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A comment on Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur. Parent comment

Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by bobbylarrybobby on Monday November 16, 2020 @12:56PM (#25114795)
This part of that support article is pretty damning:

WARNING: Back up your data before you restore the firmware on your Mac. When you restore the firmware on a Mac that contains an Apple T2 Security Chip, you are restoring the firmware on the T2 chip and on any volumes on your internal SSD storage. When this process is complete, any data on any SSD volumes is unrecoverable.

So this means that a firmware issue can lead to total data loss? Of course you should always have a backup, but nevertheless...

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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by stefan_ on Monday November 16, 2020 @01:16PM (#25115041)
I thought this part was more damning:

In very rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS upgrade, a Mac that has the Apple T2 Security Chip may become unresponsive

The chip that has the keys for your system in its hands does not have redundant firmware images, like every cheap ass Android?

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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by neurostimulant on Monday November 16, 2020 @04:20PM (#25117119)
Even some high end Android devices has dual system partitions to allow rolling back in the event of botched upgrades
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by selectodude on Monday November 16, 2020 @12:59PM (#25114832)
The T2 is the SSD controller, which also transparently encrypts all the data on the SSD. So yeah, a firmware issue will nuke your data by design.
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by owenwil on Monday November 16, 2020 @01:02PM (#25114889)
The ironic thing about that suggestion is that if you’re reading that article, your Mac is already non-functional anyway, so good luck doing a backup :)
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by atoav on Monday November 16, 2020 @01:15PM (#25115024)
Just take out the SSD and ... Oh.
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by raverbashing on Monday November 16, 2020 @01:52PM (#25115466)
Even if you could, SSD encryption keys are kept in T2
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by azinman2 on Monday November 16, 2020 @03:28PM (#25116611)
Only if you turn on FileVault, AFAIK. And if so, then that’s the sensible encryption story.
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Re:Black Screen After MacBook Pro Update to macOS Big Sur by pram on Monday November 16, 2020 @02:45PM (#25116102)
To be clear there are two options: Revive and Restore. Revive just reinstalls the T2 firmware and reboots the system. Restore basically clears the entire system as stated.
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