Restoring Apple Silicon M1 Macs Leading to macOS Installation Errors

[Somesayimhandsome]

That is not my issue. I disabled and removed the Macbook from iCloud/find my before I tried reinstalling.

You have to initiate the erase you can’t just remove it 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[Yebubbleman]

I fully well know responding to you is going to be fruitless (pun intended) but it's an interesting intellectual argument at least for me. You've got your mind made up and I've got mine...but I hope we can keep this a civil and interesting discussion:

Word of debating advice: starting off with "I know that responding to you is going to be fruitless", even when laced with a pun (which I do appreciate and find humorous, by the way), usually works against the intended goal of civility. You're basically saying "I know you're a stubborn jerk who won't respond reasonably", which sends to me the message that you don't actually want to debate with civility. Having read the rest of what you wrote, I do believe your intent to maintain civility to be genuine. But it's not a good start and definitely doesn't leave me feeling like I won't have a slugfest on my hands.

Hardly. I see this all the time in education for instance. It's merely that Windows is a cheaper upfront investment and easier to explain in a budget request. In many business use cases, PCs are just used as glorified web browsers as well and the benefits that come with buying a Mac are often really not part of the equation. That's why Chromebooks are so popular in education - most people are not using technology beyond as a glorified word processor. Shame really, but reality.

I don't know what sect of technology you deal in. I do IT by trade and for a living (when a pandemic isn't limiting my employment options). Windows is preferred not for its cheapness, but for its manageability. You can customize and control the holly hell out of Windows in ways that you simply can't and never will be able to on a Mac. That's why IT departments prefer it. There's also an order of magnitude more software out for Windows. There are whole industries (finance, banking, legal, etc.) where 85% of your required software library exists with a Mac version if you're lucky. But that remaining 15% is usually business critical. It's not for being cheaper. The HP EliteBook or Dell Latitude purchased is of a comparable cost to the 2-port 13" MacBook Pro (and back when that machine had Intel, it was comparable hardware inside as well, give or take custom Intel integrated graphics that only Apple used).

You are correct in that Chromebooks are more popular for their cost. (Though, their manageability is also pretty amazing.) However, you are incorrect that cost is the primary factor causing Windows to keep its foothold.

There are many legitimate companies, including IBM, who have pushed and researched into the long-term cost of ownership and seen macs are a better decision and easier to support with fewer problems:

IBM says Macs save up to $543 per user

IBM already has the world's largest enterprise Mac footprint, and it adds 1,300 new Macs every week. The company says its Apple devices save IT time and money, but the cultural changes at the 105-year-old company may be even more valuable.rn

www.cio.com

Some companies, like IBM, have software libraries that are cross-platform. They also have enterprise management solutions (Intune for Windows, JAMF Pro for Mac) in place to support both platforms. Again, I'm not sure what you do with technology for a living, but where I sit, managing a Mac in the enterprise without an EMM/MDM solution is an utter nightmare. You can get away without it with Windows, and sadly many companies do just that. To manage Apple in the enterprise you need to get a 100% A+ grade, whereas IT folk can skate by with a C grade job of managing Windows in the enterprise. But that's the Apple way; only one way to do things - versus a plethora of options that you have with Windows.

Again, IBM is lucky in many regards. I'm sure they have departments where they do not have a choice because most of and/or key critical areas of their job require Windows.

Also, let's be perfectly clear in that anyone who gives a solid crap about Excel usage will have a better time with the Windows version than they will with the Mac version. Microsoft keeps advertising increased parity between the two platforms, but it really isn't there yet, even still.

I think most people just don't know but you also assume people here who are on a tech forum don't.

Have you read some of the things that people post in these forums? These are not tech experts on average. There are definitely some. But it's not the standard.

I certainly do, and I've used (and am typing this) from a Windows PC for many years. I am one of the go-to tech people in my district and I ask that you consider for the sake of argument that although there are certainly people who know more than me, I am not a slouch when it comes to technology usage.

I'm not going to suggest that you don't know anything. (You certainly don't write like someone that doesn't know anything.) Though, I will absolutely suggest that I might have experience and knowledge that you do not. I've been using the Mac platform since Mac OS 8.6 and been using Windows since 3.1. I have 26 Apple certifications and 7 Microsoft (along with 3 JAMF). This is not to boast anything other than the fact that I play with both platforms regularly and for breakfast and that I've been around the block enough.

I am absolutely more productive on a mac for a variety of design and inherent reliability reasons. I definitely have more quirky strange experiences with settings randomly changing, power management issues, wifi failures, and overall product inconsistencies on Windows than I have ever had on owning a Mac for decades. Apple certainly isn't perfect, but the idea that Windows is just as good is hardly the case in my personal experience using both for many years in a variety of work and personal settings. I am not alone in this and not merely someone who "doesn't know better" or "too stubborn"

Preference is usually informed by experience. Personally, I'm at home on either platform. But that's just me and my experience. I've been forced to switch between the two for work or personal use many times throughout the last 20 years. So, for me, it's no issue. Again, your experience differs. The UI between the OSes themselves are not that different. The dock and taskbar are functionally identical in many respects. The Start Menu and Launchpad are also pretty similar. Same with the system tray and the upper right section of the macOS menu bar. Not that different at the end of the day. Similarly, Finder and Windows Explorer are pretty damn similar in terms of doing the essentials. Yes, there are some differences, but they're ultimately pretty minor. But again, that's my experience of using both over the past 20 years. Yours clearly differs.

If you came up to me circa 2005, I'd have told you that most PCs are actual garbage. Similarly, if you came up to me circa 2015 and asked how that $500 17" Dell Inspiron that I bought was doing, I'd tell you that it's also actual garbage. However, I've owned MANY PCs since then and the fact of the matter is that, especially with brands like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, there really is an art to buying the right one. Similarly, unless you're looking for a high-end gaming system or one of the newer era Surface machines, one generally should avoid shopping for a PC at Best Buy or Costco because most of those are actual garbage as well. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the experience of SHOPPING for a PC is on equal level to buying a Mac because it simply just isn't. However, with the right kind of PC, the right kind of installation of Windows 10, and the right kind of drivers being installed, the day-to-day experience of using Windows 10 really is not bad. Maybe it's not your preferable user experience, but that doesn't make it a bad one.

Where I cry "doesn't know better" is that most people who bag on Windows tend to do so from a point of view that lacks experience. Again, if you don't know how to buy/build the right kind of PC, you're going to have a bad time. Most people here cite Windows Vista and UI issues with Windows 8 like they still matter in terms of how Windows 10 runs and operates. Most people here whining about the registry do so not really understanding what it is and the crux of what actually sucks about it. As though one has to navigate it on a daily basis (I've had to edit the registry a grand total of once on a non-work computer in the last 10 years and that was to troubleshoot a computer that I didn't have the luxury of wiping when that's really what it needed more than anything). Haters are gonna hate, though.

Where I cry "too stubborn" is that Windows 10 and macOS are both very functional OSes and, from a getting-things-done standpoint, they offer similar functionality. You don't like the look and feel of Windows compared to a Mac. Many are like you in that regard. And that breeds a surprising amount of prejudice. That doesn't make Windows suck. It just means you don't like it and/or are not willing to adapt to using it. Hence, stubbornness. It's quite common. But you not liking Windows 10 doesn't mean it sucks.

Surface, a higher-end PC with a price to match, has been a notoriously unreliable product. I've personally bought one before the affordable 9.7" iPad Pro came out and had the stylus functionality for grad school and then used a Surfacebook for work. They had significant wifi-issues that are well documented. The surface 3 randomly failed on me multiple times in grad school including requiring a visit to the Microsoft store where they claimed it was impossible to repair the operating system so I'd need to buy a refurbished device instead of reinstalling the OS due to an inexplicable hardware failure (which was not even the reality after a week of working on it some more - I was able to do it myself thankfully) which again speaks to the poor level of product and support available with Windows. Consumer Reports stopped recommending Surface products due to reliability issues as well.

I own a Surface 3. I don't use it much, because it has an Atom processor. But I've never had issues with it. Certainly early Sufaces had issues. The 15" Surface Book 2 had power draw issues, while the first gen 13" also had some. But typical rev A issues that are common to Apple, Google, Samsung and pretty much every other popular hardware vendor out there.

I'd tell you that AppleCare is better than the support that Microsoft provides (as that has been true in the past). However, I've gotten some pretty lousy AppleCare support lately. Those tier 1 people really aren't great.

Again, not to invalidate your experiences. But take any product out there, you'll find someone who got a bad one.

That's kind of the point now, isn't it? The "care and feeding" as you put it shows up as a reliability problem. Why not just use the product that works better, even by your own admission, without so much maintenance?

Care and feeding isn't a reliability problem. Just like a manual transmission in a car doesn't make it less reliable just because it requires more work to operate.

Incidentally, I'm not saying that everyone and their mother should switch to Windows 10. What I AM saying is that if one puts the effort in (and it's really not that much effort at the end of the day), you can end up with an experience that, excluding the standpoint of version updates/upgrades, is no less smooth in day-to-day operation and usually for less overall cost and, in the case of new OS releases, a bit more reliable.

For those that hate computer shopping, yes, Apple makes it undeniably easier to select the right Mac than it is to buy the right PC. But it's not all that hard.

The facts don't bear that out as apple tends to have a higher percentage of upgrades on their OS than Windows users. Apple has a smaller user base and a million reasons why they update more often- including as you explained that most businesses use PCs and any mission-critical incompatibilities outweigh the user benefits of a new OS.

First off, I don't think your stat holds true in the Windows 10 era the way it did pre-Windows 10.

Secondly, jumping from Windows 10 v1903 to v1909 IS a whole version jump. However, in the vast majority of businesses, the changes aren't sweeping enough to cause noticeable issues. Furthermore users don't have to be aware of which version of Windows 10 that they're running (most aren't) because the changes are so subtle that they don't cause widespread "holy crap, everything changed" styles of panic. That's kind of the point of Microsoft's semi-annual updates. That's not to say that there haven't been (and now usually are) some big day one bugs, but it's not wise for ANYONE on ANY PLATFORM to install a new OS on day one of release unless it's a secondary or non-critical system. So, you won't see businesses necessarily take the plunge quickly (and the bigger businesses are going to stick to the fall release as Windows 10 Enterprise versions get an additional year of support for the fall releases). But that's how the platform is designed and it works. Certainly it works much better than Apple's current system of sweeping upgrades every year. Again, one in three releases of macOS largely are great, while the other intervening two tend to have issues that remain unresolved throughout the version's lifetime. The worst that can be said about the Windows 10 releases is that for the first couple months there are some bugs that may or may not affect you. Someone upgrading to new Windows 10 releases two months into the new release's lifecycle will not have issues nine times out of ten.

Try to put a Surface to sleep versus a mac. See how much battery life you have left when you go to use it tomorrow?

Microsoft Surface PCs blasted by Consumer Reports for reliability issues

In its annual reliability study, trusted recommendations company Consumer Reports blasted Microsoft's Surface lineup of PCs and removed its "recommended" designation for all Surfaces, according to reports.

www.windowscentral.com

"The reason Consumer Reports took Microsoft and Surface to task was a significantly higher rate of breakage during the first couple of years of ownership, according to Reuters. Consumer Reports based its assessment on responses from 90,000 tablet and laptop owners and estimated that a full quarter of all Surface owners would experience some sort of problem with their PCs within two years of purchase. The most common issues with the Microsoft devices were reportedly frequent freezes, unexpected shutdowns, and touchscreen problems."

I remember that article. Circa 2017, I believe. Though, again, that was right around the time that you had some generational issues that weren't great (first gen 13" Surface Book, 15" Surface Book Power drain issues, most people weren't thrilled at the un-upgradability of the first two Surface Laptops, plus you had a lot of businesses buying Surface Pro 3 and 4 thinking it would replace an ultrabook (be it an Apple MacBook Air, Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook, or Lenovo ThinkPad) when they were not specc'ed to be able to do that. I'm familiar with this period in Surface history. Incidentally, around the exact same time, we had the single worst generation of Apple laptops in the history of Apple laptops. Three and a half years of Butterfly hell.

Again - assume for the sake of argument that's not true - and my experiences are certainly not unique. Could it possibly be that a more informed user might actually have experience with both over many years, and has made an educated decision? You repeatedly counter your own arguments by talking about the "care and feeding" of Windows and the difficulty of finding a reliable device....

Opinions do exist and can differ. I'm not saying otherwise.

What I am saying is that where most people assume they know enough to pass judgement, most often don't. Case in point, I bought the aforementioned Dell Inspiron laptop assuming that it would have the same quality as the Dell Latitudes that I worked with at a previous job. At the time I was unaware that the Inspiron and Latitude teams were so separate that they might as well be from different companies altogether (being similar only in superficial differences and the outer manufacturer logos). If I had judged my opinion of PCs based on that one Inspiron piece of actual garbage, I would think that all PCs suck rather than the more accurate fact that I had merely purchased the wrong one. Most people don't have the patience to keep trying and exploring to figure out that some Windows PCs (much like the one I'm typing this on) are good, and others (said Inspiron) really are not. You seem to not want to be bothered by having to wade through the kind of nuance in finding a PC that doesn't suck, which seems to inform your own opinion. That's totally fine. But that is a form of stubbornness in and of itself.

Then maybe that's an issue, huh? Do you mean like buying the product (surface) from the company that makes the OS? How about an HP or Dell?

You can't sit here and tell me that all Surfaces suck just because the ones you owned have sucked any more than anyone can tell either of us that MacBook Pros suck because they had three and a half years of butterfly keyboard.

Similarly, I've owned quite a few Dells, HPs, and Lenovos. Some suck. Some don't. If you can't be bothered to do research, then you're not going to have a good time buying a PC. It's not much research, honestly. But if you want to be able to waltz into a Best Buy and walk out with a computer, you probably don't want a PC. However, if you want to put in a little bit of work, you can get a PC that's no less awesome as a Mac running that one in three OS releases that don't suck (that is, until we're next in a period of time where the current release sucks again). But again, that's care and feeding. If you don't like that or don't want that, that's fine. But the fact that it's required isn't a shortcoming of the platform. A shortcoming of capitalism itself, maybe. But that doesn't mean that Windows itself is intrinsically flawed.

Sure it is. And it clearly has - the performance and quality of their iPad and iPhone products is arguably the best or at minimum some of the best in the industry. The lack of features compared with Windows or Android products is really the only consideration but I would argue that the limitation on user features is part of the reliability. The willingness (sometimes stubbornly so) to saying "no" to a feature is part of why Apple tends to do better on reliability. When they try to go to feature-rich they often have their reliability failures. I have every confidence they will optimize for their own processors on the Mac and apparently they already have. A failure here or there is inevitable and Apple is hardly perfect. But better...certainly in my experience.

I disagree. Hardware was never Apple's problem (excluding the oft aforementioned 2016-2019 13" and 15" MacBook Pros, 2018-2020 MacBook Airs, and the 12" MacBook). Intel ran hotter on the more thinner enclosures and that required throttling that wasn't ideal (because thinner over more performant was a priority for some reason). But otherwise, it's not like Intel Macs were bad computers. Certainly Apple Silicon Macs starting with this first crop of M1 Macs are better. But that's not where Apple's quality problems lie. They lie with the fact that the OSes (and this goes for macOS and iPadOS as well) keep going through needless drastic changes that break things that were otherwise working just fine and for no practical reason other than because it's change o'clock. People like to cite all of the day one bugs in Windows 10 releases, but the fact of the matter is that those get resolved quickly. This is not true for bugs in Apple releases like macOS Catalina, iOS/iPadOS 13, macOS High Sierra, iOS 11, etc. On a good day, both platforms (Windows and macOS) are just as awesome. However, Apple is having more bad days than they used to and, unlike with Windows 10, they last longer. It's to the point where I'm trying to shift back to a more Windows-dominant setup because I can't count on the next annual release of macOS to not have issues that Apple won't resolve until the next release or the one after that (before repeating the nightmare all over again that next year).

 

[1412]

I used the ipws system and worked, but, will be stable? I mean, will this system let the MBP like new-boxed macbook with no problems in the future?

 

[DocNo]

Apple could have predicted that people would need to restore a factory new computer to the factory new state just like whoever designed electrical outlets could have predicted people wanted to put forks in them.

Since you seem to think it's abnormal to be able to need to restore a machine what amount of time would be acceptable? 24 hours? A week? A year?

The mental gymnastics to label this as anything other than a bug that shouldn't have happened are amazing...

 

[DocNo]

However, Apple's annual upgrades suck and most average users don't seem to stay on top of them, in my experience.

Windows quarterly updates are still causing chaos and confusion. And now instead of tracking one EOL you have dozens of "editions" of Windows that have to be tracked individually.

But Apples upgrades suck?!? Ha! No vendor is perfect, but Apple has FAR less update churn than Microsoft. Patch Tuesday sure as hell isn't referring to macOS. On the plus side it's grown a cottage industry of sites like askwoody.com to help coordinate the chaos. When I see similar sites start to pop up for macOS I'll start to get concerned - if you think Apple is worse set up the equivalent. Woody seems to do pretty well for himself from subscriptions; Apple should provide you even more revenue 🤣

 

[DocNo]

I used the ipws system and worked, but, will be stable? I mean, will this system let the MBP like new-boxed macbook with no problems in the future?

All the ipws does is manually perform the functionality that should be working in the embedded firmware but currently isn't.

So yes, it will be perfectly stable. Better, actually since your install has less stuff installed than the out of the box image put on the machines (hence why people like to nuke and put fresh, minimal installs on in the first place).

 

[DocNo]

There are not billions of combinations. You are forgetting about the tight integration of hardware and software that Tim talks about every event and that makes the magic possible!

Billions of combinations on the Windows side. Since that's what I was talking about.

 

[russell_314]

Since you seem to think it's abnormal to be able to need to restore a machine what amount of time would be acceptable? 24 hours? A week? A year?

The mental gymnastics to label this as anything other than a bug that shouldn't have happened are amazing...

For you apparently it must be about 30 seconds. Of course it's a bug but triggered by something that Apple wouldn't likely predict. The mental gymnastics to to lurk on Apple forums just to criticize everything they do is amazing too LOL

 

[Yebubbleman]

Windows quarterly updates are still causing chaos and confusion. And now instead of tracking one EOL you have dozens of "editions" of Windows that have to be tracked individually.

But Apples upgrades suck?!? Ha! No vendor is perfect, but Apple has FAR less update churn than Microsoft. Patch Tuesday sure as hell isn't referring to macOS. On the plus side it's grown a cottage industry of sites like askwoody.com to help coordinate the chaos. When I see similar sites start to pop up for macOS I'll start to get concerned - if you think Apple is worse set up the equivalent. Woody seems to do pretty well for himself from subscriptions; Apple should provide you even more revenue 🤣

The average Windows 10 user doesn't need to understand semi-annual updates the way a Mac user needs to understand new macOS releases. The idea that they do is utter nonsense. I know this because I've given Windows 10 PCs to users running one release of Windows 10, only to check back with them years later, finding that they've upgraded to newer releases and are not even aware that it's happening. That's the way it should be. Not this big annual fanfare where things that don't need to be changed are changed for the hell of it with things breaking all the time needlessly.

You have the askwoody.com type of sites because THERE'S WAY MORE WINDOWS OUT THERE THAN MACOS!

Patch Tuesday is done out of convenience of maintenance. It gives IT professionals and users alike a set schedule by which they can count on security and stability updates. This is a GOOD thing. Not a bad thing. And yes, I know that Apple is worse in this regard because you have tons of people still bitching about Catalina a year after the fact. No one is still bitching about Windows 10 v1909 right now because those still running it are likely experiencing actual stability (assuming they don't have other unrelated issues going on) or are on Windows 10 v2004 also experiencing stability. I'm on a forum of diehard Mac fanboys, so I recognize that rousing an appreciation of Windows is a fool's errand. But that's a byproduct of the fanboyism and not the current state of affairs for Windows. But don't take my word for it...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I’ve learned the lesson “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” when I have decided to change spark plugs at only 15000 km (9300 miles).

Online car shop shipped wrong plugs, workshop installed them and than all went into a spiral of visiting workshop after workshop with check engine and more problems (even with original plugs). Ended up going to a good friend who is a mechanic, after I was told I have scratches inside the engine, thus it pretty much has to be changed (warranty was over by than).

So, it all ended up well, but a lot of cash and time was invested for fixing a problem which would never happen if I would not get to those plugs that early in the first place.

Recovering a several days old completely new Mac on a .01 macOS release... common guys

*We really just need to listen to that inside “don’t do it” voice when it rises from the depths of our being...)

This thread is why iOS is so locked down. There’s not a single person in this thread that performs a “fresh install” on their iPhone when they get it. You can’t. You can delete the GarageBand app, though. The 12k of files left over? Yeah, they’re still there. Taunting, mocking, THEY MUST BE DEALT WITH!!!...Not on iOS though.

Apple could have predicted that people would need to restore a factory new computer to the factory new state just like whoever designed electrical outlets could have predicted people wanted to put forks in them.

And, why was antifreeze so tasty? They should have predicted that folks would leave it out for pets to drink!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

So, going back to the idea that folks do things JUST because they’ve always done them, has anyone actually looked at, currently, whether or not files are left behind after deleting the app? AND, if so, how many and how large? I mean, if you never start iMovie and GarageBand and just delete them, what’s the downside?

I mean, there’s a general idea that “files are left behind”, but based on experience with an actual M1 system running Big Sur? I’m guessing not.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

When I was looking at an M1 system to see how the HD is laid out, I saw it was connected by “Apple Fiber” and not “PCI-Express”. That’s WAAAAY too generic of a term to yield interesting results at this time. Can someone point me to any articles or posts here that they’ve seen that discuss it?