Can't Boot Into Recovery to Format Disk, Boots OSX to Black Screen

[bkends35]

I was messing around with reinstalling Windows 7 in bootcamp last night even though it's not officially supported anymore and somehow something went wrong and my computer is not booting most of the time.

About 1 out of 5 times I can get into OSX, the other 4 times it plays the startup sounds and the screen stays black. After 10 sec or so the keyboard lights up and if I hit enter it'll make the ding sound so I know it's booting into OSX, but nothing is showing up on the screen. I tried using an external monitor and nothing.

I've reset the PRAM multiple times, did the Shift+Option+Control+Power to reset to controller and that didn't help. I can't even get into recovery. I think the recovery partition got messed up. I can still see it in terminal, but I can't boot into it. It boots into internet recovery everytime I do cmd+r. It loads for a few min in internet recovery then reboots itself to OSX with a black screen.

TL;DR Can't get into recovery to format disk, internet recovery doesn't work either. OSX is booting but screen boots black 90% of the time. How do I format the disk without recovery? Tried re downloading El cap from app store to do a clean install (couldn't format since it wasn't in recovery) but it didn't help.

 

[bkends35]

As of right now, I think I'll try to make a bootable osx usb drive if I can get into OSX. Maybe even try to downgrade to Mavericks at the same time because I despise Yosemite and El Cap. Any hope this would work?

 

[Riwam]

As of right now, I think I'll try to make a bootable osx usb drive if I can get into OSX. Maybe even try to downgrade to Mavericks at the same time because I despise Yosemite and El Cap. Any hope this would work?

******
It is difficult to think that Windows 7 might be the reason wether supported or unsupported, but I had myself a lot of problems with the new BootCamp.
I had to reinstall temporarily Yosemite to use its BootCamp to install Windows 8.1.
Hopefully you find the solution.
Good luck!
Ed

 

[bkends35]

******
It is difficult to think that Windows 7 might be the reason wether supported or unsupported, but I had myself a lot of problems with the new BootCamp.
I had to reinstall temporarily Yosemite to use its BootCamp to install Windows 8.1.
Hopefully you find the solution.
Good luck!
Ed

Yeah :/

I'm not a fan of Windows 8 & 10 either. I like my trusty Windows 7. I removed the bootcamp partition when I was able to get back into OSX too so I eliminated that for continuing to cause the issue.

 

[Riwam]

Yeah :/

I'm not a fan of Windows 8 & 10 either. I like my trusty Windows 7. I removed the bootcamp partition when I was able to get back into OSX too so I eliminated that for continuing to cause the issue.

*****
I did not succeed with Windows 7 neither as a DVD nor as an image. Therefore I installed finally 8.1.
In my case the problem was not the BootCamp partition.
The BootCamp assistent (the utility) in El Capitan did not allow me to install through it Windows once the partition for it was NTFS formatted.
The Windows installation refused to recognize/see the (existing!) partition.
Therefore I had to reinstall for a while Yosemite and use a USB pen drive for BootCamp still available in Yosemite but no longer in El Capitan.
Ed

 

[bkends35]

So far so good. Made a bootable mavericks USB and was FINALLY able to format the hard disk. Currently in the process of installing mavericks. Fingers crossed it works and boots normally after.

 

[bkends35]

No luck. Did a fresh install of OSX AND FORMATTED the disk and STILL doesn't boot properly. Still getting keyboard backlight, no screen. Reset PRAM, showed apple logo for a few seconds, screen went black while booting.

 

[simonsi]

Does it consistantly boot off the USB drive ok but not off the HDD? If so it sounds like an HDD or SATA cable issue...assuming this is an MBP we are talking about?

 

[bkends35]

I finally figured this out. I did manage to make a bootable install usb and completely format the disk. BUT even on a completely clean install, it still had issues with the screen turning off when the gpu load was med-high after a few minutes. The error messages were for gpu panics, I researched these a bit and it turns out my mid-2012 rMBP 15'' was eligible for the extended repair program here: https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Went into the genius bar yesterday and the logic board is being replaced at no cost to me. I guess it's just a complete coincidence the issues started when messing around with bootcamp.