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I recently received the Apple DTK and got things up and running. However, there was an issue with iTerm and oh-my-zsh which basically locked me from accessing the Terminal. So, I thought that I would just recover the OS. No biggie.

One thing that I always do whenever recovering the OS is to do a full clean install. So I rebooted into recovery mode using the Power Button holding and am now currently in the recovery mode. I deleted the Apple Macintosh HD partitions and then proceeded to reinstall macOS as I normally would.

However, during the process of reinstalling Big Sur, there is a step where I need to enter the password of a user. There are no users listed! So, how can I either do some sort of internet recovery and fully wipe everything or bypass this user password requirement so that I can get the OS reinstalled?

macOS

7.4k

Posted by

kobaltzz

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Accepted Reply

I've resolved my problem. For reference if anyone else has this issue, here is how I resolved it.

On another mac running Big Sur (you might have luck on Catalina, but for my case, I had another computer with Big Sur Beta 3).

Download macOS Big Sur 11 Beta 3 from https://developer.apple.com/download/universal/

This is an IPSW file (around 13GB in size!).

Download and Install Apple Configurator 2.13 Beta 2 from https://developer.apple.com/download/

Launch Apple Configurator 2.13 Beta 2

Put the Apple Silicon Mac Mini into DFU Mode

Drag the downloaded IPSW (13GB macOS Big Sur image) onto the DFU icon in Apple Configurator

Proceed to restore the image onto the Mac Mini within Apple Configurator. This will take a long time. There is no progress bar that is in any way accurate. Give it 30 minutes or so.

The Mac Mini will reboot.

Proceed to reinstall Big Sur in the recovery mode.

On my instance, the reinstall failed around 12 minutes remaining. I shutdown the Mac Mini and started it again normally.

The Mac Mini now booted to the welcome screen and I was able to proceed with the set up.

To Enter DFU Mode on the Apple Silicon Mac Mini

Remove the Power Cord on the Mac Mini

Ensure USB-C cable is plugged on the far right USB-C plug on the Mac Mini (this is the one furthest away from the Ethernet port)

Press and Hold the Power Button (with the power cable removed)

Insert Power Cable while still holding the Power Button

Release the Power Button

Posted by

kobaltzz

Replies

I've resolved my problem. For reference if anyone else has this issue, here is how I resolved it.

On another mac running Big Sur (you might have luck on Catalina, but for my case, I had another computer with Big Sur Beta 3).

Download macOS Big Sur 11 Beta 3 from https://developer.apple.com/download/universal/

This is an IPSW file (around 13GB in size!).

Download and Install Apple Configurator 2.13 Beta 2 from https://developer.apple.com/download/

Launch Apple Configurator 2.13 Beta 2

Put the Apple Silicon Mac Mini into DFU Mode

Drag the downloaded IPSW (13GB macOS Big Sur image) onto the DFU icon in Apple Configurator

Proceed to restore the image onto the Mac Mini within Apple Configurator. This will take a long time. There is no progress bar that is in any way accurate. Give it 30 minutes or so.

The Mac Mini will reboot.

Proceed to reinstall Big Sur in the recovery mode.

On my instance, the reinstall failed around 12 minutes remaining. I shutdown the Mac Mini and started it again normally.

The Mac Mini now booted to the welcome screen and I was able to proceed with the set up.

To Enter DFU Mode on the Apple Silicon Mac Mini

Remove the Power Cord on the Mac Mini

Ensure USB-C cable is plugged on the far right USB-C plug on the Mac Mini (this is the one furthest away from the Ethernet port)

Press and Hold the Power Button (with the power cable removed)

Insert Power Cable while still holding the Power Button

Release the Power Button

Posted by

kobaltzz

how long need hold power button ?

Thank you !!

Posted by

jacklin56

Updating to Beta 4 bricked my DTK. Attempting to restore via Configurator on MacOS 10.15.5 but no joy yet (have to say that plugging in the power cord while holding down the power button is not an enjoyable exercise!)

Anyone else have any success restoring DTK from 10.15.X?

Posted by

rgrant@mac.com

I have the same issue with rgrant@mac.com! Tried to update to Beta 4 (from beta 2 I think) and it bricked my device. Tried to use DFU / Apple Configurator to restore with a freshly download ipsw image of Big Sur Beta 4 and was told "The OS cannot be restored on this device" and it didn't do anything.

When I boot up my DTK now it will just boot up, shows nothing on screen, then reboots itself after a couple seconds…

Made another thread on this issue: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/656780

Posted by

y-c-c

How does DTK enter recovery mode? Press and hold win+r to boot up and fail.

Posted by

zzzhuerr

Just in case someone happens to run into the same situation caused by Oh-My-Zsh, simply change the shell to /bin/bash in the preferences will give you back access to Terminal. Then you could run ~/.oh-my-zsh/tools/uninstall.sh to get rid of the failed installation. No need to reinstall the OS.

Posted by

joyuer

No succes here too and I tried to contact Apple

I followed the guide 100 times!!!

Beta 6 and Conf beta 4

My DTK stuck in DFU mode cannot do anything!!!

Posted by

Mizar

how long need hold power button ??

Posted by

MobiGame

From the restore guide you need to press power button for 2-3 seconds and then connect USB-C connector.

Posted by

jyyoon

Hi All,

I went here https://developer.apple.com/download/ in search of Apple Configurator 2.13 beta 1 and can not find it.

Could someone kindly provide the link?

Thanks,

Carl

Posted by

Optioneering

@Optioneering, You should be able to download the Apple Configurator 2 from the App Store now. It is version 2.13.1 at the time of writing this.

Posted by

kobaltzz

I got this error when restore the DTK:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (AMRestoreErrorDomain error 10 - Failed to handle message type StatusMsg) [AMRestoreErrorDomain – 0xA (10)]

Any idea ? Thanks a lot.

Posted by

hanson21

How to do a clean install of macOS Big Sur on DTK now that the final version is released?
DTK does not support booting from USB or recovery mode, so the only option is to download the * .ipsw file and load it into DTK via Apple Configurator, however there is no such download anywhere.

Posted by

cpasin