Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#81

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #72

DemiGuru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blog entry you're referencing is old. Please follow the link I had provided - https://shirtpocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.htm... - note the recent version number and its respective description.

Again, bootable backups work fine on Apple Silicon, but not when the internal drive has failed, since booting requires an iBoot volume stored on the internal drive. I believe there's a misunderstanding, and SuperDuper hasn't found any workaround for this.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#82

Post by throwaway2048 » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #45

fartcannon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinkpads are owned by Lenovo, a known bad actor who installed, for example, rootkits on their own hardware.

If something comes preinstalled with Windows on it, it's going to be rootkitted anyways. There's also an argument to be made where we assume all commercial OSes are backdoored, but I think at this point playing the "muh security" card is a bit of a ruse. If you care about the stuff, you've already installed LTSC/Linux/BSD/Some special Windows distro.

it wasn't about pre-installed windows software, it was about software embedded in UEFI that reinstalled itself on windows even with a clean fresh non-lenovo provided installation of windows.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#83

Post by javchz » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

narraturgy wrote: post #53

funnyflamigo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. My thinkpad x230t is still going strong nearly 10 years later (extreme example). With 16GB of ram and an SSD it's still a decently capable machine. If you're the type of person that needs the _fastest_ computer then yeah obviously you're upgrading every year. Or if you work on large codebases, etc. But if you don't care about that, you can easily go 4+ years with your laptop. Yes computers have gotten fas…

This is a tangential question. I adore my Thinkpad x230t but it has a whopping ~1 hour battery life at this point. Do you leave yours permanently plugged in or do you have some sort of modern battery solution for our ancient beast with an amazing keyboard?

That's the reason I jumped to the T430. Same CPU, but can get a 70++ battery for 6-9 hours worth of battery, but kinda the same concept. The only bad thing, you need to mod the keyboard for an t420 for the vintage thinkpad experience.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#84

Post by canadaduane » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #27

GhettoComputers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silly idea in tech, the hardware will be long outdated before someone look for parts which are going to be overpriced, and the company might be gone forever. You can buy common business laptops such as thinkpad and swap the parts easily and cheaply. People aren’t swapping their 2011 i3 for a 2011 i7 if they care about performance; they’re getting an i5 from 2018. None of these swappable parts are unique aside from th…

If you can't buy parts from 3rd parties e.g. you can't source chips or connectors etc. on Mouser, then I can't see how this is much different from Apple. Just because manufacturer sells parts themselves (thus avoiding spending money on good repair service), probably won't save you much money considering you will have to spend your own time and make effort to fix it yourself. Nonetheless, any move into more repair fri…

I agree with your point, but I think it slightly misses the potential and (I believe) intent of Framework: they have opened their design specs and encouraged even DIY participants, making it possible for a cultural movement of innovation & right-to-repair to exist. It reminds me of revered machines like the Commodore 64 that didn't just create hardware (although they did that very well)--they enabled social clubs, the demoscene, and a many hobby programmers and hardware hackers who went on to become professionals.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#85

Post by mlindner » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Vogtinator wrote: post #63

GhettoComputers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silly idea in tech, the hardware will be long outdated before someone look for parts which are going to be overpriced, and the company might be gone forever. You can buy common business laptops such as thinkpad and swap the parts easily and cheaply. People aren’t swapping their 2011 i3 for a 2011 i7 if they care about performance; they’re getting an i5 from 2018. None of these swappable parts are unique aside from th…

It's not just about upgrades, in fact it's not even mainly about upgrades. It's about being able to understand the machine, repairing it when necessary and ultimately being able to rely on it. Otherwise your device might be a candidate for the bin after the warranty expired, which can be surprisingly quick.

This weird OCD obsession with wanting to be able to piece apart a device just like it's a car is just strange. The device is a complete package. You don't re-solder and reflash busted chips on a motherboard do you? So why do you want to be able to replace the higher level parts rather than the whole device?

This isn't like a desktop where all the parts are bought from different manufacturers and assembled by an OEM or by you. The laptop is a complete kit made by a single manufacturer.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#86

Post by mlindner » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

cyberbanjo wrote: post #22

GhettoComputers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silly idea in tech, the hardware will be long outdated before someone look for parts which are going to be overpriced, and the company might be gone forever. You can buy common business laptops such as thinkpad and swap the parts easily and cheaply. People aren’t swapping their 2011 i3 for a 2011 i7 if they care about performance; they’re getting an i5 from 2018. None of these swappable parts are unique aside from th…

And the used 2011 i3, that wouldn't become garbage if it were repairable would get sold to someone less performance / price consciousness? Now it gets trashed.

And it was almost completely made from recyclable parts. It gets recycled, not trashed.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#87

Post by TillE » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

keymone wrote: post #16

i get that their business is at risk, but i've literally never had a macbook disk fail on me in 12 years of dealing with half a dozen laptops (oldest one still in use today). this will get way more attention than it deserves.

I've had two sudden, total failures of my 2012 Macbook Air drive: once in warranty where it got replaced, once out of warranty. I have indeed been using a USB3 external SSD drive for the OS ever since. Inconvenient, but it works quite well.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#88

Post by throwaway2048 » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

liminalsunset wrote: post #26

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

>This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash

It is now however possible to brick the system with a failed disk drive, which is vastly more likely

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#89

Post by thrashh » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

fartcannon wrote: post #20

GhettoComputers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silly idea in tech, the hardware will be long outdated before someone look for parts which are going to be overpriced, and the company might be gone forever. You can buy common business laptops such as thinkpad and swap the parts easily and cheaply. People aren’t swapping their 2011 i3 for a 2011 i7 if they care about performance; they’re getting an i5 from 2018. None of these swappable parts are unique aside from th…

Thinkpads are owned by Lenovo, a known bad actor who installed, for example, rootkits on their own hardware.

I give them a pass because their actions seem come from stupidity rather than maliciousness.

Also while this was going on, they never did any of this to Thinkpads.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#90

Post by justin_oaks » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #59

gameswithgo wrote: post #7

Consider options like Framework laptops that let you actually own your hardware, and repair it.

Assuming you want to do repair, I have no interest in repairing anything. In fact I'll happily part with my money to not have to deal with repairing stuff. Same applies to my car.

Do you have a threshold for this?

I assume that if your laptop wasn't working and all you had to do was take a single screw out then you'd do it, rather than taking it to a repair shop or buy another.

Or if the repair cost was extreme, but it was relatively easy to fix it yourself.

Your point of view is valid of course. At the same time I believe many people don't have sufficient money to allow them the luxury of never repairing anything themselves.

Having hardware that is repairable is rarely a problem for the end-user who doesn't want to repair it themselves. For users who DO want to repair it themselves, having hardware that's designed to be hard to repair is a huge burden.