Along with the shift to Apple Silicon, performing things like a restore is different with M1 Macs compared to their Intel predecessors. Follow along for a look at how to revive and restore M1 Macs, what the difference is, when to use them, and what to try before taking those steps.
Performing a restore (factory reset) with Intel Macs uses macOS Recovery. While that’s still an option for doing things like reinstalling macOS on M1 Macs, there’s a different process to fully restore an M1 Mac or in limited cases, the need to revive an M1 Mac.
How to revive and restore M1 Macs – MacBook Air, Pro, and Mac mini
What is an M1 Mac revive?
Here’s how Apple describes when you would need to “revive” an M1 Mac and what it does:
In very rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS upgrade, a Mac may become unresponsive and so the firmware must be revived. A revive updates the firmware and updates recoveryOS to the latest version. A revive is designed to not make any changes to the startup volume, the user’s data volume, or any other volumes.
However, keep in mind that if you need to reinstall macOS after performing a revive, that will erase your drive.
Read more at 9to5Mac.com