The problem:

Hello all, its been a while but I’m back! 😅

So, on my 2022 m1 max Macbook pro I was having an issue viewing one of my websites after an IP change on my server. I was advised to delete my DNS cache through terminal, I did so, then I then did a reboot. After much black screen I ended up in Recovery mode with a message saying something along the lines of “Due to a problem you need to reinstall Mac OS Monterey” I tried doing that 4 times, it took forever and eventually says “there was an error installing the software” or similar (sorry I know I should take note of the exact messages!)

I believe that the solution was to wipe the disk and do a fresh install – Which is what I planned to do, however, before doing that, it appeared that my last backup was one week before the problem occurred so I wanted to try and recover some files that I had been working on during the previous week, before wiping the disk

here is what I tried:

Putting the M1 MacBook in share disk mode connected to a 2019 Macbook pro running Catalina. The M1 Macbook appears in the network tab but I’m in Guest mode and no files are visible just a folder with 3 stick figures on it titled Macintosh HD. I tried doing “Connect as” using the user/password for both accounts on the M1 Macbook but it seemed to ignore my requests…

My Question was: is there a way to get around this? Can I access the files in some other way?

The solution:

here is how I resolved this issue:

booted into recovery mode
(Press and hold the power button on your Mac until you see “Loading startup options.”)

Chose options & continue
opened the terminal app
(choose Utilities > Terminal.)

then used the unix cp command to copy my home folders for all users to an external disk

Once i had saved all the data I wished to keep I then attempted to do a clean install of Monterey from within recovery mode – this still didn’t work

Finally after searching for answers I discovered the Apple configurator app

after several attempts got my MacBook in DFU mode and reinstalled the firmware and osx (thank you https://mrmacintosh.com/restore-macos-firmware-on-an-apple-silicon-mac-boot-to-dfu-mode/)

After that I could boot the macbook and import my user accounts using migration manager

I still don’t know what caused the issue in the first place but I think it seems that by far the best way to reinstall mac os on a silicon mac is with DFU mode and the apple configurator app – not from within recovery mode

all back up and running, on to the next problem, where to start?😅