<< Solved >> Hosed my boot drive AND my CCC Backup. Now what?

[EddyMac]

I've been running Big Sur since August and last night decided to upgrade to Monterey. I backed up to an external SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner beforehand. The upgrade went well, but my bluetooth dongle wasn't working. I did some searching and found a kext that is supposed to enable that. I dropped that into the kexts folder in my EFI and rebooted, forgetting that I also should have updated my config.plist. The machine took a while to boot, but eventually did, and I was able to turn on bluetooth. I then tried to update my config.plist but when I rebooted, no dice. I was stuck at the Apple logo.

Then I did something really stupid--I chose Reset NVRAM. Still wouldn't boot. Then I tried my cloned backup. It wouldn't boot either. So I did another really stupid thing--chose Reset NVRAM again.

Now I am unable to boot from either disk (my internal M1 or external SSD with Big Sur backup).

I was able to boot from a previous backup (Catalina, a CCC backup I did just before updating to Big Sur back in August).

It was then that I realized that both my original boot drive and the backup had both been renamed from "MP Boot" to "Update." Yes, really. Moreover, there is no "System" or "Library" or "Applications" folder on either drive. Just a list of files and folders I've never seen before.

The only chance I have of getting my system back to how it was last night BEFORE I updated to Monterey is a Time Machine backup that resides on a large internal mechanical hard drive.

I am able to boot into the Recovery partition of my original boot drive (M1). Once there, everything was in Russian (or some foreign language that looks like it). I've since done some googling and think I know how to change the language to English.

My question is: if I boot into Recovery, can I restore my system from my Time Machine backup and have a working system?

TIA for any and all help.

 

[Feartech]

I've been running Big Sur since August and last night decided to upgrade to Monterey. I backed up to an external SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner beforehand. The upgrade went well, but my bluetooth dongle wasn't working. I did some searching and found a kext that is supposed to enable that. I dropped that into the kexts folder in my EFI and rebooted, forgetting that I also should have updated my config.plist. The machine took a while to boot, but eventually did, and I was able to turn on bluetooth. I then tried to update my config.plist but when I rebooted, no dice. I was stuck at the Apple logo.

Then I did something really stupid--I chose Reset NVRAM. Still wouldn't boot. Then I tried my cloned backup. It wouldn't boot either. So I did another really stupid thing--chose Reset NVRAM again.

Now I am unable to boot from either disk (my internal M1 or external SSD with Big Sur backup).

I was able to boot from a previous backup (Catalina, a CCC backup I did just before updating to Big Sur back in August).

It was then that I realized that both my original boot drive and the backup had both been renamed from "MP Boot" to "Update." Yes, really. Moreover, there is no "System" or "Library" or "Applications" folder on either drive. Just a list of files and folders I've never seen before.

The only chance I have of getting my system back to how it was last night BEFORE I updated to Monterey is a Time Machine backup that resides on a large internal mechanical hard drive.

I am able to boot into the Recovery partition of my original boot drive (M1). Once there, everything was in Russian (or some foreign language that looks like it). I've since done some googling and think I know how to change the language to English.

My question is: if I boot into Recovery, can I restore my system from my Time Machine backup and have a working system?

TIA for any and all help.

check config.plist and make the change:

<key>prev-lang:kbd</key>
                <string>en-US:0</string>

for English language

time machine could work for you

 

[EddyMac]

Thanks for giving me a glimmer of hope.

 

[Feartech]

Thanks for giving me a glimmer of hope.

or also you could try a clean install and then choose to restore from time machine after installation, it gives you an option to do that after installation and when you setup your mac with username etc

 

[EddyMac]

So I tried booting into Recovery on the original boot drive and that didn't work (it worked last night). Got stuck at the Apple logo. Then I successfully booted into Recovery on my SSD backup. (I figured if I could restore to that disk, then I could just clone that back to my original boot drive.) It successfully located all my backups but when I clicked on one to restore to, it came up with a message saying it couldn't do that and gave me the option of re-installing macOS Big Sur or choosing another backup. I tried a dozen or so different backups from the last few days and got the same message. So it looks like I'll have to try your suggestion of doing a clean install and then using the migrate feature to bring in my stuff. It looks like I'll need to reformat my boot drive because it's showing 250 GB used even though none of it is accessible to me.

 

[EddyMac]

I've been at work all day and now have an hour or so to work on this again. I created a Big Sur USB installed and booted from that just fine but it seems to have taken me into Recovery instead of installation. I went into Disk Utility and MP Boot and MP Boot - Data showed up there. So I ran First Aid on MP Boot and it found no errors. Right now it is working on MP Boot - Data and is checking "Snapshots." There are 27 of them. Since the actual names of the volumes on my boot drive showed up here instead of "Update," does that mean there is some hope all my data is still there an usable? I'll report back after First Aid has finished.

 

[Feartech]

I've been at work all day and now have an hour or so to work on this again. I created a Big Sur USB installed and booted from that just fine but it seems to have taken me into Recovery instead of installation. I went into Disk Utility and MP Boot and MP Boot - Data showed up there. So I ran First Aid on MP Boot and it found no errors. Right now it is working on MP Boot - Data and is checking "Snapshots." There are 27 of them. Since the actual names of the volumes on my boot drive showed up here instead of "Update," does that mean there is some hope all my data is still there an usable? I'll report back after First Aid has finished.

yes, it will go into recovery, that is correct

you can choose to install on top of your current installation (no wipe) or wipe and fresh install macOS or try restore from time machine

 

[EddyMac]

OK so First Aid didn't fix anything. So I erased my M1 boot drive and am now in the process of installing Big Sur. I hope to be able to migrate from my Time Machine backups, going back to yesterday just before I upgraded to Monterey hopefully. Apparently I have a lot of reading to do on how to install the bluetooth kexts that are required for my bluetooth dongle to work...without blowing up my system...

 

[EddyMac]

So I ran the installer. It then rebooted and is now stuck at the Apple logo. What do I need to do? Was I supposed to change my BIOS settings to always use the USB drive for startup until this whole thing is over? Looks like I may need to start over.

 

[Feartech]

So I ran the installer. It then rebooted and is now stuck at the Apple logo. What do I need to do? Was I supposed to change my BIOS settings to always use the USB drive for startup until this whole thing is over? Looks like I may need to start over.

always boot in verbose mode when installing so you can see the issue