Systematic and thorough account of the structure and function of bootable external disks and dual-boot systems from High Sierra to Sequoia, and how to diagnose their problems.
recovery
Working with external bootable disks: how to create and add them, ownership and LocalPolicy, how that can be changed, and what happens with errors and failure.
Going deeper into Recovery mode, by setting the correct keyboard, sharing the Data volume with another Mac, using full features in Disk Utility and Safari, and avoiding repairing Home permissions.
How the immutable system of the SSV, the firmlinked Data volume, and cryptexes ‘grafted’ into the directory tree combine to form the boot volume group of Intel and Apple silicon Macs running macOS 15.
You’ve just updated to 14.4 or 14.4.1 and are prompted to set up a new Recovery Key for FileVault. What do you do next, and how should you check the key?
There’s a problem with your Mac, so you try starting it up in Recovery. But that doesn’t work. What should try next? Intel and Apple silicon Macs are then quite different.
Secure Boot and its 5 stages, the SSV, support for external bootable disks, the SEP, Recovery, and lightweight virtualisation.
Coping with 64-bit code, APFS, the different CPU, the SSV, System Settings, Recovery Mode, and how to get the best from migration and sharing in iCloud.
From blessing Classic Mac OS, through SUM and the first Recovery partition in Mac OS X Lion, right up to 1 True Recovery on Apple silicon Macs.
Although your Mac may be unable to boot into macOS, it might be able to start up in Recovery, or offer its internal SSD in Target Disk Mode.
