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Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

giuliomagnifico.medium.com

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Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#111

Post by [deleted] »

southerntofu wrote: post #77
tinyhitman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I strongly disagree with your opinion. For economic reason, i'm using (and supporting many users from my neighborhood of) second-hand hardware. Some systems like Apple's make our life incredibly difficult and most times people will just have to pay a shady phone store to have the device they purchased unlocked, adding 20-30€ to the bill. It's important to note that most people are incredibly gullible when it comes to…

[deleted]

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#112

Post by [deleted] »

southerntofu wrote: post #82
superhuzza wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that they can use/sell the stolen Macbook, which is much more common than stealing a Macbook to delete the data.

What's wrong with using stolen hardware? I mean we could argue stealing is wrong, in which case we'd have to take a look at why people are stealing and from whom (partitioning of wealth) so we can find solutions. If we're not looking at the root of the problem, then we're just complicating legitimate use cases. Preventing theft is only the official argument, but it doesn't stand any form of scrutiny: as long as there…

[deleted]

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#113

Post by simonh »

southerntofu wrote: post #82
superhuzza wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that they can use/sell the stolen Macbook, which is much more common than stealing a Macbook to delete the data.

What's wrong with using stolen hardware? I mean we could argue stealing is wrong, in which case we'd have to take a look at why people are stealing and from whom (partitioning of wealth) so we can find solutions. If we're not looking at the root of the problem, then we're just complicating legitimate use cases. Preventing theft is only the official argument, but it doesn't stand any form of scrutiny: as long as there…

Most victims of crime are also socially disadvantaged, so enough with the Robin Hood crap. Theft is also strongly associated with violence, intimidation and mental stress on the victims. Promoting or justifying crimes in your comments here is reckless and irresponsible.

If someone wants to sell a device second hand it's pretty easy to voluntarily wipe your device. Apple devices have very long lives, receive software updates for much longer than competing devices and keep their second hand value very well and so make excellent and very economical second hand devices. Contrary to your claims of Apple not wanting a second hand market, they support the device wiping process and even have a trade in program that channels refurbished iPhones to 3rd world countries.

If you really do care about the environment and supply chain ethics, you'll also be happy to know Apple get the highest score of any of the big tech companies from Greenpeace. In fact the only tech company at all that beats them is Fairphone, but since they get only 2 years of updates I think Greenpeace doesn't sufficiently take into account device longevity.

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#114

Post by swiley »

digi59404 wrote: post #25

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 install…

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

State is evil!

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#115

Post by matthias509 »

southerntofu wrote: post #77
tinyhitman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I strongly disagree with your opinion. For economic reason, i'm using (and supporting many users from my neighborhood of) second-hand hardware. Some systems like Apple's make our life incredibly difficult and most times people will just have to pay a shady phone store to have the device they purchased unlocked, adding 20-30€ to the bill. It's important to note that most people are incredibly gullible when it comes to…

Your statement regarding the lack of deterrence does not match reality. See https://transition.fcc.gov/bureaus/oet/tac/tacdocs/meeting12...

"Similar to New York City, San Francisco also provides evidence that mobile device theft prevention technologies work. In 2009, Apple smartphones constituted the vast majority (69%) of smartphones stolen in San Francisco robberies; in the six months after Apple made Activation Lock available, iPhone robberies in San Francisco declined 38%."

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#116

Post by [deleted] »

crististm wrote: post #101
southerntofu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is going to walk a away with my fridge? People would steal your wallet, your jewelry... There's a lot more value to be extracted from a stolen credit card than from a "smart" phone. > It's great that you have a niche use case, but that doesn't make your case the priority over the main use cases. You're taking it the other way around. The common use case for first-world software developers is the niche use case…

Think of it as a 'fuck you' to the thief and whoever might get the brick. Maybe you get that, otherwise you can be bitter all you want about the inequality and how stealing will resolve that.

[deleted]

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#117

Post by gonehome »

digi59404 wrote: post #25

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 install…

I hit an issue when I first got my M1: 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.

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#118

Post by jonplackett »

stinos wrote: post #68
jonplackett wrote: post #61

I felt quite anxious reading this. Reminds me of the endless reinstalls I had to do of windows back in the 2000s and the anxiety of it all working again once it was back running. So glad that isn't necessary anymore.

What is needed to mess up an OS so badly that a reinstall fixes it?

With windows 98? So many reasons. Driver issues, viruses, just not starting and you aren’t sure why. Crashing and you aren’t sure why. Blue screen of death and you aren’t sure why.

I genuinely still have my 25 digit windows 98 license key memorised from having to reinstall it so many times.

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#119

Post by sneak »

The best way to zeroize (as much as can be done closed-case without dedicated research) an M1 mac is the following, as far as I can tell:

* boot external USB installer media

* run `diskutil zeroDisk force /dev/disk0`

* run `nvram -c`

* power system off

* system will now fail to boot anything, including external media, because it has no firmware available

* put system in DFU mode [1]

* plug in USB-C cable to the correct port (only one usb-c port can be used for this purpose) and connect to another mac running Apple Configurator 2 (which, sadly, is only available via the App Store, so requires an Apple ID, and also requires internet access to activate the attached M1 device)

* Restore IPSW such as [2] (note that this is for 11.2.0 and is no longer current as of a week or two ago)

This is the best way to get an M1 back into as close to a "factory" state as possible. Unfortunately, it requires an Apple ID (to use the App Store), so you have to dox yourself to Apple (email and working phone number, at the minimum) to get the Apple Configurator 2 app. (If anyone knows how to copy an App Store app from one mac to another, freshly installed mac, and have it work without logging in, please email me.)

PS: If you're looking to go even deeper, following the zeroDisk you might wish to create a 100% blank/empty hfs volume on the disk0, and then "repair" it, which will TRIM the free space (99%+ of the disk) at the disk controller level as well. This may or may not have the same effect as writing all zeroes. You'll likely have to use `diskutil` to do this, as Disk Utility is mostly garbage.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-...

[2]: http://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2021WinterFCS/fullrestores...

(shasum 7315f657df2a14b838b9d51eb49cdfff5be090e7)

Re: Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode

#120

Post by vetinari »

eric-hu wrote: post #42
marban wrote: post #39

IDK but I always just wipe (as in delete all partitions) and do a fresh install on any new MB; and had no issues with the latest Air.

Why do this on a new MacBook? Is there a security concern?

The OOBE install contains apps you might not want or need (Garageband, iMovie, Pages/Numbers/Keynote). If you have one of the smaller SSDs, saving gigabytes of space on the first two might be interesting for you.
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