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An error occurred loading the update - Big Sur installation

Hi everyone,


Tried to update my wife's Air A1932 to Big Sur in a normal way from System Preferences/Software Update.


In the middle of installation getting an error 'An error occurred loading the update'.

Mac boots into recovery, choosing 'Reinstall Big Sur' results into the same error, did it 20 times already.


I've created bootable USB installer on my second Mac, connected it to this one, but receiving 'Security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk'

Rebooted into Recovery, launched Startup Security utility, and get 'No administration was found'


Two days of reading forums, trying, and failing.

Wiping the disk isn't an option, I can't lose data.


Any help with restoring Catalina or installing Big Sur would be highly appreciated!


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Dec 21, 2020 10:11 PM

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Posted on Dec 22, 2020 12:58 AM

I would probably use either rsync -a or cp -a, but you will need to mount the internal disk first.


To be honest, I'm not great at Terminal without doing it myself and often Googling a bit on the side, so while looking for an appropriate guide, I came across another suggestion, which is to make a disk image. This has the advantage of baking up everything, so you can be sure to not have lost anything. The only disadvantage is that you will need a drive big enough. You can do this with the Disk Utility, so no need to use Terminal.


However, if you want to just back up the home (/User) folder, the same thread gives details on it. The only thing I would do differently is use archive mode (cp -a) instead of just recursive, as this will retain more information about the file structure. More information about cp.


The thread with the instructions: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/274032/backup-to-external-in-recovery-mode-terminal-or-time-machine

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 22, 2020 12:58 AM in response to che12and

I would probably use either rsync -a or cp -a, but you will need to mount the internal disk first.


To be honest, I'm not great at Terminal without doing it myself and often Googling a bit on the side, so while looking for an appropriate guide, I came across another suggestion, which is to make a disk image. This has the advantage of baking up everything, so you can be sure to not have lost anything. The only disadvantage is that you will need a drive big enough. You can do this with the Disk Utility, so no need to use Terminal.


However, if you want to just back up the home (/User) folder, the same thread gives details on it. The only thing I would do differently is use archive mode (cp -a) instead of just recursive, as this will retain more information about the file structure. More information about cp.


The thread with the instructions: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/274032/backup-to-external-in-recovery-mode-terminal-or-time-machine

Dec 21, 2020 11:15 PM in response to che12and

Invest in an external hard drive and, using the Terminal in recovery mode, back up the /Users directory and anything you think you need from /Library (probably nothing, most things are in ~/Library). Then wipe the disk and reinstall, probably from USB.


If you can’t risk losing the data on the disk, you should have a back up anyway. At least this is happening at a time that you can still retrieve the data, as opposed to something where you can’t, like if it got stolen.

Dec 22, 2020 11:39 AM in response to burglarbill

Thank you a lot for help

Learned a lot about terminal. In some reason it didn't work. I can see all the file and folders on 'Macintosh HD - Media' but can't copy. Probably it is somehow protected.


I ended up with re-installing Sierra with Shift-Option-Command-R.

'Macintosh HD - Media' wasn't visible at the beginning but later appeared after multiple rebooted, dances with Disk Utility and don't know what else.


As a next step I'll manually backup all the files and try to erase 'Macintosh HD' and install Big Sur from a USB disk.

BTW, can't find the answer if 'Macintosh HD - Media' will be deleted after that as well



Dec 22, 2020 3:19 PM in response to che12and

On mine it's called Data, not Media, but I think it's the same thing. That's the one where your files are stored though, so make sure you back that up.


For me, the update didn't work until I arrived the entire drive, not just the volume. To do this in Disk Utility, you have to go to View > Show All Devices, and then wipe the entire disk before reinstalling the operating system. Obviously this leaves you will no files whatsoever, so you absolutely need a back up that you have checked works and contains everything important.


I keep almost everything in either iCloud or Dropbox anyway, so I can never lose anything too precious.

An error occurred loading the update - Big Sur installation

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