How to restart/reinstall Mac mini M4 on Sequoia when user profile seems corrupt

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Level 1

18 points

How to restart/reinstall Mac mini M4 on Sequoia when user profile seems corrupt

I just got my new Mac mini M4, ran the migration process from my old Mac mini and all was working.

i then changed the configuration such that the Home directory of my main profile was pointing to an external drive, not the internal SSD.

When making the change , a message came up to say I had to reboot for the change to be made effective. Which I did, but on entering the password to my login profile I gat a message to say there is some king of problem with my profile, and I can’t login in.

I have tried to run the recovery process and reinstall Sequoia, but after the install , I get prompted for the password of my user profile, and again can no longer login.

i was hoping the recovery was going to make a completely new install, but apparently not.

is there anything I can do reinstall a fresh version of the Sequoia, or will I need to download a copy and make a USB boot installation drive?

iPad Air, iPadOS 18

Posted on Nov 21, 2024 2:15 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

linoles Author

Level 1

18 points

Nov 22, 2024 10:08 AM in response to linoles

For anyone that’s interested I have solved the problem.

To recap, after changing the location of my Home drive to point to an external drive, I was no longer able to login after a reboot.

i tried to reinstall Sequoia via the Recovery option, but after the re-install, it still knew about my user profile and would not let me in when I was prompted for the password. It looks as though that option is not a complete overwrite of the OS.

i fixed the problem by

rebooting into the Recovery screen
selecting the Utilities option from the menu at the top of the screen
go into Disk Utility option
For the main hard disk with the os installed, select Erase and format in APFS
Once reformatted, the select the installation of Sequoia

This does a complete re-install of the OS, and I then configured the virgin machine from scratch.

Fortunately i had only just got the machine, so no data was lost in the re-installation

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

245,417 points

Nov 21, 2024 3:40 PM in response to linoles

Start up from macOS Recovery

Command-R, Look at top of screen for Utilities menu...
Choose Utilities > Terminal.
In Terminal, type resetpassword. Rather unusually for a task performed from the command line, a graphical Reset Password window appears.
Select the startup volume at the top of the window, and then choose a user account from the pop-up menu. In the fields below, enter the new password, confirm it, and add an appropriate hint.
Click Save, and then choose Restart from the Apple menu.

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Answer 3

linoles Author

Level 1

18 points

Nov 22, 2024 9:55 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks, though I think the problem is with my user profile and it looks like it can’t connect to the external drive where I am pointing my Home drive to.

i have solved the problem though.

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Answer 4

Nov 22, 2024 4:43 PM in response to linoles

Thank you - I’ve had the very same problem, and will try your fix in the morning (UK time).

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