# Mac 14.8 (23J21) and Balena Etcher

**URL:** <https://forums.balena.io/t/mac-14-8-23j21-and-balena-etcher/374842>\
**Category:** balenaEtcher\
**Created:** [September 23, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/mac-14-8-23j21-and-balena-etcher/374842 "2025-09-23T22:47:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![FatFreddieFizz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@FatFreddieFizz](https://forums.balena.io/u/FatFreddieFizz)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/mac-14-8-23j21-and-balena-etcher/374842/1 "2025-09-23T22:47:18Z")

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BalenaEtcher has always worked great for me. Yesterday I updated to macOS 14.8 (23J21) and now it just hangs on “Starting…” after I type in my Mac password giving Etcher privileges to flash the USB drive. My guess is Apple tightened up something related to security.

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**Author:** ![FatFreddieFizz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@FatFreddieFizz](https://forums.balena.io/u/FatFreddieFizz)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://forums.balena.io/t/mac-14-8-23j21-and-balena-etcher/374842/2 "2025-09-23T23:06:23Z")

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Never mind, turns out it was due the USB drive being reformatted as APFS before using Etcher. My assumption it was the OS update was incorrect, reformatting to exFat before using Etcher fixed the issue.

> <https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3751#issuecomment-3240433183>
>
> \- \*\*Etcher version:\*\* 1.7.9
> \- \*\*Operating system and architecture:\*\* Windows 10… Pro x64
> \- \*\*Image flashed:\*\* tails-amd64-4.29.img
> \- \*\*Do you see any meaningful error information in the DevTools?\*\* It won't open with the \`Ctrl+Shift+I\` command.
> I have tried multiple computers, ran as admin, reinstall, different versions.