Big Sur Install on Apple Silicon Mac = An error occurred preparing the update. Failed to Personalize

31 Comments

1. This took care of my issue right away! Thank you, my  friend

2. Great so not having a second mac means this mac is a paperweight. Another quality apple product

3. this happened on my 2017 MacBook Air, whenever i restart it just starts loading for an hour until the error pops up again. I've tried to reinstall big sur from recovery mode but my mac wouldn't connect to the internet for whatever reason.. and i don't have an ethernet cable or adapter. What do i do? (ive tried updating my mac from high sierra to big sir)

4. I have the same issue with my 2015 MAC air when I click the error message they gave me an option to choose Target Disk Mode. What should I do!!

5. I am having a nervous breakdown.
   I tried updating to stupid Big Sur aka Big Shit, and the progress bar didn’t do anything for half an hour.
   So I hit the power button and tried to restart my MacBook, then now it says something went wrong, and you can use your MacBook as an external harddisk.
   WTF!!!???
   I have tried to start it while holding cmd+r so it can re-install Mac OS, however this stupid computer asks for my regular login, but it won’t accept it (filevault).
   I am sooooo lost right now.
   I have pictures and videos of my departed family members that I really can’t afford to lose 🙁 🙁 🙁

6. So I got a bit confused what is causing this issue? The "Full Security"?

7. my mb pro m1 is still on big sur 11.0. I keep getting "failed to prepare update". it's my first apple computer, thought they're reliable machines

8. Good video. For others, I had the same problem with an M1 Air custom built and shipped on Dec 20th 2020 that I interrupted migration on and started the nightmare… Hours on the phone with AppleCare support and multiple reps. (If you go via them you need to ask for a Senior Advisor…) But even the first Sr Advisor tried the Intel instead of M1 drive erase procedure which are markedly different. Once you get a rep that knows this issue, they will attempt to follow the instructions on this 14 Dec 2020 page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983 But even this didn't work for me. We tried the terminal method and it failed part way through. So next tried the Flash drive method, but it didn't see the internal hard drive. It took 4 of the repeated erase drive procedures outlined on the (14 Dec 2020) support page (not just the 2 repeats of the erase they say to do) before the Big Sur install could find the internal hard drive to install into… Many wasted hours of Apple staff and numerous customers…

9. I didn’t just get my MacBook, had this computer for years, I don’t know why it did this just cause I installed a update.

10. Hi, do I need a second mac even if I have a external boot flash drive with macOS install?

11. Just to be clear I got this issue on 11.0.1 as well.

12. OMG I really appreciate the work of @flexible_tech on Instagram he just help me fix my computer… Will recommend you to him over and over again. Thank me later 🥰…

13. I had the same issue and I updated mine to 11.0.1. Thank you so much 🙂

14. I’m stuck at the factory reset. And it won’t let me get back in

15. How I was able to fix this without a second mac.

    1. Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window. Select Options,

    2. When you're asked to select a user you know the password for, select the user, click Next, then enter their administrator password.
    Skip if there is no password.

    3. When you see the utilities window (shown here), choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.

    4. Type “resetpassword” in Terminal, then press Return.

    5. Click the Reset Password window to bring it to the front, then choose Recovery Assistant > Erase Mac from the menu bar.

    6. Click Erase Mac in the window that opens, then click Erase Mac again to confirm. When done, your Mac restarts automatically.

    7. Should take you back to the options screen and select reinstall MacOS, let it do its thing and you will be back on the setup screen.

16. Omg thank you so much. You saved me so much time 🙏 God bless your soul

17. This is happening every after updating to 11.0.1.

18. Hi thanks for your video but when I'm trying to reinstall my macOS big sur then following error is coming "An error occurred prepanng the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again."

    Can you please tell me how can I fix this ? 🙁

19. Why can’t you just erase the apps or programs you don’t want?

20. Unfortunately the error also happen when you've updated to 11.0.1. Cost me hours today. I've to say: This really sucks. I had four calls with Apple Support. None of them could help me. It's a mess what Apple did here.

21. I did update to 11.0.1 20B29 and I am having this issue.

22. How does reboot work now. I just Want to erase my ssd and clean install I used. But now it says that de drive is locked. Or is this a new thing.?

23. God bless your video! 😂🙏🏻

24. Apple bungled this one big time, Catalina was a breeze to install.

25. pls check my message on twitter I really need MacBook help plsss

26. installing as I type, ill keep you updated….

27. I can't get into DFU mode.. all I keep getting is a screen with the options gear saying “options” with a spinning gray circle underneath like it’s loading

28. So Apple ship M1 systems with a dev beta installed ???

29. Great vid mate. I'm very cautious about downloading a file online to use as my mac's OS foundation. How can I know that the IPSW 11.0.1 file on your site is safe and definitely directly from Apple? I wouldn't want it to be modified in any way!

30. If I create a USB with createinstallmedia, does it boot me into the full recovery suite with disk utility etc. or is it purely for macOS install only?

31. I got this even after updating to 11.0.1 first. I erased the disk using disk utility in recovery mode. Install failed several times. After that I found that the recovery app had a menu item to erase the Mac. After using that Big Sur install worked without any issues. Could be a coincidence of course.