I want to downgrade my Macbook Pro M1 2020 from Monterey to Big Sur. I have managed to downgrade my bootable drive to Big Sur using a bootable drive. But my Restore partition is still Monterey? How do I downgrade my restore partition to Big Sur? I have tried using Apple Configurator to Revive from another Mac but it flashed again Monterey to the Recovery partition. So, how do I reflash my original Big Sur restore partition?
Update: I was able to do it by using a second Mac and Apple Configurator and then downloading the IPSW file containing Big Sur. Things to watch:
- Monterey has to be installed on the Startup Disk if it's already installed on the Recovery Disk
- Thunderbolt 3 cables are not supported, use a cheap USB-C cable which supports data transfer not only charging
- the Startup Disk must not be formatted using case-sensitive APFS, by default it's case insensitive so most people should be ok, but I used case-insensitive.
Update: I was able to do it by using a second Mac and Apple Configurator and then downloading the IPSW file containing Big Sur. Things to watch:
- Monterey has to be installed on the Startup Disk if it's already installed on the Recovery Disk
- Thunderbolt 3 cables are not supported, use a cheap USB-C cable which supports data transfer not only charging
- the Startup Disk must not be formatted using case-sensitive APFS, by default it's case insensitive so most people should be ok, but I used case-insensitive.
Last edited: