Startup Security Utility Can't Find Admin Accounts

[cpsmusic]

Hi,

I'd like to make a bootable external USB for emergencies.

I'm running OS X 10.14.5 on a 2018 Mac Mini.

At present, only the Mac's internal HD is listed as a start up option in System Preferences.

I've tried starting in Recovery Mode and using the Startup Security Utility however it says that it can't find any Admin accounts. As such it won't let me change the the start up disk preferences. This isn't right as my main account is listed as Admin in Users and Groups.

I've also tried creating another Admin account however this isn't found by the Startup Security Utility either.

How do I fix this?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[chabig]

I think it's trying to tell you that you need to create an admin account on the external drive. But to do that you would have to first boot from the drive. You'll need to allow external booting...

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/15/how-to-make-new-t2-secured-macs-boot-from-external-drives

 

[cpsmusic]

I've gone through the article suggested above however I'm running into a problem when I try to run the Startup Security Utility.

The first message I get is:

"Authentication Needed You will need to authenticate as an Administrator to change the boot security settings."

This is then followed by:

"Recovery is trying to change system settings. No administrator was found."

This dialog doesn't let me do anything else.

So, where to from here?

 

[cpsmusic]

I did a bit more digging and found out that one solution is to turn FileVault on and then off. Worked for me.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[foliovision]

I did a bit more digging and found out that one solution is to turn FileVault on and then off. Worked for me.

Thanks for the suggestion Chris. Didn't work for me. I'm still getting the ""Recovery is trying to change system settings. No administrator was found." message when in Recovery mode and trying to enable system extensions.

If anyone finds a solution, please let me know. I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to install USB Smart Tools as party of DriveDX.