Forced to choose: make mac bootable from external drive OR working Apple Pay

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Forced to choose: make mac bootable from external drive OR working Apple Pay

Under Big Sur, Apple has tightened up the security requirements for Apple Pay such that the settings in Startup Security Settings have to be Full Security and Disallow Booting from external media. If you have any other settings for those, Apple Pay will be disabled.

Problem: I occasionally need to boot my MacBook pro using an external SSD. But I'd rather not have to lose Apple Pay (or have to change Startup Security Settings every time) just to be able to do that.

Is there any way around this?

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Mar 17, 2021 2:57 AM

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Answer 1

askbarnabas

Level 10

104,220 points

Mar 23, 2021 1:55 PM in response to Stephen Schwartz1

Here is a list I put together

If more troubleshooting needs to be done the following links could be helpful. (About Secure Boot, Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac, How to reset the SMC of your Mac)
If you created a bootable clone of your device, and booted to it, and enabled FileVault, macOS (Big Sur) may move the Apple Pay authorization to that external drive and disable it on the internal one. The resolution may be to delete one card, which will then trigger a prompt about the disk authorization move, and ask you to reset Apple Pay. Reset Apple Pay, then re-enter the CCV's for all the cards and since you have not rebooted, the error may still be present. Reboot and the system should be fine. (information gathered from another thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252321587?answerId=254739360022#254739360022)
If you are getting a message that "Apple Pay has been disabled because the security settings of this Mac were modified" - go to Software Update/Advanced and uncheck the recheck "Install system data files and security updates." to see if that resolves the issue.

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Forced to choose: make mac bootable from external drive OR working Apple Pay

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