Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by j-pb » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 7:12 AM UTC

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 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.

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

#152

Post by crististm » Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

southerntofu wrote: post #136

kstrauser wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More practically, I want to remove the financial incentive from stealing my phone. I want a thief to see it and think "why bother, I can't get anything for it".

From what i can see, it does not seem to work. Here in western Europe in the big cities many people buy locked phones second hand and the vendor explicitly says you have to get it unlocked, which is a service provided by many phone shops (somewhat under the table). These locked iPhones sold for 50-200€ are acquired by users who will turn to their tech friends/neighbors to get it unlocked. When these tell them they ca…

You make the argument against locking devices (which I agree with) for reasons related to that not deterring theft - which has a point.

Thieves will not profile a person using a premium locked phone against stealing it because it might not be worth it. They don't care about that. They will take whatever they can if only for practicing their skills.

Locking phones does not deter theft but unlocking them will offset the price of unlocking from the phone-shop to the thief increasing the profitability of theft.

I personally don't care about Apple, their phones, their M1's and their ecosystem. But acting out your premise leads to a place I don't like. And others as well. And if you think you can buy a cheaper premium phone if it is unlocked, ask yourself why thieves would continue to sell you cheaper if they know they give you a usable device?

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

#153

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

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

#154

Post by tinus_hn » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 10:52 AM UTC

tehwebguy wrote: post #129

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…

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!

They have documentation for this:

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