Restore macOS Firmware on an Apple Silicon M1 Mac + Boot to DFU Mode

53 thoughts on “Restore macOS Firmware on an Apple Silicon M1 Mac + Boot to DFU Mode”

1. Tried downgrade my mac to 11.2.3 via DFU and IPSW
   But it threw an 0x6 to me

2. Unexpected device state ‘DFU’ expected ‘RestoreOS’ [com.apple.MobileDevice.MobileRestore – 0xFAE (4014)]. Kindly help with this error.

3. erased mini, not realizing the consequences; was not happy; found your site; fixed me up!! now I’m all smiles…
   Thanks Mr, you are the man!!

   btw, using thunderbolt cable Configurator 2 gave an error – “possible connection/communication”; tried with usb-c, success…

   1. Thanks great news Nikael!

4. ayuda. tengo un macbook pro 13″ 2019 con catalina y se apago al intentar hacer cmd+shif+R (no prende nada) logre colocarlo en DFU pero al tratar de restaurar sale el error 4005, alguna ayuda?

   lo realice desde un macbook air 2014 con bigsur y ap 2,14

5. i get problem on reading the ipsw file.
   it says, undefined error :0

   what is wrong?

   1. Are you restoring Monterey or Big Sur ?

6. the process stops at step 4 of 4
   system cannot be restored/revived
   failed to restore device in recovery mode libusbrestore error 21

   1. I am having the same issue. Did you find a resolution?

      1. went to Apple Service Centre – they reestored it for me – it’s about exact timing the key combo’s

   2. I got an error 4014 – expected mode recovery and its like forced into DFU mode
      If I try to use recovery – it’s shows error 4013 – expected mode restoreos

      Any one has any idea how to clear this issue ?

      Thanks in advance

7. We’re experimenting here with a couple of Mini M1’s… and so far we managed to break it extra hard! Trying to wipe one turned it into a paperweight (restore kept failing)…

   Booting into DFU went without a hitch, and I downloaded the latest 11.2 IPSW through your site.

   In the AC2, “Restoring System” completed, and ACUAcquireServiceAssertionOperation made it halfway through. Then on the restored system… I got a circled exclamation mark. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211868
   Which basically means… go back to step 1.

   I let AC2 download the System (IPSW) itself, and then got “System cannot be restored on this device: Unexpected device state ‘Recovery’ expected. 0xFAD (4013)”.
   Now the Mini has neither OS nor firmware, so it can’t even be booted into restore mode…

   Any ideas? Before we take it to the Apple store…

   1. Have you tried the “resetpassword” procedure outlined below? If all else fails, it might require a trip to the Apple store. I had exactly the same problems as you (circled exclamation mark, DFU restore failed etc etc) and took my Macbook Air M1 to be serviced. They reported that the whole logic board was replaced, so maybe it wasn’t just me doing something wrong- there was something physically broken with it.

   2. Try the “Erase Mac…” procedure outlined in my previous comments. Doesn’t hurt to try at this point as was simple, successful, fairly quick and easy.

      1. Juhani, Maurice, thank you for your ideas – but I can’t do any of that if I can’t even get into Recovery mode…
         [When I try to, I immediately get the “circled exclamation mark” error.]

         1. Oh, my Air wasn’t even that borked, it still opened Recovery, but the installation failed. In any case the good news is that Apple serviced it without complains. I was a bit worried that they would claim that I did something wrong. But since the DFU restore is documented by Apple, following the instructions is completely allowed. Long story short: they changed the logic board (motherboard) and now DFU restore works every time on my test Air.

            1. PS I have no idea why all the line breaks got eaten from my last, lengthy, carefully-edited post.

         2. Fixed!
            Here is everything I did. Warning, it’s messy and the opposite of a conclusive workflow:
            1. First of all, I was wrong, Recovery mode (iboot?) still worked. Or at least it worked the next morning… It just sat there spinning (while trying to figure out the messed-up APFS container situation, most likely), but I could just choose to enter Recovery and proceed.
            2. This time when I tried to install the OS from the internet, I got the “failed to personalize” error. At least I was in more familiar territory now…
            3. I followed https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983 for the “resetpassword” procedure.
            After “Your Mac is activated” I reopened Terminal to try the manual “curl” deployment, but realized I didn’t have an ‘Untitled’ Volume, or anything that looked like proper internal storage…
            4. I tried Disk Utility again, but couldn’t erase because of the ‘taken by process (0) kernel’ errors. Verify Disk instantly found no errors.
            5. Then I tried a Configuration 2 Restore again… which failed again for the nth time.
            6. Repeated the AppleKB resetpassword procedure again. Note that step 10 says to run it twice! Hmmmm…. Couldn’t run it again because “There are no users on this volume to recover.” Your options are exit, or exit. 🙂
            7. Now……….. I tried installing from a bootable installer of 11.2 on a USB stick.
            The first noticable difference was that for the first time, my destination options weren’t Macintosh HD and Data, but “Untitled”.
            8. Big Sur installed, and for dessert booted into… flashing snow. https://photos.app.goo.gl/iAMWLhBkc1tboETr6 Isn’t that lovely? Caps lock nonresponsive. I replugged the HDMI cable – nothing. Then as I was fishing for another cable, I touched the keyboard again, which happened to work now and the screen came up, finishing an actual boot into an actual, installed Big Sur 11.2. Hurrah!

            So what did we learn here? Good question.

            – One thing, I’m fairly sure that this system was on 11.0 before. So in line with MrMac, it really suffers from “gen 1” ailments. I hope things got ironed out by now with 11.2.
            – And the one thing that seemed to have made the difference in my case, was to install from a USB drive and NOT a Configurator2 flash file. Perhaps the IPSW needs proper storage to copy itself into first, while a USB deployment does better at resetting APFS on the internal SSD, blessing its volumes, etc.

8. The most fundamental reset available on the hardware that I have come across is the Erase Mac command which is accessible without having to use DFU mode or a second Mac as a host.

   • Back up any data you care about onto some other physical storage device. You are erasing your Mac, everything goes with this process; back it up somewhere else.

   • Shut down Mac. Reboot into Startup Options menu (when powering Mac back on keep the power button depressed continuously until you see the prompts that confirm the process is loading). Select “Options” and then “Continue”.

   • When you get to the Recovery menu prompt, choose The Utilities menu near the top left of your display and select Terminal.

   • At the terminal prompt, type “resetpassword” as one string of characters, without quotes and press Return.

   • Click onto the Reset Password prompt that appears behind the Terminal window. Select the “Recovery Assistant” menu near the upper left of your display and select “Erase Mac…”

   • This is the point of no return. Once you select the small blue Erase Mac… link in the prompt window that appears, its all gone; along with the no authorized user conundrum I’m happy to report!

   Once I reinstalled macOS, I was able to create a fresh, out of box experience and seamlessly create a new, local administrator account and subsequently migrate my existing admin account to this 2020 MacMini from the MacPro 2010 it was replacing.

   All credit goes to Kay V on StackExchange:

9. For those experiencing a “No users available for authorization…” error or unable to complete creation of an account after reinstalling macOS, a much simpler solution not requiring a second Mac worked easily for me. Thanks to StackExchange user Kay V:

   “… before you follow these steps, you should remove the computer from any iCloud accounts; I’ve not tested that recommendation; please comment you also find that step useful)

   shut down your computer
   hold the power button until the “options” icon shows
   select the “options” icon
   when next screen loads, select menu item to launch terminal
   in terminal type “resetpassword” and hit enter
   when a reset password box appears, select menu item to erase Mac (see note below)
   in new pop up confirm option to erase Mac.
   once erased, exit back to recover
   reinstall the operating system
   once installed, create the account.
   Remiks’ reported result matches mine: this fix works on the first try.

   On the other hand, the official apple steps failed repeatedly for me, and two Apple Sr. Advisors warned me as they attempted to assist that the published instructions were unreliable (yep, they were also frustrated that the Apple-supplied steps failed try after try).

   Note about finding the menu item to erase Mac (thanks @brendan-duke for the edit!):

   Click somewhere off to the side of the reset password box.
   When menu appears at the top of the screen, select “Recovery Utilities” then “erase Mac”.”

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11. Dear Mr Macintosh

    Thank you for the recourses that you make available to help the Mac Admins Community.

    I need to make a presentation remotely showing the pre-boot on macOS Big Sur.
    I noticed in your YouTube presentations that you are able to do this with what seemed to be Quicktime.
    Could you please share what steps you used to do this please.

    Kind Regards

12. Thank you! you saved my life. Brand new Apple Macbook Air with M1 chip restored with configurator 2. I was getting an error trying to create a computer user. Same as https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/408876/m1-mac-clean-install-getting-stuck-at-create-a-computer-account

    You helped a lot.

    Greetings from Argentina

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14. Hi, and thank you for writing these Macbook M1 DFU etc. guides! These helped a LOT today when I started testing our new Mac’s and had to reset them to factory settings again and again. And again 🙂

    Quick tip: I noticed that your guide is spot-on on how to get the DFU mode activated, BUT the timing is crucial (my 1-one thousand didn’t cut it)! As soon as I started counting the keypresses with a stopwatch, everything just WORKED. So the 10 + 8 seconds rule is quite important 🙂

    PS. Also, if your Mac is DEPed (enrolled with say, Apple Business Manager to a MDM solution), after emptying the disk, you will have to boot it once to “activate” the Mac (WiFi required). After this, the Apple Configurator works fine.

15. Thank you so much, this got me out of a bind.

16. A HUGE THANKS – This was an awesome instructions that did save me a trip to apple store.
    From a Brazilian that owns a Apple silicon M1/16mb from Shenzhen, China

17. Thanks so much. I would only add that if your machine with Apple Configurator 2 has an update notice to Big Sur, turn off all updates and notifications under Software Update > Advanced or the restore will not work.

18. In very rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS upgrade, a Mac may become unresponsive and so the firmware on the Apple T2 Security Chip must be revived. A revive updates that firmware. A revive is designed to not make any changes to the startup volume, the user’s data volume, or any other volumes.

19. THANK YOU so much MrMacintosh for these instructions!!!

    We made the mistake of trying to restore a backup on a new MacBook Air 2020-M1, only to discover this is a known issue making it incredibly sluggish and impossible to work with. No way to do a re-install, every attempt failed, all seemed lost… . So much for the joy of a fresh-out-of-the-box Apple holiday gift 😉

    Your detailed instructions for entering into DFU mode, using a complicated key combination, did the trick, although we needed a few attempts before success. Configurator-2 was then able to do its thing and the new MacBook Air now works like a charm!

20. Hello! I’ve followed your instructions, but receive this error message shortly after I start.
    “the system canot be restored on this device” – and it gives an error code “0xBBC (3004)”
    I’ve checked to make sure both computers are running the same beta (11.1 – 20C5048l) and have the same version of Configurator 2 (2.13.3). Can you please help? Thanks!

    1. Error 3004 is cause by connectivity error. If you have some virtual adapters and so on (VPN, AV proxy and so on) disable them in network properties, leave only ethernet (or wifi) enabled and try again. Worked for me.

21. THANK YOU!!
    THANK YOU!!!
    The instructions of DFUing the new MacMini M1 on Apple support were terribly written. Thank you for taking the time to explain everything. After attempting for half-day following several instructions on other sites, I bumped into yours. LIFESAVER! I was into DFU mode at the first attempt. My MacMini M1 came with some errors and could not install the MacOS. I could not go back or forth. I was stuck. Nowadays, Apple support is over the phone in contrast with remote assistance of a few years ago. Also, they told me that taking my newly opened to the retail store would help. BUT, there was a wait fo 10 days. Thanks to your explanations, I got everything squared away!

    Cheers,

    Moji

22. Thanks a lot. You helped me solve this issue, which Apple Support could not over the phone or via chat. You saved me a trip to the Genius Bar!

23. FYI

    Resolved in macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta 2

    Booting back into macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 after installing macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta onto a separate volume on Macs with Apple silicon is now supported. (71353899)

    Using either macOS Recovery or a bootable installer to reinstall macOS Big Sur 11.1 beta on Macs with Apple silicon is now supported. (71221267)

24. maybe if erased a disk, reinstallation doesn’t work anyway…
    I got “No users available for authorization” error…

25. I had erased the primary partition and then performed a re-install which failed. The above steps to get into DFU mode didn’t work for me. The following steps did however (Thanks myrtlebee).

    When the settings icon appears on the screen with a spinning circle below it, press and hold the power button, left control button, left option button, and right shift button for ten seconds. Release all but the power button and it goes into DFU mode.

26. Thank you Mr. Macintosh for the helping video. It saves my life. 😉 I had the screen with the exclamation mark. Nothing worked anymore. I tried to enter the DFU mode according to your instructions many times and it failed.
    Worked for me: Connect the two Macs and start the Apple Configurator on the one Mac (running Mac) and then start the Mac which you want to repair. If you can see the exclamation mark on the repaired one you can start the procedure with the keyboard shortcuts. 1000…9000… With this procedure I can enter the DFU every time. The next step was to drag and drop the IPSW file Ver.11.01 (downloaded before) and recovered the Mac. To repair the Mac in Apple Configurator with the context menu „Restore“ didn’t work for me.

27. Thank you for your support.
    I have tried the way to recovery my Mac mini. I download ipsw file.
    but the process is running, it stop at step 2. it last 30mins. no response. no error.
    I want to do again. but the same.
    I want to ask this ipsw is suit for Mac mini 2020 or not?
    Thank you very much

28. I’m getting an error 53 on a 2020 mac mini. Trying 2 different systems. Trying a restore and then making a apple store appt if that fails.

    1. same issue for me as well .
       AMRestoreErrorDomain error 53

       1. this keeps happening to me. did anyone resolve the error 53 without a macbook store?

29. Thanks, you saved my butt today. I followed Apple’s instructions but never got the DFU icon, just an image of the M1 MacBook Air itself, so I kept getting errors after the OS downloaded and unzipped. After I saw this post I tried again, and again, and again, and the third time was the charm, got the DFU icon and I was able to get the M1 to boot and eventually to Setup Assistant. In my case the Migration Assistant was interrupted halfway through as my client had a schedule restart set in his Energy Saver prefs, and I would never have thought to check for something like that ;-(

30. Having mistakenly thought that the reinstall problem could be avoided by installing from a 11.0.1 USB disk, I bricked my new Air before having let the 11.0.1 updater run.

    I had wiped the internal disk including partition table using dd(1). Trying to install onto the newly created file system resulted in a ‘No users available for authorization’ error.

    Very fortuitously, I bought a USB-NVME enclosure just a few days ago and it came with a USB A to C cable, which I was able to use with Apple Configurator 2, so it doesn’t have to be a C to C cable. I have no other USB C Mac, so that was nice.

    Timing the magic keys to enter DFU mode is very finicky, but the restore process is fast and painless.

    Unfortunately, even after this restore of the 11.0.1 .ipsw, I am still unable to do a case-sensitive reinstall with either the recovery partition or a USB installer. Doing a simple erase (apfs, case-sensitive) in Disk Utility and then trying to reinstall produces the same ‘No users available for authorization’ error.

    I guess I will have to wait for 11.0.2 before I can have a proper file system.

    1. Hello.

       I have a same error “No users available for authorization”
       and don’t have a solution for now.

       How is going? If you get a solution, please help me…

    2. I had the “no administrator account” issue with my M1 MacMini and no mac with Thunderbolt 3/USB-C, only Thunderbolt 2 (Mini DisplayPort form factor), Apple’s Thunderbolt 2 cable, and their T2 female to T3 male adapter and it did not work to get Configurator 2 to recognize MacMini in DFU mode.

       Your suggestion to use a USB-C (male) to USB-A (male) did work for me as well. Perhaps DFU relies on USB bus to communucate instead of Thunderbolt bus…

       Also, the power light on the MacMini turns amber when successfully booted into DFU mode.

31. I’ve tried doing this, for a Macbook Air, but the computer I am using to make the transfer got overloaded with files. It gave me an error message, saying that I don’t have enought storage to complete the process. I’m guessing this was the actual OS that was downloaded. But now I don’t know where these files went, but they are still there, and taking a lot of space… where are they?

    Thanks

    1. Chris, the folder is in /Private/tmp

       I go over this in my 2nd deep dive video near the end.

       1. Thank you for your informative videos! Unfortunately I cannot locate the Restore folder in the TMP file? Any suggestions (host is MacBook Pro late 2014)

32. Liiiiiiife saver. Seriously. Thank you! Got me back up and running. With Apple Configurator 2 version 2.13.2 in place on the other Mac, it prompted me for all the relevant downloads and I was back in business. Lucky to have another Mac that was set up with Mac OS >= 10.15.6 so Apple Configurator would work.

33. I can’t get into DPU mode. I’ve tried all the above recommendations. It only go into Recovery Mode. One question: You wrote above that you should go into Recovery Mode before you go into DPU mode. But once you’re on to the Recovery MOde, how do you go into DPU mode if the computer is already on?

34. It is taling very long to install on my new MBA

35. You LITERALLY save my new MBP. I was desesperated to fix this fking problem.
    Do you know if will be fixed to allow us to restore macOS from USB like always?

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