MacOS Big Sur Issues

I reset my laptop to the default settings normally (I’ve done it before), but when I tried to reinstall MacOS Big Sur it says “No users available for authorization”. I’ve tried making a new admin through terminal in recovery mode but it isn’t working and Command+S to get to single user mode doesn’t work either. Any ideas on how to fix this?

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I literally thought I had just broken my boyfriends computer after having deleted the user profile (essentially the admin) then tried to reinstall Mac OS only to find the famed error message. Was so unsure what to do but glad I stumbled across this comment. Reinstalling Mac OS right now!

I also had the same issue. Then through my iPhone I erased my macbook (“find my iPhone” app). Then finally i was able to install macos.

Hi, I tried updating the OS of my Macbook Pro M1 and the installation bar got stuck.

When I restart holding power into the recovery mode then click on Options, I see “There are no users available to recover…”.

What should I do? I precise that I need to recover 100% of my data on the computer and I have no backup (stupid I know).

An Apple store told me get a data recovery to recover the data for me or the Apple store said they could reinstall OS but that it was not guaranteed that my data would still be there.

I can’t believe I have to pay a data recovery for this OS update bug. Please help me!

  • Ok i had the same problem yesterday on a friend's Macbook Pro M1 computer was updating to 12.0.1 and it made the computer unstartable just sat on the apple logo and status bar for a long long time. Was the same in safe mode attempt. When went into recovery mode was "There are no users available to recover". Only way out at time was to use the "erase mac" option on that screen from the top left options. Lost all the data on the computer and my friend had no backup. The computer is working again now. Then we had to install everything all over again.

  • exactly the same issue on my m1 MBP, no luck to rescue my data. normal boot just an apple logo and status bar for a long time. recovery mode, it shows "there are no users on this volume to recover." no disk utility on the menu bar, just a startup disk option. I tried to use startup disk option to boot an external macos monterey system. It said "This volume does not have any authorized users for this computer" only 2 options for you: 1. authorize users 2. continue. when choose "authorize users" to authorize the user in my external system, still not allow to boot my external system disk when choose "continue", It said "The version of macOS on the selected disk needs to be reinstalled" and same not allow to boot ***, just upgrade the mac system and destroy all my data, and doesn't provide a way to backup my data

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I also need help I forgot my password and I haven't used it since then so when I turned it on again I tried to erase my mac it returned me to the recovery assistant and I tried it over, and over again so I need help.

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I'm a PC, not a Mac, however... this is what I did to fix this issue and get the Setup Assistant to run, allowing the creation of a new admin account.

You can skip to the instructions below if you want, but here are the details of how this happened.

My wife tried to update her laptop to Big Sur, and during the process it froze on a black screen with an Apple logo and a progress bar that had moved not at all by morning.

I restarted it when I woke up, and it seemed to be stuck on the same screen. I went to work.

When I spoke to my wife next she was using it and said it had gone a bit further. Later on in the afternoon, she said it was working, however her account had lost admin rights. There was no other account on the laptop.

Using recovery console displayed the "No users available for authorization" message. Booting into Single User Mode didn't work, at first. It took some time to figure out the right instructions. All instructions I could find on the internet said to delete the file .AppleSetupDone, but the directions on how to get to this file did not work on her laptop.

First, this is what I was shown, which is also different from other posts I've seen (a lot has been omitted for brevity):

To mount the root device as read-write:
    $ /sbin/mount -uw /
To mount the data partition on an SEP-enabled device:
    $ /sbin/mount -P 1
    $ /usr/libexec/init_data_protection
    $ /sbin/mount -P 2
On all other devices:
    $ /sbin/mount -vat nonfs
To boot the system:
    $ exit

I don't know what kind of system my wife has, but I kept trying the first mount option, which didn't work - I believe I was given an access denied message. So I finally used the second mount option(s) for SEP-enabled devices, the first and last commands of which worked. The middle command didn't work (it also returned an error message), but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Now however, is when I needed to use some of my limited knowledge of linux. I had to find this famed .AppleSetupDone file.

I didn't take notes while I did it, but I believe the path was as follows:

/Volumes/”Macintosh HD”/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

I used a combination of the following commands to change folders, list folder contents to ensure the current folder had the next folder I was looking for, and displaying the current folder name:

  • cd _foldername_
  • pwd
  • ls -l

When I was in the db folder I used "ls -l | more" to pause the listing after a full screen. Press q to stop the listing when the colon appears in the bottom left.

When in the correct folder, type rm .AppleSetupDone to delete the file, then restart.

Note that you should also be able to do everything in one line, if the path is correct.

rm /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

I tried to erase any partition, volume group etc like the others, but no success. I tried to use resetpassword in terminal, but same issue.

Eventually what worked for me was to sign in to icloud.com and erase my mac remotely. Then the mac got the proper volumes set up and everything was working from there on out.