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iBoot

Firmware and macOS upgrades

The rules of firmware updating explained, and their consequences for each type of Mac. How to refresh firmware on a T2, and how to downgrade it in an Apple silicon Mac.

October 6, 2022 Macs, Technology

Booting an M1 Mac from hardware to kexts: 3 XNU, the kernel

Once the kernel takes over from iBoot, there’s a lot of hardware to get running before the SSV can be properly validation, and kernel extensions loaded.

January 6, 2022 Macs, Technology

Booting an M1 Mac from hardware to kexts: 2 LLB and iBoot

T T Read More

Sometimes known as iBoot1 and iBoot2, they start work with the LocalPolicy for the intended boot volume, validating its vital components.

January 5, 2022 Macs, Technology

Booting an M1 Mac from hardware to kexts: 1 Hardware

T T Read More

Understanding each of the four stages in the Secure Booting of an M1 Mac. These are summarised in diagram available here.

January 4, 2022 Macs, Technology

How M1 Macs can run old firmware when Intel Macs can’t

There’s a fundamental difference in the way that Intel and M1 Macs store and load their ‘firmware’, which enables the M1 Mac to load and run difference versions of iBoot.

December 30, 2021 Macs, Technology

How Secure Boot works on M1 series Macs

This article has now been extensively corrected and modified.

December 29, 2021 Macs, Technology

Launching Recovery on an M1 Mac: Booting and control in 11.4

How your M1 Mac starts up in the Recovery mode of your choice, or when it decides you need to take a trip to Recovery to fix an issue.

June 3, 2021 Macs, Technology

Booting an M1 Mac: external disks and local boot policy in macOS 11.4

T T Read More

macOS 11.4 brought major changes to the way M1 Macs handle external bootable disks. This explains how this works during the boot process.

June 2, 2021 Macs, Technology

Booting an M1 Mac: external disks and local boot policy

How an M1 Mac can start up from an external bootable disk, and how that can fail. All about boot security policy, and how that’s applied.

May 12, 2021 Macs, Technology

M1 Macs radically change boot and recovery

T T Read More

Unlike Intel Macs, M1 models always start booting from internal SSD, and can only offer full Recovery from there too. This has benefits, and some drawbacks too.

January 14, 2021 Macs, Technology

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