Re:Don’t format a drive of M1 Macs from recovery mode
by m1mac on Thursday February 18, 2021 @07:33AM
(#26179079)
I agree that disk management of M1 Macs is poorly documented, but the author's issue appears to stem from:
> Nope, this don’t work as I suspected… so, let’s check online, Apple suggests a long procedure and a short by typing “resetpassword” in terminal, that was a chance but since it founds no users, there’s no passwords to reset.
"resetpassword" opens Recovery Assistant. Recovery Assistant is primarily intended to provide a "forgot password" flow, which is why it wants to identify a user. However, in the app menu bar, there is an option called "Erase Mac." That is how you do a full secure erase of an M1 Mac. It will work without any user, and even without any OS install at all. (I have tested this myself by erasing a machine multiple times without reinstalling the OS.)
> Nope, this don’t work as I suspected… so, let’s check online, Apple suggests a long procedure and a short by typing “resetpassword” in terminal, that was a chance but since it founds no users, there’s no passwords to reset.
"resetpassword" opens Recovery Assistant. Recovery Assistant is primarily intended to provide a "forgot password" flow, which is why it wants to identify a user. However, in the app menu bar, there is an option called "Erase Mac." That is how you do a full secure erase of an M1 Mac. It will work without any user, and even without any OS install at all. (I have tested this myself by erasing a machine multiple times without reinstalling the OS.)