If there’s a problem, you may try Recovery mode. What do you do when that proves to be a problem? Solutions for Intel and Apple silicon Macs.
DFU
Should you be scared of ‘bricking’ your Mac? Just what does it mean, and what could you do about it? Don’t panic: it’s not a dragon to be slayed.
Erase your M1’s internal storage in Recovery, reinstall macOS and you could see an error in which it failed ‘to personalize the software update’. That’s not easy to fix, as explained here.
macOS updates sometimes don’t work out right. What can you do to revert to the previous release? Did I hear you mention snapshots?
M1 Macs don’t use that warren of startup key combinations, but a logical structure of choices, mostly when starting up in Recovery Mode. Here are the full details.
The Eclectic Light Company 