3 ms·

Apparently the author erased the APFS volume instead of erasing the physical volume.

SXX 6y ago
You can't wipe actual physical volume on M1 without some command line magic and even then I not sure it's gonna work. Recovery disk utility say it's will wipe it, but it do nothing and Erase Mac option is the same: all it do is erase user data. I got stuck with almost the same issue even though I'm system administrator and programmer with decade of experience. I can't imagine how all this mess should feel for average Mac or Windows user.
- marcan_42 6y ago
  You absolutely can wipe the main APFS container on M1, from 1TR mode (the recovery menu that you get by holding down power). That will wipe the OS along with user data. Unless you have something broken in system firmware at that point, it's a clean start. This works from the GUI Disk Utility too, usually, though that tool is flaky sometimes. It definitely works from the command line.
  - ulzeraj 6y ago
    The thing it doesn't look like we are actually erasing the device but a volume group inside it. I say that because there seems to be a protected partition that contains the OS installer. I could be wrong tho but I've reinstalled at least 2 systems like that.
    - marcan_42 6y ago
      You are erasing the container (as in one APFS container of multiple volumes) that contains the OS and data and everything else that is what, on a PC, you would consider "the whole drive" for fresh-install purposes. On an M1, that is only one GPT partition, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that that (plus perhaps clearing xART data) will fix pretty much any "normal" issues you have in the machine, equivalent to a fresh reinstall with full data wipe. The filesystem data structures are independent at the volume group level, so this will also fix any filesystem issues you might have (it would be very rare to have FS problems in the other two system APFS volume groups, as they are very rarely written to, and even more rarely have metadata/complex changes). Compare: this is like wiping boot, system, data, and vendor on an Android phone. You wipe the whole OS and user data. You do not wipe the bootloader and other partitions (because if you did, you'd brick the phone). This is as much of a "factory reset" as almost anyone will ever need. If you really want to wipe the whole drive, you need Apple Configurator 2 and another Mac to re-install, as the machine is then unable to boot in anything except DFU mode if you wipe the system containers. Unlike Android phones though, this is supported by Apple, so you can't in fact brick these Macs like that - just be aware that this option does (currently) require another Mac to do the re-install.

SXX 6y ago

You can't wipe actual physical volume on M1 without some command line magic and even then I not sure it's gonna work. Recovery disk utility say it's will wipe it, but it do nothing and Erase Mac option is the same: all it do is erase user data. I got stuck with almost the same issue even though I'm system administrator and programmer with decade of experience. I can't imagine how all this mess should feel for average Mac or Windows user.

marcan_42 6y ago
You absolutely can wipe the main APFS container on M1, from 1TR mode (the recovery menu that you get by holding down power). That will wipe the OS along with user data. Unless you have something broken in system firmware at that point, it's a clean start. This works from the GUI Disk Utility too, usually, though that tool is flaky sometimes. It definitely works from the command line.
- ulzeraj 6y ago
  The thing it doesn't look like we are actually erasing the device but a volume group inside it. I say that because there seems to be a protected partition that contains the OS installer. I could be wrong tho but I've reinstalled at least 2 systems like that.
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    You are erasing the container (as in one APFS container of multiple volumes) that contains the OS and data and everything else that is what, on a PC, you would consider "the whole drive" for fresh-install purposes. On an M1, that is only one GPT partition, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that that (plus perhaps clearing xART data) will fix pretty much any "normal" issues you have in the machine, equivalent to a fresh reinstall with full data wipe. The filesystem data structures are independent at the volume group level, so this will also fix any filesystem issues you might have (it would be very rare to have FS problems in the other two system APFS volume groups, as they are very rarely written to, and even more rarely have metadata/complex changes). Compare: this is like wiping boot, system, data, and vendor on an Android phone. You wipe the whole OS and user data. You do not wipe the bootloader and other partitions (because if you did, you'd brick the phone). This is as much of a "factory reset" as almost anyone will ever need. If you really want to wipe the whole drive, you need Apple Configurator 2 and another Mac to re-install, as the machine is then unable to boot in anything except DFU mode if you wipe the system containers. Unlike Android phones though, this is supported by Apple, so you can't in fact brick these Macs like that - just be aware that this option does (currently) require another Mac to do the re-install.