!
PurpleFoxy 6y ago
I was kind of shocked at how hard it is to factory reset a MacBook. I had one at work and I had to pass it on and the guide is a multi step process which I messed up the first time and ended up reinstalling with my user account still there. Had to start again which takes hours. Why does the recovery not just have a button called factory reset which unlinks your apple account, deletes the volume and then sets it all up like new.
- tinyhitman 6y ago
  While I'm not disagreeing that this should be possible to (easily) factory reset a device, it also shouldn't be possible for just _anyone_ with physical access to completely reset the device either. Easy resets also mean more interesting to steal
  - ciupicri 6y ago
    Is it that hard to just corrupt the file system?
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      Like iPhones, new Macs are linked to an account and you can’t activate a new installation without access to the account. This is a pretty strong theft deterrent. Of course this only works if you need access to the account to break this link.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - aulin 6y ago
    we used to say there's no security if you have physical access... any measure to protect physical access vulnerabilities is bound to cause annoyances and limit freedom of what you can do with your own devices sooner or later
  - elcomet 6y ago
marcan_42 6y ago
Not the entire drive, just the entire OS volume group (containing multiple volumes), which is one GPT partition. There are 3 volume groups (partitions), two of them are hidden by the main listings in diskutil (but still exist). If you mess those up, the only way to recover is Apple Configurator 2.
swiley 6y ago
Removing all the state from a machine and starting over should never be hard or complicated! State is evil!
fossuser 6y ago
I hit an issue when I first got my M1: https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/jy3o5c/m1_macos_restore_broken_failed_to_personalize_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/jy3o5c/m1_macos_... I’m not sure if it’s fixed now, but I don’t think it was related to the volume group.
tehwebguy 6y ago
Finally sold our old 12" MacBooks on eBay earlier this year and had to format them all. Made the same mistake with the first one, total nightmare. Once I realized the issue the other 2 were a breeze. Seems like a super obvious place to have a big warning message!
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  They have documentation for this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065 To be honest I’m not 100% sure if the ‘sign out of iCloud’ also removes activation lock, but I do think so. They also refer to the steps in the Activation Lock article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987
j-pb 6y ago
I had to send a M1 back to apple, because even wiping the whole drive left it as a paperweight. Even spend hours with apple support and nothing worked, there is more to it than just that.
tinus_hn 6y ago
> This is because the author didn't delete the entire volume group. Similarly you can get your disks in a state where the Windows installer can’t make heads or tails of it, so you need to just write zeros over the boot sector before Windows can install.

garmaine 6y ago

I bricked my first TouchBar MacBook the day I received it, trying to do a factory reset as my company's security policies demanded. Not sure exactly how I triggered that state. Thankfully Apple took it back as a return. It should not be possible to brick a device by pushing the wrong button. I was shocked that this wasn't caught by anyone at Apple before release.

hnarn 6y ago
> It should not be possible to brick a device by pushing the wrong button So you think all Apple devices should be shipped without root? Or that anything disk-related should only be allowed through CLI as root?
- garmaine 6y ago
  No that’s not what I mean. I bricked the device. I’m not saying I wiped the hard disk and just can’t boot. I’m saying I put the machine in a state where it would NEVER AGAIN boot. Completely unrecoverable.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Adding another comment since the edit window on my sibling reply has elapsed. To be clear, I'm an IT professional who knows how to restore a device from boot media. I once managed a university computer lab, and wrote the linux-based image management software for 2000+ campus computers. I've written my own hobby operating, including the boot an initialization process. I thought any problem encountered reinstalling an OS is something I could handle. But that was not the case. Near as I could tell when I followed up with Apple after the incident, the boot process involved the security chip reading some data off the drive and validating it before handing off control. If that data (which is on the Apple reserved partition) was wiped, the firmware would not boot. And since the security chip was configured to not boot from media (the default state, IIRC), it was effectively bricked. So the very first generation of TouchBar MacBooks would not boot into recovery mode if you wipe the drive, nor would they boot any kind of recovery media. It's a state that required shipping to Apple for refurbishment to fix. It's my understanding that this was fixed in later models, perhaps even as a result of my incident.

wwweston 6y ago

Delete the entire drive including the recovery partition? > There's a specific button for it. Does the button say "hi, you should pick this unless you're an expert with a really good reason not to?"

giuliomagnifico 6y ago

I deleted the entire volume if I remember correctly. But even I made a mistake, there should be a warning. I used to HFS FS were there aren’t the volumes so it could have been my error but Apple should put a warning!

PurpleFoxy 6y ago

I was kind of shocked at how hard it is to factory reset a MacBook. I had one at work and I had to pass it on and the guide is a multi step process which I messed up the first time and ended up reinstalling with my user account still there. Had to start again which takes hours. Why does the recovery not just have a button called factory reset which unlinks your apple account, deletes the volume and then sets it all up like new.

tinyhitman 6y ago
While I'm not disagreeing that this should be possible to (easily) factory reset a device, it also shouldn't be possible for just _anyone_ with physical access to completely reset the device either. Easy resets also mean more interesting to steal
- ciupicri 6y ago
  Is it that hard to just corrupt the file system?
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Like iPhones, new Macs are linked to an account and you can’t activate a new installation without access to the account. This is a pretty strong theft deterrent. Of course this only works if you need access to the account to break this link.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- aulin 6y ago
  we used to say there's no security if you have physical access... any measure to protect physical access vulnerabilities is bound to cause annoyances and limit freedom of what you can do with your own devices sooner or later
- elcomet 6y ago

marcan_42 6y ago

Not the entire drive, just the entire OS volume group (containing multiple volumes), which is one GPT partition. There are 3 volume groups (partitions), two of them are hidden by the main listings in diskutil (but still exist). If you mess those up, the only way to recover is Apple Configurator 2.

swiley 6y ago

Removing all the state from a machine and starting over should never be hard or complicated! State is evil!

fossuser 6y ago

I hit an issue when I first got my M1: https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/jy3o5c/m1_macos_restore_broken_failed_to_personalize_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/jy3o5c/m1_macos_... I’m not sure if it’s fixed now, but I don’t think it was related to the volume group.

tehwebguy 6y ago

Finally sold our old 12" MacBooks on eBay earlier this year and had to format them all. Made the same mistake with the first one, total nightmare. Once I realized the issue the other 2 were a breeze. Seems like a super obvious place to have a big warning message!

tinus_hn 6y ago
They have documentation for this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065 To be honest I’m not 100% sure if the ‘sign out of iCloud’ also removes activation lock, but I do think so. They also refer to the steps in the Activation Lock article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987

j-pb 6y ago

I had to send a M1 back to apple, because even wiping the whole drive left it as a paperweight. Even spend hours with apple support and nothing worked, there is more to it than just that.

tinus_hn 6y ago

> This is because the author didn't delete the entire volume group. Similarly you can get your disks in a state where the Windows installer can’t make heads or tails of it, so you need to just write zeros over the boot sector before Windows can install.