Mac Mini M4 will not boot from external HD

I purchased a Mac Mini M4 the day they were released and tried to set it up so that it booted from an external SSD with a Crucial 4TB HD and dock. Using 15.1 for all OSs. I struggled to get it to boot and so called Apple Support, got escalated, then told me to go to Apple Store. I did and the rep at the store verified my experiences and said "I have bad news - looks like you have found an unresolved bug. I suggest you return the product and wait for the bug to be resolved". So I did. Wonder if any others have had similar experience.

David

Details below.

Minisopuru Mac Mini Dock & Stand with M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Upgrade 8 in 1 Mac Mini hub Support 10Gbps USB C/A, TF& SD Card, Audio Jack, Mac Mini Accessories for Mac Mini M2/M2 Pro/M1(2018 & Later)

Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD, up to 5000MB/s - CT4000P3PSSD8

Mac Mini M4 - 256 GB HD

Bootable SSD will boot with iMac and Macbook running 15.1.

Mini recognizes the bootable SSD but when I try to restart I get error message from mini says: "OS needs to be updated".

Changed security settings for as Apple suggested (Reduced Security).

Posted on Nov 12, 2024 9:14 AM

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tbirdvet

Level 6

14,465 points

Posted on Nov 12, 2024 6:31 PM

I have an external boot drive for my new Mini M4. I use a WD NVME in a TB enclosure. I use carbon Copy Cloner(CCC) to clone the data, then I booted into recovery and installed 15.1 on the external and it works fine. I did not use the CCC legacy bootable tool as that does not work most of the time with Silicon Macs.

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