A short introduction to some of the highlights and quirks of M1 Macs, from dealing with apps which don’t run properly, to entering Recovery Mode and dealing with disaster.
recovery mode
What were the first things you tried out on a new M1 Mac? Benchmarks, perhaps, or tested battery endurance? Try looking at Recovery Mode – that’s more important.
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.
You press the Power button, but don’t see the normal login window. How to interpret your Mac’s different screens, and what to do about them.
Got a new Mac? Unless you’re going to keep the old one, you’ll be passing it on, selling it, or recycling. Here’s how to prepare the old Mac to go away.
Follow Apple’s instructions for a clean re-install, and you’ll probably hit an error, and be left floundering in Recovery mode with an unbootable system.
Do you know how to customise the zsh shell now standard in Catalina? Here’s an excellent book which covers it in detail – and curious choice in 10.15.
Diagnostic, Recovery, Safe, Startup Manager, Verbose, reset SMC/NVRAM, firmware restore, Target Disk/Display, Single-User (SUM) in outline.
Don’t just hold Command-R and hope that you’ll install the right version of macOS. Here’s structured decision-making to save you time.
Single-user mode to run fsck to check and repair your boot disk became tricky with Fusion Drives. With a T2 chip, it’s not practical in its traditional form.
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