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Great info, thank you! I returned my first M1 Mac Mini to Apple because it would not boot into recovery mode. I suspect even Apple's Technical Support agents d

Great info, thank you! I returned my first M1 Mac Mini to Apple because it would not boot into recovery mode. I suspect even Apple's Technical Support agents don't know this second recovery mode exists; they didn't attempt it at the time. Has anyone else had issues booting into recovery mode?

wil421 6y ago
No issues booting into recovery with my M1 Air. Time machine kept failing and I had to boot into recovery and wipe my hard drive a few times.
lovelyviking 6y ago
Yes, during the very first day! Without any power interrupts during OS reinstall.( see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203799) I think Disk Utility in recovery partition has some serious bugs and it can make it 'not bootable'
- shawnz 6y ago
  I believe you could intentionally make it not bootable using Disk Utility if you delete the firmware partition (thus requiring a DFU mode recovery) but that is an expected behavior
  - lovelyviking 6y ago
    You could also delete firmware partition without such intent because Disk Utility will hang and do it for you, which is less expected I believe.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      Presumably there is a remote chance of the firmware being unintentionally destroyed by crashing software on any computer system.
      - lovelyviking 6y ago
        Presumably it's a very reproducible bug during very basic operation but with easiness of getting 'healthy' supply of COVID while accessing another Mac in the repair-shop I would rather not play with it to find out more unless Apple sends me another 20 Macs and pays a lot for this headache.
        shawnz 6y ago
        Maybe it is easily reproducible, and that would certainly be concerning (at least until the issues are patched). But there's no reason to believe that based on one person's singular occurrence of the bug. I hope you get a chance to repro the issue eventually so that we can all benefit. Eventually it will be possible to do the DFU restore from non-OSX systems using idevicerestore, so that should make the testing more convenient.
        lovelyviking 6y ago
        Honestly I do not observe any 'concerning' here, I've just get downvoted for sharing facts. I hope I would not 'get a chance' to reproduce it because that would mean my work would stop again. I could easily reproduce it with another Mac but I don't have one. And my previous one have gracefully failed completely. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25809097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25809097) >But there's no reason to believe that based on one person's singular occurrence of the bug. Some times it depends which person it is. With all modesty I can observe tendencies with Apple bugs for some years now. There are very obvious for me reasons why those bugs appear and why they would appear more. I've got too much of bugs and I've started to talk about some of them because I just can't stand it. Apple should be Way better then this and for me it seems like no one really cares too much. I do care. Product should be done with some love for goodness sake...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        shawnz 6y ago
- Maxious 6y ago
  > Don’t ever format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode > Because Apple doesn’t put a warning alerting that it doesn’t really format a drive and Big Sur installer is stupid and it doesn’t see it as a “clean” drive but it see the “Data” Volume and it tries to find a user to authorize the installation, but since the drive has no users, it fails. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26177263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26177263
  - xenadu02 6y ago
    While the bug is unfortunate it is also easily avoided: always delete a volume group together. Don't leave some volumes from the group laying around.
mhh__ 6y ago
I have a theory that one of the reasons why M1 isn't particularly well documented (if at all) is because Apple themselves are still getting to grips with it. If their own tech support didn't know that does kind of support my theory
- ethbr0 6y ago
  I think we all know documentation lags release in everything not regulated. For the first X months, questions bubble to the engineer who wrote the thing. Add in the fact that documentation for Apple... "isn't a priority" (to put it charitably).
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Intel's documentation isn't a charity but they still massively lead most of the industry. This information has to exist internally, and compiling is literally makework for an intern - it's just that Apple have a very secretive culture.
eumoria 6y ago
I'm sure this is already known but no one else has mentioned it, you don't boot into recovery mode anymore with Command+R. New M1 mini you just hold down the power button. I know that's not people's issue here but just thought it should be said for anyone new to the new mini.

wil421 6y ago

No issues booting into recovery with my M1 Air. Time machine kept failing and I had to boot into recovery and wipe my hard drive a few times.

lovelyviking 6y ago

Yes, during the very first day! Without any power interrupts during OS reinstall.( see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26203799) I think Disk Utility in recovery partition has some serious bugs and it can make it 'not bootable'

shawnz 6y ago
I believe you could intentionally make it not bootable using Disk Utility if you delete the firmware partition (thus requiring a DFU mode recovery) but that is an expected behavior
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  You could also delete firmware partition without such intent because Disk Utility will hang and do it for you, which is less expected I believe.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    Presumably there is a remote chance of the firmware being unintentionally destroyed by crashing software on any computer system.
    - lovelyviking 6y ago
      Presumably it's a very reproducible bug during very basic operation but with easiness of getting 'healthy' supply of COVID while accessing another Mac in the repair-shop I would rather not play with it to find out more unless Apple sends me another 20 Macs and pays a lot for this headache.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        Maybe it is easily reproducible, and that would certainly be concerning (at least until the issues are patched). But there's no reason to believe that based on one person's singular occurrence of the bug. I hope you get a chance to repro the issue eventually so that we can all benefit. Eventually it will be possible to do the DFU restore from non-OSX systems using idevicerestore, so that should make the testing more convenient.
        lovelyviking 6y ago
        Honestly I do not observe any 'concerning' here, I've just get downvoted for sharing facts. I hope I would not 'get a chance' to reproduce it because that would mean my work would stop again. I could easily reproduce it with another Mac but I don't have one. And my previous one have gracefully failed completely. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25809097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25809097) >But there's no reason to believe that based on one person's singular occurrence of the bug. Some times it depends which person it is. With all modesty I can observe tendencies with Apple bugs for some years now. There are very obvious for me reasons why those bugs appear and why they would appear more. I've got too much of bugs and I've started to talk about some of them because I just can't stand it. Apple should be Way better then this and for me it seems like no one really cares too much. I do care. Product should be done with some love for goodness sake...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        shawnz 6y ago
Maxious 6y ago
> Don’t ever format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode > Because Apple doesn’t put a warning alerting that it doesn’t really format a drive and Big Sur installer is stupid and it doesn’t see it as a “clean” drive but it see the “Data” Volume and it tries to find a user to authorize the installation, but since the drive has no users, it fails. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26177263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26177263
- xenadu02 6y ago
  While the bug is unfortunate it is also easily avoided: always delete a volume group together. Don't leave some volumes from the group laying around.

mhh__ 6y ago

I have a theory that one of the reasons why M1 isn't particularly well documented (if at all) is because Apple themselves are still getting to grips with it. If their own tech support didn't know that does kind of support my theory

ethbr0 6y ago
I think we all know documentation lags release in everything not regulated. For the first X months, questions bubble to the engineer who wrote the thing. Add in the fact that documentation for Apple... "isn't a priority" (to put it charitably).
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Intel's documentation isn't a charity but they still massively lead most of the industry. This information has to exist internally, and compiling is literally makework for an intern - it's just that Apple have a very secretive culture.

eumoria 6y ago

I'm sure this is already known but no one else has mentioned it, you don't boot into recovery mode anymore with Command+R. New M1 mini you just hold down the power button. I know that's not people's issue here but just thought it should be said for anyone new to the new mini.